Do I need imaging before I get chiropractic treatment?
I will give two answers. The first answer is it depends. It would depend on the situation on how it occurred and some of the symptoms that you may have. The seconds answer I would give is that it is not necessary to get imaging prior to getting chiropractic treatment.
Addressing the first answer is that imaging would depend on a few factors or red flags that would warrant the need for imaging right away. A couple examples would be that you have been to numerous other medical providers and had various treatments and the pain or problem remains the same or worse, imaging would be appropriate. Another situation would be for a neck injury, and you are getting concurrent or significant headaches, changes in vision, hearing, or swallowing, or occasions of almost passing out. These would be considered some of the red flags that would warrant imaging prior to any treatment. For the lower body, some red flags would be changes in bowel or bladders habits, especially bladders habits and not being able to urinate with concurrent back pain. Depending on what red flags or what the injury was would determine if we would perform a x-ray or MRI. Other scenarios that may require imaging would be things such as car accidents or significant trauma to rule out things like fracture.
Address the second answer would be that most of the cases coming into a chiropractic office do not need imaging right away. There are lot of sprains and strains that come into my office and x-ray would not show much of anything wrong and MRI for such injuries would be excessive. This situation is where the evaluation becomes important. If I get the right information from asking questions and performing some tests and movements, I can get a promising idea of what is going on and rule out a lot of red flags without any imaging. The other common condition is symptoms going to the hands and feet and guidelines in most cases would support a trial of treatment for 2-3 weeks, if there is improvement, keep going, but if things get worse or do not improve then imaging may be appropriate. Therefore, most of the time, imaging is not required prior to getting chiropractic treatment.
One last point that is interesting is that a recent study showed those with low back pain that would get imaging soon after the pain started had worse outcomes than those who did not get the imaging. Part of why that is the case is because the individual would see all the “problems” in their back and would make things worse. However, none of those concerns could potentially be a pain generator. This also goes to show that imaging is a piece of the puzzle to identify your concern and that it will not always show you the problem.
Tahoe’s Premiere Sports Chiropractor
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