I like diagnostic information. I like MRIs, X-rays, medical workups and specialist reports when they are appropriate. They can tell us a great deal, and they can rule out things that absolutely do not belong in my office.
But a diagnosis is not the entire patient.
An MRI is a picture taken at a moment in time. It cannot fully show me how you move when you get out of a chair, how your nervous system tolerates tension, how your ribs move when you breathe, what happens when you rotate, or which compensations you have developed after months or years of protecting an area.
I often meet people who have begun to identify themselves with the words in an imaging report: degeneration, disc bulge, arthritis, stenosis. Those findings can matter. They deserve proper interpretation. But I do not want a patient assuming that one line on a report automatically determines what he or she will be able to do for the rest of life.
I want to put the image next to the history, the examination, the movement and the actual person standing in front of me. Sometimes they line up beautifully. Sometimes they do not. Either way, all of that information helps us make a better decision.
A diagnosis can give us a name for part of the problem. My next question is: how is that problem functioning in this particular body?
If you have imaging and still have questions about why you hurt or why you are not moving the way you want to, bring the reports with you. Let’s put the picture into context.
–Marc Bonacci, DC, PMMTP
