And you could be in a fatal wreck the very next time that you drive to the grocery store. But you probably won’t be. Some risks are more theoretical than real.
I’ll never forgive the so-called doctor whom my mother went to see a couple of years before she passed away. When Mom was in her 60s, she had to have back surgery due to pain and something (“x-stop”?) was inserted. When she was in her late 70s, the pain recurred and the real doctor would not operate as Mom was too old for this surgery. Mom took the advice of some people she knew and went to a chiropractor. The first thing this “doctor” did was have Mom lay face-down on one of those massage tables, then he attached a bunch of leads (those little ones that attach by suction) to her back–note that not all of them were attached to or even near her spine. The leads and the table itself were connected to some contraption that vibrated for approximately 30 minutes. Mind you, this is for someone who’s complaining about back pain! AFAIK, the next couple of years, she only visited the chiropractor twice more. Her actual doctor, when she told him her plan, said, “I would not advise that, but good luck”.
Nope. Just because there’s an X-ray machine, and even one in use, doesn’t make this nonsense medicine.
And back to the OP: It’s a shame the victim cannot get the entire chiropractic profession sued into oblivian.
More than a few doctors will tell you that chiropractors best experts on simple back pain. Whether or not they believe in the underlying woo of the chiropractic they also practice the science of physical manipulation to relieve back problems. Many of the same practices are now used in physical therapy, and had been also used in therapeutic massage. I doubt any medical practitioner could guarantee the same freak circumstances couldn’t occur in the ordinary practice of their specialty. That doesn’t mean this particular chiropractor was competent though.
And what’s up with the using the name of some person that wouldn’t be recognized but is so easily confused with that of a famous person? Looks like a click-bait title.
I was in a car accident and my doctor recommended me a local chiropractor for “simple” massages. So I went and once a day a chiropractor would give me a 5 minute massage and then they’d put me on an automatic massage table for 20 more minutes. I saw them 3 times a week for 2 months and my insurance coverd everything.
The massages felt nice but I really didn’t see the benefit at all ultimately.
When I saw the thread title and the part of the country it took place in, I immediately thought of this guy, whose “therapeutic instrument” looks more like a medieval torture device;
If it’s him or one of his proteges that was involved here, then I’m not surprised, but I am disgusted.
Does a home burning to the ground due to a mishap with ear candles count as a medical error?
I wouldn’t go to a chiropractor if you paid me.
I used to go many years ago. I told the one guy “no neck manipulation”. Then he went ahead and did it anyway. Last time I went to him. I went to another guy, but I noticed that the visits were getting closer together rather than farther apart. This seemed to be the opposite for most medical treatments, so I quit going and almost immediately felt much better. Haven’t been back since in the intervening 30 years.
I know that my grandniece takes her children to a chiro, and has been doing so since they were babies. Seems like child abuse to me.
Remember this horrific news story? A woman was strapped to a chiropractic table. Her 18 month old child crawled under the table, activating the lowering mechanism. Mom experienced her kid being crushed.
Chiropractic started out as pure woo.
The origins of a practice remains a major influence as it evolves. The practice has added more standard medical procedures over the years, but the original concept hangs over it. There may be a better house, but the foundation remains the same.
The above are classic excuses heard from chiropractors and their apologists reacting to horrific cases such as this. A news story I saw about Caitlin Jensen quoted a chiro trying to defect blame from the practitiioner in question by suggesting she already had arterial dissections. Nice try, but there have been numerous such instances, occurring in previously healthy, often younger patients.
“Haldemann et al. analysed 64 cases in which a cerebrovascular ischaemic event had occurred after spinal manipulation.37 All cases had been referred to Haldemann for medico legal review during a 16-year period, and none had previously been reported in the medical literature. The patients were predominantly women (mean age 39 years) who had consulted a chiropractor for neck pain or headache. In 48 cases, the onset of the stroke was within 30 minutes after spinal manipulation. The authors were unable to identify any risk factors that would discriminate high risk from low risk patients. Neurological status one year after the stroke was available for 46 patients: eight had made a full recovery, two had died, and the rest were still suffering from persistent neurological deficits.”
The bottom line is, no matter what your faith in chiropractic is, never let a chiro near your neck. Any benefits are highly dubious, and the outcome of forceful neck cracking can be catastrophic.
