Michelle,
I believe that I subluxated my facets once. 3 weeks short of 2 years post-op, I reached over my desk to pick up something that dropped off the other side. (I'm over 6'3".) When I stood up I got a shot of severe low back pain that reminded me of my pre-op pain... very intense, momentary pain-level 10. While the pain subsided from level 10, it remained at 6-8 for a few days. This happened on a Saturday and the pain remained. 8am Monday morning, I was in my doctors office saying 'fit me in'. I got a set of xrays to insure that everything looked OK. Since I was at the 2-year mark, I also had them do flexion/extension xrays to show motion.
Everything looked OK and by Wednesday I was kicking myself for panicking because the pain episode had blown over. Based on my experience it's hard to imaging your facets staying subluxated without being at a pain-level of 9 or 10. In my case, it certainly caused some inflammation and lingering pain that lasted about 4-5 days.
I hope this helps,
Mark
PS. As a side note, the flexion/extension xrays done on Monday morning when I was still in pain showed almost zero movement at L5-S1 and little movement at L4-5. 3-weeks later I kept my 2-year follow-up visit and insisted on another set of flexion/extension xrays. The second set, taken when I was not in pain showed very nice movement at both levels.
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