Why Your Fear of Spinal X-rays May Be Holding Your Progress Back
At many chiropractic and rehabilitation clinics you’ll hear concerns like: “Will that x-ray expose me to dangerous radiation?” or “Is it safe to get frequent spine films?” A 2020 paper looked into these concerns and found that much of the fear around low-dose medical x-rays is not backed by current evidence.
What the Study Asked
What underlies patients’ fear about receiving spinal or diagnostic x-rays (“radiophobia”), and what does the scientific evidence say about the actual risk of medical x-ray radiation exposure?
What They Did
Two authors analyzed the literature on diagnostic medical x-ray exposure, especially looking at three common patient fears:
Every x-ray exposure increases cancer risk (linear-no-threshold model).
Radiation exposures are cumulative and build up damage.
Children are more vulnerable than adults to x-ray harm.
They reviewed how these beliefs match up to actual data from low-dose radiation exposure in clinical settings.
What They Found
The level of radiation from typical medical x-rays (including spine/posture films) is very low, and far below levels associated with measurable risk of cancer according to current research.
The concept that exposures are strictly cumulative (i.e., “it all adds up”) is challenged: the body has adaptive repair mechanisms that respond to low-dose exposures.
Children do not appear to be at dramatically greater risk from standard diagnostic x-rays than adults, when used appropriately.
Much of the patient fear (radiophobia) is based on outdated models (e.g., the linear-no-threshold assumption) rather than current evidence of harm from these low doses.
Why This Matters
If you are using spinal imaging (like posture x-rays) as part of your structural-correction protocol (for example in a chiropractic biophysics context), this paper gives you solid support when explaining imaging necessity to patients. It allows you to say something like:
“Your imaging exposure is extremely minimal, your body handles it, and the benefits of clear structural data often outweigh the negligible risk.”
It helps reduce the barrier of fear around imaging.
Citation (AMA Style)
Oakley PA, Harrison DE. X-Ray Hesitancy: Patients’ Radiophobic Concerns Over Medical X-rays. Dose Response. 2020;18(3):1559325820959542. doi:10.1177/1559325820959542
