Over in the “Crystal Wavers” thread in the pit, there’s an interesting hijack about chiropractors . . . Thought I’d start a whole new thread on the topic, as we haven’t dogpiled about this for AGES.
OK, what’s your take: are they legitimate doctors or frauds and nut-cases? Jingo, would you like to reiterate your Pit post here (which I tend to agree with)?
I don’t think it matters about the evidence. The fact is many people believe it works. If that weren’t the case, you wouldn’t see so many chiropractors. Similar case with the psychic hot lines.
What’s really weird, though, is that at the barn where my gal has her horses, some of the other boarders have a chiropractor come over occasionally and “adjust” their horses’ backs! (His day job is a people chiropractor.) But, hey, there are also pet psychics. . . .
My sister took her cat to a cat chiropractor . . . I tried explaining the difference between kitty skeletons and people skeletons, but to no avail.
I’m of two minds about them.
Every once in a blue moon I’ll put my lower back out by either horsing around with my kids too much and lifting one of them up awkwardly or simply turning or twisting badly and WHAM!.. can’t straighten up and I’m rolling around on the floor in pain. This happens so infrequently that I do not consider that I have a chronic back problem.
Once it happened when we were 48 hours from a big move. As before, I visited a local chiropractor and she adjusted my back for me. After a series of snaps and pops I walked out of the office without having to stoop over and most importantly without pain. I wore a back brace for a few days to help me with my heavier lifting and the problem was solved.
On the other hand, we have a two close and dear friends who are married to each other and are both chiropractors. They see my wife and kids on a semi regular basis and they all get adjusted for free any time they want to. I think out kids even enjoy it (especially the youngest one - I think he thinks he is just getting hugs and tickles, which he loves). As for my wife, she seems to have a recuring joint problem which comes and goes almost at will. The years of chorpractic care have done absolutely nothing to fix the problem on a permanent basis. She does feel a bit of releif after being adjusted when the joint is out but I’ve seen it go out again 48 or even 24 hours after treatment.
So in short, chiropractic care may offer temporary and immediate releif in some cases but I don’t see it as a long term solution. YMMV.
QUICKSILVER
Yeah, that’s kinda what I think too.
Eve, thanks for reminding me I was in a hijack- I got kinda passionate there and forgot…
As regards what I said there, I’ll just provide the link, rather than re-iterate.
http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showthread.php?threadid=59538&pagenumber=2-
what I have to say is on the second page, towards the bottom, right after
EVE’s post about starting this thread 
As for animal chiropracty- with Quick’s qualifications, I’ve seen that work too-
Up here in MT, we have grizzlies sometimes. And other bears. But the thing is, sometimes, they have to be trapped and re-located- they get too un-afraid of humans, usually from dumpster diving.
So, they’re trapped. Then, they’re held at some facility or other, often in the company of other bears.
Well, seems these two bears were messing around, and one batted the other upside the head. Put the second one’s neck out of joint. The facility personnel tried various things to no avail- poor bear was living with his head lowered and kind of twisted to one side. It wasn’t eating much- had a hard time with it. This went on long enough that it was established that it wasn’t gonna get better on it’s own.
So anyways, someone got the bright idea to call a chiro, who came up, did some xrays, took this little ‘beater’ thing, and after the bear had been sedated, used it and some hand work to put the bears neck back right. It was successful. Bear came out of it fine, head in the right position and inclination, so forth. And eating like a um, bear…
And the chiro was stoked about the opportunity and donated his time and services.
My 2 cents…
Sorry I’m late, Eve. 
I’d be happy to…
In the pit thread (about crystal-wavers…then about belief systems, in general) I ranted a bit about what I thought to be potentially harmful foolishness and lumped chiropractors in with homeopaths, crystal-healers, and psychics…to which inor replied:
And I said:
Yeah, a friend of mine is in the same predicament…of course he substitutes the word “vodka” for the word “chiropractor.” But—same result.
So here we are…inor has since explained that chiropractors are not, in fact, quacks, because he cannot afford back surgery as recommended by an orthopedic surgeon. How can one argue with logic like that.
inor, please don’t misunderstand me—I’m claiming that chiropractors are quacks. I’m NOT claiming that chiropractors are quacks and a chiropractor didn’t make your back feel better. They make many people’s backs feel better—for a while. Then the person’s back hurts again. Then they have to revisit the (wait for it)…chiropractor! Get it? Chiropractors don’t fix anything…they make it feel better for a bit.
