The following is a guest post by Preston H. Long. It is an excerpt from his new book entitled ‘Chiropractic Abuse—A Chiropractor’s Lament’. Preston H. Long is a licensed chiropractor from Arizona. His professional career has spanned nearly 30 years. In addition to treating patients, he has testified at about 200 trials, performed more than 10,000 chiropractic case evaluations, and served as a consultant to several law enforcement agencies. He is also an associate professor at Bryan University, where he teaches in the master’s program in applied health informatics. His new book is one of the very few that provides an inside criticism of chiropractic. It is well worth reading, in my view.
Have you ever consulted a chiropractor? Are you thinking about seeing one? Do you care whether your tax and health-care dollars are spent on worthless treatment? If your answer to any of these questions is yes, there are certain things you should know.
1. Chiropractic theory and practice are not based on the body of knowledge related to health, disease, and health care that has been widely accepted by the scientific community.
Most chiropractors believe that spinal problems, which they call “subluxations,” cause ill health and that fixing them by “adjusting” the spine will promote and restore health. The extent of this belief varies from chiropractor to chiropractor. Some believe that subluxations are the primary cause of ill health; others consider them an underlying cause. Only a small percentage (including me) reject these notions and align their beliefs and practices with those of the science-based medical community. The ramifications and consequences of subluxation theory will be discussed in detail throughout this book.
2. Many chiropractors promise too much.
The most common forms of treatment administered by chiropractors are spinal manipulation and passive physiotherapy measures such as heat, ultrasound, massage, and electrical muscle stimulation. These modalities can be useful in managing certain problems of muscles and bones, but they have little, if any, use against the vast majority of diseases. But chiropractors who believe that “subluxations” cause ill health claim that spinal adjustments promote general health and enable patients to recover from a wide range of diseases. The illustrations below reflect these beliefs. The one to the left is part of a poster that promotes the notion that periodic spinal “adjustments” are a cornerstone of good health. The other is a patient handout that improperly relates “subluxations” to a wide range of ailments that spinal adjustments supposedly can help. Some charts of this type have listed more than 100 diseases and conditions, including allergies, appendicitis, anemia, crossed eyes, deafness, gallbladder problems, hernias, and pneumonia.
A 2008 survey found that exaggeration is common among chiropractic Web sites. The researchers looked at the Web sites of 200 chiropractors and 9 chiropractic associations in Australia, Canada, New Zealand, the United Kingdom, and the United States. Each site was examined for claims suggesting that chiropractic treatment was appropriate for asthma, colic, ear infection/earache/otitis media, neck pain, whiplash, headache/migraine, and lower back pain. The study found that 95% of the surveyed sites made unsubstantiated claims for at least one of these conditions and 38% made unsubstantiated claims for all of them.1 False promises can have dire consequences to the unsuspecting.
3. Our education is vastly inferior to that of medical doctors.
I rarely encountered sick patients in my school clinic. Most of my “patients” were friends, students, and an occasional person who presented to the student clinic for inexpensive chiropractic care. Most had nothing really wrong with them. In order to graduate, chiropractic college students are required to treat a minimum number of people. To reach their number, some resort to paying people (including prostitutes) to visit them at the college’s clinic.2
Students also encounter a very narrow range of conditions, most related to aches and pains. Real medical education involves contact with thousands of patients with a wide variety of problems, including many severe enough to require hospitalization. Most chiropractic students see patients during two clinical years in chiropractic college. Medical students also average two clinical years, but they see many more patients and nearly all medical doctors have an additional three to five years of specialty training before they enter practice.
Chiropractic’s minimum educational standards are quite low. In 2007, chiropractic students were required to evaluate and manage only 15 patients in order to graduate. Chiropractic’s accreditation agency ordered this number to increase to 35 by the fall of 2011. However, only 10 of the 35 must be live patients (eight of whom are not students or their family members)! For the remaining cases, students are permitted to “assist, observe, or participate in live, paper-based, computer-based, distance learning, or other reasonable alternative.”3 In contrast, medical students see thousands of patients.
Former National Council Against Health Fraud President William T. Jarvis, Ph.D., has noted that chiropractic school prepares its students to practice “conversational medicine”—where they glibly use medical words but lack the knowledge or experience to deal appropriately with the vast majority of health problems.4 Dr. Stephen Barrett reported a fascinating example of this which occurred when he visited a chiropractor for research purposes. When Barrett mentioned that he was recovering from an attack of vertigo (dizziness), the chiropractor quickly rattled off a textbook-like list of all the possible causes. But instead of obtaining a proper history and conducting tests to pinpoint a diagnosis, he x-rayed Dr. Barrett’s neck and recommended a one-year course of manipulations to make his neck more curved. The medical diagnosis, which had been appropriately made elsewhere, was a viral infection that cleared up spontaneously in about ten days.5
4. Our legitimate scope is actually very narrow.
Appropriate chiropractic treatment is relevant only to a narrow range of ailments, nearly all related to musculoskeletal problems. But some chiropractors assert that they can influence the course of nearly everything. Some even offer adjustments to farm animals and family pets.
5. Very little of what chiropractors do has been studied.
Although chiropractic has been around since 1895, little of what we do meets the scientific standard through solid research. Chiropractic apologists try to sound scientific to counter their detractors, but very little research actually supports what chiropractors do.
6. Unless your diagnosis is obvious, it’s best to get diagnosed elsewhere.
During my work as an independent examiner, I have encountered many patients whose chiropractor missed readily apparent diagnoses and rendered inappropriate treatment for long periods of time. Chiropractors lack the depth of training available to medical doctors. For that reason, except for minor injuries, it is usually better to seek medical diagnosis first.
7. We offer lots of unnecessary services.
Many chiropractors, particularly those who find “subluxations” in everyone, routinely advise patients to come for many months, years, and even for their lifetime. Practice-builders teach how to persuade people they need “maintenance care” long after their original problem has resolved. In line with this, many chiropractors offer “discounts” to patients who pay in advance and sign a contract committing them for 50 to 100 treatments. And “chiropractic pediatric specialists” advise periodic examinations and spinal adjustments from early infancy onward. (This has been aptly described as “womb to tomb” care.) Greed is not the only factor involved in overtreatment. Many who advise periodic adjustments are “true believers.” In chiropractic school, one of my classmates actually adjusted his newborn son while the umbilical cord was still attached. Another student had the school radiology department take seven x-rays of his son’s neck to look for “subluxations” presumably acquired during the birth process. The topic of unnecessary care is discussed further in Chapter 8.
8. “Cracking” of the spine doesn’t mean much.
Spinal manipulation usually produces a “popping” or “cracking” sound similar to what occurs when you crack your knuckles. Both are due to a phenomenon called cavitation, which occurs when there is a sudden decrease in joint pressure brought on by the manipulation. That allows dissolved gasses in the joint fluid to be released into the joint itself. Chiropractors sometimes state that the noise means that something therapeutic has taken place. However, the noise has no health-related significance and does not indicate that anything has been realigned. It simply means that gas was allowed to escape under less pressure than normal. Knuckles do not “go back into place” when you crack them, and neither do spinal bones.
9. If the first few visits don’t help you, more treatment probably won’t help.
I used to tell my patients “three and through.” If we did not see significant objective improvement in three visits, it was time to move on.
10. We take too many x-rays.
No test should be done unless it is likely to provide information that will influence clinical management of the patient. X-ray examinations are appropriate when a fracture, tumor, infection, or neurological defect is suspected. But they are not needed for evaluating simple mechanical-type strains, such as back or neck pain that develops after lifting a heavy object.
The average number of x-rays taken during the first visit by chiropractors whose records I have been asked to review has been about eleven. Those records were sent to me because an insurance company had flagged them for investigation into excessive billing, so this number of x-rays is much higher than average. But many chiropractors take at least a few x-rays of everyone who walks through their door.
There are two main reasons why chiropractors take more x-rays than are medically necessary. One is easy money. It costs about 35¢ to buy an 8- x 10-inch film, for which they typically charge $40. In chiropractic, the spine encompasses five areas: the neck, mid-back, low-back, pelvic, and sacral regions. That means five separate regions to bill for—typically three to seven views of the neck, two to six for the low back, and two for each of the rest. So eleven x-ray films would net the chiropractor over $400 for just few minutes of work. In many accident cases I have reviewed, the fact that patients had adequate x-ray examinations in a hospital emergency department to rule out fractures did not deter the chiropractor from unnecessarily repeating these exams.
Chiropractors also use x-ray examinations inappropriately for marketing purposes. Chiropractors who do this point to various things on the films that they interpret as (a) subluxations, (b) not enough spinal curvature, (c) too much spinal curvature, and/or (d) “spinal decay,” all of which supposedly call for long courses of adjustments with periodic x-ray re-checks to supposedly assess progress. In addition to wasting money, unnecessary x-rays entail unnecessary exposure to the risks of ionizing radiation.
11. Research on spinal manipulation does not reflect what takes place in most chiropractic offices.
Research studies that look at spinal manipulation are generally done under strict protocols that protect patients from harm. The results reflect what happens when manipulation is done on patients who are appropriately screened—usually by medical teams that exclude people with conditions that would make manipulation dangerous. The results do not reflect what typically happens when patients select chiropractors on their own. The chiropractic marketplace is a mess because most chiropractors ignore research findings and subject their patients to procedures that are unnecessary and/or senseless.
12. Neck manipulation is potentially dangerous.
Certain types of chiropractic neck manipulation can damage neck arteries and cause a stroke. Chiropractors claim that the risk is trivial, but they have made no systematic effort to actually measure it. Chapter 9 covers this topic in detail.
13. Most chiropractors don’t know much about nutrition.
Chiropractors learn little about clinical nutrition during their schooling. Many offer what they describe as “nutrition counseling.” But this typically consists of superficial advice about eating less fat and various schemes to sell you supplements that are high-priced and unnecessary.
14. Chiropractors who sell vitamins charge much more than it costs them.
Chiropractors who sell vitamins typically recommend them unnecessarily and charge two to three times what they pay for them. Some chiropractors center their practice around selling vitamins to patients. Their recommendations are based on hair analysis, live blood analysis, applied kinesiology muscle-testing or other quack tests that will be discussed later in this book. Patients who are victimized this way typically pay several dollars a day and are encouraged to stay on the products indefinitely. In one case I investigated, an Arizona chiropractor advised an 80+-year-old grandma to charge more than $10,000 for vitamins to her credit cards to avoid an impending stroke that he had diagnosed by testing a sample of her pubic hair. No hair test can determine that a stroke is imminent or show that dietary supplements are needed. Doctors who evaluated the woman at the Mayo Clinic found no evidence to support the chiropractor’s assessment.
15. Chiropractors have no business treating young children.
The pediatric training chiropractors receive during their schooling is skimpy and based mainly on reading. Students see few children and get little or no experience in diagnosing or following the course of the vast majority of childhood ailments. Moreover, spinal adjustment has no proven effectiveness against childhood diseases. Some adolescents with spinal stiffness might benefit from manipulation, but most will recover without treatment. Chiropractors who claim to practice “chiropractic pediatrics” typically aim to adjust spines from birth onward and are likely to oppose immunization. Some chiropractors claim they can reverse or lessen the spinal curvature of scoliosis, but there is no scientific evidence that spinal manipulation can do this.6
16. The fact that patients swear by us does not mean we are actually helping them.
Satisfaction is not the same thing as effectiveness. Many people who believe they have been helped had conditions that would have resolved without treatment. Some have had treatment for dangers that did not exist but were said by the chiropractor to be imminent. Many chiropractors actually take courses on how to trick patients to believe in them. (See Chapter 8)
17. Insurance companies don’t want to pay for chiropractic care.
Chiropractors love to brag that their services are covered by Medicare and most insurance companies. However, this coverage has been achieved though political action rather than scientific merit. I have never encountered an insurance company that would reimburse for chiropractic if not forced to do so by state laws. The political pressure to mandate chiropractic coverage comes from chiropractors, of course, but it also comes from the patients whom they have brainwashed.
18. Lots of chiropractors do really strange things.
The chiropractic profession seems to attract people who are prone to believe in strange things. One I know of does “aura adjustments” to treat people’s “bruised karma.” Another rents out a large crystal to other chiropractors so they can “recharge” their own (smaller) crystals. Another claims to get advice by “channeling” a 15th Century Scottish physician. Another claimed to “balance a woman’s harmonics” by inserting his thumb into her vagina and his index finger into her anus. Another treated cancer with an orange light that was mounted in a wooden box. Another did rectal exams on all his female patients. Even though such exams are outside the legitimate scope of chiropractic, he also videotaped them so that if his bills for this service were questioned, he could prove that he had actually performed what he billed for.
19. Don’t expect our licensing boards to protect you.
Many chiropractors who serve on chiropractic licensing boards harbor the same misbeliefs that are rampant among their colleagues. This means, for example, that most boards are unlikely to discipline chiropractors for diagnosing and treating imaginary “subluxations.”
20. The media rarely look at what we do wrong.
The media rarely if ever address chiropractic nonsense. Reporting on chiropractic is complicated because chiropractors vary so much in what they do. (In fact, a very astute observer once wrote that “for every chiropractor, there is an equal and opposite chiropractor.”) Consumer Reports published superb exposés in 1975 and 1994, but no other print outlet has done so in the past 35 years. This lack of information is the main reason I have written this book.
References
1. Ernst E, Gilbey A. Chiropractic claims in the English-speaking world. New Zealand Medical Journal 123:36–44, 2010.
2. Bernet J. Affidavit, April 12, 1996. Posted to Chirobase Web site.
3. Standards for Doctor of Chiropractic Programs and Requirements for Institutional Status. Council on Chiropractic Education, Scottsdale, Arizona, Jan 2007.
4. Jarvis WT. Why becoming a chiropractor may be risky. Chirobase Web site, October 5, 1999.
5. Barrett S. My visit to a “straight” chiropractor. Quackwatch Web site, Oct 10, 2002.
6. Romano M, Negrini S. Manual therapy as a conservative treatment for idiopathic scoliosis: A review. Scoliosis 3:2, 2008.
I have just started reading Preston Long’s book and, having read most skeptical books on chiropractic, I have to say that I’m particularly shocked by this one. I’ve only got as far as p.15, but have already read about rampant cheating in exams and am now learning about the frightening standards of teaching at the chiropractic college where where Preston Long studied. One small example of what he was confronted with:
Quote:
The head of the Biology Department used the word “pacific” to refer to specific microorganisms.
This book is an absolute must buy for anyone wanting an in-depth look behind the chiropractic facade.
Thanks for the remarks Blue Wde. It seems you are the only one here that has bothered to read the book before pronouncing on it’s bias. Good for you.
All my best,
Preston
I will be honest in that I have not read your book, so cannot speak on it, however commenting on what I read on this website, I feel bad for you. The school you’ve gone to (I can only hope it doesn’t exist right now) has obviously not given you a great education, and I feel bad you had this experience. I finished chiropractic scool not too long ago, and I saw over 500 different patient in my clinic, with many different diseases, along with chronic low back pain, or neck pain. I would say that over 50% of them have gotten no help from their medical doctors, when it comes to their pain and expected very litle from me, since they’ve been disappointed with our healthcare system. Furthermore, I had a choice of going to medical school, but lost 2 grandparents because of medical mistakes, and decided that is not what I want to do. I think it is very low of you to attack a profession which focuses on helping people and bringing them back to health. I am in no shape or form denying the need for the medical profession, and if I am bleeding internally, or having a stroke I would sure hope I will be taken to the ER and not the chiropractor’s office, however we are not inferior in treating many of the diseases that MD’s treat, and for many of us newly graduated doctors this is not accomplished through an adjestment, but functional medicine.
@Lina
Just one question: with all that success you claim for chiropractic, why is there no good research evidence to substantiate these claims?
Let me answer that for you in her absence. “Crickets chirping”
Exactly which claims are you speaking of? You are painting the whole profession with one brush. Many of the claims are very well researched in peer reviewed journals such as JMPT.
Tyler said:
The claims Lina made.
Quite possibly. But the paucity of good evidence is not my problem, is it?
Perhaps you could highlight the evidence you believe to be the most compelling?
This book is EXCELLENT! I used it as a reference for a report on ‘Modern Day Quackery’, which included chiropractic, acupuncture, reflexology, Reiki, etc. As the daughter of a science professor and a CN3-RN that supervised our hospital, I grew up with a healthy understanding of medical practices and hearing about patients that were seriously damaged due to being treated by the local chiropractor for herniated discs, degenerative disc disorder, osteoarthritis, Rheumatoid Arthritis, etc. and were brought into the hospital needing extensive treatment. I can remember my mother being furious at the elderly patients who had been ‘robbed’ because they placed their trust in what she considered a con artist.
Before I became a psychologist, I was in advertising and marketing and chiropractors spent tons of money advertising. While it added to my commissions, it just reaffirmed that a good doctor doesn’t have to advertise for patients. I also make it a point to never have medical services performed in malls, indoor or strip malls are where you find all these types of ‘healers’. I have told many friends that if they don’t want to see a medical doctor, just throw the money down a toilet. It will have a safer outcome than being ‘adjusted!
I have researched lots of medical practices. Including working in emergency rooms, Osteopathic dr, Chiros…
What research do you need when you can actually see it happen? I once saw a chiro’s patient with a couple ribs out. I was able to feel the difference of before and after adjustments. I have also seen before and after x-rays. The chiro simply moved (adjusted) the ribs back into place. Why is that so hard to understand?
You guys are being ridiculous. What’s your motive?
@blakeb
I once saw a fellow pull a rabbit out of an empty hat.
Your proof is…?
BTW. You don’t need a chiropractor for rib dislocation, something physiotherapists and ER physicians usually take care of.
Because no 2 people will have the exact same ailment! Your opinion is wrong to encompass all chiropractors into your bubble. B-(
Whose comment are you responding to, Tiffany?
There is plenty of good research, search the PubMed literature
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/15319761
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/21640251
http://chiromt.biomedcentral.com/articles/10.1186/s12998-015-0075-6
http://www.chiro.org/Wilk/#Opinion_and_Order
http://www.nytimes.com/1987/08/29/us/us-judge-finds-medical-group-conspired-against-chiropractors.html
Spinal manipulation provides modest short- and long-term relief of back pain, improves psychological well-being, and increases functioning.2,30 The benefits derived are not dependent on the type of training of the manipulator because osteopathic and chiropractic outcomes appear to be similar
http://www.aafp.org/afp/2009/0615/p1067.html
@Valerie
Have you ever heard of the term “Cherry Picking” ? We can all find articles and publications to support whatever we like. As an example, almost half of all that is written about homeopathy is “positive” even if homeopathy is certifiable nonsense. If you only pick from the side you like, you can make endless, seemingly convincing lists of “evidence” like the one you put up.
If you want to convince this crowd you will have to look at the totality of evidence. That has been done many times over and the result… negative. Why do you think the British chiropractic association was unable to provide evidence that Simon Singh was wrong in 2008? Because the evidence is not available. Instead of writing a long thesis on the matter I’ll simply link to this starting point where you can find a lot of information and go from there with your fact-finding about the true nature of DD Palmer’s heritage. Not that I think a Florida chiropractor will be persuaded to leave the lucrative business, but at least the audience can form their own opinion and spare themselves the cost of chiropractic thumping and clicking theatricals.
And: http://www.csicop.org/si/show/why_bogus_therapies_seem_to_work/
I have not read your book nor do I have to. You have something to sell and you are pushing an old and very tired proposition. Chiropractic is bogus. Ya heard that before. You even quote the chirohater Jarivs who has been shown to be a quack himself. He has nothing to sell but his antichrio rhetoric. Shame on you for even using anything he says. If that is your type of research it is another reason I don’t have to read your book.
I am a third generation DC who in my sixties would no change to another profession nor would I want doctors of Chiropractic to add drugs to their treatment protocols.
My grandfather was threatened with jail for practicing medicine without a license. We have been push outside the “mainstream” of healthcare by those that could not get us to sell their drugs or agree in the gene theory of disease. Science now is proving us right. Our current healthcare system is all about treating chronic disease not about improving function. A great result is about making you numb not helping you function optimally. Think about it. The current system of healthcare is stuck back in the gene model of disease treatment. Where is your book on that one bro.
For those that read this with any type of an open mind chew on this. If what he says is totally true why is the profession still in existence? In the USA if you make a poor product consumers catch on and the product or service goes out of buninsess. That is unles it is supported by the gov’t and insurance and that is what we currently have. If Chiros are such bozo’s and rotten liars how have they fooled the public for all these years? Maybe they are super conmen and women who are the best in the world at deceiving themselves and the public. In the state I am from Wisconsin, a study was performed by the U of Wisconsin where DC’s were found to be just as beneficial as their MD counterparts and people liked them better for they felt DC’s talked to them and were more personal. For many many years why has the consumer paid out of his pocket to get this quackery? Yes, the amount of money spent on alternative healthcare was equal to or greater then what wa spent on primary care. And that care was covered by ins. Or basically free. Why? Maybe it was that the uneducated were being duped. Billions of dollars on marketing. Nope, The demographic for a Chiro patient is a female with a masters degree. It used to be the blue collar guy but he now is being funneled to use only medical care due to financial reasons. The more educated have more expendable income so they read study and seek alternatives to the seriously dangerous failed medical system we have. They have read that the poor and blue collar who use the current system have horrendous results and they being more educated chose to avoid the “real” quacks.”
