My experience with nerve blocks and injections in general hasn’t been great. I’ve had many over the years and only one ever gave me immediate and a couple weeks of less than normal pain. I had an L2-L3 fusion in 2003. The one injection that helped was because it was in some scar tissue. At least I found out that scar tissue was causing some of my pain, numbness and sciatic issues. I know people that have gotten great relief from injections. It seems to me that either it helps or it doesn’t. There’s no in between. There’s a little pain involved. They start with an injection of lidocaine. Then they go in and place a syringe/line using X-rays. Then the medicine is injected. Almost every injection I ever had felt like they were exactly where my pain was coming from. The injection puts a little pressure on the aggravated nerves so there’s a little pain but not bad. I guess it depends on your pain tolerance and anxiety. I recommend ablation but the have to do nerve blocks etc. to see if it’ll help. This is the best way I can explain it. If injections haven’t helped much, ablation still can even though they use injections to test if ablation will help. I know it sounds oxymoronic!! But! When they give you the lidocaine shot before injections? If that decreases your pain or causes it to leave until the lidocaine wears off. Then ablation will probably help. There was a little confusion when the doctor saw me after the injections. I’d go back and tell them that the injections didn’t help much. To avoid confusion tell the doctor what the lidocaine shot did first. Then tell him how things were after the numbing wore off. So, basically if the lidocaine shot gets rid of some or all of the pain until it wears off then ablation will probably help. If the lidocaine helps immediately and then the steroid injection helps for weeks or months, then you’re good to go with injections or ablation. Hope this helps more than confuses.lol