In my many years helping people return to the things they love to do, I have had a high percentage come to me with fear and trepidation. Why do they feel this way by the time they come to see me? Dr. Google!
Being in the information age means that information is easily accessible. If you have aches and pains, you can look up the symptoms on your computer and find out why. This is not always accurate. If you have done this before, how many times did you find that you had a really serious condition and when you saw your medical doctor, chiropractor, or physical therapist it wasn't true?
Information
Today, information comes at you fast and hard! That has its pros and cons. When you need to think of activities for my kids, Google/Bing is super helpful. When you want to know who won last nights baseball game, or who qualified for the Olympics, super helpful.
When you are digging for information about your health, it can be much less helpful. There are so many sources and resources out there for you that you may get confused. If you have tried it before you may have noticed that there are multiple things that your symptoms could mean!
For example, if you have pain in your foot around your heel there are many things it may be. It could be plantar fasciitis, fat pad irritation, Achilles' tendonitis, a bone bruise, a fracture, or something else. Researching this on Google/Bing won't give you the best, or most accurate, answer.
What is in a Diagnosis?
When you get a diagnosis, what does that mean? Are you instantly cured? Do you know the next steps? How do you get better?
If you aren't able to answer these questions, that's okay. Sometimes the diagnosis isn't the important part, it's what you do to get better that matters.
In presentation, back pain with symptoms down your leg can be any of the following; lumbar disc herniation, lumbar disc protrusion, facet syndrome, spinal stenosis, cancer, fracture, piriformis syndrome.
To help you from going down a rabbit hole, I'm here to tell you that the diagnosis isn't the important part. It's what you can and can't do that is important. For some of the above issues, the treatment is similar.
If treatment can be similar despite a different diagnosis then maybe the diagnosis isn't that important.
What is important is eliminating possible diagnoses!
In the above example we would want to eliminate things like cancer and fractures in order to proceed. Once the nefarious, or horrible diagnosis can be eliminated you are free to move forward to solving your problem.
Case Example
Below I'm going to describe for you how someone was able to get better.
Patient X came to me with pain in her foot. She had dealt with plantar fasciitis about a year prior to coming to see me. It didn't get better despite cortisone injections and orthotics. Then she had a diagnostic test called electromyography done. This tests nerve conduction. This test, inconclusively, found a possible link to some low back issues.
When she came to see me, we did a full examination. We were able to eliminate both her back and plantar fascia as a cause of her pain. We tested her muscles, her range of motion, etc. What was the most important part was actually touching her where her pain was. This patient had tendonitis in a muscle called the posterior tibialis.
Now, for her, the diagnosis didn't matter. I say this because the treatments for plantar fasciitis and posterior tibialis tendonitis are very similar. If she was treated with education and exercise a year before she came to see me, she would have been better faster, not needed the electromyogram, or needed injections!
Dr. Google is not your friend!
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