Wow! As disturbing as the whole video was, the parts that really bothered me were some of the videos towards the end, with the device being used on patients who had no idea what was going to happen. In some cases, their legs were dangling over the end of the table, which would greatly impede (and even completely stop) the body being able to slide backwards, putting all that extra pressure on the neck. In general, there was almost no thought to how much force should be exerted by patient based on size or anything else. Some slid a good distance, and others barely moved. That chiropractor should be in jail. Besides being a snake oil salesman, he’s a complete idiot on top of that.
I went to a chiropractor many years ago for my sciatica. I went to a doctor first, and all he did was try to get me hooked on opiods.
The manipulation had immediate and dramatic effects on my pain, and I went back to him a few more times over the next month until it went away entirely. He always asked before he did anything with my neck, and respected my decision not to.
/points at your line about a 10 million dollar judgement.
I only had cancer and intestinal rearrangement [proctocolectomy] 6 years, 3 batches of chemo, 3 batches of radiation, 4 operations, innumerable diagnostic imaging and blood and tissue tests, and after it all I am still in the nick for $77 000 … and that is only 20 percent of the cost.
Now, imagine being in effectively intensive care for the rest of your life. In addition to whatever they did to her heck, I can pretty much say she has a colostomy, an urostomy, a PEJ tube for feeding, probably a power port for IV issues … and all the maintenance for said really invasive methods of stuff in and stuff out. [dealing with my ostomy takes me about 10 minutes to remove and replace the equipment on my body, and I need to empty it or replace the bag at a minimum of once a day, depending on how much and how fast my guts process food.]
One can not use a foley catheter for urine for more than a few weeks without risking infection, and one can not use a nose tube for feeding for pretty much the same reason. Hence being turned into a borg [as I jokingly referred to having a power port] I will point out that my spinal issue will have me paralized from the waist down eventually and I already have plans for getting the urostomy - I see no need to sit in a wet diaper until I notice and manage a change.
I’ve never heard of anyone seriously recommending a chiropracter for anything other than back pain. I thought that was most of what they did.
They can fix anything.
Errr
Okay, that sounds pretty bad. I know a lot of people who think their chiropractor has helped their back pain. I think massage therapists have helped my back pain at various points on my life, too. I suppose massage therapists mostly poke at muscles rather than trying to adjust where the bones sit, but my MIL sometimes cracked my neck when giving me a massage (always with warning and my explicit permission) and my physical therapist put a lot of pressure on my shoulder joint for a while.
I’ve had back pain/sciatica/neck pain. I don’t “believe” in chiropractors and the thought of a stranger massaging me makes me uncomfortable.
But my back pain has always gone away with rest, stretching exercises, and NSAIDs.
Chronic low back pain typically has a relapsing/remitting course (as I know from personal experience), seemingly responding to different modalities including rest, heat, back exercises, NSAIDS and massage/manipulation by trained individuals including massage therapists, physical therapists and chiropractors. The natural history of such pain makes it difficult to seize on any one intervention as being superior. Medical interventions have a ways to go before they can be deemed effective for most patients.
Most will say no such thing. Some will work with chiros, but there is general wariness of chiropractic’s lack of evidence base and embrace of harmful practices, like touting adjustments for internal ailments and opposing vaccination.
As to the tu quoque claim that medical errors are the third leading cause of death in the U.S.:
“…a lot of physicians, journalists, and scientists who really, really should know better, seem to accept this figure as Gospel. No matter how many times I and others have tried to demonstrate why this particular statistic is bogus, having been derived from bad studies coupled with extreme innumeracy and how the true figure is likely at least an order of magnitude smaller (albeit even that is admittedly still too high), this slasher stat lives on, just as slashers do after having apparently been killed at the end of the movie before the one in which they are resurrected.”
I realize that you are talking about someone you know well, but while a chiropractor asking for permission is nice, are most people capable of determining whether they really should answer ‘yes’ or ‘no’? I think folks that go to the chiropractor probably are more likely to agree to whatever he or she recommends. Presumably, you have to believe that this person is going to fix your ailment, so why would you decline anything that they recommend?
You’re not, I also thought Jenner when I saw the title.