Ah, thanks for the heads up.
I think I’d heard that chiropody wasn’t too scientific, but I’d never looked into it as I’d never had back problems before.
Perciful’s anecdote is fine too of course (OK, “bone cancer looks like swiss cheese” is dubious but I’m unlikely to ever have to diagnose my own spinal images).
I appreciate some the recommendation as that’s what I asked for, but I also appreciate others pointing out that a therapy may not be entirely rigorous.
Thirding. I used to have one and I just loved it. As soon as I get some spare cash, I’m gonna get another one.
It’s worked for me and I also learned from the initial X-Ray’s that I have two herniated disks in my neck from a bad whiplash accident in my 20’s. I could see it and I’m no doctor. My neck locks up and my head gets stuck looking at my right foot. I can’t turn my head and the pain is awful. Two 5 minute adjustments and I’m fine again.
I also had no clue I had a short leg which can throw your back out. He picked it up and using a ruler figured out my left leg is almost a half inch shorter then my right. He also said that he could tell by the way I stand. If you stand in ‘First Position’ from Ballet with one foot in front of the other it is to balance with a short leg. So he wanted my kids to come in and get checked and my daughter had a slightly shorter right leg. We both wear orthodics. My son was fine but this is passed down genetically.
I think chiro’s get a bum rap. Mine is excellent and when he retired his son took over the practice. If I went to a sports medicine doctor they couldn’t realign my spine and fix my leg or my back from going out.
My chiro showed me an x-ray of bone cancer and it looked like Alpine Lace cheese. They obviously don’t want to adjust a person with bone cancer but they do get patients that come in with back pain and it is bone cancer sometimes.
Where is the back pain?
To add to the idea of using a Chiropractor, I love mine. It was trial and error to find a good one. I like my inversion table but sometimes my back is too out of whack to get into it.
Very low, perhaps where it meets the pelvis.
But also, an unnerving thing that’s happened recently is that a couple of times I’ve needed to “pop” my neck. :eek:
I’ve got up from a seated position and felt a “wrongness” about my neck, like I wouldn’t be able to turn my head if I tried. After a couple of seconds a tendon or whatever pops back and I’m good to go.
I have lots of joints that occasionally pop like this, but it’s not nice having it happen in my neck…
Once again - herniated disks CANNOT be seen on a plain-film X-ray. Nope- you did not see herniated disks on an X-ray. Perhaps you thought you did, maybe from someone wrongly telling you such, but X-ray does not show soft-tissues much, if any. I can say with 100% honesty that I have never in over 20 years of producing quality radiographs (and CT, NucMed, MRI, & Ultrasound, too) seen a Chiro-office’s X-ray film(s) that had diagnostic-quality anywhere near good enough to show soft-tissues such that discs are obviously apparent. 
If someone did tell you / diagnose a herniation from a plain-film X-ray alone, they did you a HUGE disservice, trust me. MRI (or CT in limited cases with ‘contrast agent’) with good history from patient is the way to obtain the diagnosis. In no way am I attempting to jump on anyone here - just fighting ignorance in an area in which I am quite well-trained.
Sorry for the slight hijack, but I feel its important to mention this bit about X-ray’s limitations and how Chiro often pushes such misinformation. Back to regular programming
I can see my herniated disks just fine. They protrude from the other disks and form a lip. Mine are in c1 and c2. My chiro has a better x-ray machine then some hospitals. Bones show up really well on Xrays. I can even see my IUD in my Xrays as plain as day.
My back pain is in between the shoulder blades and lower back. My chiro used two different sublaxations on them. One I lay on my stomach and one on my side for the lower back.
Here’s a previous Straight Dope thread on the chiro tactic of telling a patient his/her problems are due to having one leg longer than the other. Apparently this is a common ploy, along with arguing that you have mysterious subluxations that no one but the chiropractor can see.
There are a number of references to the leg length variance argument online, including this testimonial that makes interesting reading.
Of course, any evidence-based chiro would, on being asked, be able to point you to a good quality research study showing that 1) office measurements of leg length are reliable and reproducible, 2) any differences in length actually correlate to pathologic symptoms, and 3) chiropractic treatments can relieve the symptoms.
I know of no study that has fulfilled these criteria. It’s part of the lore and lure of chiropractic.
I also know that people who have unreasoned themselves into dependence on chiropractic are highly unlikely to be impressed by arguments related to evidence (and the lack thereof in chiropractic). Hopefully others will be wary enough to resist appeals for unnecessary x-rays and treatment and long-term “maintenance” of issues that have nothing to do with their condition.
A good exercise program offers an inexpensive and safe means to prevent or minimize problems.
Disc material is not bone, though.
I checked with Mrs. J., who remembers being hauled to a chiropractor as a child by her mother (a licensed practical nurse, who should have known better).
She recalls the chiro saying that one of her legs was shorter than the other.
Oh, and the chiro treated her for asthma, with painful and useless “adjustments”.
For those looking for more information on the subject, the book Trick or Treatment by Simon Singh and Edzard Ernst is a well-written examination of the scientific evidence for the efficacy of many alternative treatments, including chiropractic and osteopathy.
Their conclusion on the former is that it may offer some benefit for musculoskeletal problems. There’s no evidence that it is effective for other conditions such as asthma. There are also serious risks associated with chiropractic manipulation of the neck, as it can cause and dislodge clots in the vertebral artery. As Ionizer mentioned, many chiropractors make excessive use of x-rays, increasing their patients’ chances of developing cancer while providing little diagnostic benefit.
Though of similar non-scientific origin, osteopathy has shed many of its more unreasonable concepts. Its practitioners attend medical school and limit themselves to more gentle spinal manipulations.
Conventional medicine offers comparable benefits to both of these, and may be less expensive.
Is it possible you are talking about spurs? They look like lips protruding from the vertibrae, and all of these are bone. There’s no bone associated with the disks themselves.