Technology is dangerous By ccprof (Read 793 times)

[ccprof]

My wife hurt her back Memorial Day weekend and has been in pain since then. They've done all kinds of tests and still haven't found the reason. On Wednesday, I took her for an MRI. As we were driving through the parking lot (slowly), we heard "bang" and the SUV shook. We looked out and another car had back into us. The guy (a doctor) says "I didn't see you". We swapped info and I called into my insurance company. Yesterday, the adjuster came. He found some damage I hadn't seen. Total estimate - $1589 to my vehicle which I've had 6 months and only 2000 miles.

Since we had the same insurance company, he told me he'd just done the doc's Mercedes - about 3 times the damage to it - also new with 4000 miles. He told me that the doc told him that he didn't check his mirrors when he backed up. He was watching his backup camera and it didn't show me.

That's something new we need to watch out for. I'd glad we weren't on the scoot.

[Bashan]

Totally agree Larry, what's wrong with good 'ol using your head and eyeballs? As a society we've got our heads buried in our cellphones or some other damn screen. I bet the MD was on his Bluetooth at the same time.......MAN I hate those things! If I had the cazones I'd snatch one outta some idiots ear. Great time to get backed into when your wife's having a back problem. Let me know if the MRI shows anything. If they give you the run-around get a copy of the radiology report and I'll get you my fax number. Rich

[ccprof]

Thanks Rich. This has been a nightmare. Her family practice doc ordered PT - made it worse. Then X-ray - maybe hairline hip Fx. Then the 1st MRI said possible cyst so they did an ultrasound - said maybe 1 cm cyst. The Blue Cross nurse coach had them do the most recent MRI. Should hear today.

[Bashan]

Wow, typical nightmare....I hear it all the time. People have cysts on a regular basis.....MRI's find them easily because they actually are looking at water molecules radiating electro-magnetic radiation from the ultra-powerful magnets and cysts are 90% H2O. They usually don't mean anything but they tend to fixate on anything that pops up on the imaging. If it's up against a nerve root they can cause pain but not sudden onset. Let me know.....good luck. Rich

[ccprof]

Last MRI shows no fracture, no cyst, some old injury and maybe some disc problems. She's feeling a little better.

[Bashan]

Cul, there's a musculo-skeletal problem called mechanical back pain. It can be extremely painful yet doesn't show up on X-rays or an MRI. I bet that's what she has and it almost always resolves within two to six weeks. With every test negative so far she should be OK with time. Make sure she's getting some ant-inflammatories in her if she can take them, even if it's ibuprofen. A lot of times they skip that and just give a script for muscle relaxers and hydrocordone. The anti-inflammatory is the most important. A chiropractor probably could do her some good after things calm down a bit. I send super acutes home and tell them to take the meds they were given for a week and THEN come back. Rich

[ccprof]

Thanks guys. She's feeling somewhat better but far from 100%. She's able to work some and is certainly able to come outside and supervise my daughter & me on projects.

[monkeywrench]

CC, I hope you've been reading up on back pain and MRI. What they're finding is that the more MRI machines an area has, the more MRI's are done, and the more MRI's are done, the more aggressive treatments are done. And so do they get better outcomes from all that? Not really. A year or two down the road the ones who got conservative treatment with rest and exercise are generally in as good a shape as those who got put through the medical wringer. Except the ones who got conservative treatment are a little richer. Not to say there's no place for MRI and no place for aggressive treatment, but they ARE overused--Americans want quick cures and doctors want to earn a living.

[ccprof]

I hear you monkeywrench. She's slowly getting better.