How Does the Nocebo Effect Impact a Bulging Disc?
Studies have already shown that MRI’s taken on asymptomatic people yield extremely high false positives for conditions of degenerative disc disease, bulging discs, and herniated discs of the lumbar spine. For some conditions, these false positives happened more than 50% of the time. That being said, it becomes obvious that not all back pain can be easily explained via an MRI report, and in fact, a person who elicits an MRI with a false positive for a bulging disc may well elicit a genuine nocebo effect. They will now walk around with back pain, and armed with a powerful belief that based off a current MRI, they are convinced they have structural damage in the lumbar spine that will not go away without surgery. As they did not feel their back pain would resolve before, it certainly is there to stay now. These people will often have their perceived “condition” sending them spiraling out of control and down the path of no return. The nocebo effect has them locked into the belief that they