Beliefs are tough to reject when those beliefs make you feel better, no? There’s nothing inherently wrong with the belief, mind you…don’t accuse me of being close-minded…you are free to believe in chiropractic all you’d like. It’s still quackery. For further elucidation, it would probably help to read a history of chiropractic “medicine” and it’s founder.
Even if you don’t trust The Skeptic’s Dictionary, there are further links and cites there. There’s also a brief explanation as to why the AMA doesn’t steadfastly and publicly denounce chiropractors as witch-doctors.
Again, not that there’s anything wrong with witch-doctors! I honestly mean no offense to witches. They have their place in society…you may believe in whatever you wish, and if witchcraft makes you comfortable then by all means practice and adhere to it—but do not tout it as medicine in the scientific sense.
Jingo-
K, I went ahead and punched out for lunch and am posting this on, gasp, my own time…bleachhhh.
Hope yer happy you rat bastard 
I think I left a lot implied in what I’ve written so far.
I did not mean to imply that chiros are not quacks because I can’t afford back surgery. I’m not convinced that is what I implied, but that don’t matter here.
What I was (telepathically) saying was that I knew I have to have surgery, I can’t afford it, in the mean time, that damn chiro is a stop-gap, affordable (sort of) solution. And if I work my back out properly, that’s even better. But damn- when it goes out, I’d about kill anybody who tried to prevent me from seeing the chiro, and would just about take the head off anyone who tried to stop me by arguing “Hey, they’re just a bunch of quacks”. Now, I know you are doing no such thing- I’m just trying to illustrate a point.-
That I know they aren’t long term help for someone like me- but they are getting me through till I can get long term help- that that is a hugely valid service. And for Quicksilver- that is not quackery- he has a periodic problem that I know is very painful- it doesn’t warrant surgical measures, and a real doc that didn’t pop his back for him would be the pits. And no real doc would, in fact, they would tell him to go home, alternate heat and cold on it (good advice, as far as it goes) and to rest- the worst thing you can do, in that that is ALL they would tell him to do, and with that type of thing, yes, you have to rest, but you have to work it out too! Or it gets worse! I speak from long years of experience with this. So, who’s the quack in that situation?
As to the thing about going back and going back etc, yes, they do want you to, and yes, I tend to agree with your sentiments there- this was one of the problems I mentioned I had with them in the other thread- sorry abut being so vague.
But I have since found out there is some validity for this- once your back is out, they pop it back in, right? Ok, so far. But, in many cases, most of them, when a back has gone out, there has occurred muscular injury as well. What happens then is the muscles start spasming. So, several pops over the course of time works way better than one visit- they keep working it till the muscles loosenup some. I still think they are kind of a racket, but I have seen many real docs that are that or worse, for being mercenary. It’s why I get so aggressive with any kind of doc- why I know the reasoning behind the multiple visits thing- I took the guy to task about it, exactly because I had the feelings you express. I still have them, but they are allayed quite a bit now.
I also have asthma- the medicine I take for it doesn’t keep it away, but it does make an attack go away. And then, the next attack, I have to take it again. By your reasoning, this is quackery. I say not! If it wasn’t for that medicine, I would be dead by now- not speculation here, but a statement of fact- many close brushes, where I was able to get some medicine at the last moment, and the opinions and warnings of many docs, after they had seen the severity of the attacks I get.
All I’m saying is I look very askance at skeptics, whether they have their own web page, magazine or what-have-you. Yes, they are often right. But, to me, they seem overly smug, shrill at times, and often smear a whole thing, when part of that thing is legitimate- they don’t differentiate. This, in my opinion, is every bit as shitty as propogating a false belief of the efficacy of something that does not work. Both harm people- one by promoting a useless remedy, and the other by smearing and discrediting a legitimate one. And that one of my arguments to this belief is that they are human, and not exempt from the same foibles of emotion and flaws in reasoning the rest of us are subject to. So, while I often think, 'Hey, they’re right!", I also often think “Hey- they’re fucked up! This part is good, That argument is as weak as what they’re supposedly refuting, etc.”
