Back pain can be frustrating. Patients hurt and don’t know why. Tests show findings that don’t match the symptoms. Back pain is baffling, but not usually for your Richmond chiropractic physician who is rarely confused by back pain and its iterations. Johnson Chiropractic is well equipped to examine, diagnose and treat your back pain for relief.

So how can back pain be puzzling? MRIs and images may be misleading.

MRIs of astronauts may look well hydrated. Yet, the astronaut has pain due to swelling of the disc. (1) That just goes to show that the back pain specialist must do the clinical examination and know the patient well to correlate the symptoms to the image!

MRIs of average back pain sufferers may show a disc herniation on one side while the clinical pain symptoms are on the other side! The left leg may be painful, but the MRI shows the disc bulge on the right. As a matter of fact 11.2% of MRIs don’t agree with clinical findings. (2)

A study of patients visiting an emergency room for pain even tells emergency room physicians to order no diagnostic tests in patients without “red flags” (indicators of more serious conditions).  In those patients, a “focused history and examination in conjunction with diagnostic laboratory tests and imaging” are appropriate. Such a process would ferret out if there is a herniated disc or spinal infection or other such issue. (3) That’s the approach Johnson Chiropractic takes with every Richmond back pain and neck pain patient who comes to the clinic. Your Richmond chiropractic physician does all the clinical tests to figure out what the real source of pain is and only orders tests if truly needed. 

76% of MRI images of people without any pain show disc herniations. (4)

Diagnosing the level of a disc herniation is most accurately found by where the pain travels. The pain path is called a dermatome. (5) So your Richmond chiropractor will ask you where your pain is during the examination.

So what solves the puzzle of back pain? The clinical examination.  You and Johnson Chiropractic work together from examination to treatment plan execution for your customized Richmond back pain relief.

Just know that your Richmond chiropractor is well trained to determine if you need any additional imaging…and when. Contact Johnson Chiropractic for your Richmond chiropractic examination and treatment plan today.