Was there a previous injury?

when a patient comes into my office with
any type of injury or pain one of the
first things we do is take an x-ray and
one of the questions I ask is were you
ever in an accident or injury when we
take an x-ray we can identify specific
areas that are not functioning properly
if you look at this x-ray right here the
patient’s neck from the side you can see
how this bone right here and these bones
up here have nice smooth lines it’s
almost a complete Square when we look
down here you could see how sharp it’s
getting at the edge this is an
indication of some sort of injury
biomechanical stress on that joint so
when this person bends or twists or
turns their head some of the bones are
gliding the joints are gliding properly
and some are not and it’s causing the
bone to break down one of the other
questions I get is well is this the
result of old age well the question I
throw back at that patient is the bones
above and below it are the same age so
there was some sort of injury to this
area we need to put proper motion into
that joint for that joint to heal and
stabilize