Newsflash: Your MRI findings is not a death sentence for chronic back pain.

Often times, when I consult with patients regarding their back pain, they will tell me that their pain is due to their disc herniation or they were diagnosed with degenerative disc disease and they are not sure why they are here because I cannot take away the findings on the MRI. I proceed to explain how I can help them with their pain.  I explain that as a physical therapist I understand the pathology associated with your medical diagnosis and how it should influence our treatment.  I also often explain that we are trained to understand how your body is to move correctly and how we can make corrections to your daily lifestyles to make your disc herniation not hurt anymore.  Unfortunately, we as medical practitioners have done a poor job of educating you, our patients, that just because these findings exist, it does not necessarily mean you will have pain forever.  Believe it or not, research shows that these findings exist on MRI of individuals who have never experienced low back pain.  In one literature review, they looked at multiple studies which reviewed MRI’s in people without low back pain and they found that 80% of people over the age of 50 present with degenerative disc disease.  Generally, 30% or more of individuals 20 or older will present with a disc bulge.  That number rises to 60% in people greater than 50.  So before you label yourself with chronic back due to your MRI findings, please consider the information I provided to you above.  Physical therapists specializing in low back pain can help determine some of the causes of your back pain, educate you on how to move properly, exercise properly, and live a more pain free lifestyle.  If this is you and you want to take control of your back again, schedule an appointment with me at Somma Physical Therapy and Performance. 

1 Brinjikji et al.  Systematic literature review of imaging features of spinal degeneration in asymptomatic populations.  Am J Neuroradiol.  2015:1-6.