Musculoskeletal complaints are easy to quantify with an MRI. My MRI shows that my spine is falling apart, Degenerative Disc Disease, and you know pain comes with it. Hubby’s MRI shows a collapsed disc with the 3 above it going also. Of course there is pain. Just saying your back hurts shouldn’t cut it unless there is an MRI which shows why there is pain.
IIRC, about 60 percent of adults in one study had an abnormal MRI, but no complaints. This study is even worse: Prevalence of Disc Degeneration in Asymptomatic Korean Subjects. Part 2 : Cervical Spine
Methods
We performed 3 T MRI sagittal scans from C2 to T1 on 102 asymptomatic subjects (50 men and 52 women) who visited our hospital between the ages of 14 and 82 years (mean age 46.3 years). All images were read independently by three observers (two neurosurgeons and one neuroradiologist) who were not given any information about the subjects. We classified grading for cervical disc herniation (HN), annular fissure (AF), and nucleus degeneration (ND), using disc degeneration classification.Results
The prevalence of HN, AF, and ND were 81.0%, 85.9%, and 95.4%, respectively. High prevalence of HN, AF, and ND was shown compared to previous literature.
Give them a MRI. There's a good chance they'll get an image they can abuse.