Your information is so old and out of date is it pathetic. It shows that you are an old fart like me but one that has a reverence for a failed system of healthcare. For those that are still reading this take a look at young Dr. Chestnut’s information on the evidence basis for Chiropractic. It could change your life.
Before I close. If chiropractic is so terrible and bogus then how did a dope like me build eight clinics teaching and training dozens of docs, and most recently why would I be asked to start a school in another country to teach what I do. Yes, asked by medical doctors who are my patients. They are not effected by big pharma they are too poor. They aren’t concerned about your petty self serving whine about the profession. They only know what they have seen and experienced just like consumers here in the states. They see it work and change lives over and over and they want it just like consumers around the world for even China has now put it into their healthcare system.
Why would it be spreading around the world friend?
Are there people out there who cannot be trusted to help us? Yes. Is this book one of them? Yes. It does not take us toward the light but away from it. Read study and then go meet a young smart doctor of chiropractic, I just hired two this past year. They care deeply about their patients and are dedicating their lives to the service of others. If you smell a salesman or women run for there are plenty of cons in every profession and it is always up to us to sort them out. (Just heard of one in the dental profession. One dentist says it will cost thousands the next fixes it right on the spot for hundreds)
This baby Chiropractic is a beauty and does not need to be thrown out with the proverbial bath water. If that were the case all of healthcare would have to be thrown out. Be the wise consumer and take this mans information with a grain of salt for it does represent the profession.
Please reference Wilk v American Medical Association. It’s the reason doctors can’t practice chiropractic without a license, and was upheld by the US Supreme Court. The AMA was even ordered to enclose the courts ruling in their publications, telling physicians that their medical knowledge and education was partial and bias, in a conspiracy to eliminate the Chiropractic practice (when of course, you would expect for med scholl training to be unbias).
The presiding judge in the final ruling stated there was, “‘systematic, long-term wrongdoing and the long-term intent to destroy a licensed profession”, and it concluded that the conspiracy’s “lingering effects” still threatened the chiropractic practice, snd ordered injunctive relief. Thus, medical professionals are unqualified to practice chiropractic without a license.
The courts response to the AMA’s defense of genuine care for patients;
“The court finds the AMA failed to establish that throughout the relevant period (1966-1980) their concern for scientific methods in patient care had been objectively reasonable. The court also finds the AMA similarly failed to show it could not adequately have satisfied its concern for scientific method in patient care in a manner less restrictive of competition than a nationwide conspiracy to eliminate a licensed profession…. during the period that the Committee on Quackery was operating, there was plenty of material supporting the belief that all chiropractic was unscientific. But, according to the court (and this is unchallenged), at the same time, there was evidence before the Committee that chiropractic was effective, indeed more effective than the medical profession, in treating certain kinds of problems, such as back injuries. The Committee was also aware… some medical physicians believed chiropractic could be effective and that chiropractors were better trained to deal with musculoskeletal problems than most medical physicians. Moreover, the AMA’s own evidence suggested that at some point during its lengthy boycott, there was no longer an objectively reasonable concern that would support a boycott of the entire chiropractic profession. Also important was the fact that “it was very clear” that the Committee’s members did not have open minds to pro-chiropractic arguments or evidence.”
The AMA’s present position regarding chiropractic is that it is ethical for a medical physician to professionally associate with chiropractors, if the physician believes that the association is in his patient’s best interests. The district court found that the AMA had not previously communicated this position to its membership.
Good job chris! I had wanted to use my “anecdotal” plumbing story to reach the same conclusion but it would have been met with such derision I kept it to myself….
@Chris
Thanks for drawing our attention to this ruling. I followed your suggestion and looked it up. Among other things the judge said: “The plaintiffs clearly want more from the court. They want a judicial pronouncement that chiropractic is a valid, efficacious, even scientific health care service. I believe that the answer to that question can only be provided by a well designed, controlled, scientific study… No such study has ever been done. In the absence of such a study, the court is left to decide the issue on the basis of largely anecdotal evidence. I decline to pronounce chiropractic valid or invalid on anecdotal evidence.”
What the judge ruled was that, in law, the AMA had been unreasonable in boycotting chiropractors. The trial proves not a thing for or against chiropractic. The case only goes to illuminate the difference between law and science.
Why don’t you read the journal of manipulative therapy? There are many studies there on manipulation.
I do read it!
mostly trash
but here is something that is interesting: http://edzardernst.com/2016/09/a-new-systematic-review-of-chiropractic-for-low-back-pain-far-less-encouraging-than-chiros-make-us-believe/
But are there any of good scientific quality?
@ Dr. M on Tuesday 13 September 2016 at 20:38
“Why don’t you read the journal of manipulative therapy? There are many studies there on manipulation.”
My guess is you are a chiro and you wouldn’t know research even if it poked you in the eye with a sharp stick.
I broke my back and neck. Five fractured vertebrae left me crippled. I was able to start walking again on my own after MD’s told me it would never happen. They wanted to operate on my spine and fuse my bones together. This would make me able to stand upright but could never twist left or right. I almost went for it if not for all the research I did first and reading all the horror stories of people who went through similar treatment. Through a combination of physical therapy and chiropractic care, not only am I able to stand upright, but I can play sports. I have since learned to snowboard, scuba dive, I now take ving tsun kung fu. I just ran 9 miles the other day. I am able to play with my two small children and lift them up. I can make love to my wife. I can do yard work. I can live a normal life. Chiropractic had no small role in this. Sure, I’m in pain most of the time, but I still have yet to have any surgeries done for my spine and it’s been ten years since I broke it. Just like any doctor, chiropractic alone didn’t do it. It was through my own research and vigilance that got me here. This is not to say that there are no bad chiropractors out there either. I’ve been adjusted thousands of times by dozens of chiropractors and half of them shouldn’t be practicing. The best chiropractors are the ones who use minimal equipment and can “feel” by touch that your spine is out of alignment. The chiropractors who are continuously educating themselves and their patients are usually the good ones. Also, chiropractic is not for everyone and definitely not for everything. Since going to the chiropractor, my sinus problems have disappeared, my digestive issues have gone away. Not all problems are cured by chiropractic, but many are caused by pinched nerves which when relieved, allow the body to heal itself. Chiropractic saved my life. Sure, I might still be alive without it, but I’d have no life.
@Jason J
Your experience of recovery from serious, multiple injury is not unique. It is shared by thousands, who never paid chiropractors to pretend they did something useful for them while nature took its course. I dare guess that it was a chiropractor who convinced you that surgery would have been a bad choice, they are usually good at that sort of self-promotion 😉
> BTW. You don’t need a chiropractor for rib dislocation, something physiotherapists and ER physicians usually take care of.
Physical therapists require a referral, which means getting an appointment with my regular doctor, which means waiting for a week, and then waiting to get an appointment with PT, which is usually a few days after that. Estimated total cost: $800.
The urgent care doctor told me that it wasn’t possible to dislocate ribs, but he was perfectly willing to prescribe drugs for the pain. What they billed my insurance company: about $350 (I don’t use emergency rooms for non-emergency medical problems, and I hope that you don’t, either.)
The chiropractor had it fixed in 30 seconds after she walked into the room. Total cost: $85, including parking
Which one would you start with next time?
You know, don’t get OVERLY excited with rib dislocations. It sounds quite funky. SHOULDER dislocations are bound to happen because the ligaments stabilizing the joints are not very strong and tight, and the stability is increased by the bounding musculature primarily (and to a smaller extent, by the atmospheric pressure at sea level, however funny that may sound). Also, the ball-and-socket joint structure is such that dislocation may not self-resolve because the socket may obstruct the ball from slipping back.
Ribs, on the other hand, are PLANE (GLIDING) joints, articulating with the spine and the sternum and the ligaments over there are VERY tight to constrain the range of motion. They are also supported by musculature interconnecting them (intercostal muscles), as well as connecting them to multiple other bony structures all around, even to your pelvis (iliocostalis etc.), but the ligaments are much more important stabilizers. A rib dislocation is NOT a very clear orthopedic diagnosis, it is extremely controversial in the discipline. I MIGHT accept that there is the possibility of a sprain on some of the costovertebral or sternocostal joint ligaments and some of the surrounding and supporting muscles go into spasm, altering movement patterns and possibly palpable as local bumps. A true rib dislocation around the joint area would entail SERIOUS nerve or vessel compressions, and sounds to me more likely to be attributable to a fracture. A quick scan of the literature shows VERY few recorded “so-called” rib dislocation cases, which almost exclusively accompany severe scoliosis.
Furthermore, there are reasons for the complicated referral systems.
-One of them is to seamlessly pipeline the course from diagnosis to treatment, and allow for consistent practice of one profession, without having to be an expert in another profession (an orthopedic diagnoses you, but they cannot be bothered with the hands-on approaches, or rehabilitate you – conversely, a physiotherapist knows what to do for which conditions, but they cannot be bothered to get into intricate diagnosis-making, it’s not their job anyway). So, specialization and within-specialty collaboration are some of the factors for effective medical practice.
-Another one is giving the possibility to enforce accountability for anything performed. People are less prone to screw up when they follow strict protocols, both due to the protocols and due to the fear of being held accountable. In other words, it is for your own safety. The estimated total costs are so high PRECISELY because it takes a huge amount of resources to study, create protocols, perform trials, ascertain the evidence and instate the reliable methodologies followed. Couple that with the countless man-years it takes to become a qualified health professional, such as in the various subdomains of medicine. I know it sounds like a lot, but, really, that’s how it goes.
So, “the chiropractor fixed it in 30 seconds” sounds pretty dangerous to me. I’d suggest you get an X-ray to make sure everything is still ok. Also, as I read on some comment above, the chiropractor “moved the ribs into place” is NOT a sound description because just moving something into position does not make the ligaments strong again. And the reason it cost you only 85$ is because nobody worries what happens next.
Apart from ALL of the above, I do share your worry about the increased costs and time-consuming bureaucracy involved. More often than not, healthcare is plagued with delays and increased costs for a variety of reasons. Also, I understand your repulsion for the procedures and your preference of the chiropractor because of these reasons. Those reasons, however, are not the matter of discussion right here.
What can I say, I wish you never get any musculoskeletal trouble anymore.
Be well.
The urgent care doctor. At least, he/she didn’t sleep during her/his anatomy lessons.
In Lina’s defense…Why? Because we are busy helping people and are normally small businesses with case studies which are quickly dismissed because there are not enough people in the study by people like you and the medical profession. We are not a large hospital or research center. There are people being cut open unnecessarily based on research in the medical community everyday. Have you looked at the stats? Not only do most chiropractors take more credits than medical doctors but we continue to learn about nutrition and a plethora of other natural means of healing unlike most MD’s. I think I read that you have a Chiropractic degree…if you are not satisfied with your training, then maybe your school was inferior. Mine was not. also, we are not the only ones who state that nerves are attached to organs and can help facilitate the health of the human anatomy and physiology. Many books by MDs, PTs etc. have stated the same (and no, I am not going to site the books for you).
Oh, and maybe there were crickets chirping because Lina left your site and moved on with her life.
Wyatt, it is sad that you are so wishful that you are totally disconnected from reality. Doctors don’t have it hard with the people… It’s the profession they are after. Chiropractic is based on unsound principles, far from reality, and is also decorated with desperate attempts to disguise some doctorship. The lack of evidence is usually because chiropractors are very busy believing that they help people. Of course, entertainment is nice and, in that sense, chiropractors do help people by providing amusement.
The fact that chiropractors know that nerves are connected to organs just makes them impostors with a bit of knowledge. In that sense, so-called chiro-schools can be compared with respect to quality. The best ones are those that incorporate as much medical knowledge as possible alongside bogus principles, in the most seamless way. This is excellent in terms of policy and works wonders for the profession. Graduates can never tell what is right and what is wrong in all that brain-washing, and clients and patients become easy prey to all the fancy stuff and jargon. Patients love layspeak, they prefer explanations that are easy to understand, so, out-of-place vertebrae sounds simple enough as a cause of bad health. Chiropractors trick patients, school tricks chiropractors, profession tricks everyone.
Make-believe healing techniques, with some anatomy for credibility. Lament alright! Hail the bogus nerve (connects the vertebrae to visceral organs… in chiro-world)!
If I may interject here, in my experience with chiropractors none of what you said is true! I know when my body is in alignment and when it is not. Medical doctors a lot of time will say surgery is the answer, smh!! My chiropractor has freedom me from pain over and over! He is very knowledgeable and experienced and doesn’t claim to know everything!! He eats healthy and continually does research! I am thankful for this profession. Instead of basing the profession it might do you some good to do your own research. Feel free to use this testimony.
Donna Fretwell said:
Ah. I see your problem.
There is evidence and research studies that have been done. All show positive results. Rand study for one.
James Alexander said:
All show positive results, you say….
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4591574/
I found this informative
Lina,
I can’t agree with you more. Preston appears to have a sense of false premise about chiropractic, which ironically is his own profession (which school did receive his degree 30 +years ago? A lot has changed since then!). I feel sorry for him. As far a strokes are concerned the generalizations he has made are lucretius. Just ask the medical malpractice insurance industry to compare the average medical doctor’s malpractice insurance v. that of a doctor of chiropractic. Based on the research by the MIT (and other) actuarials, the chiropractic profession has the lowest malpractice rates compared to M.D.’s. I wonder why? There’s a good chance that the average driver in this country has higher rates of car insurance premiums per year than a doctor of chiropractic malpractice insurance. So by default we, as drivers, have a higher chance of hurting others v. a chiropractor. That should be an indicator for Preston Long D.C. and the ones fooled by his oxymoronic definition of chiropractic. The main question is WHY has he stayed in the profession this long? Why didn’t he become an M.D.? And WHY so much animosity towards his own profession. He sounds bitter. If he were to UNITE the profession (instead of trash talking about D.C.’s) then maybe he would be able to change the profession in a more positive way. I believe this is a very selfish person just trying to sell a controversial book. I agree, people question chiropractic as it is not mainstream medicine, but unsubstantiated comments by one of our own does not help. So it appears that he obviously had spent more time shooting down chiropractors, teaching as an assistant and too busy writing a book on his opinions rather than actually treating patient and improving there health of the public. I have to give it to him, though, he got my attention. But shame on him for his pessimistic small minded attitude that deviants from the true meaning of what it is to be a doctor of chiropractic. He just brings more problems than solutions to the image of chiropractic to the raw public.
All I can say is “Buyer Beware”
So many commenters feel bad for the author, feel sorry for the author, think the author must be ‘bitter’ etc, but only you have managed to come up with the brilliant and useful neologism ‘lucretius’. I imagine you conceived it as a portmanteau of ‘ludicrous’ and ‘lucrative’? Well played indeed Sir.
Do you think it’s possible that real doctors need higher malpractice insurance because they *actually do things that work*? And because things that work carry risks? I don’t suppose you’d need a lot of insurance to hire out crystals and heal bruised auras…except when it involves rectal exams, of course. And maybe not even then if you’ve managed to brainwash your client sufficiently.
Not doing anything useful can easily be done without hurting someone… Well unless you count hurting their wallet…
Al said “Based on the research by the MIT (and other) actuarials, the chiropractic profession has the lowest malpractice rates compared to M.D.’s. I wonder why?”
When a sham “treatment” does nothing, then it provides little basis to claim malpractice. Moreover, most patients are readily indoctrinated by the authoritative-sounding claims of a “doctor,” and unfamiliar with placebo effects or evidence.
When I had my own back discomfort about 10 years ago, it was solved within a couple months by an ordinary doctor who gave me a sheet illustrating some good exercises, and by making a simple change in my computer workspace (shifting my mouse from my right to my left hand). By contrast, everyone I know who has gone to a doctor has received no cure for anything! Merely some claimed temporary relief for back pain which is never cured – making them lifelong patients and vulnerable to a host of other shams (e.g. homeopathic nonsense, vitamin supplements, herbal remedies, mysticism, and similar cr@p).
Congratulations for people who speak against this sham profession. Since my family has some lifelong addicts of this “profession,” I was unwillingly exposed to it at a young age. As a completely symptom-free 10 year old, it was claimed that I might as well be “checked out” my my dad’s chiropractor. I was given a useless x-ray (useless because no person’s spine will ever look perfectly straight as they imply that it should), told about various imperfections in my spinal alignment (none of which were causing any symptoms, or known to be connected with any harmful problems), treated with the exact same joint-cracking procedure that gets applied to EVERYONE (regardless of individual differences), and felt a bit of soreness in my neck afterward – caused by the “manipulation” and not at all pre-existing. That a symptomless 10-year old would go through this strongly suggests that ABSOLUTELY EVERYONE who went into that office would be claimed to have some sort of problem, and thus have “need” for a lifelong series of regular “treatments.”
Was this an unusual case? Everything I’ve seen since tells me “Not at all. Not in the slightest.” Indeed, my dad’s chiropractor was probably above average for not trying to sell his patients a bunch of other sham treatments, although his office did have a bunch of fringe pamphlets and “literature,” including anti-vaccination propaganda and charts claiming that specific parts of the spine are associated with a huge array of completely different illnesses. The “doctor” himself didn’t actively pitch such nonsense that I saw, and yet he promoted it through these pamphlets, books, and displays placed throughout the rooms and bathrooms of his office! I know that other family members, thanks to a different chiropractor, have gotten involved in useless homeopathic and questionable herbal “remedies.”
If there truly are “Good chiropractors” then they need to crack down and distinguish themselves from the huge number of crackpots. I have heard that in Canada, something called “orthopractic” is mandated, in coordination with mainstream medicine, and limited only to evidence-based practices (which are pretty narrow in scope). I haven’t been able to verify this, but it sounds like the best direction to go in.
Also, insurance companies need to stop supporting these nonsense practices. I suppose that there’s a statistical correlation between those who are into homeopathy and “natural remedies” and their being more health-conscious and thus eating more healthily, less likely to be overweight, etc. so perhaps the extent that chiropractic supports such things then I suppose the insurance companies must have calculated that when they subsidize chiropractic visits, there’s some sort of long-term benefit, but it certainly ain’t from the neck crackin’ and useless x-rays! Instead, it would just be a connection between those who are obsessed about their health, determined to do whatever they hear about which might help to preserve that health!
AArgh! Stupid interface….
There were two huge errors that unwittingly appeared in my large post (above), as I tried to quickly type the whole message during a break at work. Any thoughtful person would probably be able to figure out what I’d meant to say, but I feel compelled to post this correction for the less-thoughtful persons who will use this as a basis to try rejecting everything I’d said. I’m used to sites that allow a person to verify and edit his/her own postings. Here, every wrong key or unconscious typing error looks like it will be preserved forever… 🙁
What I had meant to say was
“By contrast, everyone I know who has gone to a CHIROPRACTOR has received no cure for anything!”
…and the phrase “my my” was supposed to read “by my”…
I’m a chiropractor. I agree. We don’t “cure” anything. But, we can effectively relieve symptoms (e.g., pain) associated with joint motion restrictions and/or scar tissue and adhesions (if properly trained in complementary soft tissue treatment methods).
You can disparage chiropractic care as much as you would like. The reality is, more and more people are utilizing the services of chiropractors. And yes, there are some “weird” ones out there. I will admit. But there are many very good chiropractors who are ethical. Who use evidence based practices, and who truly desire to help people.
I’ve treated over a thousand patients in my career so far, and 95+% of them have a very positive outcomes, most with a decrease or complete relief of pain, and a resolution of their neuromusculotskeletal condition.
There is plenty of research. Just google it. I’ve already posted three research articles on this page, and I can find many many more.
All of us are healthcare providers and we each have a role and a place. A chiropractor’s care is conservative by nature, and when someone goes to a good chiropractor, chances are they will experience positive outcomes. The same goes for medical doctors, physical therapists, you name it.
your 95% figure makes some sense – it is about the percentage of patients getting better without any treatment at all, I. e. natural history of back pain.
You might be right about the percentage that getter without any treatment at all. However, what i have found is that my care gets them better **faster.** I’m not saying they wouldn’t get better without my care, because quite honestly they most likely will. The difference is that when they come into my office to receive the type of care I provide, their condition is resolved more rapidly.
As an example, during my consultation gathering information about their health history, and experience with their particular problem and condition, patients often tell me their pain has improved over (let’s say) a 4-6 month period. On the Visual Analog Scale, they have maybe improved from an 8 out of 10 pain level to a 6 out of 10.
The problem is, that 6 out of 10 pain is still enough lingering pain and discomfort that they feel compelled to seek out care that will resolve their issue quicker. Going from an 8/10 VAS to a 6/10 VAS over a 4-6 month period is only a little relief over a very long period. We’ve all experienced pain like that. It’s not fun. It’s draining. It decreases productivity, let alone happiness.
It is when they see me that their condition is almost completely resolved within anywhere from 3 to 10 sessions of chiropractic adjusting and myofascial therapy. I typically treat a person twice per week for about 2 to 5 weeks. In that time frame, it is common for my patients to see a 75% to 100% resolution of their condition.
