We Haven't Had a "Chiropractic" Thread in Awhile . . .

Great Debates
21

I dislike chiropractors (not personally, just professionally, of course). I think their methods are full of shit and the whole thing is just a money-making scam.

Several friends and family have had chronic back pain and some went to chiropractors for relief. They were told their spines were misaligned, some of their disks had slipped, they were structurally incorrect, etc.

Hilariously, if you think about it, the back is probably the strongest part of the body - it has to protect vital organs and support the head, legs and arms. How could humans have survived and evolved for so many years with such horrible back problems?

None of my friends/relatives continued going to a chiropractor after reading Healing Back Pain : The Mind-Body Connection by John Sarno. Basically the book says that the brain manifests stress and anxiety as back pain (or stomach pain or something similar) to protect itself. The book is scientific and has helped millions of people; I suggest anyone with chronic back/head/stomach pain to research it and read it.

I’m amazed at how quickly backs heal. Two years ago, I violently fell off a running horse. I landed face up on a large boulder. I bruised a kidney and seriously injured my back. I was at 100% two weeks later. Note: I’m not a pillar of health and was told (by an MD) I’d have back problems for the rest of my life. Wrong.

In regards to the man whose children go to a chiropractor: the thought of someone “adjusting” my bones, especially if I have no complaints, pretty much freaks me out. It’s sort of like forcing your kids to wear makeup - even though they’re better off without it, better to “look good”, just in case. Very strange.

22

I’m sure that Jingo can correct me, but wouldn’t the first sentence be more correct if read “Orthopedics is the science…yadda yadda yadda”?

And what do you call a guy who flunks out of medical school?

23

Methinks that this discussion would be better suited for Great Debates, though what I think about a Chiropractic manipulating the still-hardening spine of a child would be better suited for the BBQ Pit.
See ya in the GD, folks!

24

For a good discussion of chiropractic check out QuackWatch http://www.quackwatch.com/ The general feeling there is that chiropractors can have some success with managing lower back pain, but that probably has less to do with the chiro’s “adjustments” than it does with the ordinary physical therapy that is generally all part of their regime.

I myself went to a chiropractor recently to deal with lower back pain due to a disk bulge. I’ve noticed considerable improvement, but I suspect that it had more to do with the ultra-sound massage, ice packs, and excercise than it did with any spinal manipulation.

25

Some additional information.

From Dr. Dean Edell, article on Why Did The Adjustment Make My Back Worse?:

*There really is no such thing as your spine being out of alignment.

We’ve taken spines out of dead people, put them on drill presses and tried to misalign vertebrae and you really can’t. It’s a 100-year-old theory that diseases are caused by subluxations. There is no such thing as a subluxation causing disease. If you have a chiropractor that is telling you that you have diseases based on pinched nerves and subluxations, I would just say prove it. *

Will A Chiropractor Help Me Avoid Sinus Surgery?:

*a chiropractic has no business treating sinus problems.

A modern, ethical chiropractor decries the bad apples in the profession who hold fast to the 19th century idea that all diseases are caused by pinched nerves. What a bunch of bull. *

Rather than send you to another link, let me quote myself when I discussed a Money magazine article on chiropractors back in 1999:

*The author discussed the studies showing that physical therapy and a combination of rest and pain medicine plus exercise can be as effective at treating back pain – at lower cost. The author also points out that there is “no conclusive clinical evidence that chiropractic helps chronic back pain,” which is one reason many people go to chiropractors.

Most important is the author’s dividing up of chiropractors into two groups. She notes that “Roughly 80% of chiropractors believe that spinal misalignment is a significant cause of disease,” and adds, “If yours endorses chiropractic’s use for nonmusculoskeletal problems, such as asthma (for which studies show it is not useful), or encourages you to think of him or her as a primary-care provider, you may want to choose someone else.” She also warns consumers away from chiropractors who want to prescribe herbs or homeopathic remedies.

The author also talks about “scientifically oriented chiropractors,” who treat only musculoskeletal conditions (she even gives a phone number and website to find these “good” types).

The article ends on a good note, explaining that medical experts (except most chiropractors, of course) do not recommend routine chiropractic visits as a way to prevent future problems. This means people should not have standing appointments with a chiropractor, and I hope that a few of the many people who have such scheduled visits read this article and think about whether that type of chiropractic is all it’s cracked up to be.*

Some of the studies mentioned include two studies on chiropractic from the New England Journal of Medicine(10/8/98). One looked at non-traditional use of chiropractic to treat asthma in children. It studied 80 kids with mild to moderate asthma, all of whom were seen by 11 chiropractors to get either standard chiropractic treatment or fake manipulations. After four months, both groups got slightly better, but there was no difference between them (indicating the probability of a placebo effect).

The second study focused more on the standard claims of chiropractic and looked at people with lower back pain. More than 320 people were tested, and it was found that while physical therapy and chiropractic were both mildly beneficial compared to care just under a family doctor, patients did only marginally better than those receiving a $1 booklet on backaches!

To close, let me say that the thought of taking a child to a chiropractor scares the hell out of me. Even if you believe in all the subluxation crap, kids’ spines are still so flexible there is no way they could even need manipulation. And, because their bones are flexible, you can actually do them serious damage with all this manipulation. I recall Dateline NBC or a similar TV newsmagazine doing an investigation into this, and thought I had written it up at some point, but can’t find it now.

26

I’ve been off the boards since last August b/c of a persistent repetitive stress injury. Did physical therapy for 5 months, some massage, exercises, no computer work, anti-inflammatories, anti-convulsants, etc.

Last time I saw the doc, I ticked off on my fingers the treatments I haven’t yet tried [hmmm, rolfing(quack), acupuncture(quack, quack), marijuana (wouldn’t be able to concentrate), heroin(not)…]. He wrote a prescription for chiro. When I called for an appointment, the receptionist told me that chiropractic would definitely cure what I had. At the first appointment, they did this surface EMG thing, and then the chiro yanked on my neck. THAT will wake you right up. She said I’d be feeling better after 3 sessions, but that we would do the whole 12 pack. Before the next appointment, I spent quite some time on quackwatch and chirobase.

When I went in to talk to the chiro about my “results”, she was thoroughly disconcerted by my asking questions about how this was going to help me. “We don’t treat symptoms!” How exactly would chiro help my irritated nerve? “I don’t understand why you don’t understand.” (Quote from quackwatch->) The nerve thing isn’t like squeezing a hose. “That’s exactly what it is!” Is there anything I can read about it? “There aren’t any books written for the layman. You won’t find anything at the library. There’s just this book of testimonials.” She’d given me a short cassette tape that basically covered everything I’d been warned about on quackwatch. Disease! Subluxations! Lifetime adjustments necessary! A pile’o’homeopathic remedies on display!

My point is that I don’t think this woman has ever in her life been questioned. She didn’t know how to deal with it and actually acted offended. Neither my doc, my physical therapist or my massage therapist would claim she could definitely make things better - and fast! If I’m going to bother with a bogus (for my injury) therapy, it’s not going to be such an intrusive one.

27

I have an interesting perspective on this topic, in that my ex-brother-in-law was not only a chiropractor, he was one of those wacky, radical ones who believes that it not only helps with various pains, it can also cure arthritis, prevent colds, etc. And taking shark cartilege tablets will prevent, even cure, cancer, too.

(Additionally, he was, and perhaps still is, a flaming Scientologist. If you’ve ever read up on Scientology, one of the professional realms they really like to infiltrate is chiropractic. There, you’ve got people with lots of money who already are in a bit of a radical, out of the mainstream, us-against-them (the medical community) mentality.)

I received the manipulations quite frequently for a couple of years. My experience? I would say adjustments can help with body aches and pains, and headaches, on occasion. I don’t buy that they do anything else. At all. (Placebo-like effects notwithstanding.)

I haven’t been in several years now. I’m surviving just fine.

If you’re going to go to one, at least hope it’s a semi-reputable, well-trained chiropractitioner. Under certain conditions, getting your neck and spine manipulated around is the WORST thing you could do.

28

Saxface wrote:

Actually, if you do believe in evolution, you gotta understand that the spine evolved for millions of years in most pre-human organisms as a horizontal structure rather than a vertical structure; weight was generally distributed over the length of it rather than from the top down. This, according to my Anthropology professor way back when, is a good indication that man was not ‘created’ perfectly (she took every chance she could to slam creation science, being an anthropologist and all) but shows evidence of evolution; Humans have a spine that was not originally ‘designed’ for bipedal locomotion, and they occasionally pay the price with back problems.

Not that this validates chiropractors claims of misalignments or all that; I have no knowledge or opinions on that matter…

29

Hiro said

Which explains why I keep walking in circles.

I was a fraud investigator for an insurance company for a while. At one of the classes we had, the guest speaker was a chiro. He had gone to many of the Chiro conventions and told some hair raising stories. He said that the focus of these shindigs was on maximizing profit. In a few, the topic was how to keep the patient coming back.

I don’t know about you, but my idea of a cure does not involve treating 52 times a year for life.

I personally went undecover to a chiro. I was perfectly healthy, but claimed back pain. I was told that my legs were uneven proving a subluxation. A grainy x-ray “proved” that I had nerve impingement. I was taken off wok completely and told to come back 3 times a week.

I could get into the quack treatments like deep heating and laser therapy, but why bother. Most chiros are quacks. those that are not are, well, holistic massage healers.

The quacks cost you and I billions by supporting bogus insurance claims and work comp claims. Personally, I think that they are on the level of the attorneys that advertise on TV…no, actually, lower.

30

My husband’s family deeply believes the claims of their chiropractor. (They’re also fundamentalist Christians. Is there a link there? You be the judge.)

