So you got your MRI......
Now what?
MRI's are good - they allow us to "see" soft tissue for diagnostic purposes.
But here's the thing - they aren't great, and here's why:
They don't see everything.
They don't explain everything.
They don't give enough information about what you can and can't do.
Ultimately, an MRI is a picture.
A fancy and expensive picture that can definitely be helpful in establishing a clinical picture of any particular case.
Fun fact - researchers started doing MRIs on people who had NO SYMPTOMS, and found ALL KINDS OF PATHOLOGIES (diagnoses)!
From disc herniations to rotator cuff and SLAP tears.
What does that mean?
Lots of these things are normal, and as long as they aren't symptomatic they won't limit you. As one doctor once said, "you'll die with this, not because of it." And you may never even know you have it, so then what's to worry about?
Ultimately, as Physical Therapists, we're FUNCTION based, meaning we want to focus on helping you get better at doing all the things you need and want to do, and are focused on building a treatment plan around the things you can't do.
With a good evaluation from an orthopedically trained PT (all of our PTs are Clinical Specialists and/or Doctors of Physical Therapy and undergo ongoing mentoring by our senior staff), MRIs should confirm our findings and correlate with the clinical picture we're seeing. But they don't always tell the whole story about what your ultimate outcome will be - your tolerances to activities and rehab do that.
In this video, owner of DeWitt Physical Therapy and Physical Therapist, Ryan DeWitt discusses what to do after you get your MRI.