So, doing nothing they improve about 25% over a 4-6 month period with their body’s natural healing ability. But with my care, they improve another 50% to 100% over a 2 to 5 week period.
To me, it’s very clear my treatments resolve their problem or condition much faster than doing nothing at all. When one is in pain, one wants out of pain now. Chiropractic care coupled with myofascial therapy is a highly effective method for speeding up the healing process and resolving a patient’s condition faster.
Incidentally, many of my patients have gone to their General Practitioner only to be given cortisone injections that did not resolve the problem, and pain killers and other anti-inflammatories that did not resolve the problem. After seeking a Physical Therapist to take over where the General Practitioner could not prevail, patients see some improvement, and still see no improvement. It is at that point they seek out a chiropractor to receive hands-on care.
Over and over I hear patients say, “I wish I would have just come to you first. I’ve never believed in chiropractic, or I was hesitant to see a chiropractor, but now I realize the care you provide works really well. Thank you sooooooo much for helping me.”
And I send them on their way. I don’t tell them they need to continue to come and see me to stay healthy. I tell them, “eat well, exercise, keep your stress at a minimum and you should stay relatively healthy. In the future, if you have a problem and you cannot resolve it on your own after about a week or so, come in and see me asap, as I will likely be able to resolve it in a relatively shorter period of time.”
And when I conclude that a problem is possibly more serious than I can handle, or I realize their condition may be out of my scope of practice, I recommend they see their General Practitioner, or to see an Orthopedist….depending upon my findings. In some cases, i might even recommend they go to the Emergency Room at a local hospital.
Chiropractors have a role in healthcare and it’s a highly effective one.
Cheers.
FASTER???
how can you tell without a matched control group to compare? answer: you cannot!
My control group is the hundreds of patients I have seen and the common results and outcomes I continue to achieve. Over…and over…and over again.
I’m not doing research though. It’s not my area of expertise, nor my interest. I’ll leave that to the researchers. And in the mean time, I’ll continue to help people get better FASTER by applying my highly effective methods.
Many of us chiropractors are very good at what we do! Neuromusculoskeletal (i.e., nerves, muscles, tendons, ligaments, fascia) disorders is our expertise. PERIOD! 😉
Cheers and all the best.
I can see that you are not a researcher – how else would you misinterpret experience for evidence?
Your ‘control group’, Jay: seriously?
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Treatment_and_control_groups
@Jay
Call for Dunning and Kruger!
It doesn’t matter how long ago he graduated. I graduated 10 yrs ago and he is absolutely correct on everything! You need to research, read up!
Recommend to red this
https://www.sciencebasedmedicine.org/the-end-of-chiropractic
Wow, this is a lot of nonsense spread out to look like you have a worthwhile contribution.
@jay
“And when I conclude that a problem is possibly more serious than I can handle, or I realize their condition may be out of my scope of practice, I recommend they see their General Practitioner, or to see an Orthopedist….depending upon my findings. In some cases, i might even recommend they go to the Emergency Room at a local hospital.”
All this says to me is that chiropractic is inconsequential and pointless.
Al
HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHHA……………………………”lucretius”??????
I couldn’t bear to read the rest of your post after I saw that. You’re an idiot with zero credibility!
@Martin,
“Al
HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHHA……………………………”lucretius”??????
I couldn’t bear to read the rest of your post after I saw that. You’re an idiot with zero credibility!”
Please, have some respect? After all, Al is a Doctor of Chiropractic and should be treated with the respect that deserves. (lol)
NP here, while I do not buy into all the non scientific mumbo jumbo that some chiro schools (and a small but embarrassing part of nursing undergrad) push the simple fact is for some headaches, back, hip and leg pain I and many people I know feel better after an “adjustment” simple muscle relaxation, nerve pressure relief, placebo…. I don’t care I feel better, that’s what I payed for. Now crooks, people who do harmful treatments or bilk pts with crystals and such crap or dot bother o lean to recognize signs that someone needs real medical care, or worse know it and don’t refer that is criminal, so are nps and family docs that don’t refer when specialist are needed, or sell oils, concoctions etc.. bottom line if you find a chiro that charges a reasonable fee, and your problem is minor pain without recent trauma, or you have been evaluated and treated by ER or primary provider and it’s safe.. if it makes you feel better it is a good thing.
I have no dog in this fight and I am neither a chiropractor nor a medical doctor. I am a renal physiologist. That said, I make the following observation, but I reject the conclusion that some may make based on it in that I am assiduously trained to ignore anecdotal evidence; The proponents of chiropractic on this thread write so poorly that it is difficult to give them much credibility. Lina, your writing, vocabulary, grammar, syntax and spelling is simply atrocious. I have to wonder if it is a reflection of the underlying education you took into your chiropractic training.
Sincerely,
Kenneth A. Merena, Ph.D.
@Kevin NP
Oh dear. You think chiropractic is fundamentally fine, but people who practise other forms of altmed are ‘crooks’? You are overlooking the hordes of people who ‘know’ things like crystal therapy work for them every time, while practitioners of such as chiropractic and other forms of altmed are quacks and criminals.
“if it makes you feel better it is a good thing.” If only it were that simple.
Lina given you cannot spell ‘school’ and barely put a sentence together I do not believe for a second you could have gone to a real medical school. Unless you mean an online unregistered one.
Someone has a typo and you attack them as well as point out sentence structure? Good lord, what a ridiculous comment.
Doctors actually have some of the worst grammar.
jay , thank for your input. The way I see it there are a lots of good Doctor out there that are honest.
There are many that is not. I have a primary Doctor that don’t want to listen at what I’m saying about how I feel. I have found out all they want to do is write me a prescription. hello. I also learn if they don’t hear you out ,concerning your health, they write the wrong medicine for you. I know for a fact.
For a fact, eh?
” chiropractic scool”
Looks like that taught you well lol
a little typo is a little typo, making fun of it is a reflection of a little mind.
My daughter-in-law worked for a chiropractor. All his employees were required to bring a friend , neighbor, relative every Friday for “adjustments”. No costs to the victims. He only billed their insurance companies. My son went one time to fulfill their requirements. (At his wife’s request) He was 26 years old and had no symptoms that a chiropractor might be of help. I was outraged and threatened to report him. My son asked me not to. His wife needed the job at the time to help financially with their three kids. Eventually she found another job.
The chiropractor I went to claimed nine out of ten patients he sees are helped by him. What else would you expect from him? What he doesn’t say is he starts you off with three “sessions” a week. With copay that can be expensive to those with limited income. Especially as the weeks go by. It took me 35 minutes the past two visits just to get into a room. He used a heated pad on my back for another twenty five minutes. Finally to another room for treatment. About three minutes worth. A quick massage with his hand held machine. And then the lowering of the table of my legs and hips a quick six or eight times. “See you Friday” as he went out the door to another room. Before he called me in he asked three waiting patients to follow him to three rooms. I believe he uses five rooms. I’m sure he did the heat treatment on all of them. That is a well known regular treatment used. One that I can do at home at my convenience. I now feel he overbooks patients and while you are lying on your back he is working on other patients. Obvious because he leaves the room for twenty five minutes. He does check in during that time to see if you are okay. Opening the door and peeking in. And then gone again. There were ten people including myself in the waiting room. The one other thing that one must realize is repeat business. If he “cured” you after several sessions he would lose patients…and income. You need to come in for regular maintenance.
It’s known as “rack ’em and crack ’em” – the chiropractic business model of interminable treatment.
After one treatment with a chiropractor – I now have extensive nerve damage in my neck and lower back. I have constant pain down both legs (which I didn’t have before). I cannot raise my left arm anymore… searing neck pain is common now where as I never had that before treatment. I find it hard to breath due to nerve damage in my thoracic spine. I initially went for sciatic pain.. whom the chiro claimed was curable. After one treatment I’m in such a mess… never again Lina is not facing reality.
You’re just some regular dude and you use the words thoracic spine lol. I’m not going to vouch for chiropractors but don’t assume regular doctors don’t cause a lot of harm. One time I had a skin condition in which I saw 4 different dermatologists in which I had three different diagnoses. And one of the medicines I was given for a diagnosis has caused permanent damage. Look up Kenalog injection class action lawsuit for the great drugs these medical doctors are passing out like candy.
As for back pain (caused by that ****ING injection) I saw an MD spine specialist for and those idiots only pay attention to the discs. I told that guy that it wasn’t a disc, it was off to the side of my lower spine, but they don’t care about ligament damage. They’re only concentrated on discs. I saw another back specialist MD and this dude was a ****ING imbecile. He didn’t listen to anything I had to say when I first went in office and pitched his steroid into the joint treatment and when he finally finished (after 3 minutes or so)I told him I wasn’t there for spinal back pain but to help stop my back muscle from seizing up. Stopped this guy in his tracks, but he did say he could also give me a different shot for that lol. Seems to me doctors are good at setting broken bones and some surgeries but that’s about it.
@david (who is bereft of a capital),
“You’re just some regular dude and you use the words thoracic spine lol.”
Maybe it is because Greg knows where the injury is and refers to it properly? Is there a rule where only doctors can make such a reference? Does it mean I cannot refer to my laminectomy (over 30 years ago) as occurring at L5-S1?
“Look up Kenalog injection class action lawsuit for the great drugs these medical doctors are passing out like candy.”
I did and it is still being used. What is your point?
“Seems to me doctors are good at setting broken bones and some surgeries but that’s about it.”
So doctors and medicine don’t provide any other services useful for humankind? I wonder what people do for the myriad of cancers, infections, heart disease, stroke, kidney disease, burns, sporting injuries, eye disease, road accident trauma, abscesses, hip replacements, and the thousands of others? What, they go to chiropractors so God’s energy will fix all that?
Perhaps though, you are really the troll you seem? (lo f@cking l)
To David (below): “thoracic spine” is a pretty common term — not exactly insider knowledge available only to trained neurosurgeons — so your implication that Greg therefore must be an MD trying to pass himself off as “a regular dude” comes across as slightly paranoid. I’m pretty sure I learned the term in 10th grade biology. Besides, even if Greg hadon’t learned it before, he certainly would have picked it up in his years of seeking treatment for his pain. Playing “gotcha!” just diminishes the power of your argument, David.
To all: One of the greatest dangers of getting a diagnosis from a chiropractor is the possibility of missing something big. One of my mother’s students was a gymnast who went to a D.C. for back pain that everyone assumed was musculoskeletal and due to her training — no big deal. When the tumor on her spine was finally found by an MD after months of ineffective chiropractic treatment, it had grown much bigger. She graduated from high school in a wheelchair and died not long after that — a promising life cut short, possibly needlessly. There’s simply too much at stake to put your trust in someone who hasn’t been taught enough to do the job.
Finally, I used to work in the admissions office of a small college that rented space to a chiropractic school. The building was ancient and decrepit, a dank, dark stone pile. Inside, there was no real library, no anatomy lab with cadavers that I could ever locate, and no active clinic, just a bunch of echoing rooms, some strewn with trash. Admission was pretty much open to anyone who applied. That’s “medical” training that would be scorned by much of the developing world, let alone in a major American city. You wouldn’t accept such substandard training in an MD’s office or an ER, so why would you accept it from any other health provider??
I don’t like the fact that most chiros call themselves DR when they have done nothing to earn the title. It could also confuse people into believing they are more skilled/competent than they actually are. MDs are Doctors. Phd = DR.
3 years undergrad of applied science & you think you deserve the title?!
Vets & dentists are more like Drs. The scary thing is that chiro seems to think it is above the law of university evidence & best practice, but at the same time utilising & i believe manipulating the publics trust in the medical standards universities maintain. Your degree is applied scientist. Could someone please tell me what justification chiros use to call themselves doctors?
They completed a doctorate degree from an accredited institution.
Are you defending bad Chiros?
Are you ignoring the fact that many are just out to make money and keep people hooked on being “cracked”?
Do you not know that many Chiros see patients for the same issue for months/years without referring them even though there is no improvement?
What’s your point??
@Lina
You are not a doctor. You are a chiropractor, which is the equivalent of nothing. That makes you qualified to discuss nothing of medical or therapeutic nature whatsoever. Or even anything with the slightest amount of empirical validation. I’m sure you are bitter for over-paying someone to teach you how to be a witch-doctor, but don’t insult the intelligence of those with enough critical thinking ability to google ‘effectiveness of chiropractic adjustment’ with anything but the notion that you practice a totally unsubstantiated pseudo-science.
Luke – you are a sad angry man. I pity you.
@Sunny on Thursday 02 February 2017 at 20:11
“Luke – you are a sad angry man. I pity you.”
Actually Sunny, I pity you for lacking the intelligence and insight to arrive at such a ridiculous conclusion. Sadly, it seems the only arrow left in the quiver for the intellectually bereft is to go for the emotive attack, premised on nothing other than not liking the comment. Not liking something is not, however, an indication of its veracity, only of your abject failure to make sense.
Thank you for your comment!! Because many times in my life, I couldn’t stand up without help or walk without some of my different chiropractors. Just reading this nasty article here was/is enough for me. I have had crappy doctors, dentists, & chiropractors. I only need to go once to know they are inept. Sadly, no matter what you do in medicine, shit happens & people die. FACT
I have 2 great chiropractors I couldn’t live without. They help me walk & more.
@Tonya
Really? Wow.
There are quacks and crooks in every profession and exposing and attacking them is a good thing!
I couldn’t agree with you more! I have had 3 heart attacks, have an auto-immune disease called transverse myelitis, also was recently diagnosed with left kidney failure! I’m only 57 yrs. and have been to 4 neurologists, and the best hospitals, even the Mayo Clinic (which I consider the best of all hospitals) I was told there is no cure for my disease which left me with severe back pain 24/7. All they could do was treat the symptoms with pain killers, and thank God for them! My nightmare began in 2005!
I knew I had to turn to alternative medicine! I started with a book called Dead Doctor’s Don’t Lie by Dr. Joel Wallach M.D. He’s written 10 credibly books! I recently met the smarted doctor I’ve ever met, he’s both a medical internists and alternative medical doctor. My first visit, he ran tests and discovered the UNDERLYING CAUSE OF MY DISEASE! Two Root Canals I had done in the late 1990’s, have had bacteria trapped inside my jaw and gums! I have to get them redone, cleaned out and tooth implants put in by an oral surgeon! I’ve suffered needlessly for over 12 years and not one M.D. looked inside my mouth, asked about my diet, or lack of nutrients in my diet, asked about Mercury fillings, root canals, vaccinations, flouride, etc…until I met this alternative doctor in St. Louis. I refuse to give his name, over 30 alternative doctors have been murdered or disappeared, because they were CURING(opps, a forbidden word not allowed) cancer and autism! I suspect Big Pharma and or the Medical Pharmaceutical Industry! Don’t believe me, DO YOUR OWN RESEARCH
“I refuse to give his name, over 30 alternative doctors have been murdered or disappeared, because they were CURING(opps, a forbidden word not allowed) cancer and autism! I suspect Big Pharma and or the Medical Pharmaceutical Industry! Don’t believe me, DO YOUR OWN RESEARCH”
Nutbag alert.
yes, conspiracy theories are never far away from alt med:
http://edzardernst.com/2016/05/conspiracy-theories-assumptions-opinions-evidence-and-scientific-facts/
http://edzardernst.com/2014/05/a-conspiracy-theory-seems-to-be-driving-the-popularity-of-alternative-medicine/
I do not know much about chiropractors but here is my 2 cents. I had an injury on my heel 2 years ago, crushed my heel and dislocated the subtalar joint. I have 7 screws and a plate in my foot. I had to quit my job bc of the healing time. After 1 year and half I finally went back to work except had to do on pain pills with pain management. I could only do 4 hours a day. A promotion was coming my and someone mentioned chiropractor and Have I tried that. I didnt know they could help with foot and thought why not. After even 1 visit I was able to handle 8 hour days. Only had 3 pain pills in 3 weeks. I’m reaping other benefits as well, my acid reflux has stopped and I can sleep without sleeping pills. So I’m not an expert and I don’t know what this guy is talking about but I thank God for my chiropractor. And he never took an X-ray. I brought my X-rays, he reviewed them so he could see what was in my foot. I did not go to him for a diagnoses. He did suggest that if my screws were removed that might take pressure off and recommended I see a new orthopedic for a second opinion bc mine wants to fuse the joint. I have nothing to lose by getting a second opinion but I lose a joint if I don’t and my job bc more time off work. Also I got the promotion.
Melissa said:
I have to agree with you there.
@Melissa on Thursday 04 May 2017 at 21:02
If that post is any indication of how you think and write, I wouldn’t have employed you at all, let alone promote.
Classic quote “I got into medical school but”. No one that gets into medical school chooses chiropractic instead that’s just idiocy.
I know three people off the top of my head that went to chiropractic school after becoming MDs. So I guess it does happen Donny…
Just like their are bad Chiropractors out there, there are bad Medical doctors as well. I have met medical doctors that have treated me that were unhelpful, greedy and were very quick on writing out prescriptions you don’t need so they can make extra money off you. Whatever doctor it is, do your research on them first before making an appointment
@Liz on Thursday 20 July 2017 at 13:24
“Just like their are bad Chiropractors out there, there are bad Medical doctors as well. I have met medical doctors that have treated me that were unhelpful, greedy and were very quick on writing out prescriptions you don’t need so they can make extra money off you. Whatever doctor it is, do your research on them first before making an appointment”
Your thinking is just like your writing; confused, illogical, and half-arsed.
@Lina
Obviously, YOU have not been given a great education! I find it hilariously that you would make that comment and then follow it up with a barrage of misspelled words. I would never let you perform an “adjestment” on me!
That’s funny, Betty! Or should I say, I find your comment hilariously?
You spelled school wrong.
SPELL CHECK
That’s a nice example of charlatanry outside the medical realm. There is no such thing as a spell check. “Spell check” is a marketing word, not something that describes reality. The sooner people will understand that, the better off we’ll be.
Charlatans seeking easy money with no skills other than nonsense. Why do you think Alan on Two and a Half Men was a chiropractor? Answer: Because everyone knows Alan is the lesser brother and Alan’s character is less than a real doctor. Humorous!
Thank you SO much for writing this. Sick of hearing the bullshit from people who didn’t even pass high school science. Not a single chiropractic article I’ve come across was conclusive and all the ones that chiropractic websites tout are either fake or written in the 1970s.
I’m guessing you need to hone your literature search skills.
Perhaps Shawn can enlighten us with a few referenced examples of conclusive, credible evidence?
I’m a 42 year old single mom who had a pretty nasty fall about a month ago, My X-Rays from my general physician came back with some key problems (past and recent)and some he said “degenerate” areas. Be that as it may I was never in pain before and here I found now that I was always moaning when I moved or walked. So I went to a Chiropractor and just as you stated almost to a tee the same as your book details in the above article.(web page book jacket) II’m sitting here as if the wind has escaped me. My visit much like your warnings had a whole treatment plan layed out starting me going everyday then 3 times a week up until this coming Dec. I have to be honest it has caused me more pain in places I never had pain before. I told my Chiropractor everyday that I was actually feeling much worse some days not letting him touch my neck. I told him he woke up sleeping dogs because it’s now constant. The exact words I told him were this
” Dr. ——-, when my mom got sick with the disease ALS and after many tests we(my family, mainly my mom) believe that my mom always had the ALS cell in her but it layed dormant until one night at work(hard work at a cannery) she had a bad fall and we believe or she knew that’s what is was(bless her heart. RIP)Her fall made it go awry. Kinda waking up the cell. You see I think that is what’s happening here Dr.—–.”
This guy actually tried to convince me that everyone’s treatment plan is diff actually had a chart for how long it hurts before you get better. My boyfriend makes fun of me saying if it hurts don’t go back
“Saying would you pay someone to punch you in the face everyday and hurt you and still go back again?”
So my question I guess is and if the answers in your book then I’ll go buy it but, what else does a person with pain do? My Dr won’t or my insurance won’t approve a MRI and I don’t think a MRI is gonna spit out a pain treatment? that easy and I’m in pain should I get massaged or physical therapy? I tried cupping. I know you can’t suggest anything probably legally, better yet how do I find a righteous chiropractor like you. A damn realist.
Thank you for the article. My husband was subjected to chiropractic gimmickry about a year ago. He has MS and a man recommended this actor/chiropractor who did strange things. Even put a drop of my husbands blood on his neck for healing. The doctor and his wife/assistant would yell in unison he is healed of this and that. Of course, he was not.
I found out through research, they were using the insane Kinesiology techniques. My, how deceptive. People will act to make money and this chiropractor could perform. It was strange and he took a good deal of our money. And I have a feeling this former so-called friend also picked up a portion.
Regarding X-rays, MDs will do the same. I was injured in a car accident years ago, and went to doctors to find help. Everyone stated I need to take X-rays, and I would say I have already done this but they refused to see them. And they would say, we cannot trust the X-rays done by other physicians. It did not take long for me to understand this was a lie and it was all about money.
We have to be careful of anyone we put ourselves under for care.
@ Val Lee on Monday 12 September 2016 at 02:26
I read your post with some bewilderment and, after checking your avatar, had a good laugh.