And that to flatly label chiropractors ‘quacks’ doesn’t hold water- see the non-differentiation argument above. I don’t fuckin care who established it or what they thought etc (to me, this is akin to saying JFK was a shit because his organized crime, bootleggin daddy started him and raised him- discounting a person or thing or concept because they come from someone, somewhere, something that you find repugnant)- if it works, it works- and if something works, physically, in the real world, it is not a belief, but a genuine solution, whether temorary, long-term, best solution or not. It’s kinda like saying I don’t believe in 2x4’s, and you do, and you whack me upside the head with one- doesn’t matter what I believe, does it?
Anyway, I don’t mean to get testy with you, I just wanted to make a good argument here.
And it’s prolly time to punch back in.
Thanks.
inor
I don’t have a problem with what you’ve stated here. With the references to quackery subtracted, you’ve stated the facts quite clearly. People visit their chiropractors when they’re in pain. They feel better. When they’re in pain again, they go back. How this is a valid argument against chiropractic medicine is a little fuzzy to me. Is this any different than saying, “Sure, a doctor can give you medication to make you feel better, but only for a WHILE. Once the medication wears off, you just have to take MORE! AHA!”
The major difference here is one of long term health, as opposed to temporary medication. The most important benefit of chiropractic medicine is the lack of dependence upon dangerous medications to function from day to day. When given the choice between daily dependence on Motrin, Tylenol, or any other over the counter medication, and a semi-monthly visit to a chiropractor, I will choose the chiropractor every time. My kidneys and stomach do, and will continue, to thank me for it.
Goodness, but everyone’s being POLITE and mature. I was rather hoping to see some pro/anti chiro mud-wrestling here . . .
Hmm, well, on my team we sometimes edit chiro texts and I used to work with an acquisitions editor who quit to become a chiropractor, so I probably shouldn’t talk.
However, I do think it’s Dr. Nick Riviera-esque quackery. Here’s my main problem: just as I have never seen a psychologist/therapist/psychiatrist turn away business by saying “sorry, you’re in perfect mental health,” I’ve never seen a chiropracter say “nope, nothing we can do for you, you’ve got great alignment.” I got roped into 2 months of painful “adjustments” because my “extra vertebra” was supposedly causing problems. However, the pain only started AFTER the adjustments.
That’s bull. It makes no sense that EVERYONE has spine problems, any more than it makes sense that EVERYONE has mental problems.
If I could ever find a chiro who would admit that some people are just fine, thank you, I could probably accept it. Other than that, I agree with Jingo–they make people feel better, but they do not heal.
This doesn’t sound like an argument for the validity of chiropractic so much as an advertisement for good health insurance.
If chiropractic medicine touted their abilities to massage people to make their backs feel better, and occasionally yank them around to re-seat a mildly slipped disk, I wouldn’t care. It’s terribly dangerous, but caveat emptor. (See links below) The problem is that chiropractors tout other abilities. They maim people. They promote other brands of quackery. They discourage people from seeking proper medical treatment. Ok, ok…not ALL. But many. And ONE is too many. It’s entirely possible that not all chiropractors are quacks…but I’ll bet on 99%. And the rest may be guilty by association :).
Huh? You do remote psychic medical diagnoses, too?
I’m still unsure how you were able to diagnose Quicksilver’s malady. His disk slips occasionally? Is that it? Wouldn’t you like to know why?
Nonsense. We know why asthma attacks reoccur. Let’s say the chiropractor said “this will feel good for a bit, but you’ll have to come back when it hurts again—and it will—because I’m not really fixing anything, I’m just giving you a rub-down…I’m not fixing anything, of course, because I have no idea why your back hurts to begin with.” I’d have no problem with that. But these bizarre subluxations of the spine are often blamed, and endorsed by the practitioners of chiropractic. Understand that it’s not medicine to give someone a back rub. Does it feel good? Of course it feels good! Does it fix anything? Of course not.
