Negative side effect from cervical epidural steroid injection or facet injections

I am a 41 year old woman in good health. I do take Celebrex for arthritis. I had an automobile accident in 2007 which tore my rotator cuff, and while I had neck pain and lowered range of motion, it was thought that it was from the rotator cuff. After having surgery and pt for the rotator cuff, the pain in my neck and lowered range of motion never went away and included some numbness in my pinkie and ring finger on my right side. So, my doctor gave me an MRI. It turns out that I had some narrowing and a herniated disc. My doctor suggested that I have the cervical epidural steroid injections and facet injections in a series of three.
The first set, I hurt pretty bad for the first three days following the procedure. Let's call that a "flare up". However, once the flare up was over, the ROM had not changed, the pain was not any better than before, but the numbness had gone.
Second set, I explained to the doctor about the flare up, so they gave me a lidocaine patch for use after the procedure. Still had the flare up, lidocaine patch did not help, ROM has no change, and pain level was the same.
Third injection, I once again told the dr about my "flare ups". He decided to do the facet injections on both sides. They gave me a shot of Torodol and some kind of muscle relaxer patch that I cannot remember the name of.
Let me mention, here that he also gave me norco for pain which did not help. I did do twenty mins on and thirty mins off of ice after each injection. I tried heat and moist heat. I tried gentle stretching.
After the third injection, the "flare up" was worse. So much worse that I have developed trouble sleeping. I turn over in the night, and the pain in my neck wakes me. My ROM is down even with the gentle stretching because moving my neck just makes it hurt more. I have more pain now than I did before the injections. My last set of injections was over 15 days ago. I just do not know what to do.
I have called my dr and he tells me to do the ice and heat, norco, and gentle stretching and it will get better. I am not the type to complain normally, but I just feel like I am not being heard by him and this really hurts.

Debbi, have you considered going to a different doctor and seeing what he or she says instead? It sounds like your doctor is ignoring you and that would be a good idea. What do you think?

Thanks for your answer. I apologize for not replying sooner, I had to leave town suddenly and did not have access to a computer where I was. Let me ask you, what kind of doctor do you think I should see? An Ortho or a neurosurgeon?

I think you should find a physical therapist. Find a fellowship trained manual physical therapist. Go to the AAOMPT and you can do the "find a fellow" feature. Based on the symptoms that you have described the evidence to justify these injections does not seem to be there in my opinion. In my experience if those injections are going to work, then it will usually work on the 1st one. One time make it worse so there is no reason to think that 3 times will all of a sudden make it better.