“My husband was subjected to chiropractic gimmickry about a year ago. He has MS and a man recommended this actor/chiropractor who did strange things. Even put a drop of my husbands blood on his neck for healing. The doctor and his wife/assistant would yell in unison he is healed of this and that. Of course, he was not.”
You have something in common with them though; you believe in magic too, only a different sort. Why is your magic any better or worse than theirs?
lol @FrankCollins
I don’t know if you are going to see this or if you are even alive, but damn you are an a@@ whole ! funny, but an a#$ whole.
@Omar on Tuesday 21 November 2017 at 01:01
“lol @FrankCollins
I don’t know if you are going to see this or if you are even alive, but damn you are an a@@ whole ! funny, but an a#$ whole.”
Thank you Omar, I’m happy to amuse a semi-literate clown, even though they won’t understand why (laughing at the less fortunate and all that).
Preston, anyone who has benefited greatly from Chiro care can easily spot that the real quack is you. I am a believer in Chiro and although I have only used it sparingly, I have always had great benefits from various practitioners. All the while with no fingers shoved up my anus…or vagina, for that matter. That you would betray the supposed group that you pretend to be a part of shows me that you have secrets to hide and that if anyone who knows you were to really take a look, they could easily find these secrets. At this time, they more than likely manifest themselves as odd behavior. The only people who pretend to like your work are those with glaring self interest, such as that Rn who is a psychologist. Any man with a decent heart and no true evil intentions, will find anything you are writing to be irritating at best and complete garbage. You don’t fool me in the slightest what your true colors really are.
@ Charles on Monday 14 November 2016 at 22:28
So, “Charles”, you have a vagina too? Very interesting, but not unheard of.
“I am a believer in Chiro”
If you “believe in” something, does that automatically make it real and efficacious? In what else do you have a belief?
“That you would betray the supposed group that you pretend to be a part of shows me that you have secrets to hide and that if anyone who knows you were to really take a look, they could easily find these secrets.”
Betray? Did you not read the blog post? Preston is trying to expose practices. Can it be assumed you would hang whistleblowers too?
“At this time, they more than likely manifest themselves as odd behavior.”
Such as writing a bizarre post such as yours? Probably not.
“The only people who pretend to like your work are those with glaring self interest, such as that Rn who is a psychologist.”
A mind reader as well? Your talents are boundless.
“Any man with a decent heart and no true evil intentions, will find anything you are writing to be irritating at best and complete garbage.”
Appeal to Emotion, No True Scotsman and Sweeping Generalisation are logical fallacies which I recommend you learn in order to prevent the writing of such drivel. Then again, it may mean you write nothing at all. Either way, a good thing gor all.
“You don’t fool me in the slightest what your true colors really are.”
Charles, or whomever you are with your vagina, you provide some light entertainment with your post, however, if that is a prime example of your intellectual capacity, your are, indeed, a dullard.
As someone once said to another in my presence, stick a broomstick up your **** and sweep the floor on the way out. It is probably the only useful act you will achieve.
Wow, interesting stuff.I have been utilizing chiropractic for 26yrs.I have had very good success, and have had chiropractors that were catalysts for change.I have had horrible chiropractors, the likes of whom have made my condition significantly worse, and I have experience.My first chiropractor I saw for 12yrs.While it wasn’t perfect, I have yet to find anyone more knowledgeable and useful for my condition.This seems like a bunch of poo poo to me.I can tell you I know of at least 5chiropractors that should not be practicing, at all.This fact is bad, as there seems to be very little in the way of standards, for chiropractic, no discipline done to the one’s who seriously mess people up.I am pro chiropractic, but I might say that if you don’t have at least a good feeling by visit 3 that the practicioner wants to help, and is competent, “trust you gut”.I will say that there isn’t much else out there for those of us who have chronic conditions, and we sometimes have to “get along” with practitioners that we disagree with, or completely dislike, not a great fit for experiencing “wellness”I had a chiropractor in 2011 that told me he could,”fix” my hands.He did help, but when he lost interest, about 4months into treating me for a serious car accident, he told me my insurance is over and this visit will cost 25.00 cash, knowing full well I had a serious headache and “needed” his treatment, or I would be miserable.I currently have no help for my hands, wrists and a serious deep tissue injury, and disc problem, can’t find anyone capable of helping.The one who followed through with treatment, stopped using her phone apparently, 7yr relationship, wasted.Nice……Sketchy…..
@Bobby Meservey
I know it’s only a convention, but putting a space after a full stop at the end of a sentence really does help with readability.
I thank you so much for this book. I have been an ED RN for 13 years. I cannot tell you how many patients I have treated with complications due to chiropractic adjustments. Seeing a young woman in her twenties suffer a TIA post adjustment makes me want to shut down the myths. You have done a very fair and balanced analysis. The public, in the main, accept this as medical. They must be informed. Now I have a great resource to refer folks to. Well Done!!
Just reading “Twenty Things Most…..” was revealing. I won’t get into my personal situation but as a patient and victim of a negative outcome from a chiropractor the info here has helped me learn. Sharing info like this is ok. It gives a consumer knowledge in case you do come across a Dr. Who is a quack. This way we can weed out the good from bad. I trusted my chiropractor as a professional and his care of me was reckless. I found out he has been practicing 20 yrs. Has no ongoing education. No resume. He uses the drop table on everyone for everything…….. did not x-ray me…. and I said I had a Neuro condition with numbness and loss of feeling… and I had a damaging outcome. so this article helped me. Thank you.
@Elle on Saturday 02 September 2017 at 11:42
“It gives a consumer knowledge in case you do come across a Dr. Who is a quack.”
Yes, there are some doctors who are quacks, but every chiropractor is solely because they do quackery.
Frank, reference please.
“….but every chiropractor is solely because they do quackery.”
@GibleyGibley on Sunday 03 September 2017 at 21:04
“Frank, reference please.”
I am pleased you asked.
Chiro was invented by a convicted charlatan in 1895 based on the idea of God’s energy running along nerves and being restricted by subluxations. When did this change, and, equally, on what is chiro now based? (Based on your citing of Haavik, obviously, it would appear nothing.)
Well, it is a matter of choice and using one’s brain, isn’t it? A thinking person would probably not go to someone who is guaranteed to be quack, just to avoid someone who might be quack.
Hello Preston Long. Thank you for your work and this excellent list. I have a small quibble with your last point.
I would point you to our book Spin Doctors: The Chiropractic Industry Under Examination, published by Dundurn Press in Canada and available on Amazon. Thanks again for all your hard work.
https://www.amazon.ca/Spin-Doctors-Chiropractic-Industry-Examination/dp/155002406X
Firstly, you really spend your time reading Chiropractic skeptic books? Theres a skeptic book for everything if you look for it hard enough. Have you many with a contrasting opinion to Prestons? I doubt it.
That is a gross over-generalisation regarding cheating. What because Preston noticed cheating while he was there, therefore all Chiropractors must cheat there way through? Cheating is not associated with Chiropractic, its associated with students in general. Believe just as common in a medical degree or an engineering degree as it is in any other.
If this is the content of the book, do you truly take it with merit? Think bigger mate, there is more reading to be done than skeptical reviews.
Lachlan wrote: “Firstly, you really spend your time reading Chiropractic skeptic books? Theres a skeptic book for everything if you look for it hard enough. Have you many with a contrasting opinion to Prestons? I doubt it.”
It doesn’t take long to read the skeptical books on chiropractic. There are less than a dozen, and they, as well as blogs like this (which I read daily), address fairly comprehensively “contrasting opinion to Prestons” (especially in the comments). Suffice to say they have all helped me to form my low opinion of chiropractic, and continue to reinforce it.
Lachlan wrote: “That is a gross over-generalisation regarding cheating. What because Preston noticed cheating while he was there, therefore all Chiropractors must cheat there way through?”
There have also been allegations of widespread cheating at the Anglo European Chiropractic College in the UK. They were published in the Times Higher Education Supplement about six years ago, and thereafter were, I understand, hushed up by the chiropractic fraternity.
Lachlan wrote: “If this is the content of the book, do you truly take it with merit? Think bigger mate, there is more reading to be done than skeptical reviews.”
The rampant cheating was dealt with before page 15 of the book. What I’ve read since then – and it’s also far from complimentary – fits in with my other observations on chiropractic (particularly the behaviour of chiropractic leaders) during the last dozen years or so.
Just like this “article”, your basing you opinion solely on reading non-factual books about chiropractic is ridiculous. I know dozens of chiropractors, seeing as my husband is one, and NONE have ever been sued, none have ever worsened a condition, and they have helped patients conditions by the hundreds. Now, to address the completely idiotic,incorrect “facts” whoever wrote this piece of garbage: clearly you have no clue what the curriculum for chiropractors is like. Clearly you don’t know that chiropractors take the same EXACT science courses the first two years as MD students on TOP of WAY more advanced anatomy courses with cadaver labs. And I mean MUCH more advanced. Which is why chiropractors are, by a large percentage, more knowledgable about anatomy than MDs. Look it up. Chiropractors take FAR more credits than MDs total, and they take so many more radiology credits, you would be blown away. In fact, DCs are so much more accurate interpreting x-rays than MDs, it’s laughable. Clearly, if you were in chiropractic school for one week, you’d drown in the vast amount of work and information. I’m in school now and have a brilliant friend who just completed her MD. Do you think she could identify the third perforating artery in the body I personally dissected with my group members? Nope. In fact, she could ID half the structures on our massive list. You have no clue, and spend your time reading books based on complete nonsense and ignorance. You do realize that there are medical doctors who also practice adjusting as well, right? Actually, I wouldn’t be surprised if you didn’t. You seem like you’re stuck in the 60s. By the way, chiropractic studies have been done “scientifically” by the thousands. If you had bothered googling it, you would’ve found that out. Become educated by reading LEGIT material.believing everything you read in a skeptic’s book is moronic.
to call someone who makes a reasonable argument ‘moronic’ is moronic!
Couldn’t get past the big bad MCAT eh?
lol. butt hurt much?
If you had read the little blurb at the top, you would know that this guy IS a chiropractor. Which is how he knows. He’s not just conjuring this out of nowhere. I am a physical therapist and personal, in depth conversations with the chiropractors in my city, trying to understand their view, but it flat out doesn’t make any sense. I asked for scientific articles and one person sent me her own “published” articles which were horrendous. Spelling mistakes, awful grammar, and no scientific basis whatsoever. They conveniently ignore modern science. There is no way that article would make it into a medical or therapy journal. I do not like, nor do I trust, chriopractors.
“By the way, chiropractic studies have been done “scientifically” by the thousands.”
Show us one. Just ONE!
If a profession or its members are never sued, and have never worsened a patient’s conditions, then it’s an utter waste of time and money to anyone looking for genuine medical treatment and expertise. Every drug, operation and procedure that has the potential to help or heal, also has the potential to harm or kill.
And if there is SO MUCH ‘legit’ material out there, why haven’t you linked even one?
Where are these vast bodies of legitimate research? Not in medical journals….
Blady-blady blah
Not criticising Chiropractic adjustments BUT I have SPMS, so if they are so ‘Nerve’ motivated, why do I get the same adjustment as the guy with knee trouble?
As I said, I like my fortnightly adjustments but just wish the chiropractor would keep her lifestyle comments to herself – she WILL NOT cure my MS, so what the hell does it matter if I drink wine or not?
I’m going to die in 20 years anyway.
No one has been hurt by chiropractic? I had a client once who had 4 vertebrae shattered by a chiropractor attempting to adjust her dowager’s hump. She was in her late 80s with MD diagnosed osteoporosis. With those facts in his chart, the chiropractor attempted to adjust her anyway and did permanent damage to her spine (which may have hastened her death).
I do think chiropractic has benefits for some spinal conditions, akin to the benefits of PT, OT, and clinical massage, but to say call chiropractors absolutely do no harm is fantasy.
There seems to be a lot of hush hush in the chiropractic community and I look forward to reading this book. Not many will actually divulge the truth and people need to know. I have recently been lied to, robbed (that’s what it feels like), been insulted and, in my opinion, deliberately injured because of the lies, overtreatment, when I didn’t even have a real problem, because I was scammed, and deliberate ignoring of my complaints after treatments. I wish I had known sooner because x-rays nor an MRI will detect or diagnose what’s wrong, I’ve been told. So now I have to suffer with problems I’ve never had in my life, they’re debilitating and I haven’t the faintest idea how to prove it, what I can do about it, or who to even contact. People should stop judging Preston for writing this book. People need to know, and the only reason there aren’t more cases found, is probably because people don’t know what they can do, because I don’t. And I’ve had low back treatments years ago and that chiropractor was an honest man and I went when I needed to and I felt better. The one now, is about wellness, smooth talking and care plan junk that is unnecessary. Somebody needs to finally tell the truth because my neck didn’t need to be messed with and it shouldn’t have been.
Monica – you have more problems then talking about a chiropractor.
Lol, this book is nothing but an unresearched, baseless piece of garbage, actually. Do your homework and don’t believe everything you read when it clearly STATES that it is not impartial.
insults are not very convincing arguments!
It’s called passion! And she is clearly bothered that this information is being portrayed as evidence for a researcher like me looking for non wiki advice. @Edward ur wasting time
….and we all now how reliable passion is for making rational decisions.
Who is Edward?
MUST BE DOCTOR EDWARD BACH, THE INVENTOR OF ‘BACH FLOWER REMEDIES’
My recent experience with chiropratic care has been Ok. I went 10 years ago dealing with severe lower left back pain (shortly after lifting an object, and twisting at the same time) The doctor done his xrays, and after a few weeks of adjustments I felt great.
Had the pain about a year later out of the blue, went for several visits, felt great! He then recommended a “maint program” which I denied, bc he wouldn’t give me a reduced price, and I wasn’t paying 45.00/trip.
Other than minor pain and stiffness an inversion table took care of I was fine for years, until last summer while traveling to FL. I became so pain struck in the lower back I literally couldn’t walk, I sought out the help of a medical message therapist, after 2 visits she sent me to a local chiropractic doctor. He asked Q’s, had me sign a waiver to treat w/o a new patient exam I.E. xrays, and after 2 visits I felt good for the trip north.
Yesterday my town Chiro Doc wanted to charge me a new patient exam b/c I hadn’t seen him in 5 years. I explained it was the same exact condition I have experienced before, and I didn’t want my body subjected to x-rays if need be and that my Family MD said it was not needed in situation such as I was experiencing. I said I would sign a waiver as well…..The office said they couldn’t do that and that my family MD just didn’t know much about how the body and chiroparatic care worked. That was enough for me to kindly opt ot of that office! I may try another office that respects my wishes, but c’mon an office that doesn’t even know me me in Florida has no issue of a waiver, but the one that has records of me does!! If that doesn’t smell fishy, what does.
Totally agree. This author overstates & takes an individual incident or small number of incidents and then makes a generalized statement. His book is garbage, he has NOT done his research. There are numerous studies on the efficacy of Chiropractic, just google it for yourself. Do some chiropractic students cheat, probably, so do medical students & those studying for their PhD & in EVERY other profession. Those people are generally weeded out of any profession quickly as they cheat themselves & either flunk out of higher level courses or quickly fail in practice.
Do SOME Chiropractors overstate what they can do for them, sure, so do MDs, PhDs, contractors, etc.
It would be great if there were even more studies done on the efficacy of Chiropractic for different conditions but who is going to pay for these studies? There isn’t any company that would be able to make money off of the positive outcome of the study. There are reports from many Chiropractic patients stating how Chiropractic has helped them, although these reports are generally dismissed as not substantiated because the report was not backed up by a study using the scientific method (double blind studies). He needs to remember that the medical profession & it’s methods were not substantiated using the scientific method for many, many years (& some treatments still are not) but the medical profession went forth, adjusting their treatment methods using patient’s reported responses to the treatments previously used.
My personal point of view is not to believe ANYONE that sees anything in absolutes. I personally have been helped by Chiropractic for 2 different conditions after spending many years with different MDs none of which were unable to help me.
There is room for all types of practitioners, they all have something to offer or all these different types of practitioners would not still be in practice after all these years.
Thank you, finally someone with some actual knowledge!
Ah yes, the same “argument” used for the lack of proof for the efficacy of homeopathic treatments.
I think a serious profession should think to benefit by substantiating its claims scientifically, or at least be honest and say that “our treatments have little or no basis in scientific studies”.
The proof of efficacy is in the satisfaction many patients have with chiropractic care. There are a whole lot of people out there who were in pain, who went to see a chiropractor, and are no longer in pain. There is research being done to substantiate the health benefits of chiropractic. I don’t think you’ve done enough research yourself, because it’s out there, and there is a lot of it. As a matter of fact, there are thousands of research studies and articles you in many different highly reputable and peer reviewed publications.
What’s more important though? Proof of efficacy in the scientific realm, or proof iterated by a patient about their outcome as patient of chiropractic care. As a chiropractor, I’m in the business of helping people get back to pain free health, not substantiating science. Although I would like to continue to see further research, I don’t let it dictate my care. Research is left for those who really desire to get granular about the science. That’s not my interest. My interest is in the direct contact and care of patients.
Here are a couple examples/comments made by clients who have come to see me. These are written by my clients, not me. This substantiates my work, and that’s all I care about…
“I had experienced chronic neck pain for over a year before seeing Dr. B. I had seen various MD’s, an orthopedic surgeon, and a physical therapist. None of them were able to fix my neck. I have been receiving treatment from Dr. B for a month now, and I have already experienced dramatic results! My neck is just about cured and I am no longer experiencing chronic pain. Dr. B takes the time perform a thorough assessment of your situation during the first visit. He then crafts a treatment plan and explains in detail how he will treat you. Treatments are fast and effective and you’re even able to schedule them online quickly and efficiently. Thanks, Dr, B!”
and another one…
“Great therapy philosophy and skilled chiropractic adjustments. Dr. Blenio has been helping me to address achilles pain and get back to my normal running regimen. Highly recommended.”
Just as an FYI. I don’t claim to “cure” anyone. I’m NOT in the business of curing. I’m in the business of using my understanding of human biomechanics and the musculoskeletal system to help people get better. Most of that work is done hands on by me, but there are also things the patient must do on their side.
Do you find it at all interesting that the first review paragraph talks about how the individual saw multiple MD’s, surgeons, and physical therapists, yet the only doctor who could resolve their issue was a chiropractor?
In the sports world, it’s about wins and losses right? When the game is over, you look up at the scoreboard to see who has won. MD’s and other health care professionals can disparage the chiropractic profession all they want.
I say, “SCOREBOARD!”
thank you!
this is truly an excellent example of profound ignorance.
“My personal point of view is not to believe ANYONE that sees anything in absolutes.”
Well look at you. You’ve used two absolutes in one setence. You’ve got a real knack for this commenting thing.
It sounds like the author of this book is working for the insurance industry. Those chiropractors can make a lot more money writing reports to cut people off w/o any risk of doing any injury. I have been helped by chiropractic and been over sold by other chiropractors. Its about trust.
How do you establish “trust”?
“I have been helped by chiropractic and been over sold by other chiropractors.”
How would you know?
100% Agree, read it (borrowed from a friend as I wouldn’t pay money on this garbage) and everything he points out could be pointed right back at MD’s throughout history also (or anyone else in almost any other profession).
Many DC’s I have been to do not go on about being able to heal anything and everything throughout the spine as the Author of this book has written. I could write a book on how MD’s have killed countless amounts of people and blamed it on “Surgery complications” over 10,000x from that of which DC’s have injured people.
Anyhow, glad I read the book and found it to be about as informative as a gossip magazine you can pick up that reports weekly on hollywood stars, that’s how correct and informative this book is, the only people that would believe it are the ones that believe THOSE kinds of magazines!
I’ve lost count of how many times “MD’s” are on TV and the news as a result of killing people, yet strangely I’ve yet to see a DC on tv resulting in the same….. interesting.
Hi ‘Read it’.
Since you’ve posted here previously, would you like to tell everyone else your real name?
Maybe he doesn’t want his real name used since some people would use the info to try and track down personal records. I have noticed how terrible the admin are on these sites. No different than being a pervert looking at another person’s Facebook to troll their history even though they aren’t friends.
Medical doctors treat the entire range of human illnesses, which includes surgery, whereas chiropractors treat minor self-limiting afflictions that, mostly, regress towards the mean.
How can you even hope to compare the two? Yes, people die during surgery because it is inherently dangerous. Would you rather ban surgery?
Oh, and on what basis do you stand, “My husband is a chiropractor, so I know everything about chiropractic.” You have not given any sources or evidence to your study; much less any information that truly holds water. The only thing you have proven thus far is that you are under the opinion that your husband is “perfect” and could not possibly be one of those “quacks” mentioned in the book. I strongly suggest that you open your mind to the fact that just because someone thinks that they are indeed correct, it is not always so. If that were the case, no one would ever fail tests, so long as they had a strong belief that they are correct. Also, as someone stated above, everything that works comes with a risk… commonly known as SIDE EFFECTS. No, seriously, it’s a legit term http://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/side%20effect just paste that into your browser to see for yourself. So instead of just attacking someone because you have a difference in opinion, become more educated on the subject at hand and produce a valid argument instead of making a huge paragraph that could be summed up in two words: “I disagree.”
So what?
