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Steps For Getting Back Pain Diagnosed And Treated

Many people come to this WebMD Back Pain Community looking for help in getting a...

Blessings,

-Dave

Many people come to this WebMD Back Pain Community looking for help in getting a diagnosis of a cause and relief from their back pain. Most of us are not medical professionals that are members in this community, but we have personal experience in dealing with chronic pain due to multiple different spinal conditions.

I've decided to post this tip that lists the steps a back patient should be following for obtaining an accurate diagnosis and getting an effective treatment plan.

1. Talk to your primary doctor. Describe the symptoms you are experiencing in detail and how it is affecting your daily life — keeping you awake, preventing you from functioning normally, what your pain level is on a scale of 1-10 with 10 being the worst, etc.

2. If required by your health insurance, have your primary doctor give you a referral to a local spine specialist such as an orthopedic surgeon or neurosurgeon. When seeing the spine specialist, make sure to again provide all details of your symptoms.

3. The spine specialist should send you for (or do in the office if they have the equipment) a CT scan or an MRI of your spine. An x-ray will not show soft tissue such as discs and will not show all that could be causing your back pain.

4. The spine specialist should then review the results of the diagnostic testing with you. Make sure you understand everything and ask questions until you do understand.

5. The spine specialist should then provide a recommended treatment plan. This could involve seeing a pain management specialist, a physiatrist, or something simple like OTC medications and applying hot and/or cold to the area that is painful.

6. Some people benefit from physical therapy, hydrotherapy, chiropractic care, injections, exercises, or other traditional and/or non-traditional therapies. Surgery should always be a last resort but may be needed in some cases.
7. Don't do any treatment you are not comfortable with or causes you more pain.

8. Do your research on-line and be armed with knowledge about spinal conditions. Here is a link to a resource I created on this WebMD Back Pain Community that lists links to good spine sites: http://forums.webmd.com/3/back-pain-exchange/resource/10?@guest@

I hope this helps people to know how to go about getting help for their back pain.View Thread

Blessings,

-Dave

Posted bydavedsel57

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Blessings,

-Dave

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Blessings,

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Blessings,

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