Chiropractors want the public to be confused on this score, which is why “Dr.” Steve Ranicki, the chiropractor in Pooler, Georgia quoted in the article, suggested that people are wandering around with multiple cervical arterial dissections as a result of “horseplay or who knows what,” and just happen to see a chiropractor, get their necks wrenched by a chiropractor or physician (who, trust me, doesn’t treat patients with neck pain by forcibly manipulating their necks) and then develop strokes through no fault of the practitioner.
Someone with an arterial dissection in their neck isn’t likely to present to a chiropractor with just headache and neck pain. Here for example (via Medscape) are symptoms/signs of vertebral artery dissection* (such dissection has been seen after chiropractic manipulation):
Ipsilateral facial dysesthesia (pain and numbness) - Most common symptom.
Dysarthria or hoarseness (cranial nerves [CN] IX and X)
Contralateral loss of pain and temperature sensation in the trunk and limbs.
Ipsilateral loss of taste (nucleus and tractus solitarius)
Hiccups.
Vertigo.
Nausea and vomiting.
It’s possible a chiro might overlook or fail to ask about such signs and symptoms and go merrily on with neck-cracking - another reason to keep clear of chiros.
Thank you. I couldn’t figure out how people were just going merrily along with a life threatening condition like this or why they would choose a chiro over a MD when they had chronic headaches. I wonder if cost/insurance coverage figures in to people seeing a chiro rather a MD.
What allows them to call themselves MDs in the first place? Have they actually completed medical school? I’ve seen people that call themselves doctor because they have a doctorate, but I’ve never seen anyone call themselves MD unless they were an actual medical doctor.
It’s my understanding chiropractor education and license requirements vary widely by state.
I think they can write some prescriptions in Arkansas. My mother’s chiropractor was very helpful. He didn’t manipulate her neck. The procedures he did were considered safe.
Yeah, a slew of practitioners from various fields (bogus and otherwise), including assorted PhDs can see patients and/or prescribe supplements and hand out medical advice for fun and profit while calling themselves "Doctor So-and-So). Chiropractors and naturopaths* often write books or give interviews in which they are described as “doctors” without revealing that they do not possess M.D. degrees.
*naturopaths are often cryptically identified with the letters N.D. which stands for “Naturopathic Doctor” or “Not-A-Doctor”, depending on one’s level of skepticism.
I don’t want to link here for privacy reasons, but I looked up the chiro my wife uses and links to his website all start with Drs. blank and blank Chiropractors. On the actual site they are listed as DC, so I was wrong about that part.
This seems a bit like the claims that certain supplements claim to help with illnesses but really don’t. I can’t remember the name but there was a congressman that is mentioned a lot as being the driving force allowing them to advertise like that.
An acquaintance‘s mother goes to a naturopath. During COVID he did tele-visits but warned his patients they weren’t as good as real visits because auras do not always appear correctly during tele-visits, and aura reading is the backbone of his practice.
How people say this with a straight face is unbelievable!
“Harkin, along with Orrin Hatch, was the force behind DSHEA – the Dietary Supplement Health and Education Act of 1994 that removed herbs and supplements, essentially, out from under FDA regulation. This resulted in the explosion of the supplement industry, happily jumping through this giant loop hole manufactured for them.”
Some people feel they have been helped by chiropractic. I recommend other things first - time, movement, pain medication, PT, occupational therapy, heat, cold…. I think massage feels good and can help, but does not cure, I think some chiros are better than others and some might provide helpful advice. It is important to rule out unusual causes of back pain, of which there are many.
The things that make me nervous are neck adjustment (which can lead to important problems with nerves; arteries carry oxygen-rich blood from the heart to the body and are like a pipe where the wall has three layers. Blood is meant to flow through the centre of the pipe. Manipulation can cause it to flow between the layers instead, which can cause much unpleasantness, especially in the neck given the importance of blood to the brain and the relatively high pressures involved). Other things I dislike include manipulating babies (who don’t need it), using physical means to improve asthma or diseases unrelated to the spine (which doesn’t generally make sense) and other non-traditional things.
Tom Harkin is probably better known as the senator who was instrumental in the formation of NCCAM (the National Center for Complementary and Alternative Medicine), then got pissed off when NCCAM was slow to validate quackery.
Who could forget this memorable public service ad about the government’s plans to make vitamin C illegal (featuring Mel Gibson, who presumably gets his vitamin C from screwdrivers and Tom Collins’s):
Now that’s funny! It’s hard to tell if he is really confused by the lack of scientific approval for woo or if he thought he had created a rubber stamp program for woo and was angry it didn’t go along with him.
I’ve never seen that before. I guess that was part of his try at a comeback after the “sugar tits” incident. It’s actually so stupid I can’t believe it ever made it onto the air.