I myself, find it amazing, that the topic of over prescribing prescription medication by MD’s has not come up in this conversation (that I’m aware of anyways) for some of us, chromic back pain and headaches has been masked by Doctors prescribing pain meds, muscle relaxants, and antidepresents because you wake up every morning with a headache. If chiropractic care offers you an alternative, really? would you pass on the addiction perhaps, or maybe the liver problems associated with pain relief medication for years on end?
I have chronic migraines and a ruptured disc in my lumbar spine and 8 degenerated discs in cervical and thoracic spins. I was a chiropractic assistant many moons ago and I bought into the whole subluxation lie. Then I started seeing a medical doctor. Wow was it different. He didn’t claim to know everything but was determined to work with me to figure it out. And my medical team is great and wants me to feel good. Yes they are overworked and stretched thin because of the healthcare crisis, but I’ve been at this a long time and I’ll take actual science over quackery any day. (Side note: I found a chiropractor that is more inline with the author of this article. He knows what he is qualified to do and doesn’t try to do any more. He was recommended to me by an orthopedic surgeon and 2 internists. Turns out if chiropractors would stick to evidence and not bunk, the medical community would stand with them).
I had a laminectomy for severe sciatica (curled in a ball for six weeks) caused by a ruptured disc at L5-S1. It is now 31 years and one month totally free from pain and the physical ability to do whatever I want.
You have some interesting comments, but again, I think you should do more research and start thinking about what real health is. It’s not in you taking some drugs, or getting some surgery. Last time I looked, there were a lot of people dying from drug interactions and that’s not a good thing, especially if you’re the one taking them.
Chiropractic is fraud. Period.
I’ve spent the past year in pain and sought medical treatment for the chest pain I was having. I went to the ER and they gave me pills for costo chondritis. It continued. I kept telling docs I think it’s a pinched nerve no one took me seriously and a year later fed up I saw a chiropractor. They loved to give me muscle relaxers and anxiey meds. I’ve had 3 adjustments and xray showed a curve in my spine and my neck. I’m furious that my doctors would not take me seriously and just take xrays. It’s maddening they just keep shoving pills at me and can’t even look at me when I’m explaining my pain. At least for now I don’t feel like I’m crazy anymore because I do have back issues and the chiropractor seems to help, although very sore after adjustments, my shooting pain seems to be subsiding. I’m scared if he doesn’t help me then who will. Doctors will not.
@ DREA on Sunday 13 March 2016 at 22:41
“At least for now I don’t feel like I’m crazy anymore because I do have back issues and the chiropractor seems to help, although very sore after adjustments, my shooting pain seems to be subsiding.”
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Costochondritis
Not much of this makes much sense. There isn’t anything about your condition which seems to indicate a “pinched nerve”. What makes you think this is the cause of your condition?
Why do you think the chiro is helping when you aren’t much better? It may just be regression to the mean.
look at John Bergman an amazing chiropractor AND medical docor on youtube.. also God can help ! Ive seen people healed when they are desperate and call out to Him.. there is help.. if you see you will find so please do not despair
@fiona
I followed your suggestion and looked him up. The videos in which he ‘adjusts’ people are hilarious, and it reflects badly on the US education system that people without biomedical knowledge can imagine this kind of hoopla offers any medical benefit at all.
You say Bergman is “an amazing chiropractor AND medical doctor.” NO, he is emphatically not an MD, and the fact that you imagine he is only serves to prove the point made many times on this blog: allowing proponents of complementary nonsense anywhere into the real medical system merely serves to cause confusion and mislead the public.
But what’s most worrying is that Bergman is a ‘straight’ — a believer in all the vitalistic horse manure invented by the conman DD Palmer. From one of the many Bergman videos on YouTube
Fiona, please read comments in other ‘chiropractic’ threads in this blog. You will find several chiropractors regularly posting that this kind of half-witted stuff is not the way 21st-century chiropractic is heading. I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again: there is obviously “no true chiropractor”. (Google ‘no true Scotsman’ if you don’t know what I mean.)
PS. Your remark that God can help is confirmation that belief in complementary and alternative medicine has a lot in common with religious belief.
Whatever you do, Frank, don’t watch this video of his: Cancer Health Rant. It might not be good for your blood pressure.
Aargh!! 160/120!
Darn you, Alan. You knew I’d have to follow the link. Now I’m going to have to OD on calcium channel blockers.
Seriously, if this guy were UK based, wouldn’t that video be breaking the law?
Sorry about that Frank!
We do have the Cancer Act 1939, which is there to protect the public from quacks and their quack cures and there have been a few convictions: Cancer Act 1939 convictions in the UK
@ Alan Henness on Monday 20 February 2017 at 19:48
You b@st@rd. I did watch half of it and can’t get that time back.
Interestingly and very ironically, he talked about medical matters as if chiro had something to do with it. Everything he talked about came about because of medical science and its openness, not due to faffing about with backs of the worried-well. He is oblivious how stupid he appears for criticising the very medical science which provides all of that information through research, something chiro doesn’t do.
Actually, it did provide some humour, even if it was at that dimwit’s expense, so the time wasn’t totally wasted.
@fiona
I don’t suppose there were any cameras around when your god healed those people you saw, were there? They’d probably be far more interesting that a chiro doing his tricks.
I had Costco as well, it was because of my ribs pushing against th chest walls due to bad posture. What helped was this thing called the back pod, there is this physical therapist on YouTube I forgot his name. Anyway you can research it.
No sir, supply your own references or your comment’s worth diddly squat.
no need, I feel, this was a nonsensical diagnosis followed by a nonsensical therapy.
I had a rather nasty costochondritis last year after an even more nasty respiratory viral infection (not influenza). I just took NSAID’s and pain killers for symptomatic relief while that was necessary and the problem went away gradually over a couple of months. If I had used the X-treatment (replace with your favourite alternative therapy) I might have fallen into the trap of thinking it was the X-treatment that did the job.
Agreed. One poster asked why chiro is still around if it’s nonsense, you’d think people would push it aside. Same reason every weight loss program or diet that professes to be the answer still makes money, or infomercials still sell crap to people who watch infomercials. The gullible will be gullible through the end of time. It doesn’t provide evidence of effectiveness, just evidence that people will believe anything.
I just came across this and wonder why this guy went to the other side? I have been a Chiropractor for 26 years. Many insurance companies deny claims and do whatever is necessary to save money. I know of a chiropractor who denies Workers Compensation claims. He stated to my friend he makes close to $375 K doing this. I don’t have the heart to rip apart my profession and there is always one odd ball out there. I treat some of the top athletes in the world and I am sure they would look at this and say WHY?
Ok that’s my two cents.
@D
Perhaps you could read the book to find out?
@ D on Wednesday 16 November 2016 at 06:44
“I just came across this and wonder why this guy went to the other side?”
Maybe, just maybe (and this is what he did), he saw the problems with your “profession” and wanted to do something constructive about it?
“I have been a Chiropractor for 26 years.”
You have a small degree of my pity and a large degree of my disparagement for persisting with such nonsense for so long. Chiro doesn’t breed or engender critical thinking so you chose your career badly but, hey, you get to call yourself “doctor” despite the title being meaningless and worthless in this context.
“Many insurance companies deny claims and do whatever is necessary to save money. I know of a chiropractor who denies Workers Compensation claims. He stated to my friend he makes close to $375 K doing this.”
No surprise. Chiro is about making money, just as DD intended with his new religion.
“I don’t have the heart to rip apart my profession and there is always one odd ball out there.”
Paraphrased; I like making a lot of money doing nothing constructive except administering a placebo to the worried well, and money is more important that tawdry concepts such as principles.
“I treat some of the top athletes in the world and I am sure they would look at this and say WHY?”
Sure, TOP athletes have also been to universities and studied medicine so they know chiro is credible and efficacious. If they saw this blog post, they should ask why they are wasting good money on a quack.
“Ok that’s my two cents.”
Only two cents? It is, after all, only a shabby pittance of what you charge for no real outcome.
My bet is you won’t respond.
D wrote:
Did you really gain only two cents from ‘treating’ some of the top athletes in the world?
Not being a doctor doesn’t make someone nothing. And has no one figured out what a parasitic entity the AMA is? Just look at their logo. They “reclassified” dis-ease in 1939 along with our government and the cdc to exclude actual root causes. And by reclassify I mean EDIT OUT. Because there’s no money in a cure. Speaking of, why do you think studies are limited? Bc mostly pharmaceutical companies pay for them. Being a doctor involves memorizing presented information, unless you’re a surgeon it also involves a steady hand. After that it’s experience and I’ve met some really stupid and old doctors so even that isn’t teaching some of them. And how many unnecessary procedures are done? And why are prescribed “properly” medications the 3rd leading cause of death in the US?
Ppl wait for symptoms but they don’t often show. Chiropractors offer free workshops selling nothing but health and nutrition advice. They don’t live flashy lifestyles or talk over those that come to see them. They’re humble, helpful and kind. One of them saved my life with their overpriced xray. Which btw mds charge a lot more “per sheet” for. Maybe it’s bc the dc actually does the xray themself? Is their time not worth as much? Bc I feel like everyone’s time is valuable. Do you pay your mechanic? Bc that’s just your car, you can replace it. Your body sorta needs to last a lifetime… I think. I’m no doctor.
Btw I found what you’re looking for. (Hands over a bit of attention.) Hope that helps!
Even people who can write incoherent nonsense such as this can vote?
I’m guessing it is akin to blind people playing darts: don’t get in the way, you might get hurt.
You have obviously not been fleeced (yet?) by chiropractors Josh Axe or Richard Hagmeyer.
And it is evident that you know nothing at all about real doctors and very little about make-believe ones.
Interesting claim. Can you point me to the evidence of this?
Have any of you looked in Gonstead Therapy ?
Chiropractic with a focus on the pelvis. Any evidence that it provides clinical benefit for any properly diagnosed condition? I mean real evidence, not just anecdotes and testimonials?
no
Not chiropractic per se (chiropractic is a profession), but a paper recently published by MDs….fwiw.
https://www.painphysicianjournal.com/linkout?issn=1533-3159&vol=22&page=53
Yes.
I can attest to the rampant cheating, severe bias, over complication of courses, ridiculous rules and in many colleges a cult-like indoctrination in philosophy instead of actual education. In fact, based on the showings there is an induction of over adjusting that is going un-noticed and will damage thousands who do not use proper means of self-care relying only on manipulation to “heal” them.
I left school due to neurological issues no one could diagnose by my research it had to do with the constant adjusting along with the insane environment.
Sceptical??
http://amp.timeinc.net/time/4282617/chiropractor-lower-back-pain/
This article will be helpful. It does work
@Liz on Thursday 20 July 2017 at 13:57
It is an article along similar lines to the crap this alleged journalist writes.
I also looked at the studies cited and found, “Among patients with acute low back pain, spinal manipulative therapy was associated with modest improvements in pain and function and with transient minor musculoskeletal harms.”.
Hardly startling. It is a big call to hang your hat on that.
Another cited “study” was from the Palmer College of, yes you guessed right, Chiropractic. It still teaches vitalism, that is, it is god’s energy healing you through the “removal of subluxations”.
Idiots will believe anything, yep, you Lizzie.
chiros don’t kill 250,000 people every year with “medical” mistakes. chiros are not the 3rd leading cause of death in usa
@michael carman on Tuesday 21 November 2017 at 05:45
“chiros don’t kill 250,000 people every year with “medical” mistakes. chiros are not the 3rd leading cause of death in usa”
Not only is it bullshit (and you have no evidence except chiro nonsense), but doctors do medicine, not faff around with backs which will get better over time by themselves. Chiros, when another idiot is one more idiot than anyone needs.
I’ve gone to dozens of chiropractors and have spent thousands of dollars over the years desperate to heal myself of chronic pain and constant headaches. I have not improved I will definitely check out this book.
“4. Our legitimate scope is actually very narrow.
Appropriate chiropractic treatment is relevant only to a narrow range of ailments, nearly all related to musculoskeletal problems. ” I agree . Most UK chiropractors would.
“8. “Cracking” of the spine doesn’t mean much.” I agree, lots of UK chiropractors don’t crack joints.
“9. If the first few visits don’t help you, more treatment probably won’t help.
I used to tell my patients “three and through.” If we did not see significant objective improvement in three visits, it was time to move on.” I totally Agree and every chiropractor should tell this to every patient.
“12. Neck manipulation is potentially dangerous.
Certain types of chiropractic neck manipulation can damage neck arteries and cause a stroke.” Many UK chiropractors do not use “the certain types” of adjustments.
10. We take too many x-rays. Many UK chiropractors do not and never have taken x rays.
…and I am sure you have evidence for your statements.
does the fact that you comment on merely 5/20 points mean that you agree with all his other arguments without objection?
fedup wrote re the scope of chiropractic being very narrow, and appropriate chiropractic treatment being relevant only to a narrow range of ailments, nearly all related to musculoskeletal problems: “I agree. Most UK chiropractors would.”
Let’s have the data in support of that claim, fedup. The subluxation based/vitalistic Alliance of UK Chiropractors (AUKC) claimed recently that it represented the *majority* of chiropractors in the UK. See the links in the last paragraph here:
http://www.ebm-first.com/chiropractic/uk-chiropractic-issues/2253-the-british-chiropractic-association-aligning-itself-with-uk-fundamentalist-chiropractors.html
As you’ll see from the links, the AUKC’s scope of practice is far from ‘very narrow’.
Blue Wode I have been around newly qualified chiropractors for the last 8 years so have spoken to many and many do not work as subluxation based chiropractors. Infact next year I will run a study and see if I can provide you with data. Any questions you would like asked? I do find it ironic that when 1 chiropractor gives you anecdotal evidence that condems chiropractic you are all over it like flies round you know, but any positive anecdotal evidence is just that. I would like to ask Preston if he really does think he’s made the right career choice. I for one am very happy with what I do, I work within a very narrow field, I’m not always happy with “chiropractors” or how some work but believe me, I know many, who feel the same. The AUKC may represent the majority, but most chiros only stay with their associations to get insurance. It doesn’t dictate how anybody should practice.
fedup wrote: “Any questions you would like asked?… I’m not always happy with “chiropractors” or how some work but believe me, I know many, who feel the same. The AUKC may represent the majority…”
Yes, how would someone know to look for an evidence-based chiropractor, and what source would they consult if they wished to find an evidence-based one in their area?
fedup wrote: “I do find it ironic that when 1 chiropractor gives you anecdotal evidence that condems chiropractic you are all over it like flies round you know, but any positive anecdotal evidence is just that. I would like to ask Preston if he really does think he’s made the right career choice.”
fedup, please get back to us once you’ve read the book.
Clearly, many people are not understanding that there are always
“Greys” nothing only black and white or cut and dry. We all can speak to our own experiences… But, to discount a total profession is simply irresponsible. The girl whose father was a scientist should know better than that. There are successes in all aspects of the healthcare community as well as negative outcomes. There are quacks in every profession. There is a place for all of these successes combined. Not just “one” of these is the only way. We need to work together as a community to actually heal or help a patient. Many times a chiropractor will find something and send a patient to a specialist. I’ve witnessed many patients so thankful that the diagnostic alertness of their chiropractor caught things that their regular doctor missed. Perhaps the ” listening” to the patient” factor comes into play. I’ve witnessed medical doctors refer patients to the chiropractor because they have exhausted their resources of knowledge…. And then the patient being so thankful because they got the help they needed finally. It goes both ways. And to say that medical school has more education?… Do the research… They have more education in the use of drugs. And, we all know that drugs can be good and bad. Specialists? Of course, you then get more hours of education… But that is the same reason it limits their scope… So you get all sorts of different specialists but very honed in their craft. Chiropractors are specialized, at least the ones worth salt. These doctors of different talents need to work together. Frankly, having a team of doctors of different facets analyze a patients condition would be a powerhouse Of healing. How many times does a patient get shuffled from one specialist to the next.
I am not sure why there is close-mindedness toward chiropractors who whiteness success on a regular basis. When you end up with a problem that no one has helped you with over and over again and exhaust all resources, and you finally come to the chiropractor, and get relief… You are sold that this profession has a vital place in the healthcare community. Scientists and researchers should ” want” to study these results. There is room for all to work together for the benefit of patients. Why would you want to deny someone wellness if all options are not on the table? And someone who paints a picture that all the educations of thousands of doctors are a crock… That’s just foolish.
Q: Why would you want to deny someone wellness if all options are not on the table?
A: Because some options fail to generate more good than harm.
Very well stated Kate. You’ve nailed it with your comments. I refer patients to General Practitioners and Orthopedic Surgeons (among others) a patient has come in with a problem that is more serious than I am capable of treating, or if I find it is simply out of my scope of practice. I see my scope of practice as **structural neuromusculoskeletal** and I do not deviate outside that realm. And when I say structural neuromusculoskeletal, that means I do not treat neurological diseases or disorders of more serious nature, nor do I treat severe trauma to muscles, tendons, ligaments, or joints.
I also find that more and more patients are coming to me saying their medical doctor told them to see a chiropractor as well. My chiropractic treatment methods help a lot of people, and there is a lot of very good science behind the methods I use to treat my patients.
There is good peer reviewed science behind what chiropractors do. And sure, there needs to be more, and better science as well. As there should be for any medical or therapeutic method.
I honestly believe that the majority of the comments from people on this page who are denying the benefits of chiropractic care, or who are calling chiropractors quacks, are old school medical doctors who are stuck in the past. I also realize that some of their conclusions may be justified to some degree, because there have been and are chiropractors out there who claim to treat problems that I believe are out of their scope of practice.
The reality is, the newer more contemporary medical doctors have a better understanding of how chiropractic can help. I think the newer medical doctors also realize there is an old guard of chiropractors who make claims they can’t substantiate, and that the newer guard of chiropractors who treat structural problems are the doctors of chiropractic they trust. This is my opinion though, and I base it on the fact that more medical doctors are referring patients to good chiropractors.
I desire to build strong relationships with medical doctors with whom I can refer patients, and who will refer to me. This type of relationship strongly benefits patients. That’s all I care about.
I have moderate scoliosis and I only go to my chiropractor “as needed”. I saw him yesterday for the first time in 2 years. He helps me. He doesn’t over treat nor sell me anything extra….and i am sore this morning, but not in the pain I was in yesterday.
@ Jay on Monday 02 February 2015 at 15:42
“There is good peer reviewed science behind what chiropractors do.”
Do you have any, or is making some bold-faced assertion as good as having evidence?
Whenever I talk with someone about these types of things, he or she assures me that, “MY chiro is not like that, he’s GOOD and makes me ‘feel better'”. I usually advise the person to try a massage instead of spending so much on the chiro. One of these people has been getting “cracked” weekly for twenty years and thinks her chiro is a “genius”. o_o
Irene, I have never examined another chiropractic patient without them understanding why people are skeptical of chiropractic but they also must reassure me at the same time, not “my chiro”.
Best,
Preston
Massages are just as expensive if not more expensive than Chiropractic care. Just saying.
perhaps, but much safer!
May cost a little more but lasts a whole hour rather than two minutes, feels great, and relaxes you. 🙂
Could you please explain how adding “Just saying” to the end of your comment, enhances or clarifies the point you are attempting to make?
Today I had first adjustment at local chiropractor. He was straightforward.his charges are 35pounds but as I am housewife not able to work it is 25pounds each time.I take morphine in the form of Fentanyl 75patch and it barely helps the pain I suffer since eosophagogastrectomy..partial removal of my gullet and stomach which now is repositioned up high in My chest and the surgery involved cutting open a rooftop incision on my tummy and another from under my right breast and around to my back and up to my shoulder. Major ten hour surgery that has left me with nerve damage and this limits mobility. I got an introductory gift of consultation and three sessions for 30pounds….normal cost claims to.be 155. It’s worth a try. He thinks I will need two a week for six weeks then one a week for six weeks then one or two a month for wellbeing….500pounds! I am in absolute agony tonight and worry about all the cracking noises…not sure it should be doing that. If said i have three bits near the bottom of my spine that are kind o,fixed..inflexible and the same between and just below my shoulder blades and a thick swelling kind of lump at back of my neck. Also another bit between my lower spine and pelvis at left side. Most of the session was pressure rather than pain except lying on my back with him holding behind my relaxed knees and behindmy head at the neck and told me to Be floppy and As I breathed out he bent my head and knees toward each other then pulled my body to the side and really stretching it..quite beyond anything I could achieve on my own. Uncomfortable lbut not painful. It felt good to feel the flexing. I will try and go again on Thursday but tonight I feel as though the small of my back is very bruised. What I did notice when I left his office was a kind of sinus headache each side of nose and along the side of cheeks and up and across eyebrows…it felt as though something was being unblocked.feel free to contact me if you want to know more if it helps with research or whatever.
Sincerely , Wilma.
Be careful, Wilma. The only evidence for chiropractic is spinal manipulation for short-term relief of pain in a sub-group of low back pain sufferers, and even this it is no better than cheaper and more convenient options like exercise. Other more evidence-based therapists, such as physiotherapists, can also perform the spinal manipulation for you. Do not hesitate to see a real doctor if you have any concerns about your health (even during your ongoing sessions with this chiropractor).
You beat me to it Blue Wode, but it’s worth adding that there’s also no evidence for ongoing chiropractic ‘wellness care’ (or whatever marketing jargon they use these days).
Wilma
Please think carefully about this before spending any more money and, as Blue Wode says, it might be best to consult your GP.
@Wilma
I totally agree with Blue Wode! This is terrible! A chiropractor is in no way a competent therapist for this kind of problems. Even the best ones. Physical and mental rehabilitation is what you need. He/she will only be taking your money while time and nature takes care of some, hopefully much of the problem. In my opinion the chiro is led by greed, not good intentions in taking on such a case.
I am not so familiar with the UK system (it is the UK i presume?) but it surprises me greatly if you are having to pay for rehabilitation yourself after major surgery.
From what you write I cannot really discern if the problem is pain from your thoracotomy (the chest incision) or pressure induced nerve damage from a long procedure and lying improperly positioned and protected for a long time on the op-table.
A ten hour esophagectomy is very much longer than it should have been. Four hours is more normal depending on the case and some of that time for repositioning from supine to the side for the chest part. One may guess that severe overweight was a deleterious factor but in such case they should have been even more ardent in avoiding pressure-induced nerve damage form lying too long on the op-table. Something probably did not go as it should have during that surgery. I am not implying that someone is liable for malpractice, does not have to be, but this eventuality should really be explored under such circumstances. At least you should be assisted in finding out about your rights.
You might consider (if you did not already) contacting a lawyer, an ombudsman or a patients rights organisation – or whatever is available to assist you in finding out what your rights are and pursuing them. The hospital should have someone who takes care of such requests by patients.
As I said, the incision in the chest can by itself give severe pain for a very long time, especially after long, difficult operations. There are methods to deal with that. Your problems should be dealt with by several specialists but absolutely no chiropractors. Time is a big factor in your favour and it is very likely that your problems will improve as time passes, notwithstanding chiropractic. You will improve your chances of recovery greatly if you are ardent yourself with the physical rehabilitation and if you follow the therapy and advice of a good physiotherapist.
I write this as a surgeon who has experience with this kind of surgery and also has first hand experience of chiropractic – it was useless in my case as I have described on this blog before.
I sincerely hope you will recover and regain a life of at least some quality.
Wow.
Surgeon told me my MRI showed herniated L4 & L5 vertebrae. Needed surgery but I’m 330lb and he said no one will operate on anyone over 250lb. Told me to try chiro treatment. I was rushed throught at 12mins or less on all exercise and electro stimulation. I could barely walk after being put on a decompression table. I even asked how it works if I was strapped at my bellybutton and it compressed down on the area he was decompressing..total joke in my book. Now in more pain then when I Started…
As a retired, third generation chiropractor who has been very critical of the problems inside the chiropractic world, I must comment;
1. I have always had a problem with the word “subluxation.” It is in any medical dictionary, but what “true believers” make it into I agree is not legitimate. However, many joints, especially the demi-facets in the spine become fixed in non-optimum biomechanical relationships (could be called subluxations) and it is a learned skill to know how to manually detect and correct them and not everyone who would has the talent or even muscular control required. Many times an audible occurs (not all joints, such as the sacroiliac are constructed in a way that would allow enough decavatation and correction is usually done via a transverse gliding force). Use of the term “crack or cracking” conveys a lack of understanding of joint physiology. There have been many independent studies that have found that decavatation produces stimulation to circulation, and also affects neural receptors with positive results were sub-decavatation does not. What this demonstrates is that a certain amount of decavatation has occurred. What the majority of chiropractors including myself have noticed is that the most immediate relief of NMS pain and symptoms and restored function accompany this sort of treatment while the passive, below threshold “treatments” provide some relief, but more treatments are required and the concern that the body has merely adjusted to a chronic, unsymptomatic “spontaneous remission” has occurred. The problem with avoiding decavatation is that this has led to many phony techniques that are heavy on psychological treatment and light on physical treatment. I have long noted that the “low force” or “no force” techniques seem to attract the most neurotic patients. Such “chiropractors” have no more real value than a massage therapist and in fact, compete with them. A smart consumer would merely go to the less expensive massage therapist and get the same exercises, nutritional therapy and whatever New Age health trend is currently up for marketing.
While adhering to the old “Meric System” of pathologies as related to the spinal nerve levels is archaic and silly, treating the NMS (that’s right, Musculo-Skeletal System has to include the prenom – Neuro because its an integral part of the two!) treating the NMS is what modern chiropractic is about. In as much as neglect of the basic structural system can affect a person’s overall well-being, such an idea is NOT outside of the realm of a scientifically supported notion. It’s not a question of all or nothing.
“Three and through” is a cute slogan, but it doesn’t nearly cover the realm of cases usually presented to a chiropractor. In acute cases when neuritis is included, three treatments can make a huge difference. However, a chronic, nagging problem is going to require a much longer treatment regime, although not 6 months or a year. A chronic problems presenting in an acute exacerbation isn’t going to respond completely in three treatments. (Yes, I do think that proper biomechanical function is part of optimal function overall). A traumatic problem affecting the NMS isn’t going to resolve and perhaps not even respond in three treatments. My father used to say that if there is no change after six treatments, it is time to look for another cause (and possible referral). Now, that IS how a physician thinks.
There have been studies done on the stroke risk of certain “chiropractic” adjustments. The old, full “rotary break” is unnecessary for results, but even then, the incidence is 1 in 1,250.000. Treating patients with arterial sclerosis (which can be imaged on x-ray as it shows in the carotid arteries) would provide a screen for contraindication for any sort of upper cervical manipulation.
Below is a web searched result of stroke studies done regarding chiropractic manipulation. This is mere sampling, there have been many more;
search 1998;2(2):77-85.
The RAND corporation estimated that the risk of stroke from chiropractic adjustments was “one in a million.” (“The appropriateness of manipulation and mobilization of the cervical spine. Santa Monica, CA: RAND Corporation 1996: xiv. (6).)
Over a ten-year period, Danish researchers found only five cases of “irreversible CVA after chiropractic treatment.” Based on this, they estimated a risk of one stroke per 1,320,000 neck adjustments. (“Safety in chiropractic practice. Part I: The occurrence of cerebrovascular accidents after manipulation to the neck in Denmark from 1978-1988,” Journal of Manipulative and Physiological Therapeutics, 1996; 19: 371-7.)
Based on a survey of 64 California neurologists, Albers, M.D., estimated the stroke-chiropractic correlation to be “one in every 500,000 manipulations.” Co-investigator Philip Lee, M.D. noted, “Indeed, most interventions by allopathic physicians have a higher complication rate than chiropractic interventions.” (“Neurologic complications following chiropractic manipulation: A survey of California neurologists,” Neurology 1995; 45: 1213-5.)
The author of a Canadian study found 13 documented CVAs related to chiropractic care in Canada, and no deaths, over a five-year period. Since some 50 million cervical adjustments were given by Canadian chiropractors during that time period, he concluded that a reasonable estimate of risk was one serious neurological complications per 3 million neck adjustments. (“A report on the occurrence of cervical cerebral vascular accidents in chiropractic practice.” Journal of the Canadian Chiropractic Association, 1993; 37 (2): 104-6.
Researchers in Holland concluded that the overall rate of complications from chiropractic adjustments was one in 518,886. (“Complications in Manual Medicine: A Review of the Literature,”Journal of Manual Medicine, 1991; 6: 89-92.)
No strokes or any other significant complications were found during an examination of 168,000 cervical adjustments during a 28-year period. (“Chiropractic therapy: diagnosis and treatment,” Aspen Publishers, 1990: 61.)
When one considers that as many as 98,000 Americans die every year from preventable medical mistakes, the complaint about the risk of stroke resulting from a chiropractic adjustment is petty and evidence of rampant anti-chiropractic bias in the skeptic (giving skepticism a bad name).
Taking x-rays as part of an initial examination in a chiropractic office is as important as a dentist in taking x-rays of the teeth. When the carotid artery is calcified, it shows up on x-ray as noted above as do a huge amount of other issues that affect accurate diagnosis and treatment. A good chiropractor can see “subluxations” or at least the abnormal orientation of a joint in an x-ray. What not doing x-rays does is liberate the lazy and issue in a huge swathe of non-effective sham techniques (as identified in some studies). The abandonment of x-ray in the chiropractic examination leads to poor care and even an undermining of the effectiveness of chiropractic treatment. Chiropractors that don’t use an x-ray screen most often misdiagnose and the possibility that inappropriate treatments or at least minimally helpful treatments will be applied. Not using x-ray as an examining tool helps support the “non-force” schools of practice because if you are merely pulsing a joint (like a physical therapist) you are minimizing treatment (and by an interesting coincidence) conserving the doctor’s energy, allowing for high volume practices that typically use a myriad of post treatment gimmicks like exercise balls, surgical tube exercises and things that a patient can acquire on the internet by themselves, or through a massage therapist (who often get away with mimicking physical therapists and even chiropractors).
On cheating, hasn’t there been national news stories on rampant cheating in college in almost every field including medical schools? This is no excuse for what cheating does go on, but when I attended there wasn’t any going on that I noticed. Students studied hard and were serious about it. However, I can say that the technique peddlers were the main problem and distracted students and even mislead some into belief systems rather than science based chiropractic treatment. And that leads to my central criticism of chiropractic. The real problem with chiropractic careis that it is too easy to fake and many chiropractors did not really learn actual chiropractic and sometimes even had the notion of it as a pathway to gain a license for practicing their own preconceived ideas. (I was amazed and angered when I heard students talking about “aura adjusting” in my first year, but as time went on, you didn’t hear about it because of the educational process). Basically, the more “marketing” the chiropractor uses the more likely it is that what he’s doing is not actually that effective or even patient specific. My father used to talk about the need to standardize chiropractic. The failure to do this has led to abuses in many directions, from all the misleading technique pedlars to chiropractors that fail to use the basic physical exam including x-rays as a screen. All of this constitutes some form of cheating and many chiropractors are very good at blinding themselves to the facts, including you, “fedup.”
Most of this criticism stems from the results of the medical establishments early and ongoing strategy to isolate chiropractic education. The main problem is that chiropractic colleges are exclusively private, for profit institutions. After WW2 and the introduction of the GI Bill, more people went to college than ever before. It was a boom time for chiropractic as well. I know for example that in California alone, where was once up to 50 “chiropractic colleges.” I remember a friend of my father’s who had attended a Six month “college.” Since the liberalizing of government educational loans, many different and questionable “colleges” have come into being, some are exclusively online. Chiropractic college matriculation jumped when these loans were approved for chiropractic colleges in the early 1980s. This has led to a kind of return of the post WW2 education quality question. However, entry requirements have increased (BS required). Chiropractic colleges became more like online diploma factories are now (as an extreme). This was possible because the strategy of the AMA was to suppress academic standards development for chiropractic while simultaneously criticizing those standards. This led to partisanship that led to success by chiropractic and chiropractic colleges due to the huge world of medical malpractice and neglect when those who would look for a better alternative found value in chiropractic. (Chiropractic has got something going for it in a basic way, it would have died out long ago, if it were simply a health trend like pyramid power, or crystal healing). But extremes create extremes and the very people that love extremes end up attracted to chiropractic because it is too easy to matriculate and it has been difficult to control what graduates actually do once they are licensed (due to inside politics that result from outside pressure from the AMA). Clinical experience is way below that of the medical doctor, but as the critics say here, our actual clinical focus is a specialty, like dentistry. How many pelvic exams must a dentist perform in dental school? If you review the actual hours that chiropractic students spend in the basic and clinical sciences, they rival the medical school. As for the author’s criticism of nutritional knowledge is concerned, I don’t know where he went to school, maybe the failed radically “straight” Sherman Chiropractic College where chiropractic was taught in Bible Belt fashion (where the school was located), but the standards are for many classes in biochemistry, physiology and specifically in nutrition. We all learned what the Krebs Cycle and ATP production was about. My oral exam question was around diabetes.
There is a huge world of abuse in the medical profession that reach a far deeper and consequential reality than the anti-chiropractic issues this article presents. I have an active complaint against one in my area for fraud in reaching a fake diagnosis of sleep apnea rather than my actual problem just to push his particular CPAP machine to me. The over diagnosis and billing for sleep apea is a big thing right now, and it’s just one of hundreds. Most people have gotten something valuable from traditional chiropractic or it would not have survived all the attempts to suppress/destroy it since the beginning of the 20th century. Yes, our worst enemy may be within, but there is a huge lack of understanding as this article illustrates as well as these responses.
Marc LeRoux, DC wrote: “Below is a web searched result of stroke studies done regarding chiropractic manipulation. This is mere sampling, there have been many more”
Indeed there have been. Lots more here http://www.ebm-first.com/chiropractic/risks.html
Marc LeRoux, DC quoted: “The RAND corporation estimated that the risk of stroke from chiropractic adjustments was “one in a million.” (“The appropriateness of manipulation and mobilization of the cervical spine. Santa Monica, CA: RAND Corporation 1996: xiv. (6).)”
That RAND investigation also found that 90% of neck manipulations were inappropriate. Also, you don’t seem to be factoring in this regarding risk:
http://edzardernst.com/2014/03/complications-after-chiropractic-manipulations-probably-rare-but-certainly-serious/#comment-55695
Marc LeRoux, DC wrote: “Co-investigator Philip Lee, M.D. noted, “Indeed, most interventions by allopathic physicians have a higher complication rate than chiropractic interventions.” (“Neurologic complications following chiropractic manipulation: A survey of California neurologists,” Neurology 1995; 45: 1213-5.)
Here are “allopathic” physicians’ answers to their critics:
Part 1
http://www.sciencebasedmedicine.org/answering-our-critics-part-1-of-2/
Part 2
http://www.sciencebasedmedicine.org/answering-our-critics-part-2-of-2-whats-the-harm/
And here’s a snippet from Death by Medicine:
QUOTE
“Doctor-bashers use their numbers to argue that alternative medicine is safer. Maybe it is. I suppose not treating at all would be safer still. It depends on how you define “safe.” To my mind, a treatment is not very “safe” if it causes no side effects but lets you die. Most of us don’t just want “safe:” we want “effective.” What we really want to know is the risk/benefit ratio of any treatment.
The ironic thing is that all the statistics these doctor-bashers have accumulated come from the medical literature that those bashed doctors have written themselves. Scientific medicine constantly criticizes itself and publishes the critiques for all to see. There is NOTHING comparable in the world of alternative medicine.”
Link: http://www.sciencebasedmedicine.org/death-by-medicine/
Marc LeRoux, DC wrote: “Chiropractic has got something going for it in a basic way, it would have died out long ago, if it were simply a health trend like pyramid power, or crystal healing.”
Chiropractic has been kept alive by slick marketing tactics and the persistent lobbying of legislators who are not well versed in science. The undeserved courtesy title of ‘Dr’ (which conveys prestige, honesty, and expertise in the eyes of the public) is also a factor in helping chiropractors stave off a rapid demise. However, it’s worth remembering that blood-letting seemed to have something going for it for a few decades until it was finally recognised as bogus and then discarded.
What’s your point? It sounds as if UK chiropractors curriculum is FAR less advanced than American chiro schools. We take 64 credits more than MDs and take the same courses MDs do for basic sciences, on top of much more advanced anatomy and physiology courses. It sounds like the UK is much more limited in their curriculum.
I am a specialty trained MD and these stats make no sense Britt
It is absolutely ridiculous to try to compare chiro to med school. It is possible your course work may compare in hours (even that I doubt) but the majority of medical school is clinical work. All the course work you are talking about is condensed in the first two years. In third year I spend an average of 100 hours a week in the hospital or doing clinical work x 48 weeks. Every third night we did a 36 hour shift in the hospital. During this time we would see thousands of sick patients with conditions that you only read about in a book. In my third year of medical school alone, I delivered 42 babies, assisted on over 280 surgeries, did 84 intubations and on and on. I worked in the intensive care managing patients who are tenuously holding onto life. Outside of these 100 hour weeks I had to study!
On surgical rotations we had to pre round at 4 am, followed by rounding with the residents at 5 and then staff at 6 am and then to the operating room from 7 to 4 and then admit the patients for the next day from 4-7 pm.
This is all in third year. I won’t even go onto 4th year medical school and then a 5 year residency.
How can you compare? Do you even see sick patients. So what if you read things in a book
Don’t even try to compare what you do!!
Brittdoc was referring to the first two years, he/she didn’t even speak on clinical work. Calm down. Your points are more valid for anyone on here bashing the medical profession’s clinical hours, dedication or commitment. I for one agree that the divide is in the 3rd and 4th year, but unfortunately incompetency is in all fields of work, regardless of the education received. You ask Briitdoc not to “compare what you do!!” yet you do just that….you should prescribe a chill pill and don’t be a hypocrite.
You really think chiropractic school courses are as difficult as medical school courses?
The average GPA necessary to get into a well ranked chiropractic school is about 3.0. (Both Palmer College and Parker University have this requirement).
Harvard Medical School’s average GPA requirement is 3.8.
On top of that, the courses Harvard expects you to have taken include things like biostatistics, whereas Parker just wants you to have 24 credit hours in science classes. That’s a semester and a half. Let that sink in. A semester and a half of science, and then it could all be history courses for all you know. That doesn’t sound much like a doctor to me.
I mean, looking at the undergrad requirements, I could easily get into a chiropractic school–and I’m not even interested in those classes. I could get into a well rated one, too. I could definitely not get into Harvard though.
I completely agree. As an academic myself, I feel that chiropractors while claiming to help those that mainstream medicine cannot and seperating themselves as holistic, even criticizing mainstream medicine at times, are not entitled to call themselves “Dr”. I was shocked to find that the large majority did. To me this is not only highly hypocritical but more importantly I believe that by using this title they enjoy the prestige & trust the public holds toward the medical fraternity and in doing so manipulate, confuse & con their ‘customers’.
“If the first few visits don’t help you, more treatment probably won’t help.”
Great! I’ll tell that to my next patient with severe whiplash conditions and see how that goes over! The last time I checked, soft tissue injury actually requires a period of healing and rehabilitation to return to normalcy. But I guess with your approach, I would just adjust them three times, wrap them up in a neck collar and send them on their way!!
“Neck manipulation is potentially dangerous. Certain types of chiropractic neck manipulation can damage neck arteries and cause a stroke.”
And what are the odds of that happening? About 1 in 10 million cases or so? And conversely, what are the odds that a patient is going to react badly to a prescribed medication and DIE!!? Or undergo a “routine” surgical procedure and DIE!!? Oh yeah, that only happens about 300,000 times a year!!
so you do ‘adjust’ the necks of ‘severe whiplash’ patients? based on what evidence?
And why allow that healing period to go by unmonetized when it could mean weekly donations to your piggy bank?
So you’ve basically just made up two statistics on the spot. This might be why people question your ability to practice any sort of scientific profession.
Well that could be extended to straight medical profession too… we still see physios using Ultrasounds or medical devices with no proven efficacy on plethora of MSK conditions, dozen and dozen of cyclic treatments prescribed by physicians who doesn’t know the difference between cruralgia and sciatalgia, unnecessary surgery, unnecessary investigations and so on and so forth… I don’t know in the US but in the UK Chiropractic and Osteopathic colleges have a decent and sound syllabus, surely better than the one I had when I trained to become a physio in Rome… and it may be true that the experience in clinic is tight but you do see patients supervised by tutors with a certain experience and background (from ones more wooly and wishy washy to people with solid EBM approach and with their feet right down on earth)… of course a lot depends from student to student (and from practitioner to practitioner), how much one is open minded or dogmatic (should I say stupid or not?), how keen to learn you are from other experts and how humble you are to sometimes saying “sorry I am not too sure I can deal with that” and send the patient to someone more competent…
Nice interview by the way!
Regards
1.”Only a small percentage (including me) reject these notions and align their beliefs and practices with those of the science-based medical community” I don’t believe only a small percentage operate in this way, I believe a large percentage, like him and me, reject these notions. But I still can’t see how he can work based on the science/medical community when he also states “little of what we do meets the scientific standard through solid research. Chiropractic apologists try to sound scientific to counter their detractors, but very little research actually supports what chiropractors do.” But again to use lack of evidence for lack of efficiency.
“7. We offer lots of unnecessary services.” I agree, but it’s not me, its not we. I believe we should offer 1 service. Chiropractic.
11. I agree but disagree with the statement that patients in research studies are safer because “medical teams that exclude people with conditions that would make manipulation dangerous.” This is I find hard to understand, especially if the chiropractor is using techniques that have no/very little incidence of adverse effects.
14. Chiropractors who sell vitamins charge much more than it costs them.” why would you sell vitamins?
“19. Don’t expect our licensing boards to protect you.” The GCC are no friends of Chiropractors, they have been overly punitive on many occasions.
“3. Our education is vastly inferior to that of medical doctors.” I agree. Mine was. I don’t and never have pretended to be as qualified as a medical doctor. I don’t want to be a medical doctor, I don’t and never have used the title DR. And again I know many chiropractors who will give you the same answer. Especially in the UK.
“16. The fact that patients swear by us does not mean we are actually helping them.
