Doug Landau, Herndon Reston Injury and Disability Lawyer explains why X-rays only tell part of the story
Shown here are the x-ray machinery from one of our state-of-the-art local hospitals. These machines can show fractures and de-mineralized bone. The radiographic films can show such things as loss of disc height and the lordotic curve in cases involving injury to the back, neck and spine. However, they cannot “spot” all traumatic injuries from car crashes, falls, and other accidents. For example, x-rays often “miss” herniated vertebral discs, new stress fractures, and infections. X-rays are not designed to catch all “soft tissue,” “connective tissue” or “traumatic brain” injuries, which is why doctors also use: MRI, Discography, CT Scans, Myelograms, EMG, physcial examination and other diagnostic testing. These other tests frequently provide the “objective confirmatories” for the subjective complaints of pain that follow a car wreck, fall from a scaffold or other traumatic injury.