Article Text
Letter
Degenerative disc disease and pre-existing spinal pain
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A pportioning pain and disability after a car accident or work related injury can be difficult. Many doctors who undertake this task often state that because an x ray examination or magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) scan soon after the injury shows degenerative disc disease (DDD), some or all of the patient’s spinal pain and disability must be pre-existing. This interpretation of imaging is not consistent with the peer reviewed medical published reports.
For this statement to be true, there would need to be a strong connection between MRI or x ray evidence of DDD and pain/disability. If we look at this concept and compare it with the published reports, we see that DDD, …