Thank you. A lot of the problem is the people who are pill seeking have muddied the water for chronic pain patients. Alhough, addicts often started at one of the many pill mills where doctors made a fortune and helped start the heroin epidemic when they all got busted.

I absolutely agree there is no way to tell on a MRI which of the 3 came first except maybe whiplash because it's a fast impact trauma injury. The dd and genetics are slow, over time, and it's not like you have 6 month updated imaging. Some Dr's have the whole God complex promising to deliver the impossible. Arachnoiditis, which I have from exposure to spinal meningitis, was considered "made-up" or psychosomatic. The nerves in the spinal cord are tangled and knotted; sometimes on a MRI all you can see is a faint gray shadow over the bundled nerves. It's a chronic pain disorder and unfortunately imagine this happened for a while. I've been to the ER once for pain and it was humiliating!