Now, now, now, Kimmy, you know better than to do that in this forum.
Anyway, we have one of the largest Chiropractic colleges in town. It was always a Happy Hunting Ground for the girls in my wife’s family, especially if one was looking for handsome, rich guys from countries where teaching it was illegal. One SIL dated a guy who I asked if it was true that they took an entire class in getting people to come back every week forever.
“Sure. Third year, second semester.”
As he completely lacked a sense of humor (but was rich and handsome so SIL kept him around for a while) I assumed he was telling the truth and didn’t ask if it took a whole semester because Chiropractors were too stupid to learn it in a couple classes. They tend to lack senses of humor, like the one who carried his stuff to class in a little, black, doctor’s bag, like he was studying to be a Real Doctor. In 1927. Completely unironically.
Well hell. I have an appt with one tomorrow morning. I resisted, but my husband wants me to give it a try. I’m in so much pain from this possible herniated disc and the chiro is cheaper than an mri, but it sounds like I’m going to be just wasting my time.
My experience: positive results following a couple months of regular visits. I was in a car accident as a teen and ever since then I have experienced spasms in my neck that have been, at times, debilitating. I have not experienced a recurrence of neck spasms since prior to my course of treatment.
in the 80’s I did something to my spine, which cause nerve pain so incredible that I couldn’t walk for 2-3 hours…I recall I was doing yard work earlier in the week, and had no effects until later. I roughed it out, and it slowly went away…altho it would resurface every year or two…the last time it came back, I decided to try a chiro…I randomly picked one from the yellow pages, called, and it was about 30 minutes to closing time, but he said he would wait for me.
Always one to park my car far off in a parking lot, to avoid dents, I did so this day as well…problem was, it took me a very long time to walk to his office…he saw me coming from his office, and let me in, even thou his office manager left. I recall he did an evaluation of me, then placed these electric probes on my back to force the mussels to contract and expand…he deducted that I had compressed a vert on one side; he said he could see that it was having the effect of making me walk like one leg was longer than the other…then he placed me on this chiro table, and said he was going to place a pinpoint straight arm thrust on my spine, to undo the compressed vertebrae…I was really nervous as this was the focal point of the pain…anyway, he did a straight arm full weight fast chop, and “snapped” my spine…supposedly back into place.
All I can tell you is that I walked back to my car in no pain, and even rode my bike when I got home…and I haven’t had a recurrence yet…after 25 years.
So I have to agree with the poster, who said that while Chiro started out as pure BS, they did learn some very effective alternate techniques over the centuries. One the other hand, I had a very very pretty (to this day) childhood girl from school, whose chiro destroyed her spine, leaving her partially paralyzed…she sued and won a lot of $$$.
PS case #2, one of my best friends is a chiro; he noticed that my knees were hurting me when we went on long bike rides…he asked to look at my home office environment, and deduced that my desk and chair were not high enough ( I am a tall person)…he had me elevate the desk, and spring for an expensive chair that had back support and could extend to my height…my knee problems went away, even thou he never laid a hand on me. However, he too, once broke a bone (collar bone, IIRC) in an elderly female patient - she refused to sue him
Hey, it’s like, probably some of it is not quite scientifically based, but some of it is probably stuff that the mainstream, western doctors just don’t want to admit works, because it’ll cut into their profits, or something.
Went to a chiro far longer than I needed to. I was not only sucked in by woo but also willing to believe the woo because he gave me so much relief from chronic back pain.
I know better now. I go to a different chiro when I strain my back or neck. When the pain stays away for a week, I quit going for adjustments. I don’t buy any supplements or light therapy from them.
That was quite a “falling out” (the story goes that B.J. Palmer ran his father Daniel over in his car at the Palmer College of Chiropractic homecoming parade).
Peter, what term would you have us use? Quackery? Pseudoscience? Every single accurate term is bound to aggravate the quacks, pseudoscience advocates and woo-sters.
The “or something” is that chiropractic is useless at best, dangerous at worst when employed for conditions it cannot help. You will still find chiros promoting their treatments for cardiovascular disease, other internal medical complaints and even cancer. Here’s a site that (rather coyly) suggests that chiropractic treatment can be effective against breast cancer:
"Upper Cervical Chiropractic Health Care may not be the cure-all for breast cancer…; (may not be???)* however, more evidence is becoming available regarding the benefits of this well-supported complementary form of health care…This form of health care restores health and function to her nervous system thereby opening up the body’s communication highway, the Nervous System. When the brain is able to communicate with the body, anything is possible in terms of health and well-being."*
Sounds a wee bit deceptive to me.
Then again, They (the Medical Establishment, Big Pharma, the Government, the Giant Alien Reptiloids) probably just don’t want the Truth to be known to the sheeple. :dubious:
I had done something to cause a vertebra in my back to misalign. I consulted a Chiropractor who assured me he would offer relief. He’d work my spine, from the top to the spot that hurt, stop, then start from the bottom of my spine and work back to the same spot, never quite touching it. For three weeks I went in twice a week and he did the same thing. No relief was provided by the visits. I probably would have gone back had I not tripped and fallen, landing on my outstretched arms and feeling a pop in that little sore spot as it popped back into place. I stood up, and stretched, the pain was gone.
To this day I swear that nimrod of a chiropractor deliberately avoid resolving my problem. It was obvious he deliberately “missed” that spot to keep me coming back.
The x-ray is a good thing IMO. That’s how the chiro confirmed that I had scoliosis, something my M.D. kept telling me I didn’t have, despite the indications I had. What, the M.D. couldn’t do an x-ray?
Just to ask, can you really go to a physical therapist for just random back pain (not caused by an accident or injury or what have you)? I didn’t think that was what a physical therapist was for.
So… if I go to a medical doctor, a general practitioner in the United States… how often are they going to refer me to a chiropractor? Is there a big schism between them and traditional modern western medicine? Or is it pretty common for a family doctor to refer you to a chiropractor for some problems (I guess all of these would probably be for back pain or at least pain of some sort).
Compare this to, for example, acupuncture, which I feel after this thread is probably in a similar category of mostly woo or all woo, but somehow (maybe all just placebo), it helps some people with pain (which is a relatively poorly understood phenomenon anyhow in medicine, and is very subjective from one person to the next). Do general practitioners, or even other specialists, often refer people to acupuncturists?
Here in Choice is a good piece about the state of play in Australia. I have used a chiropractor for 30 odd years, going regularly when I was younger and played tennis, and once in a blue moon nowadays. Of all the chiropractors I have seen, I have never heard mention of subluxations or suggestions of fixing anything non-skeletal.
According to the Choice article one body of chiropractors is trying to make the practice more like the dodgy US style. However:
