Literally and figuratively…

Hi.

Technically, this post breaks Rule 5. However, I will keep it up since it’s the first one, this community is still growing, and you have provided an excellent other post with the glass foreign body (thank you), and therefore I don’t think you fall into any of the categories that prompted me to make the rule in the first place. Instead, I will explain why I made the rule.

First, many times on the radiology sub on Reddit, posts like this are an attempt to bypass Rule 2. By posting an image without any accompanying finding/information, the poster is hoping the resulting discussion will serve as a “second opinion” of sorts - either a potential missed finding or discussion on what further imaging needs to be done. It’s a potential health and legal hazard since anything that I, or another radiologist, or just a random net denizen, says might be used against the poster’s actual healthcare team. I want to avoid that scenario at all costs.

Second, the comments sometimes degenerate into flame wars between commenters accusing OP of posting “boring” images and those defending the OP.

Third, there’s very little to discuss from a radiologist’s perspective. It basically ends in 1) It’s normal because there really isn’t anything there, or 2) It looks normal because A) the study is not sensitive/designed to assess the health issue in question, or B) the provided image failed to include the finding (the OP showed the wrong image/location), or C) the provided image is too poor quality to make out anything. Many times, the image is a radiograph, such as this case, and the pain could be from a soft tissue contusion/bruise (most likely) or maybe an occult nondisplaced fracture or bone contusion. No way for us to tell.

Please note that I would be fine with posting “normal” studies if the teaching point is what a normal should look like.