Video by ladyspinedoc

Should you get an MRI for your back pain? Let's go through what the data actually shows. So if you're a patient or a provider who orders MRIs, you need to understand this study. Researchers scanned the backs of 98 people who had zero back pain. Okay, they had no symptoms. They're totally fine. And 64% of them would have something that looks abnormal on the report. They had bulging

discs. Some of them had full-on disc herniations. And patients who felt completely fine. So a scan doesn't always tell us what's causing your pain. Sometimes it just hands you a report that's a little scary to look at. And this actually gets a little bit more interesting because a study tracked over 1,700 workers with back pain and the ones who got an MRI early before it was actually

needed ended up with eight times higher odds of having back surgery. Not because they were worse off, but because one finding led to one procedure that led to another. And a major review published In the lens, it found that scanning early didn't even help people get better faster. Months later, same pain, same function, scan or no scan.

So when do you actually need an MRI right away? If you have any of these symptoms, don't wait. You need to get imaged. If you have numbness in your perineal region, that's your genital region, new bowel or bladder symptoms, weakness in your legs, fever with back pain, a history of cancer, a serious

fall or injury, those are real emergencies. That's what we call red flag symptoms. and that's when imaging can be really important. But if it's just pain, even pain that runs down your legs, here's what the evidence says to do instead. You need to give it four to six weeks. You need to stay active.