Whats the Straight Dope on Chiropractors?

My step grandfather was one of these…they make ALOT of money this way and its BS. I have several chiropractor customers and their offices look more like a GNC than a doctors office. Walls lined with herbal supplements and such…

I recall when I was 19 I started having a lot of pain in my chest, and I went to doctors and osteopathic doctors (I worked at an Osteopathic teaching hospital in the ER reception) and they would only tell me, nothing is broken, take aspirin.

So I went to a chiropracter. He looked at me did a few “basic tests” and said, “Is there something wrong with you or have you always been this skinny.” I was 6 feet and at the time weighed 135 pounds. I said, “no this is my usual weight.”

He said “That’s the problem you’re too thin.” Then he pointed to my X-Ray and said see this area this is because you have no mass to support your bones and it is hitting these areas (with some other medicalese) and said, "I’m gonna do a few adjustments to relieve the pain, and you join a gym start lifting weights to build mass and all the pain will go away.

I did and that seemed to totally solved the problem. The adjustments worked to relieve the pain, and as soon as I hit 150 pounds the pain died.

But he explained to me he wasn’t one of those chiropracters who believed that this was for everything. He said, “if you have a cold you go to your doctor. If you have pain in your side you come see me and we’ll adjust it.”

I went three times a week for two weeks. Then I went 1 time per week for 4 weeks then I went 1 time per month for six months and that was all.

I think chiropracters CAN be good as a complimentary form to regular physicans. But still after a pack of osteopaths and my own MD couldn’t look at me and tell me my chest pain was from being too thin, and he could does say something. The physicans were looking for disease while he was looking for a cause.

I have seen several chiropractors over the last 30 years and none has ever mentioned subluxations or discussed anything other than the condition of my spine. They all do long massage before any adjustments and depending on my choice of activities and good luck I get anywhere from 3 months to several years between visits. I can only recall a couple of times that I have needed to have a prompt return visit. One of those was for severe shoulder pain that my regular doctor thought would require surgery but 2 neck adjustments a week apart relieved it.

I don’t know anyone who uses a chiropractor here in Australia who has ever heard any mumbo jumbo from them. I wonder if they learn that here?

See, this is the type of verbal mumbo-jumbo that subtracts from any legitimacy that chiropractic might have. “Spinal misalignment.” Truly, what the hell does that actually mean? I’m guessing that such a diagnosis doesn’t often appear in a orthopedic doctor’s notes. Same with “mismatched muscle tension pulling you out of alignment.” It sounds like something from a late-night commercial. What, do our muscles just pull us over or twist us? Anyone trying to explain pain or discomfort by using that language runs the risk of sounding like a flim-flam man. I don’t buy it.

Nor should you. There’s no credible evidence that such factors play any significant role in morbidity or mortality. Muscle ‘knots’ are poorly understood, but there’s no evidence that they are due to muscle tension or being out of alignment, or calcium deposition, or muscle spasm.

I went to a chiropractor for about 2 years, back when I had insurance and they covered everything. About a third of the time I thought it helped; about a third of the time I thought it had no effect; about a third of the time I thought it actually did some harm.

Some of you people are waaaaaaay too negative about chiropractic. I agree that a backcracker is not likely to prevent cancer, but they can work (what feel like) miracles.

Maybe ten years ago, I had a bad case of sciatica. I had to get up, walk around, and change position every couple of minutes. I went to a chiro, and felt much better immediately. Three or so treatments later, and it was gone, and it hasn’t returned. So, in my case, I had immediate and permanent good results.

I have returned a few times over the years for lesser back or neck problems, and it seemed like one or two treatments is all that I have ever needed for relief.

For the record, as I type this, I am not currently experiencing any kind of neck or back discomfort.

YMMV.

p.s. I don’t think “subluxation” means what some of you think it means. My understanding is that it means a misalignment of the spine, causing pressure on nerves. Which is what a chiro should be able to help.

Well, I don’t go to see this chiropractor anymore.

But yes, there are some chiropractors in Australia that talk about subluxation and seem to want you to come back indefinitely.

But it was his too wide, unblinking eyes and fixed smile that really bothered me. :wink:

IIRC, chiropractors and physicians use the term subluxation somewhat differently, in that the medical subluxation can be unambiguously, objectively diagnosed, and the chiropractic version, less so.

A properly trained DO or MD with the right training can provide the usual regular medical and supplemental neuro-skeletal-muscular therapy. And I suspect that a sufficiently broad orthopedics practice can do complete medicine plus the stuff that a D C does.

I am surprised no-one has mentioned the current legal dispute between the British Chiropractic Association and British science author Simon Singh. Singh wrote an article that was critical of the British Chiropractic Association, at least to the extent of suggesting that the BCA made claims that could not be evidentially substantiated.

This has led to a high-profile and ongoing lawsuit, as well as triggering a high-profile campaign to reform the British libel laws. The aim of the campaign (or this particular aspect of it) is to enable responosible writers to be able to point out unsubstantiated claims without fear of expensive legal reprisals wherein the party that can afford to spend the most on lawyers can always win.

