I’ve been to two chiropractors for my back. The first one I decided to see because I knew my friend’s wife had gone to see him when she slipped and injured her wrist. That one told her it might be broken and she had to see a real doctor to get it x-rayed. He was good, took care of my back, never tried to sell me anything else.
The second one was also good, but after a couple of sessions and my back was better he said I should continue to see him because he could improve my overall health. I asked him about this and he got to the point where he said he could cure cancer by manipulating a spine, so that was the end of that. Luckily haven’t had any more back issues.
she could easily have been harmed-if she simply followed the “prescribed” treatment, like many people would have, she would have suffered a great deal of harm.
The PT I saw for my back said that in her experience even “good” chiropractors, who just try to treat back pain, and don’t claim to cure cancer or AIDS, are still problematic, because they don’t have fixing a person’s back as a goal. PTs want a person to eventually not be a patient. Chiropractors want people having regular appointments forever. She even said that some of the manipulations she does on people’s backs are the same things chiropractors do, but she said she never met a chiropractor who gives people exercises to strengthen their muscles, so the bones and ligaments they keep putting back in place stay in place. PTs do that. PTs also give people exercises to do at home, so they have fewer appointments, and chiropractors don’t do things like that, either.
I guess it’s a little like doctors prescribing a medication one pill at a time, and expecting a patient to come in every day to get it.
It’s sort of funny that a lot of people who go to “alternate” healers like chiropractors often believe that real medicine keeps effective treatments and cures from the public to keep it dependent, when it’s really “alternate” healers who want a patient base that keeps returning.
I used to work with a pharmacist who went to chiropractic school, because he wanted to be a chiropractor and not because he couldn’t get into medical school (not an uncommon reason for choosing this) and he was censured more than once for saying that this or that should lead to a referral to an MD (or DO).
My favorite story from him was the guy who was taking his freshman year for the FOURTH time (no, he hadn’t flunked out yet, not as long as the check was good!) because he thought women would stand in line and have sex with him if he had the title “Doctor”. :smack: We all agreed that if they weren’t doing it then, they weren’t going to later either.
A licensed practitioner of ANY kind who scams their clients and operates outside the scope of their practice is not looked upon kindly by the licensing board.
All that said, I have a friend who has gone to a chiro for many years. She was having chronic, disabling migraines, and saw an ad for free adjustments done by students; she took advantage of it because she didn’t have health insurance or any money to pay for treatment. After the FIRST adjustment, the migraines went away and she has never had another. :eek: She’s had some other bone issues and used the chiro for them, with the full knowledge of her regularly doctor, and has taken her kids to him when she felt it was appropriate.
As for kids and chiropractic, one of my Facebook friends, a HS classmate, took her grandson to get his first adjustment before he was a week old, and posted it there. :smack: He was NOT enjoying it, trust me on that. She swore that it cured her kids’ chronic ear infections, and didn’t want him to go through that himself. :rolleyes: Interestingly, her kids were adopted at about ages 4 and 7, and IDK what kind of medical history they had or if she knows about it; this was just what they experienced after they were adopted.
ETA: Almost forgot. There used to be a veterinary chiropractor in this town.
I knew a student at my local chiro college and he said they took a full semester class in getting people to come back weekly into perpetuity. An evil profession and one, I’m sorry to say, made for unethical people too lazy or dumb for med school.
The harm is she’s out three thousand dollars because the chiropractor sold her a bale of goods that he should, as an alleged medical professional, have known she couldn’t use. The course of action is fraud.
LOL. State Chiropractic licensing boards are full of chiropracters. Most of whom are true believers that the chiropractic (and its related ‘wholistic’ practices) can cure anything, and that any opposition to chiropractic practices comes from that horrible organization, the AMA.
This is why there’s no course of action here. I doubt this jerk violated the standards of his own profession, which are exceedingly low. The OP’s MIL has her best recourse in treating the supplements as a retail sale and expecting the return of her money for unused products. This doesn’t make me happy, but this is what happens if you turn to alternative medicine, you have to keep your eyes open and think about what you are doing. The same thing applies to conventional medicine, it’s just less likely to result in these practices as a result of poor standards, but any AMA physician might still turn out to be a quack. Ask your doctor questions, find out more on your own, seek second opinions, none of that will bother good doctors, they should actually encourage it, something you won’t find the chiros doing very often.
If you’re angling for malpractice, good luck with that. Malpractice suits only stick if harm occurred, not if harm *could *have occurred. And the harm has to be directly linked to the medical treatment AND that treatment has to be out of the norm for the specialty - and supplements are hardly out of the norm for chiropractic.
Besides which, unless there’s something else going on, an almost year ago hospital stay and Celiac disease do not mean that intermittent fasting is going to cause harm. So either there’s something else going on that you’re not sharing with the class, or you yourself are making medical judgements you’re probably not qualified to make.
If he made medical claims about the supplements (if he used the word “cure” or “treat” or mentioned any medical diagnoses, like “celiac disease”) then he can/should be reported to the FDA, because you can’t do that about supplements, even if you are a doctor. Their address is:
Division of Enforcement (HFS-607)
CFSAN FDA
5100 Paint Branch Parkway
College Park, MD 20740-3835
That won’t get you any money back, but it will get their attention and they will likely send him a strongly worded letter.
Financially, your best recourse is probably to call or email her local television news station and see if you can pique the interest of their Consumer Advocate journalist. They love stuff like this, and he may decide it’s better to refund her money than to have news cameras in his waiting room.
I agree that Yelp and Facebook are also good avenues for these situations. Nothing official, but people who rely on ratings and word of mouth are often quick to fix things when they’re made public on the same fora that they get new business from.
I agree with Qadgop that reporting this chiro to his state board is likely to be a dead end. If they were serious about following up complaints every time a chiro prescribed useless treatments and supplements, they’d have to vastly expand their stuff and most chiros in the state would lose their licenses. Not going to happen.
My inclination would be to start with a severely worded letter from an attorney (should be available at nominal cost), outlining steps that will be taken if said chiro doesn’t cough up the money.
She’s had some other bone issues and used the chiro for them, with the full knowledge of her regularly doctor, and has taken her kids to him when she felt it was appropriate.