Satisfaction is not the same thing as effectiveness. Many people who believe they have been helped had conditions that would have resolved without treatment. Some have had treatment for dangers that did not exist but were said by the chiropractor to be imminent. Many chiropractors actually take courses on how to trick patients to believe in them. ”
I agree, but sometimes a patient will swear by you because you have not manipulated them but referred back to their GP for further investigations. you can satisfy, you can be effective , you can be both or neither.
Dear Fedup, it is very simple. Unsubstantiated claims, anecdotal witnessing and post hoc ergo procter hoc beliefs propel chiropractic forward since its creation by Palmer. Continues to this day I see after reading replies here.
Have the best day possible,
Preston
Wrong. Chiropractic is results driven. People arent stupid. If they arent getting results why would they waste their time, energy and money. Chiropractic is investing alot of time and money into investiagating what we do as a profession. It is undeniable that Chiropractic has a respectable amount of research backing its use in low back, neck and headaches amongst adults. So to use such terms as unsubstantiated claims and anectdotal witnessing are not only offensive. But also wrong. If you wish to truly help people maybe you would write a letter to the editor regarding these research papers, instead of writing a small blog online, venting your frustrations.
Guess it depends on your intent.
your opinion seems based on cherry-picking your research. read the Cochrane reviews on the subject.
Could I not say the very same for the above 20 points? There are 6 references for 20 points. 2 are websites, which are low levels of evidence. One is yourself and another S Barrett. Just saying that if you accept articles like this to be published on your website with poor ‘cherry picked’ references. How can you debate anyone else’s ability to do so.
Once again, depends on your intent.
I will answer your question once you respond appropriately to my comment that the Cochrane reviews fail to support the points you were trying to make. the technique of ignoring challenges of such types by making a counter-challenge seems very popular with chiropractors and other apologists of alternative medicine but it is nevertheless inappropriate.
You’re talking about “cherry-picking”, then tell someone who is telling a general truth to read one specific source of reviews? Unbelievable. The FACT is that chiropractic is a very gentle therapy at the muscular and skeletal level. There is very little room to cause a serious injury and in fact that is very very rare. Do you know how many MDs are used for malpractice?! Nearly 1 in 5. Chiropractors are sued so rarely, I literally don’t know of a single one- and my husband is an experienced chiropractor. Plus, I’m in chiropractic school and 90% of our friends are chiropractors. Only an ignorant, uneducated human being could ignore the MILLIONS of positive results to point out a minuscule handful of failures. It’s ridiculous, and clearly you are one of millions of zombies that simply believe allopathic is always right. Good luck with that. Unfortunately, it’s likely you’ll end up being over medicated, or worse, be prescribed a drug that will seriously hurt or kill you. I see a commercial for law offices at least 10 times a day, advertising their ability to sue physicians for hundreds of injuries caused by dangerous drugs and treatments. Have you ever once seen a commercial from a lawyer offering to sue chiropractors? No. You haven’t. By the way, MDs malpractice insurance is up to half their salaries. Chiropractors pay about 1,000 bucks a year. To say that what chiropractors do is dangerous and that they are used often is laughable. Malpractice insurance isn’t dirt cheap for practitioners who are practicing a dangerous treatment.
this is opinion, not evidence!
Regarding your comments on #11, your comment on finding it hard to understand confuses me. Is this because you don’t believe there are conditions that are contraindicated for chiropractic care? I ask because I have such a condition, Ehlers-Danlos Syndrome, and getting chiropractic care could have devastating consequences for anyone with EDS, especially the hypermobility or vascular type. I understand certain types of Chiari malformation could be a condition that contraindicates chiropractic care, as well, although I’m not 100% certain. But H-EDS and V-EDS, definitely.
Fedup: you use the word ‘many’ a lot on that comment. Could you give an idea of what that means? 25% 40% Not more than 50% or surely you’d have used ‘most’ instead.
Even if only 10% were as dodgy as those discussed above, that’s still an awful lot in an unregulated and unsubstantiated field.
Many just means “many chiropractors I’ve met, mentored and discussed with over the last 22 years” I am unable to give you exact figures, I’ve not kept count. But I could also use “most” or even “nearly all”. I agree if only 10% are dodgy it casts a shadow over the whole profession, BUT no profession can be without it’s faults, or bad apples.
I think the problem is not with Chiropractic the problem is with “patient management schemes” these have nothing to do with the patient and his/her best interests, they have been devised to get the patient coming back as much and for as long as possible, no matter what the initial problem.
who is this idiot, who wouldnt know the first thing about chiropractic. I learned more about it as a patient and then having sought out to become one as well. He did independent medical exams which means he was paid by the insurance compainies to discredit chiropractic, shame shame on you mister.
YOU SOLD OUT…..and you disgust me.
chiropractic works and millions upon millions are now aware of this.
Im just not sure who paid you and the other idiots out there doing the same thing. I would sooner go work at a grocery store packing groceries.
Preston H Long you are a disgrace to the chiropractic profession…take off your chiropractic hat, you dont deserve to wear it. YOU sir are a shame and a folly!!
Hehe a good brotherhood is cute but it won’t cover up for the profession – it only reinforces the mythical aspect of the chiro-gurus. With that being said, if they’d actually stop teaching you that “actual” medecine is the epiphany of evil and incarnation of the Devil with a capital D, you could actually get some sense into you. The usual yadda-yadda medecine kills people and so on. Because I’m sure chiros have similar case as doctors do in the ER – oh and complicated cases too. (lol)
Hi Stephanie, I could not agree more. It seems impossible to stick to the topic at hand and have a disputation without tangents and personal attacks. I find it amusing to read these posts and count the logical fallacies, ad hominem attacks and anecdotes.
All my best,
Preston
I dont think we have ever been taught Medicine is the devil at all. At our practice we treat many GP’s, Psychiatrists, Nurses, even a Neurosurgeon. Never have we had an issue. We get referred to by many surrounding medics from around the area. Using the term mythical chiro-gurus is disrespectful and offensive, it is Chiropractor. If you wish to throw around offensive words then you have already lost the discussion.
All the best,
Lachlan
the chiro-literature is full of anti-science, anti-medicine stuff. do you deny it?
Stephane, why don’t you do yourself a favor and check out the curriculum required to undergo before being granted a chiropractic license? I doubt you’d get through it. It is so rigorous and difficult, many end up failing out, regardless of the fact that they aced the pre reqs to get in (which, by the way, are identical to the pre reqs MDs have to take). DCs take 64 credits more than MDs, which includes WAY more advanced anatomy, physiology and radiology courses. And they are nothing but hard science- adjusting isn’t even taught the first two years. Also, look at DCs accuracy in interpreting x-rays. They are so far above MDs abilities (including radiologists!), it’s unbelievable. DCs are also more knowledgable in the anatomy arena. Try doing research before babbling about nonsense. The RESULTS are what SHOULD prove to you that chiropractic is legit and works, seeing as the majority of insured Americans have seen chiropractors or see them regularly. Are you saying millions of people are not getting any results or are seeing negative results, yet go back again and again and again?! Please. Your argument is completely based on your ignorance of the profession, NOT on facts.
argumentum ad populum = fallacy. evidence would be better!
edzard, i haven’t read anything you’ve posted where you aren’t simply volleying back resistance, unwilling to concede anything, and you don’t seem to have the slightest interest in actual debate. i find you the least trustworthy of anyone posting on here and the person with the most overt agenda.
but if i may ask you to please respond to this one point: do you think the pittance chiropractors must pay in malpractice insurance compared to the outrageous amounts allopathic doctors must pay indicates that they are a MUCH smaller risk of doing actual damage to their patients? insurance companies are kind of known for simply charging based on statistics to insure a profit.
oh dear!
I have tried to explain this so many times!
but i’ll do it again.
EVEN IF THESE FEES WERE A TRUE REFLECTION OF THE RISKS, WE NEED TO CONSIDER NOT THE RISKS OF INTERVENTIONS ALONE WHEN JUDGING THE USEFULNESS OF HEALTH CARE. WE MUST CONSIDER THE RISK/BENEFIT BALANCE.
if not heart surgeons could be seen as far less useful than homeopaths, for instance.
Stephane, you should learn how to string together a sentence coherently, and maybe you would be a little more credible,but furthermore, you obviously know NOTHING about this profession. Tell me, what is the curriculum a DC must complete to become licensed? I find it funny that someone who can’t write thinks they are above chiropractic physicians who completed a highly rigorous program that MDs have also completed prior to receiving their medical license, who say it was far more difficult a program than the one they completed first. You’re just ignorant of all the facts. Go find yourself some actual research instead of basing your opinion off of what some people you overheard talking or your mom thinks.
you are a champion of muddled thinking and ad hominem attacks.
Seeing as your own and your husband’s livelihood, and that of most of your friends, is entirely dependent on chiropractic, give me one good reason why we shouldn’t simply assume your arguments are all motivated by money?
Britt…
Read through your own posts and tell me how many spelling errors you see.
Done?
Now decide: is everyone who makes a typo in a forum an idiot?
Thanks for your opinion Anna Maria have a wonderful weekend.
Preston
That explains it – you get to wear a special magical hat when you’re sworn into the Holy Siblinghood of Chiropractic. Is it like the Hogwarts Sorting Hat? If you disgrace the Siblinghood, does the Chief Wizard cause your hat to shatter (like Gandalf does to Saruman’s staff?).
The most sinister words a chiropractor ever hears – ‘Sir, take off your chiropractic hat’.
Preston Long is clearly a person who regrets his career choice and has chosen to make it into a book that panders to medicine. He practiced a profession for 30 years that he condemns wholesale, what does that say about him?
He leaves out the fact that the third leading cause of death in our country is medicine! The leading cause of personal bankruptcy is medical bills and around 30 percent of procedures are unnecessary. He also cites Steven Barrett who is a disgraced psychiatrist and like Long has dedicated his bitter, puzzling life to going after chiropractic.
As a practicing chiropractor I will be the first to admit, that like any profession, ours has its challenges and a few bad apples. However, Long discounts the multitudes that chiropractic has helped and saved from dangerous drugs and surgery. As far as risks of injury from seeing a chiropractor vs. medicine, all one needs to do is compare malpractice insurance rates to see that insurance carriers rate medicine as an exponentially more dangerous undertaking.
I think Mr. Long would benefit from a hobby. It might ease his lament for what he must feel was a wasted life.
The absolute ignorance of this article is insane. Its almost funny. Most, if not all points are completely biased and manipulated to represent your opinion. Which is all this is. You have 6 references for 20 points. Wow. One reference is from S. Barrett (are you kidding me), another is from Ernst E (once again, are you kidding me). Another two of the references are 15+ years old. Its funny how you only look at research that supports your opinion, and seemingly forget the remainder which debates it.
Chiropractors are 5 years university trained. Have an enviable safety record (compare it against medicine). Enviable patient satisfaction record. Are registered and regulated by professional bodies nationally. We must continue to improve our self and our skills in order to maintain registered.
Many of you will be aware that the risk of injury in hospitals and reported adverse drug reactions has escalated over time and it is estimated in the (1) British Medical Journal 2000 (no recent figures available) that as many as 18,000 people die every year as a result of medical error in Australia, while 50,000 people suffer a permanent injury. These figures are estimated to now be significantly higher.
More recent statistics from the Therapeutic Goods Act of Australia (2) state that there were 233,300 reports of
suspected adverse drug reactions in 2010. This does not include deaths or injuries attributable to medical care in
2010 nor does it include complaints relating to misconduct, advertising or communication issues.
In that same year (2010) there were 11 million estimated visits to chiropractors within Australia (3) and a total
of only 41 reported treatment complaints made about chiropractors. (4) (There were no alleged deaths or serious
complications in this time frame reported in the Australian literature.)
1.) Weingart SN, Wilson RM, Gibberd RW, Harrison B.
Epidemiology of medical error. BMJ 2000; 320(77): 4-7.
2.) Adverse Drug Reactions, Australian Statistics on Medicines
V1.0 September 2011 Online. http://www.tga.gov.au/pdf/
medicines-statistics-2010.pdf
3.) Chiropractors Association of Australia (CAA) records (2010)
Its always funny how certain things can seem “unsafe” when they are compared against nothing.
Shouldn’t this whole debate not be about shaming any one particular profession and more be about working together to improve patient outcomes? Because believe it or not that’s what its all about at the end of the day…the patient and their improvements. Not your ego.
People keep reading and researching for yourselves, don’t rely on incredibly biased blogs/articles like this that push a persons opinion on you.
Finally I leave you with this; Voltaire once wrote in an essay on tolerance: “Think for yourselves and let others enjoy the privilege to do so too.”
Article did make me laugh though.
@Lachlan
A good laugh is always helpful.
But, like quite a few of the other replies here, you throw insults, do rather a lot of hand-waving and introduce red herrings all over the place.
Obviously it may vary in different countries, but to pick up on one of your points relevant to the post, perhaps you can say something about this ‘enviable safety record’? How do you know?
Also, I’m sure if there was a survey of astrologers’ customers, we’d find a high satisfaction rate, so what do you think a survey of chiros customers shows?
If critiquing the authors references is an insult, then please feel free to critique mine.
Is not stating in the above article that ‘chiropractic causes strokes’ a direct insult against chiropractic as a profession? What is one to do. Would you not do the same, if the tables were turned? What’s more these claims are not supported with evidence, but are mere opinion (which is the lowest form of evidence). Here is a small amount of supporting evidence for my statements regarding chiropractic NOT causing stroke:
The inaccurate or false assertion that chiropractic is unsafe due to the risk of stroke is not evidence-based. Cassidy et al (1) looked for an association between chiropractic visits and VBA stroke and an association between GP visits and VBA stroke. They compared the two and found no diference — patients having spinal manipulation did not have a greater rate of stroke than patients having primary medical care with a GP. Again, it could not be demonstrated that seeing a chiropractor or a GP had anything to do with causing stroke. Instead, as the study concluded, the main reason for any association was most likely due to patients seeking care for neck pain and headache prior to an impending stroke, since these are very common precursory symptoms.
It is not only extremely rare to have one of these strokes in general terms, it is so rare to have one associated with chiropractic care that the risk can’t even be accurately determined. Common medical treatments for neck pain and headache such as anti-infammatories have medically acceptable risk ratios that far exceed even the highest risk estimates for chiropractic. (2)
But misleading reporting in the medical literature regarding chiropractic has been widespread and the terms chiropractic and chiropractor have been misused in many medical journal articles that examine the safety of chiropractic. Associate Professor Allan Terrett, in his book Current Concepts in Vertebrobasilar Complications (3) discusses how authors have frequently quoted examples of ‘chiropractic injury’ when it is clearly known that the involved therapist was not a chiropractor. He says, “Chiropractic adjustments are among the safest procedures in the provision of human health care service, when compared to mortality and morbidity rates in medical practice.” Chiropractic has an outstanding and enviable safety record.
1.) Cassidy JD, Boyle C, Cote P, He Y, Hogg-Johnson S, Silver FL, Bandy SJ. Risk of Vertebrobasilar stroke and chiropractic care. European spine journal. 2008; 17(1): 176-183
2.) Dabbs V DC, Lauretti W DC. A risk assessment of cervical manipulation vs NSAIDS for the treatment of Neck Pain. JMPT 1995; 18: 530-536
3.) Terrett AGJ. Current Concepts: Vertebrobasilar complications following spinal manipulation. West Des Maines, IA: NCMIC Group Inc 2001
TERRETT IS A LEADING WORLD EXPERT ON VEEREBRAL ARTERY ACCIDENTS!!
Additional:
4.) Haldeman S, Kohlbeck F, Mcgregor M. Stroke, Cerebral artery dissection, and cervical spine manipulation therapy. J Neurology. July 2002, 249(8) 1098-1104
Found the risk of VBA from a chiropractic adjustment was 1 in 5.8 million!!!!!
In regards to patient satisfaction and furthermore to patient safety. An INDEPENDENT inquiry into chiropractic was performed in 1979 via the NEW ZEALAND GOVERNMENT, which found, and let me quote “Remarkably safe and a clinically effective form of health care. Chiropractors have more thorough training in spinal care than any other health professional. Furthermore, Chiropractic has an excellent safety record. It is the result of a conservative approach to health that minimises invasive procedures or addictive drugs”
Heres the source have a read:
Hasselberg PD. Chiropractic in New Zealand: Report of the commision of inquiry. Wellington, Government Printer: 1979
An older source, but its credibility holds true and strong today.
Another INDEPENDENT Large study done by an the RAND organisation in 1991 found similar findings.
THIS STUFF IS NOT HARD TO FIND WITH SIMPLE LITERATURE SEARCHES ONLINE. Im not going to run around for you, considering how easy it is to find all of this. I could quote SO many more articles supporting what I say. But unfortunately its one of those arguments with so much emotion involved, its hard to get to the truth.
Chiropractic, particularly here in AUS is working its butt off to get more and more high quality evidence to support what they do. And what we dont need are articles like this presenting points with no evidence to support it.
So to counteract your question: How do you know? How do you know any of the above 20 points are true, if so where’s your proof/your evidence? Is it high qualty? I have questioned what I do and come out more confident, can you say the same reviewing my above comment?
Im off to do something I dedicated my life to, helping people.
Lachlan, you really need to get up to speed with what the Cassidy paper really told us:
http://www.ebm-first.com/chiropractic/risks/491-chiropractic-and-stroke-evaluation-of-the-paper-risk-of-vertebrobasilar-stroke-and-chiropractic-care-results-of-a-population-based-case-control-and-case-crossover-study-spine-2008-feb-15334-suppls176-83-cassidy-jd-boyle-e-c.html
Indeed, bearing in mind that chiropractors (globally) have either no adverse events reporting systems, or very unreliable ones, the many reported complications associated with their treatments are pretty scary to say the least:
http://www.ebm-first.com/chiropractic/risks.html
In view of the above, what Simon Singh concluded in his 2008 Guardian article over which he was personally, but unsuccessfully, sued for libel by the British Chiropractic Association, would still seem to stand:
Quote
“If spinal manipulation were a drug with such serious adverse effects and so little demonstrable benefit, then it would almost certainly have been taken off the market.”
Link: http://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2008/apr/19/controversiesinscience-health
NB. Reports of deaths after chiropractic treatment are “about three times the number of deaths from trovafloxacin, an excellent antibiotic abandoned in the U.S. as too dangerous”:
http://www.sciencebasedmedicine.org/compare-and-contrast/
@ Blue Wode.
Thank you for engaging in a scientific debate.
Firstly, several things must be mentioned before continue. I referenced 3 quality references in my first comment. 5 quality references in my second comment. For which you combatted with links to opinion based Websites.
Any reader reading this comment, must first understand that websites are poor forms of evidence, and any scientist will not hold a website to high credibility or validity. Why? Because very often they are based on that authors opinion and are not assessed or peer reviewed like an article in a reputable journal.
Now we may continue.
Secondly, my remaining 7 pieces of peer reviewed literature remain to be critiqued by yourself. Why? Please provide supporting literature for your comments.
Your first link is to a website (poor level of evidence). This website is clearly biased towards your opinion considering the propaganda and advertising on the site. Which critiques cassidys 2008 paper. Most of which is opinion based via Ernst. If follow the link further to the next page. It leads you to 2 more supporting papers of cassidy et al. One (if you choose to read them) showed a decrease utilization of chiropractic care in certain regions of canada with an increase occurence of VBA stroke in those same regions?
What is your response to this?
2.) Your second comment and link talks about No adverse event reporting system. In AUS we have the Chiropractic Board of Australia AND AHPRA who regulate us and take complaints/adverse events. Just the exact same as a medical board and registrational board would. So unsure of your comment there? The link you supplied, once again is a website ( poor form of evidence), which links to the same biased opinion based blog, where several of the stories are quoted by Ernst, who is the direct author of this blog with which we currently reside. Bias once again enters the equation.
3.) Your third article is I believe an online newspaper link? Which is avery poor source of evidence. Where once again the bottom of the page is littered with links back to Ernst blog and online articles.
4.) I do believe if Trovaflaxcin was so excellent, then why was it removed from all public use and completely abandoned by the US government for being dangerous?
I read your final link also, also reading the systematic review hidden in the article. Please let me quote from it: ” CONCLUSION: There is no robust data concerning the incidence or prevalence of adverse reactions after Chiropractic. Further investigations are needed to assess definite conclusions regarding this issue”
He also states that MOST adverse events were benign and transitory and the rates of serious adverse events were between 5/100,000 adjustments at the absolute worst he could find. Interstingly he found that they were as rare as 1.46/10,000,000 adjustments. Are you serious?
SO YOU HAVE FAILED TO COMMENT ON MY REMAINING 7 SOURCES OF LITERATURE. YOU CRITIQUED 1 POORLY USING WEBSITES.
MY FINAL QUESTION IS THUS. PLEASE COMMENT ON MY REFERENCES 1-2 DISCUSSING RATES OF MEDICAL ERROR AND INJURY, INCLUDING DEATHS.
Please compare these against the rates which you just provided me from your last link.
Lastly, anyone choosing to read this far. This argument shall not be won on a blog. Please once again read for yourselves, research actual research not opinion based blogs.
Thank you. My time in my life and with family and my patients is too important to continue here.
Cheers.
I stopped reading when you said that only published sources were credible…
Do you know what a secondary source is?
