Journal of Pain & Relief
Open Access

Abstract

Research from a number of physicians, from Johns Hopkins Hospital, documents that 40%-80% of chronic pain patients are misdiagnosed. When properly diagnosed and treated, outcome studies document that accuracy of diagnosis. As one example, Dr. Long, former chairman of neurosurgery at Johns Hopkins Hospital, reported on 70 patient, with normal MRI, X-ray and CT, who had headache and neck injury, had been told that there was nothing more to be done to help them. From this group, 67 of the 70 patients completed a block protocol, and 44 patients were selected for surgery. Of the patients receiving surgery, 79% has total relief of their pain while 14% has satisfactory relief. So why were these patients misdiagnosed in the first place? The major failure was reliance on anatomical tests rather than physiological testing. The same errors were found in patients with low back pain (40%-67%), RSD (71%-80%) and 97% of patients told they had fibromyalgia didn't meet the diagnostic criteria. The lecture will cover appropriate use of medical testing, and a new Internet based diagnostic paradigm which gives diagnoses with a 96% correlation with diagnoses of Johns Hopkins Hospital physicians. It will also discuss the Treatment Algorithm which recommends the tests used at Johns Hopkins Hospital, and document the efficacy of this approach with supporting outcome studies. This is real evidence based medicine, not opinion.

Biography

Email: docnelse@aol.com