Damned skeptics with their fancy-pants knowledge. But, fair is fair. Here are other sources:
“Spin Doctors: Deaths, Deceptions and Dubious Claims Haunt Chiropractors’ Bid for Academic Acceptance”
http://www.canoe.ca/ChiroYork
“Sudden neck movement and cervical artery dissection.”
http://www.cma.ca/cmaj/vol-163/issue-1/0038.htm
Report in the Canadian Medical Association Journal, July 11, 2000
Chirobase
http://www.chirobase.org/
National Association for Chiropractic Medicine
http://www.chiromed.org
Chirowatch
http://www.chirowatch.com/
Concerns about chiropractic at York University
http://www.ndir.com/chiro/intro.html
HCRC FAQ Sheet: Chiropractic
http://www.hcrc.org/faqs/chiro.html
and, of course, quackwatch.com. I urge you to educate yourself as fully as possible. You seem like a pleasant, intelligent chap, inor—it would be a terrible thing if you were to be crippled by a quack.
Again—of course back rubs feel good. We knew that. But are you saying that as long as it makes you feel better, it’s OK? Does it matter if others are hurt? Does it matter if pseudoscience and quackery cost a ridiculous amount of money and a horrible number of lives every year? So you can get a back rub? The ends do not justify the means. Ever.
Sorry. I’ll try to restrain myself…but being in IMHO is rather liberating.
Speaking of which…
Quicksilver said:
I’m going to try to remain calm about this. But…Jimminy Christmas and Lord love a Duck! Those are your children! Please, for the sake of all that is holy, speak to a pediatrician before subjecting them to any more adjustments! Please! What “Mis-Alignments” could they possibly have at their ages?! If you cripple yourself because of faulty critical thought skills, fine. Darwinian natural selection in action. But your children? Please read the above links.
IMHO, I need a drink.
Thank you, and goodnight.
I’ve been treated intermittently by chiros all my life. Many of them spout nonsense about stuff other than your skeleton, and I have enough sense to let that go in one ear and out the other, as do a large percentage of other people who use them (I’m sorely tempted to say the vast majority, as I’ve never encountered another person in a chiro’s waiting room who bought into the other stuff). I will certainly not deny that some of them are quacks, but there are quack M.D.s, too, you know.
The chiro that my parents took me to (age 7 or 8) for ankle problems (dislocating) gave me exercises to strengthen muscles in my feet & ankles, which solved the problem permanently. I sure wish he’d still been around when I started having problems in my teens with my patellas popping out!
I have several old hard tissue injuries. It was always the case that a (good) chiro could give me some relief. (Bad ones got no more visits from me than it took for me to figure it out, usually one, maybe two.) Finally, things got so bad that I had to switch over to orthopedists and anesthesiologists (pain doctors). I don’t think I’d have the nerve to let a chiro touch me now - I’ve got an artificial hip and my neck vertebrae are starting to fuse. However, there is one local chiro who has the trust of a bunch of orthopedists, etc. When he sees problems he knows he can’t handle, he refers his patients to appropriate M.D. specialists.
One thing you apparently don’t know, Jingo, is that pain doctors nowadays have come to consider chiro as legitimate treatment for some chronic musculoskeletal pain conditions. Intake forms for pain doctors and clinics (as well as some orthopedists) include questions about chiros. When I first started going to the M.D. specialists, I expected them to freak out about my using chiros as long as I could. That doesn’t happen any more, or at least not universally. My experiences cover both Michigan and Mississippi, quite different places in terms of the medical establishment, and it is only for what I know personally that I am attempting to speak.
One final comment WRT your calling chiro treatment a “rubdown”. I’ve had massage by a licensed masseuse. The only relationship between the two is that both involve one person applying their hands to another person’s body. A masseur/euse works on a person’s muscles. A chiro works on their skeleton. Not the same thing atall, atall.
Hear hear, Tyger You covered some of what I wanted to say-
Won’t say the rest.
Did want to say though- I have this thing where my patellas are wrong too- I don’t know if this would help, but I finally found something that helps me- I made up these walks, I call them ‘stupid’ walks- one is for my lower back and ass and the backs of my thighs, but the one that might possibly germane here is the one I do for my knees- I was trying to figure out who had the musculature I needed to correct my problem, and envisioned hardcore mountain bikers- I don’t know if you’ve ever seen their thighs, but they’re monstrous. Soooo, I kind of simulate what they do when I walk my dogs, not all the time, but a couple times a week-
I keep my back straight up, but bend at the knees while walking. I take full, long strides, but don’t come up, stay bent at the knees, except on the leg I’m on, when it’s going behind me. If I’m outta shape, I can’t bend down far at all. The more regularly I do it, the farther down I can go. It’s also very low-impact aerobic- these are some biiiig muscles being worked out. I have to work up to distance though- if I have been remiss, I can’t make it even 400 yards. So i do sets- (we walk farther than that on our nightly jaunts…)
You might try it, I dunno…
Thanks for the suggestion. I may discuss it with my doctors, though I don’t have a rehab doctor here yet (just moved last year).
