Joy Kong, MD explains why physical examination and movement testing reveal pain sources better than MRI. Palpation and dynamic testing localize restrictions that imaging misses. Two identical MRIs can mean completely different problems, so hands-on diagnosis targets the actual muscle fibers causing pain.
I can't tell you how many times I've talked to patients that have gone to see their primary care or an orthopedic doctor, orthopedic surgeon, and they don't even touch them.
What do you usually discover when you actually touch them?
You learn specifically where their restrictions are coming from, what level their pain is coming from, where the referrals coming from their own body will give you feedback. Yeah, they're aware of that themselves even. And you can home in on specifically what's going on.
Yeah.
Using that feedback.
Let me ask you, have you seen people with the same MRIs, but then the origin of their problems are completely different?
Yeah, definitely. So people have like a totally clean MRI of their back, not significant degeneration, but they're in a lot of pain, or people that have a lot of significant degeneration and they're not in a lot of pain. So imaging is very useful and sometimes very life saving, but it's not the whole picture. You know, getting in there, moving the body, getting a whole dynamic movement on them can give you a better idea of, okay, it's coming from these muscle fibers in this particular position. Then if you can target it while they're in that position, that can help resolve the issue.
How amazing.
