Today, an estimated 40-50 million Americans suffer from chronic spine pain. Chronic pain may occur following injuries or surgery, or accompany progressive diseases such as arthritis, diabetes, or cancer. Chronic spine pain may also occur without a clear history of trauma. Unlike acute pain, which represents the body’s natural response to injury (or surgery) and the subsequent healing process, chronic pain may persist long after injuries have “healed”, or may exist in the absence of injury altogether. By definition, pain begins to be considered “chronic” if it lasts for more than 3 months following an injury.

Interestingly, numerous studies clearly demonstrate that the structural source of spine pain or headaches is frequently undetectable with standard X-ray, electro-diagnostic, CT, MRI or other imaging techniques. These so-called “occult injuries” (because they are essentially invisible to imaging techniques) frequently follow trauma to the spine – a good example is chronic neck pain and headaches following a whiplash injury. Numerous medical studies have also demonstrated that the abnormalities that are seen frequently in such studies as X-rays, CT scans, and MRIs (for example disc bulges, protrusions, degeneration, or herniations) are present in the majority of people who have no pain. Thus, the source of a chronic spine pain problem is frequently missed by the most commonly performed imaging studies, and the abnormalities that are seen are often not the actual source of the problem!

It takes an expert who thoroughly understands the strengths and weaknesses of various testing methods to accurately identify the true sources of spine pain. Simply put, accurate diagnosis leads to effective treatment. The physicians at I.M.A.B. offer a powerful combination of extensive knowledge and experience in this field with state-of-the-art technologies to achieve the most accurate structural diagnoses, and thus, the best clinical outcomes possible.