I’m kinda dubious, as there ain’t much left of the one knee joint and the weight rests on the fibula (the little bone), not the tibia (yup, it does hurt a lot at times, but I was told I should try to hold off on a replacement until I’m at least 60). So I have serious doubts whether I could even assume that posture, much less locomote in it. 
I’m not really worried about the #$%^&* patella slipping out, as it hasn’t done that since arthroscopy in 1995, and besides, I wear a brace when I walk, but weight-bearing in that position might be effectively impossible. I’m not able to stand from a low sitting position without either chair arms, grab bars, or assistance, and that knee is the most important reason.
I’m always interested in new ideas, though, and thanks for giving me some. That’s one I’m quite sure would never have occurred to me!
Anyone have input on those so-called “subluxations” which all chiros are taught about in chiro-school? According to them, we ALL have spinal damage from birth trauma, and this causes “subluxations,” or disturbances in the spinal cord that have harmful effects on the entire body.
This has never been proved scientifically, and “subluxations” cannot be seen on an X ray . . . Makes me doubt the whole practice, even if they DO accidentally do some actual good work. Kinda like Scientologists: I suppose they do make some people feel better about themselves and more balanced and relaxed . . . That doesn’t mean I’m going within ten yards of 'em.
Do you know, I’ve totally lost count of how many chiros I’ve seen in my lifetime - >15 is my best guess - and I can’t recall that anyone ever tried to tell me that.
I do know that I have a rib on the right side that likes to sorta pop out of its insertion (visible on X-ray), but that’s 'cuz I’m one of those dubiously fortunate “well-endowed” women. Getting it popped in is one of the things I really miss about not going to a chiro now.
As for your reservations, I wouldn’t dream of trying to persuade anyone to go to one, unless they were complaining about back & joint aches that they couldn’t get help for - and at that, I’d warn you to be cautious.
Thank you Jingo for your concern about the health and welfare of my kids. I want to believe it’s genuine and not a knee jerk reaction caused by your obvious distaste for chiropractors in general. By the way, do you have kids? Just curious?
Nobody is more concerned about the well being of our kids than my wife and I. We would not do anything to endanger our children’s health. Certainly we would not submit them to repeated treatments which we see as harmful in any way. The fact is, our kids have great postures and muscle tone and our pediatrician has commented on it on several occasions. I’m not going to credit our friends the chiropractors for this because our kids’ good postures preceded out friendship with them. Our kids just seem to be fortunate in that respect and that is partly because we encourage them to be active and to maintain a good posture as much as realistically possible.
As for my skills of critical thought, they are very well developed (IMHO) and ought not be suspect just because I happen to be more moderate than you on this topic. I see no need to invoke Darwin’s Theory in an attempt to discredit my intelligence. Besides, I’m certain that I alone am much too small of a sample for you to successfully build a case addressing poor genetic long term survival traits. 
I maintain my ealier stance and that is, Chiropractic adjustments have been helpful to me on a handfull of occasions when I put my back out for whatever reason. I do not have a chronic back problem. Regular or IMHO unwarranted adjustments do not benefit me in any way nor do they have an adverse effect on me. Similarly, I do not see the occasional adjustment on my kids as having an adverse effect on them. My oldest is into gymnastics and her performance and overall health does not seem to be suffering from an occassional adjustment. Besides, in your non-expert opinion, unneccessary adjustments are tantamount to “back rubs”. Correct? I’ll speculate that a well meaning massage therapist can do more harm than a chiropractor because of their lack of extensive training in the musculo-skeletal structure of the human body. Do you advise people as strongly against massages? As a side note, I personally don’t like massages but I see an entire group of people whom you can badger in a similar way. I mean, muscles will relax on their own if you let them… why manipulate them unnecessarily.