I think this is an interesting thread which illustrates rather well the extreme difficulty of asserting whether any given medical or therapeutic treatment actually ‘works’ or ‘does any good’. There are so many variables that it can be very difficult to arrive at an intelligent verdict. In any given field, you are likely to find a range all the way from good, proficient and highly responsible practitioners who know their limits, to total nutcases who can scarecely even be called a quack. You will find plenty of fallacious reasoning among both practitioners and patients, many of whom are seemingly unaware that (a) impressions from personal experience may or not be reliable and (b) the smaller the data set, the less entitled we are to base any conclusions on it. Recommended practices, quality of regulation, quality of teaching and training and so on can all vary widely from one area to another, and trade bodies and professional organisations can be very slow and ineffective when it comes to weeding out the cranks and the negligent. Add the placebo effect into the mix, and it’s not surprising that hard and fast conclusions can be elusive.

In the face of all this possible fog and disagreement, the best tool we currently have for sorting the wheat from the chaff is long-term evaluation using properly regulated and well-conducted independent clinical trials, the larger the better. Even here there are problems - ranging from only mentioning (or even acknowledging the existence of) the trials that deliver the result you want, to the fact that personal bias can and often does influence the conclusions drawn from a given set of data.

All in all, if you try something and you think you get the results you want, good for you. But beware the many pitfalls and traps on the way to that conclusion.

I’ll add my husband’s story to the anecdotes - he has a congenital neck problem in that his neck didn’t grow a proper curve (it’s straight as a board for a number of cervical vertebrae). He has grown bone spurs in this defective area which press on his nerves in the area which causes him chronic pain and numbness in his hand. The medical solution to this is painkillers, muscle relaxants, and if it gets worse, a risky neck surgery. His chiropractor was able to diagnose the problem in the first meeting, which was subsequently confirmed with x-rays. A treatment regimen of manipulation, stretching, and exercise has got the problem down from, “I can’t straighten my neck and my hand is numb” to “I have a chronic, mild condition.” He saw his chiropractor once a week for a couple of months, and now he goes in every so often for a tune-up. The chiropractor also provided him a neck-stretcher for home that keeps his neck in shape. At no point did his chiropractor make any claims about fixing everything that was wrong with him - he claimed to be able to work on Jim’s skeletal system and did so, much like physical therapist, and Jim has been very satisfied with the results.

I’ve had chiro docs help me. IMO, it’s the podiatry docs you should stay away from (see an ortho doc). There’s a saying that those who can’t hack medical school go to podiatry school. Oh, and chiros can’t prescribe medication.

Oh, I know what “subluxation” means, believe me. It is the mainstream chiros that assign a meaning to it that has no foundation in evidence-based medicine.

And the thread that resulted therefrom: Is chiropractic for real or just quackery? - Cecil's Columns/Staff Reports - Straight Dope Message Board

Every chiropractor I’ve ever met uses it in the medical sense. A misaligned vertebrae.

Right, mumbo jumbo. It’s such hocus pocus to believe that the body has a structure with a central pillar that is held erect by muscle tension, not unlike a suspension bridge. No there is no reason to believe this at all. :rolleyes:

Upper Trapezius

Are you serious? No reason to believe that a knot is due to a muscle spasm? I mean they are kind of synonyms.

As for calcium deposits.

Muscle Contraction

Tropomyosin is the protein sheath that covers up the myosin in the sarcomere. The tropomyosin is moved by the calcium and thus the muscle can contract as the actin and myosin are attracted to one another. Too much calcium can keep the tropomyosin triggered.

Now if you want to come up with an actual response to this if you’ve got better information, I am all for it, and would love to hear it. But dimissing it as mumbo jumbo without anything of substance to add is a non-starter. If you have some reason to believe that the work of Dr’s Travell and Simons has been discredited, I’d be fascinated to learn what you know.

I’ve known several chiropractors in my life. And not a one of them has ever talked the way you are claiming. The mainstream ones tend to hew toward the medical end of things and keep a healthy skepticism about the other part of their field. Or at least tend to keep it under their hat. This is one of those things where the myth is largely maintained by the detractors. Kind of like how Conservatives insist there was this legion of religious devotees to Obama who thought he was the messiah. But generally you hear Obama called the Messiah ONLY by his detractors.

I heard from Stephen Wright that precisely 45.7% of all statistics are made up on the spot. :wink:

I don’t think anybody has mentioned the danger of stroke from neck manipulation yet:

Once in a while, my neck slips out of place. One side of my upper body gets weak, I can’t turn my neck, and I basically look like a robot moving around. My wife knows when I have a neck problem, often before I’ve realized that it’s creeping in, just by how I’m moving around.

I’ve tried the ibuprofen route, I’ve tried the vicodin route, I’ve tried the chiropractor route.

The drugs don’t help, and I’d rather not take them. I’d rather get drunk, so that I’m still in pain, but don’t care any more. But if I want the problem to resolve, it’s not drugs or drink that helps… at least until I get an appointment at the bone cracker.

When it’s too bad to function in my daily life, I go to the chiropractor. Within moments of the “crunch” sound, my pain level is GREATLY reduced, and much function returns. A couple of visits, and I’m back to normal. I usually have to push back a bit at scheduling the “next Cadillac appointment,” by telling them that it works the same way every time.

I break.
I visit for 3-5 adjustments.
I’m better.
“See you in a couple of years when it happens again.”

A good practitioner will accept this, the whack jobs won’t. I go back to the guy that accepts this. I’ve been pretty lucky with picking a guy that’s conveniently located, but I’ve heard nightmare stories. If you don’t like someone, find another. There are no lack of offices anywhere I’ve needed one.

Anecdotal, but it’s my experience, and that of others I know. It’s up to you to manage your medical care. If the chiro doesn’t work, visit other medical professionals, and explore their options. Adjustment works for me, and is far less dramatic than surgical intervention, if applicable (I’ve not yet needed to explore it further).