I pass mri's & end up having surgery. how can i get this across to doctors to not do mri? 6 years injured over false negatives. 9 wrong mri's so far!

Family practice: Fixing a bad back is not easy. Mri is needed before surgery to rule out a tumor or mass not just to locate the bad disk. Usually 9 mri's aren't needed. I'm glad you had a good outcome. However only about 30percent improve after surgery. 30 percent actually get worse. That is why we often wait unless you are having nerve damage.

Mystery MRI Dx: Without further details of your surgery and what was found and corrected, it is hard to say what happened. Was this orthopedic surgery? Whatever it was, did the surgery correct anything? I need to know the details.

MRIs: Pretty easy. You don't diagnose a problem with an MRI you use the MRI to confirm your diagnosis in order to help plan further treatment or to change to other diagnoses you considered. Multiple mris are not necessary. I have taught my students in the past that you should not order a MRI unless you can read it yourself as you may not agree with the radiologist.

Can surgeon explain?: This is sketchy information. I think you may be saying you had surgery (?Successful?) even though mri's had shown nothing helpful. If that's true, the surgeon who helped you is probably in the best position to explain what mri's can do, what they can't do, and apply that to the specifics of your case.

I would suggest that: Before docs operate, like to have evidence of tissue damage. It seems u have recurrent pain with normal mri's thus surgery delayed? In any event, always refer to the number of studies you have had and discuss the issue with your doc. In our system, you drive the ship under the principle of autonomy. I hope surgery beneficial, it would be good to know the surgery, success and what was missed.