Having said that, I’ll re-iterate, I don’t think that the periodic adjustments that my wife gets to fix one weak joint has been very helpfull in the long run. Though the problem does not warrant any more agressive therapy other than rest and muscle strengthening, the chiropractic solution does seem to alleviate a majority of the immediate discomfort she feels from time to time. Now, the problem may or may not get worse as she ages but I don’t think that it will be a function of the chiropractic attention she receives now. Sometimes human health deteriorates in ways no physician can predict or fix. Now, since her condition is not being neglected by a medical physician and since chiropractic care seems to be a solution which her MD has no difficulty accepting, I see no reason for you to express carefully crafted outrage at our choice of care or jump to conclusions which question our mental abiity to make the right health choices for ourselves and our kids.
What are you, spokesman for the AMA? You claim that Chiropractors are quacks. What are you basing this blindingly assine opinion on? Obviously not any sort of facts. Merely the knee-jerk reaction of the Teeming Masses. Successfully brainwashed by the medical establishment to blindly believe that you gotta cut someone open or dope em to the gills to cure them. You are probably the same guy who kept tellin Columbus that his silly ass was gonna fall off the Edge of the World.
Right now, right this very instant, the heels of your feet do not meet evenly. Why? both of your legs are the same length unless you were born with a physical defect. The answer is that your spine is no longer straight. The vertabrae have, over time, shifted their places in position to one another leading to one hip being higher or lower in relation to the other. And your vertabrae are encasing your spinal cord, your very own information superhighway. So these bones are no longer in the proper position, sometimes leading to pinched nerves and possible damage to not only the cord but also the disks that serve as a buffer between bone and bone.
Experiment: Try laying face down on your bed, place your heels together, relax, and have someone you can trust lift your feet up while you allow your knees to flex. Bring them back down, do this a couple times and then take a straight edge and lay it across the bottoms of your feet. One leg will appear shorter than the other. Then have them lie down and you do it to them. Cause seeing is believing.
Chiropractic is the science of the spine and it’s relationship to the rest of your body. There are two different types of Chiropractor. Doctors who are yogurt-eating, holistic touchy-feely massage therapist types, and Doctors who are concerned with only the spine and how it effects the body. Of the two, the latter is preferable to someone who wants to maintain thier health in a easy, comfortable, practical way without a lot of the weird diets and aroma therapy candles and crap the former like to be involved in (you will find the former mostly in California, granola capitol of the world).
So when someone tells you your head is on crooked, they might not be lying.
Hope this cleared up some of the delusions many of you seem to be operating under. http://www.palmer.edu/aboutchiro/aboutchir.html has more information and probably better presented than I did here. If you take time to actually learn the facts, things you don’t understand don’t have to be scary. Like G.I.Joe says, “Knowledge is half the battle.”
P.S. What do you call a guy who graduates dead last from medical school? Doctor…
I’ve given, essentially, this same screed before. I apologize if you’ve already read it.
There are, to be simplistic, two VERY different kinds of chiropractors. The first kind specializes in manipulating the spine and/or joints to provide pain relief. The second kind consists of weordoes who think they’re real doctors… no, that they’re BETTER than real doctors, because they’re more “holistic.”
The first kind will gladly work with real, medical doctors, and will refer you BACK to a real, medical doctor if you report a symptom outside his area of expertise. The second kind fancies himself qualified to treat EVERYTHING, from toothaches to migraine headaches to cancer.
I’ve never gone to a chiropractor, but know several relatives who have. The pain relief they provide certainly seems to be genuine. So, in SOME cases, they’re worth a try. IF, just for example, you were in a car wreck 6 months ago, and are still suffering severe back pain, and the pills/treatments your doctor prescribes aren’t providing any relief… what the heck, ask him to refer you to a reputable chirpractor, and see if he can offer some pain relief.
BUT… if the chiropractor attempts to prescribe drugs, or starts talking about his holistic philosophy of healt, RUN!
QuickSilver said:
Well, I won’t go so far as to say that you’re guilty of child abuse…I figured that you didn’t see it as harmful. But I believe there’s a good chance that it is. That’s my point. And you helped me make it with the following:
Um…then why on earth would you let someone yank their ‘lil spines around in the interest of “helping” them? You just said they were in excellent (spinal) health.
