Do doctors order Xrays to protect themselves, or....?

Are the xrays not covered by insurance or Medicare? Re warning labels, someoneneeds to explain to mom that when yyou've reached a certain age, you have to take sone of those warnings with a grain of salt. If she's in pain from arthritis, she should be getting adequate pain relief.

The MD will have to do the xray unless you tell him not to do it. It's called due diligence.

Just a reality check here...mom with dementia fell her first night in a new memory care unit, with two aides in the room. They ordered xrays, hip, pelvis, all checked out okay. Mom was aphasic due to a stroke. Pt kept working with her, but was not making any progress. Geriatric doc ( private, not the facility doc) dxed not just vascular dementia but alz as well and recommened hospice. After a week of pt not being able to get her to bear weight, pt threw a hissy fit and insisted on another hip xray. She had a break that was surgically repaired and is up and walking with a walker in snf. Still has vascular dementia, but is stable for the moment. And I ask again, are these not covered? Why not?

So you can see on the inside what is not on the outside. Really, talk to the doctor and tell him you're not going to follow thru and do the x-ray. My husband has various complaints and gets referred for tests which he doesn't other with. The complaints usually just go away. .

Is it the same doctor that is ordering these x-rays?

Ooh Ooh I can answer that! We order x-rays because we do not have x-ray vision!
I wish I could put that on the forms I have to fill out for every x-ray - they all have to have a Reason, preferably a codable diagnosis, which I typically don't know before I get the x-ray. Maybe I'll try that someday...Reason: "I forgot my super 3-D x-ray glasses today." Sorry, I should be more serious, it's been a loooong day though.

I've unfortunately had the opposite experience. If my husband's doc had x-rayed his hips a little sooner, we might not have waited til he had bone on bone and no options besides hip replacement surgery at age 65. Grated, x-raying the same joint over and over again if nothing has changed makes no sense, and no test should be done unless it affects management and treatment decisions, or occasionally just so someone knows prognosis (what to expect) even if it turns out nothing much can be done.

Sorry the pictures are not as convincing as the warnings on the Naproxen label to your mom. Does she know its the same stuff as Aleve? There are some herbal OTC things that might work, and Tylenol is OK in reasonable dosage for most folks as well, and may work just as well. Sometimes a prescription non-steroidal like meloxicam is easier on the stomach, she might want to mention that next visit. And if there is a lot of worry about fractures, consider getting a bone densitometry (covered every 2 years or so if criteria are met) and treated for that if it's low.

Try toasting the gluten free bread.

X-rays are also ordered to see if there are any hairline fractures. As we get older, it takes longer for such fractures to heal.

Vegaslady, great idea... I will pass that on to my Dad.

Tonight I was checking my local grocery store website to see what other gluten-free items the store offered... thought I would order a box of cookies for him to try. In fact, I might try some items myself :)

A friend of mine has been gluten free since the beginning of the year and has effortlessly been losing weight, her skin cleared up, she's not itchy and generally feels better. There are a lot of gluten free cookbooks, plus recipes on the internet.