ok, so this didnt happen to my patient under my care, and gladly so otherwise one might not be able to forgive herself. the moral of the story, when in doubt get all the investigations you see fit, don't put them off til tomorrow because it could be the difference between walking and never walking again.
An elderly gentleman, from the country presented to his local GP with a URTI and a thoracolu,mbar mass causing him back pain. the GP did perform blood test and infection was found andtreated prophylactically with a course of oral antibiotics. The doctor referred the gentleman to the chiropracter for his vertebral mass. the pt new no better and attended the chiropracter 2-3 times who 'smashed' his back and left him in excruciating pain... eventually the pain got worse and worse and the patient was admitted to hospital with pain and paraesthesia of the LL. what the heck happened? the patient had an infection in his spine (potentially started by a flu) he suffered discitis and septicemia where he nearly died, spent 5 weeks in the delerium ward and now has permanent bruising of his spinal cord (do you think smashing his back helped this?) he was rushed up to perth and AB's continued and he was diagnsed a T9 incomplete paraplegia. He will never walk again due to permanent damage to LL proprioception area in his spinal cord despite his muscle function returning adequately. This will place a huge burden on his wife, who couldnt understand why he went in with an infection and now he is like he is.
Thia is just one example of not picking up early warning signs and how if he had of got scans done earlier, would he have referred to a chiro? (i wouldnt of), would this patient still be walking? has anyone else heard asimilar story?
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Yes I've had a similar situation, the details of which I wont go into. But unfortunatley this does happen and from my experience we as phsyiotherapists are occasionally left to deal with anger toward health professionals, even though we had no part in the serious oversight that may have put them in this position. So everyone make sure you check those contraindications!
You've brought up a good point ash. I guess that we need to learn to recognize these red flags. If we are in doubt, there must be something thats not quite right making us feel that way. So probably better to trust our instinct and refer on for more examinations if we're not 100% sure. I'd hate to think of how I would feel if someone was never going to be able to walk again because of something i had done!
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