…Yet. Did you read the medically documented cases of severe injury caused by chiropractic adjustment in my above links? You don’t see adjustments having an adverse effect on your children…do you see it having a positive effect? No? THEN WHY…oh, nevermind.
No. Most positive effects of chiropractic manipulation are tantamount to those achieved by deep massage and stretching. Oh, and with the occasional crippling injury thrown in.
But…but…
Well, QuickSilver, I’ll admit that I was a bit harsh with you in my last post. But surely you understand why. You DID read the material at the links provided, right? Right? I think I’m allowed a bit of leeway since this is IMHO, and not GD or GQ (where it probably belongs)…and besides, I made up for it by providing cites!
The people yanking your children’s spines about may be good chiropractors. (Are you a good witch or a bad witch?) How will you know? There are good chiropractors…I’ve read a great deal about them and their work lately…the good ones stick to careful, medically-sanctioned treatment of musculo-skeletal discomfort and work closely with MDs. There are also chiropractors who believe in Applied Kinesiology. And they’re licensed by the same boards, and taught in the same schools. It’s a case of the huge bushel of bad apples spoiling it for the one good one. And where children are concerned, I believe, one can’t be too careful.
Jeez…thanks!
Hiro Protagonist said:
Except, of course, the data within the cites already provided. Please read them…then and only then may you misinterpret them.
Particularly when psychic surgery and prayer healing are so successful, huh? :rolleyes:
I believe you meant to make the analogy that my point of view is that of the uneducated, superstitious masses, no? If we take your misguided analogy as you meant it, your version of Columbus didn’t believe what wasn’t proven to him…he didn’t buy the idea that the world was flat just because someone said so…it didn’t make sense to him, and he didn’t accept it on faith. In your version, anyway. So…skepticism is good, then…it doesn’t accept on blind faith what appears on the surface to be unlikely.
So you’re saying that the AMA are the medieval witch doctors? All their germ theory and virus research is blind, unsubstantiated hooey? Yeah…perhaps someone should test that or something. My point being that it has been tested, and verified. Again, and again. Now, if you could demonstrate that subluxations cause illness, then you’d be like Columbus, wouldn’t you? Best of luck. I’m certainly willing to change my mind in the light of new evidence.
[ hijack] You realize, of course, that no educated person since the 3rd century, BCE, thought that the world was flat, right? This whole Columbus-and-the-flat-earth myth should be stamped out by now. Besides, if everyone was telling him the world was flat, and he thought otherwise…and set out to prove it…then doesn’t that make Christopher Columbus, discoverer of new worlds, the skeptic? Hmm? [ /hijack]
In Re: your experiment…
Here’s another good one: Pick up a pencil. Now write your name. Done? Good. Now put the pencil in the other hand. Write your name again. Was it easier the first time? SEE?! It’s because you have Demons living in your body and they usually live in your left hand, hindering your ability to write with that hand, but some people’s demons live in the right hand and there are these subluxations which cause…
Sorry.
Ok. Let’s assume that, as you claim, everyone’s spine is out of alignment. Do we all need adjustment? If adverse conditions such as pinched nerves, slipped disks, and damage to the spinal cord (!) are inherent to everyone’s condition, don’t we all need surgery? Wouldn’t the evil medical community tell us all to go under the knife right away? I mean, damage to the spinal cord (Whee! My very own information superhighway! :rolleyes: ) is very serious business—and you want someone to start bending and stretching my back to cure it?
I know this is IMHO and all, but you realize also that the link you provided was to the “Palmer Chiropractic University,” don’t you? That’s a cite? But the wisdom cometh fast and furious there, I’ll tell ya…from the Palmer site:
“Damned skeptics with their vaccines and their organ transplants! Lemme give the ‘ol neck a twist or two! I’ll get those humours back in balance!”
chortle…sorry…but there’s more…
My suggestion is merely that you do not, in fact, ever seek an alternative to medicine if the medicine works for cryin’ out loud. (Unless the government guys in the black helicopters force the aspirin on you–then we understand.)
Modern medicine is the reason we live so long and enjoy such good lives while we’re here. It doesn’t provide all the answers, but it provides a hell of a lot of them…and it’s working on the rest. “Subluxations.” Please.
Advice well taken by all, no?
Thank you, and Goodnight.