This chiro is one of the “bad” ones who claims to be able to cure colds, cancer, mental illness, etc. He is the family’s primary “physician” and strongly discourages them from ever seeking help from real doctors; he is rabidly anti-vaccination, so my sister-in-law forges her kids’ shot records. He claims that he was in a terrible car accident many years ago and would have died without getting chiropractic help. (?)

He also sells a wide assortment of expensive vitamins and herbs and insists that these must be taken in abundance. My other sister-in-law was experiencing repeated, severe attacks of kidney and gall stones, nausea, and generalized illness for several months. The chiro sold her more and more vitamins and herbs and scheduled her to come in for more frequent adjustments. I urged her to stop taking the vitamins at least temporarily. She finally did, and all of her symptoms disappeared. Vitamins and herbs are not harmless when taken in huge doses.

My third sister-in-law went to see him because she had the flu. He instructed her to stop wearing metal jewelry for one week. By god, it worked! She was offended when I pointed out that her flu would have improved in a week whether she wore metal jewelry or not.

When my husband and I were first married, my husband still bought into this man’s claims. It was the only “doctor” he knew. Once, the chiro gave my husband an adjustment because Eric had pulled a muscle playing baseball. Eric immediately had extreme pain that lasted several weeks; he couldn’t turn his head, dress himself, eat, or sleep.

This “doctor” also told me he could cure my clinical depression by pressing on a certain place inside my mouth, and told me to come in at least once per week for this treatment. Now, this was extremely unwise. The placebo effect does not work well on suicidally depressed people. Any reputable doctor would have referred me to someone who was qualified to treat my condition. I wonder if any of his patients with depression have committed suicide.

I could go on and on about this creep.

31

What Palmer College neglects to mention is D. D. Palmer claims the adjustment which started chiropractic in 1985 supposedly cured a deaf man of his deafness. One should be highly suspicious of this.

Do chiropratic adjustments help with back pain? Sure. So does bed rest.

If only chiropractors limited themselves to treating musculoskelatal diseases. They claim the source of all disease is subluxation of the nerves- not viruses, bateria, hormonal imbalences. This is quackery, pure and simple.

32

Eve wrote:

This sounds suspiciously like “original sin.” It’s something you inherit simply by being born.

You’d think that with all them thar human births going on for, what, 3 or 4 million years now?, that our spine would have evolved so that it’d come through the birthing process intact.

33

Coolie wrote:

Having grown up in Bettendorf, I heard this story more than once – however, I’m pretty sure the date was 1895, as I was no longer living in the Quad Cities in 1985, so I wouldn’t have heard the story. :wink:

Another reason to be suspicious of chiropractic, depending on your political views, is that it arguably led to the modern conservative movement in US politics.

Palmer, with the money he made from the practice and teaching of chiropractic, started a couple of radio stations, WOC (for World Of Chiropractic) in Davenport, and WHO in Des Moines. Ronald Reagan got his first broadcasting job at WOC, and then went on to WHO, from which he went on to Hollywood, Sacramento, and the White House.

It can be argued that without the genial presence of Reagan to lead the conservative cause, the right wing of the Republican party would never have become so dominant, and the current GOP would be more like the party of Nixon and Rockefeller, for what that’s worth.

Note that I take this argument with more than one grain of salt, and so should you.

34

I’ve been seeing a chiropractor on a semi-regular basis for about six months.

I have a lot of back problems related to a factory job I had in my early twenties, which really messed me up pretty bad. I saw a chiropractor back then, but he basically put me back together so that I could go back to work and mess myself up again.

I’ve had mostly nuisance level little kinks that come and go off and on for the past ten years or so. But it can get really bad when I’m under stress, and I’ve been through a couple of ,um, involuntary job changes over the past six months (more to do with workplace politics than job performance.)

I started seeing my current chiropractor after I threw my back out on the game (I’m a craps dealer).Prior to that, I’d been having a lot of pain for about three weeks, muscles went into spasm. I was in so much pain I would actually cry on the game. I went to a “real” doctor, got trigger point injections, which didn’t do a damn bit of good. I finally went to a chiropractor who was recommended to me by my priest. Two adjustments and I couldn’t believe the improvement. After a while, I got to the point that I didn’t need to see her as often. I actually went over a month, then I lost another job (the work environment was like a middle school clique, and if you didn’t fit in with the “popular” kids, then God help you), found a new one, back started hurting again… she popped it back into place, lent a sympathetic ear, and sent me on my way.

I think that the stress causes a lot of muscle tension, which pulls the spine just a little out of whack which leads to more muscle tension…

Dr. Maria does a great job.

I don’t think chiropractic is a “cure all” for all of mankind’s ailments, but for muscular-skeletal back problems, it’s definitely something to look into before resorting to surgery.

35

Is there any evidence that Chiropractic treatment reduces the incidence or severity of back pain in the long run?