Hold Off On MRI’s For 2-3 Months? Because I Want Faster Pain-Relief?
Clinical standards for lower back pain and best therapy are generally:
- No x-rays or MRIs for the first 6-8 weeks in most cases of non-specific mid back or lower back pain;
- Unless there are “Red Flags” – Warning signs of something more serious (Trauma, Nerve irritation problems getting worse, Cancer, Infection for example)
The Myth of the Bulging/Herniated/Degenerated Disc Causing Back or Neck Pain
You see our culture – at least our Healthcare System – has bought into the myth that if you have a bulging disk, degenerated disk or herniated disk shown on your MRI – THAT is the source of your pain.The medical literature says that’s just plain – “Not so!”
Yet, all too many doctors proceed by the “tried-and-true” belief that lower back pain problems are known to “sometimes” refer pain upwards to the mid back, so even if the “problem” disk is further down in the lumbar spine (low back) on your MRI, but your pain is in the mid back, the conclusion is that the MRI-finding is “Solid Gold.” It MUST be the cause of the pain.
That means you’ll typically get treatment for the MRI finding. BUT, MRI findings often bear only limited relationship to the real cause of your pain.
It is now well-recognized by most spine specialists that:
- People with “problem” MRI disk findings may often have no pain and,
- In-contrast people with non-specific low back pain may have no MRI findings at all.
That’s part of the reason why surgery for back pain based primarily on an MRI finding diagnosing the “cause” of the lumbar spine problem has a substantial failure rate of 30-40%.
The doctor’s didn’t really figure out what was causing that persistent or recurrent pain in your back… Happens all the time.
Clinical Research Shows MRI’s Do NOT Affect (or Speed Up) Pain-Relief – Who’s to Blame For Mis-directed Low Back Pain Therapy?
Most of the time it’s not fair to blame the doctor because we haven’t invented a Pain-O-Meter and points to the real source of your back pain. However, informed spine surgeons and sub-specialists are getting less aggressive surgically all-the-time.
BUT, this economy has made it “hard times” for all. And even some surgeons are tempted when they’ve “got nothing scheduled next Tuesday.” (Check “How Doctors Think” by Jerome Groopman M.D. on hard-times and surgery rates)
Action Items:
1) Get yourself informed about the causes of back pain and the likely causes of pain.
2) Recognize that of the 7 categories of back pain based on the newest “pattern-recognition” approach (“10X” treatment), most doctors today won’t base your treatment on the right one…in-fact, not even on ANY one of the seven!
3) When the doctor urges an MRI, think twice, especially if you haven’t yet had your back pain categorized – and thus no treatment based on that categorization.
4) Beware – In the U.S. you’re 40% MORE likely to get a surgical treatment as your back pain treatment than in any other country in the world. BUT, no increase in the pain-relief success rate with that low back pain therapy.
So, It’s perfectly reasonable to get yourself smart about the best treatment for your mid back or lower back pain problem. And to consider asking for treatment based on “pattern-recognition” that’s up to 10.85 times more likely to give you the best low back pain therapy.
Don’t trust the MRI – it’s not infallible.
