Ok, I’m not sure if this should be here in great debates or in general questions, but I feel this is probably the appropriate locale, so here it goes…
How many of the board members here believe in chiropractic practice? Do you visit a chiropractor regularly? I, for one, firmly believe it is nothing but psuedo-medicine and a complete scam. There is no peer-reviewed, credible scientific studies which validate it’s usefulness, and my personal experiences (in my younger years I was an avid believer) were that any problems that I might have been suffering would only get better once I STOPPED visiting the chiropractor.
Yes, I find a thrice-yearly visit to the nearby chiropractic college’s (reduced-price) clinic to be very valuable in keeping me flexible and pain-free. I have fairly serious low-back pain and about six years ago found myself virtually unable to walk. After a couple of weeks I finally overcame my skepticism due to a friend’s urging (and my regular physician’s hinting around), had a simple adjustment, and the next day felt so normal that I went shopping. For a couple of years I only went when things had gotten out of whack from hours of standing, but eventually decided it was useful to keep everything flexible. If I go three times a year I avoid the paperwork they make you fill out all over again if you haven’t been there in six months.
Yes, one of my last experiences with one of these “doctors” left me in traction for a week. He f**ked my neck and upper back up so back I could not even transfer from his table to my chair. And the kicker is he had absolutely no idea what he even did. :eek:
All chiropractors are thieves and liars. An honest chiropractor is an impossibility, a logical contradiction. If they don’t believe in the theory, they are badly trained physical therapists (and liars), and if they do they are utterly crazy (and terribly dangerous).
I have seen too many people, and a couple of friends, scammed out of too much money by chiropractic quacks.
Original science is bunk and modern practice is mostly bunk.
I will say this though, at many of the trade schools where chiropractors are trained the curriculum is heavily intertwined with physical rehabilitation courses and there are a lot of people who float between both chiropractic programs and some form of rehabilitation training or exercise physiology training.
I think that means there are probably some out there who are good at knowing certain exercises and etc that can help with back injuries in cases in which exercise and other activities can improve the injury. However the concept of manual manipulation of a patient’s body in a few sessions here and there doing anything is unsupported by science to my knowledge.
I’ve had good results on 2 occasions, separated by years. You’d be suprised how much accepted westerm medicine doesn’t have peer-reviewed, double blind studies to back it up.
They have been great for me over 30 odd years. I used to go regularly when I was playing tennis a lot, to reduce shoulder problems that I still have. Now I go once in a while if I have some kind of neck or lower back problem. I think I have probably been 3 times in the last 10 years. It’s very rare that anything needs multiple visits, I can only think of two occasions. Both times I was in serious discomfort and barely mobile.
On one hand, I have a cousin-by-marriage who is a chiropractor, and while I don’t know her well personally she seems to be sincere in believing that she is helping her patients.
On the other hand, as a medical insurance person, I hate chiropractors. We allow up to 16 treatments, total, over the course of an injury as pain relief - anything over that needs to be authorized by our medical staff after case review. Unfortunately chiros like to give 3-5 treatments a week, and will gladly continue doing so for years without asking for authorization first, sometimes racking up literally tens of thousands of dollars worth of invoices that we wind up denying.
In sum: I don’t think they’re all scammers, but I think many of them are, and their idea of “appropriate treatment” is often fucking ridiculous.
I tried a four weeks worth of sessions (two times per week) and I couldn’t stand for about 10 minutes or so after attempting to get off the table (the doctor had to help me up and hold me). I have lower back issues and I dread going because I know it’ll take me time to stabilize myself after getting up into a standing position. What also makes me dread going is the fact that this guy has his tables out in the open, we’re not in a room where I can have privacy. I am very shy and it took a lot of talking myself into it to go in the first place. I really don’t enjoy having others see and hear my pain.
He has me on my stomach at first and does compressions that make my back pop (which doesn’t hurt until he gets into the lower lumbar, iliac crest areas), then wants me to roll on my side to do more compressions, and then finally on my back to bring my legs up and then straighten them out as he pulls. Getting up from that position KILLS me, I can’t do it without his help and my back buckles on me. It’s not a wide table and I have a lot of trouble turning onto my side then onto my back. I know my muscles are very weak due to an injury from a couple years ago and am looking for OTHER ways to strengthen them instead of these chiro sessions. He did give me some"homework"… stretches to do at home and using an exercise ball. Those I have no problem doing and I can still stand after doing them.
His attitude is of course that I “cannot” go without chiropractic help but I just dread going. My mother was very against my decision to do this, she had some horrible chiropractors who caused more harm then good. I am beginning to understand exactly what she means.
I think I am going to attempt to get some physical therapy through insurance (if possible) and/or research some techniques to work those muscles on my own. Plus, getting rid of my evil futon will surely be a BIG help!! Do any Dopers have some tips, tricks, exercises they do for strengthening lower backs? I do not see myself going back to this chiropractor, I don’t want to end up in a worse state!
Just finished a course of six treatments recommended by my GP for lower back pain. Net result: none - good or bad - except for my wallet being significantly lighter :dubious:
To be fair, as I understand it, the limited number of controlled trials show chiropractic to be about a effective as other treatments for non-specific lower back pain - that is “Not Very”. As to claims relating to non-musculo-skeletal problems - no evidence at all.
Try to swing some physical therapy. The therapist can recommend some exercises you can do on your own.
Chiropractors in general? A guy I knew had really severe back pains & went to a chiropractor repeatedly for many months. I saw him once during this period & he looked shockingly bad–gaunt & slightly jaundiced. (We weren’t extremely close so we didn’t discuss the situation in detail.)
He finally got tired of the frequent, expensive & useless treatments so he went to an acupuncturist. (Yeah, he was an old hippie musician.) The acupuncturist examined him & said he needed to see a real doctor immediately. The diagnosis was pancreatic cancer. Earlier diagnosis might not have given him more time but at least he got serious pain relief for the time he had left.
As when this subject has come up on other occasions, here are my conclusions:
There is reasonable evidence that some people will benefit from chiropractic manipulation for lower back pain/strain, assuming a proper medical workup has excluded potentially serious nontreatable causes. Various modalities including heat, massage, other physical therapy etc. have about as good an overall record in helping this usually self-limited condition.
The problem with chiropractic is several-fold. It seems that only a minority of chiropractors confine their practices to musculoskeletal complaints, and instead attempt to use manipulation to treat all sorts of internal medical problems (including things like asthma, infant colic and so on) for which there is no good evidence (apart from perhaps one or more small, flawed pilot studies which chiros typically point to for support without bothering with large-scale trials). Some chiropractic techniques are not only poorly supported but can be actively dangerous (i.e. “neck cracking”, which in rare but devastating cases can cause serious neurological injury and permanent paralysis or death). Many chiros have gravitated into other woo fields, promoting various non-evidence based modalities and bogus nutritional supplements.
Perhaps worst of all, many chiropractors actively disparage useful mainstream medical therapies and preventative medicine. A substantial percentage oppose vaccination, for instance.
I don’t doubt that an experienced chiropractor who recognizes his limitations and confines his work to musculoskeletal complaints can help some patients. The profession as a whole does not get my respect.
I pinched a nerve or something in my lower back about a month ago and it’s only slowly been getting better. Yesterday, we did this rock-wall-climbing team-building outing at work and that’s pretty much made everything worse – at least last night I felt like I was dying. This morning, I’m just sore … the usual sore that happens when a man who’s 45 and 15 to 20 pounds overweight pulls himself 30 feet up a rock-wall.
I’ve had various people insisting that I need a chiropractor, but I’m leaning heavily toward the yoga joint down the street from my condo that offer’s $30 massages.