Astrologers’ customers? Are you serious? That’s your argument? Well, how about we talk about actual facts then? The AMA recently concluded through a large study that the defects of chiropractic are immediately apparent on an MRI and they highly recommended chiropractic treatment before resorting to surgery and pain meds. Yes, the AMA. Look it up. And I find it funny that anyone could possibly say that chiropractic is “unsafe”- seeing as the ratio of injuries to chiropractic treatments is so low, it’s laughable. The ratio of injury to MD treatments? Ridiculously high. Which is why the MEDICAL association recommends seeking chiropractic help first. Did you do ANY research whatsoever, other than reading nonsensical articles on quack watch??
Brittdoc said:
No. Please try again.
Well, how about citing your source then?
Oh dear. Would you like me to point out the errors in your flawed, fallacious thinking or do you want to have another go?
Brittdoc, you are driving me nuts. I am scared for everyone of your patients. I have never read more posts from somone as close minded as you. YOU NEED TO BE MORE OPEN MINDED TO BE A DOCTOR. Also, STOP making everything about an MD and DC comparison, it sounds ridiculous. You sound very very bitter. MD and DC are completely two different things. An MD school blows any chiropractic school out of the water and you know it. My best friend goes to chiropractic school and is 12th quarter, he even admits and I’ve witnessed that his work load at Palmer has not held a candle to our other buddy who is at Keck School of Medicine at USC. I am really starting to become annoyed how DC’s always just want to compare or bash MD’s. You always see it’s so one sided too, chiros are very bitter with the AMA, yet it seems the AMA stays too busy to really care about the one-sides rivals. I’ve heard over a dozen chiropractors bad mouth doctors, but I’ve never heard and M.D waste time on the issue. The scopes are completely two different things. Chiropractors deal with muscular-skeletal injuries and pain management. If they were in a hospital they belong in rehabilitation, that’s it. They probably should be in hospitals and SNF’s. MD’s do all sorts of things at many different physiological levels. Again the scope is different you can’t even begin to compare. But you sound very confident in your two years of anatomy and love to keep saying you had to take the same pre reqs as any MD. Most medical prereqs are all the same!!! A P.A. who works under a doctor also has those prereqs. If a M.D with a specialty wanted to actually waste his/her time to compare the curriculums, you know it would be a joke. M.D programs are way more intense period. I know you chiro school has been difficult for you as you keep saying how tough it is, but don’t compare the programs. I also see one thing consistent throughout the chiropractic community, and for lack of a better work, brainwashing. I don’t know what they teach the first couple quarters, but I have never met a chiro, who doesn’t think that they can’t cure cancer. My buddy even thought Payton Mannings surgery wasn’t needed if he got right chiropractic treatment….the ignorance and close mindedness!! It just seems they make you guys believe that if everything is in align, you will NEVER be sick or ill. On another note, I work as a Paramedic, want to try and compare my scope. What can you adjust or rehab, when your patient has the back of their skull smashed in from a 15ft fall, has a pulse of 74/40 , airway is compromised by blood and skull. What in the world would a chiro do? What would a dermatologist or gynecologist do? I work more closely with the hospitals than I do rehab, and I have the upmost respect for the ER doctors and RN’s, they work very very hard stressful shifts, and very long hours, something DC’s don’t have to experience. I also have respect for chiropractors who work hard and push rehabilitation to new boundaries. Health care encompasses everything and everyone. It requires talents from different scopeS. The whole point of my tangent is just people on here need to STOP COMPARING THE FIELDS. They are different!! If anything as a country it should be a collective effort to pursue the best health and patient care possible. This bickering about Med School, chiro school, who knows what, needs to stop. And you Brittdoc are very guilty of being a little too one sided. Your comment of “you must be one of the millions of zombies who thinks allopathic is always right” is very juvenile, shows you have little or zero experience. Who are you talking about when you say the millions of zombies doctor? Are you referring to Americans, who are possible potential patients? I can tell you are all fired up on team Chiro, BEING A STUDENT, but that is just what you are. I know the curriculum is hard, you take some anatomy courses, get a few X-rays in, and next thing you know you are feeling all like a big bad doctor, but you really really need to humble yourself. Medicine and science is very humbling, seeing patients in conditions that I’ve seen them in is also very humbling. You really shouldn’t be making posts like you are making. You have not had the experience yet. Be a student, and learn to give a little more respect to the health care system as a
whole, you are clearly very bitter with some aspects of it. Anyways best of luck out there, im sure in the future you will turn out to be a great chriopractor. To all the health care professionals out there stay safe and much appreciation to everyone.
Stupid post.
This chiropractor obviously feels left out that he didn’t go to medical school instead. The author should go back to medical school so he can feel proud to be a “real” doctor.
“3 and done”. Who came up with this rule, obviously this guy did. It’s basic physiology, fibrosis and repair of tissues…and that should be accomplished in 3 or less visits? Makes no sense.
Get out of the profession!
Some of this I would agree with, many are overstepping.
“Insurances don’t want to pay for chiropractic” is a joke. INSURANCE COMPANIES DON’T WANT TO PAY FOR ANYTHING!
“Chiropractors sell vitamins at much more than their cost.” Yeah, of course they do. Did you know those “shady” supermarkets are doing the same thing? They get food and supplies at a wholesale cost and sell it for retail. Scumbags! Boycott safeway, it’s not safe! That’s what our “resellers license” is all about. Typical markup on any wholesale item in any business is 2X.
Many chiropractors are under educated, over treating, and just not that good at what they do. I would say that many MD’s are just as bad as their job. The chiropractic field is difficult to be a part of because of the variety of approaches, and the large discrepancy between capable and incapable physicians, but overall, most of these comments are overstatements.
AGREED WITH:
1) SOME CHIROPRACTORS BASE THEIR PHILOSOPHY IN SUBLUXATION, but not all.
4) Legitimate scope is very narrow. Yeah, we should stick with musculoskeletal conditions, and if other things get better, awesome.
5) Chiropractic needs better research
7) Lots of unnecessary services. Gosh, there are some practice management groups that teach over treatment, and it drives me bonkers.
8) Cracking of the spine doesn’t mean much. Yeah, so what.
10) We take too many Xrays. Totally agree.
16) Just because someone swears by us doesn’t mean we help them. Totally agree.
18) Lots of chiropractors do really strange things. Totally true. Some of it works, but a lot of it is strange.
19) Don’t expect our licensing boards to protect you. Not well run organizations.
Disagree
2) Most every professional promises too much, in any field.
3) Vastly inferior to MDs. A far narrower scope gives us far less to need to be aware of. Without learning all the drug complications, less time is needed. However, I would love to see a residency program for chiropractic students.
6) Unless your diagnosis is obvious, get diagnosed elsewhere. Lots of chiropractors have good diagnosis, but may offer the wrong treatment plan. Or the right one, but I have SO MANY PATIENTS that come in with the wrong diagnosis from their MD or DO.
9) If the first few visits don’t help, then more treatment wont either. This depends on the condition. Sometimes you have to work through some stuff… and it can be slow.
11) Research doesn’t reflect what is happening in the offices… In some offices it does, in some it doesn’t, but that just means we need more research on all types.
12) Neck manipulation is potentially dangerous. This has been debunked so many times. IT DOESN’T CAUSE STROKES! You can sprain someone’s neck, or give them headaches, or possibly paralyze them, but you can do the same with almost any treatment
13) Most chiropractors don’t know much about nutrition. Maybe in your day, you old goat!
14) We already brought this up. It is a business you moron.
15) Chiropractors have no business treating children. What if it was for our scope of practice of musculoskeletal conditions?
17) Insurance companies don’t want to pay. This was by far the dumbest statement I’ve read all week.
20) The media rarely looks at what we are doing wrong. Or right. We don’t get hardly any press. So what, neither do dentists.
Sorry you got so frustrated with the profession. I’m with you on that one. I’m fairly disappointed with the conclusions you’ve come to, and the actions you’ve taken, because if you get very much traction, you make it more difficult for chiropractors to succeed, even the ones that have a similar, musculo-skeletal view.
@ Max Lippman
Re:
13) Most chiropractors don’t know much about nutrition. Maybe in your day, you old goat!
14) We already brought this up. It is a business you moron.
For a professional, you’re not doing your credibility any favours.
http://edzardernst.com/2012/12/ad-hominem-attacks-are-signs-of-victories-of-reason-over-unreason/
Hi Max, I appreciate your review of my top 20. I have only met chiropractors and reviewed their patient charts for the treatment of subluxations. Even when a strain/sprain is diagnosed the manipulation was for subluxations. Subluxations are mythical entities that were/are the foundation for the chiropractic profession. Since there is no scientific support for them the treatment of them is never medically necessary. At 57, I am an old goat already?
Respectfully submitted,
Preston
Preston, you are so incredibly wrong in saying chiropractors don’t know much about nutrition. Are you saying MDs know more?? MDs, the doctors who take zero nutrition courses? Do you know how many extremely difficult nutrition courses a chiropractor must take? Clearly not. My husband is a chiropractor and a nutrition expert who knows more about nutrition than any MD, dietitian or nutritionist you will ever meet. Chiropractors are trained specifically in nutritional counseling. Do you have ANY idea what the curriculum is like for this profession?! That’s a rhetorical question, of course. You don’t.
Brittdoc said:
I doubt that very much. But please feel free to prove me wrong.
Britt,
Come on.
My roommate is in food science. I looked at the chiropractic curriculumn. His is harder and he’s not even a doctor.
Stop comparing your husband’s intellect to a medical doctor by arguing about the curriculumn. MD curriculumns are way harder. You know that. And don’t cite the number of credits again, because I already compared them between Palmer and Harvard and they’re not even close. (Harvard wins–go figure).
Also I know you love “sources”. If you need a source on that one, go to Palmer’s website. They will give you their self-reported numbers. Do the same for Harvard. Obviously they’re not pretending to be something they’re not, (at least in this case) so you shouldn’t pretend either.
I’m sure your husband is a great guy. But come on.
And, you think he knows more than nutritionists? “Any nutritionist”?
Well, the only advice I have is to not drink the kool-aid when he passes it around.
@ Max
“12) Neck manipulation is potentially dangerous. This has been debunked so many times. IT DOESN’T CAUSE STROKES! You can sprain someone’s neck, or give them headaches, or possibly paralyze them, but you can do the same with almost any treatment”
Is possibly paralyzing someone not considered potentially dangerous?
– Kelly
Kelly, if you had done a simple google search, you’d know that a chiropractic just meant has NEVER paralyzed anyone. And secondly, it has NEVER caused stroke. Patients who have had strokes while getting adjusted were already in line to have a stroke, and would have no matter what they were doing. If you knew anything about medicine and physiology, adjustments CAN NOT CAUSE A STROKE. PERIOD.
the evidence shows otherwise, i’m afraid
Brittdoc said:
Why would anyone rely on a Google search to tell them whether a treatment was safe?
@Alan: “Why would anyone rely on a Google search to tell them whether a treatment was safe?”
Because google will tell you about the dangers of cipro, for example. Apparently many US docs won’t. Google will also tell you that it (cipro) probably isn’t the best first choice for diverticulitis, UTI, etc. Again, apparently many US docs won’t. For whatever reason.
Good grief. Yes, there are some websites that provide good, reliable information on treatments, but there many that are not and it can be difficult for a lay person to know which is which if all you’re doing is going by the first page or so of results returned by Google.
Some reliable information (internet) is better than no reliable information (many US docs). When dealing with medications that can permanently alter or end your life, it’s a sorry state of affairs when you can spend a few minutes on the FDA website and be more informed about the dangers of flouroquinolones than the ER doc that prescribed it.
Good grief indeed.
@jm
Are you trying to make a point here? Seems like you have information on usage of ciprofloxacin by “some” doctors for non-listed indications? Is that relevant to the discussion? Did you do a study on this?
Of course Ciprofloxacin has side effects. It is a powerful antibiotic and can be life saving. Only non-effective things have no side effects, like Ledum Palustre 30C or Reiki for ADHD. Some non-effective therapies even have side effects. Like Gua Sha, Cupping and Chiropractic cervical manipulation. (If you wish to contradict this please do so by providing credible evidence)
This straw-man of yours has nothing to do with the subject of this discussion thread. Maybe you can tell us why chiropractors do not list their side effects, even the rare ones.
@ Bjorn – Before you put in your two cents, you should read all the words. I’ll sum up them for you:
Alan asked why rely on google.
So I told him.
I used cipro as an example. (Sometimes people use examples.) Of course cipro has side effects. It would be nice if the person prescribing them knew what they were, and informed their patient. You actually disagree with that?
Interesting how alt-med aficionados reliably fail to comprehendwhen someone throws a sarcastic innuendo at them.
Don’t worry Bjorn – you’ll catch on eventually.
Actually, I personally know someone who is now a quadriplegic from a chriopractic manipulation. Care to change your tune??
After injuring my back, I’m getting kicked out of the house I’m renting because my new landlady is a chiro, furious, I wouldn’t make the proper chirping sounds when she offered to “help” me. Forcing her services on me is what it is. She just blew up yesterday, with no way to reason with, or console her. I’ve got to get out.
They’re crazy – and they’ll screw anyone they suspect doesn’t go along.
There is a lot of research proving that techniques like CBP correct spinal posture problems. There is also a lot of research (by MDs) stating that postural issues cause problems health problems.
Thanks for the good work and helping some of us see the light! I saw a chiro for over 20 years and took my kids as well until I read your book “Trick or Treatment”. Having read that I decided to see if my back pain resolved itself after a week rather than going to a chiro. That was about 5 years ago – I’ve never been back. Just like many, I thought it was helping me and had no idea that it has not backed by science (after all, in Australia they get a science degree through a reputable university, though not for much longer in Sydney). I guess the first inkling that it was not what I thought came when the chiro wanted my two healthy under 10 year old children to get full body x-rays just to check out their spines. The radiology clinic refused to do it and looked at me like I was insane. I told the chiro and he said he knew of a small clinic that would do it. I was pretty disconcerted that a radiology clinic attached to a major hospital refused so I didn’t get it done. Then I got your book and that was it!! Thankyou! I’ve since read many books and blogs about alt med and it makes me furious to think of all the useless (and expensive) products I’ve had recommended by pharmacists (and even a general practitioner). I recently saw a government funded “Help your kids cope with their final exams” site that recommended an “amazing” product “Rescue Remedy”. Unbelievable!! At least I think I have finally convinced my mother not to let her chiro crack her neck after months of her protesting “but he’s very experienced and knows what he’s doing!”
So basically the author of the referenced book only took a few bad examples of chiropractors and making an over generalization about the profession as a whole? Very weak to say the least. You can do the exact thing about any profession. I personally know many MDs who seek chiropractic care.
Because the author clearly has not done his research properly and only found the research he wanted to find, I hold no credit to the author or to this post.
It did make for a good laugh though.
@ Matt
Science will have the last laugh. If you read the book, you will discover that Preston Long’s approach wasn’t “very weak to say the least”. Throughout the book he references robust scientific research.
Who do you treat and how do YOU help them?
I don’t know what your motivation in writing this book is other than to make money. I personally have been to both a chiropractor who released me after my insurance quit paying – and now to the DOCTOR who has treated me for the last 8 years for sympthoms of my degenerative disk, degenerative scoliosis and arthritis. He has never led me to believe he could cure me or make me better. He tells me I am defying the odds, but he says that most likely I will eventually need surgery.
I could not be more pleased with the medical knowledge this man possesses and that which he professes not to know, or his candor – OR his ethics!
A few? Did you read the blurb at the beginning? He’s seen a lot of this, unfortunately.
…and it’s documented.
My mother had a friend who swore by her chiropractor. She had her husband going for his back pain for months, I believer, and as it turned out he had cancer of the spine. Of course by the time he got to a REAL doctor, it was too advanced to do anything about.
Also, I knew an elderly woman who went, and as far as I could tell, wasted her money on one every couple of weeks. For the first few days after the treatment she could barely move, and then she felt better for a couple of days, and then felt worse again until her next appointment.
I personally wouldn’t let one touch me with a ten-foot pole.
God, that’s awful, Leslie. While we’re on anecdotes, a chiro (in Dublin) treated my 16-year-old niece for chronic pain. He talked about ‘subluxations’, made by bizarre clicking noises as he manipulated her spine and said all kinds of nonsense including that he could feel the problem leaving and it would just need a few more sessions. On about session 8 he said that unfortunately there’d been a regression and he could feel the problem had returned and it would, of course, need a few more sessions.
She quite liked the sessions and said the treatment was relaxing but at no time was her pain relieved. This isn’t surprising as it turned out that her pain had nothing to do with so-called subluxations in the spine. It wasn’t even a muscular-skeletal problem but an extremely rare problem with her bile duct (now successfully treated by medical doctors). The chiro was talking BS and he must have known it.
yes he was talking BS; but did he know it? many don’t and are entirely convinced of their bizarre theories. and this conviction makes them much more dangerous for the unsuspecting patient
Do you know how many cancers are discovered because a chiropractor took “a too many, unnecessary” x ray???????????????
Have you guys heard of the girl who suffered from 3rd degree burned when she dropped her coffee in the car?
I hope no one drinks a coffee ever again! As a nation lets all make the switch to iced coffee! It’s the only logical solution because all coffee served hot is the Devil with a capital D
And do you know how likely x-rays are to cause cancer?
Maybe they didn’t discover the cancer. Maybe they just blasted enough x-rays through people until they knew they must have cancer. And everyone heralded them as geniuses.
(Trying to mimick your awful sarcasm).
What a joke of an article.
Yeah, it’s pretty funny how some chiropractors are quacks.
Twenty Things Most Medical Doctors Won’t Tell You
Have you ever consulted a medical doctor? Are you thinking about seeing one? Do you care whether your tax and health-care dollars are spent on worthless medical treatment? If your answer to any of these questions is yes, there are certain things you should know.
1. Medical theory and practice are often not based on the body of knowledge related to health, disease, and health care that has been widely accepted by the scientific community.
Most medical doctors believe that the cause of disease is disordered biology that must be corrected chemically with a variety of medications or physically by surgery. MDs often overlook the power of the human body to seek health through physiologic mechanisms of homeostasis. Drugs and surgery would be completely worthless were it not for the human body’s inherent ability to heal itself. Most medical doctors believe that their interventions are the cause of healing. A small percentage of medical doctors realize that health and healing require much more than the correct drug or the best surgical procedure. They are technically very good at curing, but not so good at being healers.
2. Many medical doctors promise too much.
While many modern medical interventions are truly life saving, many others contribute little to lengthened life span or improved physical capacity. For example, a recent “breakthrough” in pancreatic cancer treatment has shown improved survival from 4 months to 6 and a t a cost of $6000 to $8000 per month. The most common forms of treatment administered by medical doctors are drugs and surgery. Most drugs have side effects and many surgeries risk serious complications. Medical interventions have recently emerged as the third leading cause of death in the US. Medicine is largely silent with regard to the lethal effect of modern medicine.
Review of pharmaceutical websites and daily media advertising reveals remarkable claims of benefit for a variety of medications with only minimal discussion of costs, side effects, unintended consequences and problems associated with taking multiple drugs in combinations (polypharmacy). Surgeons routinely downplay risks of the surgeries that they recommend.
3. Medical education produces highly technically competent doctors who know very little about people.
Medical education requires dedication to intense study of science-based course work, but little in the way of personal or inter-personal awareness. Medical doctors’ training in academic medical centers focuses almost exclusively on high tech intensive interventions facilitated by ever more sophisticated and complex technology. However many patients and their families are not very satisfied with their care and once they leave the hospital, they fail to carry through with doctors’ orders. Compliance with medical treatment plans is very poor because patients do not or cannot follow through with the recommendations from medical doctors because of cost, lack of social support or the ability to comprehend detailed instructions. Doctors who take the time to understand their patient’s motivations, circumstances and preferences have much better health outcomes and patient satisfaction.
Unfortunately these doctors are a rare commodity.
4. A medical specialist’s scope is actually very narrow.
The health care system in the US encourages increasing specialization by doctors. Payment mechanisms favor care and procedures performed by specialists. Unfortunately increased specialization has led to a loss of a whole person perspective that most patients want and need. It is said that if your only tool is a hammer, every problem looks like a nail. If you are an orthopedic surgeon, every musculoskeltal ache and pain has a surgical solution.
Each specialist’s treatment is relevant only to a narrow range of ailments. But some specialists forget that their interventions can influence the course of nearly everything else in their patients life.
5. Very little of what medical doctors do has been studied.
Estimates from health policy experts suggest that as little as 15% of medical interventions are fully supported by solid scientific research. Others put that figure much higher, but nobody asserts that all of medicine is based on high quality research. Although modern medicine has been around since about 1925 as a result of the Flexner Report on medical education, only some of what medical doctors do meets the scientific standard through solid high quality research. Medical apologists claim to be the only health profession that is evidence based and they try to sound scientific to counter their detractors, but very little high quality research actually supports what medical doctors do. Review of the evidence for medicine as summarized for example in the Cochrane Collaboration shows that many mainstream and frequently used medical interventions have only fain to poor evidence supporting them.
6. Unless your diagnosis is obvious, it’s best to get diagnosed elsewhere.
Misdiagnosis in medicine is common, involves millions of patients and trillions of dollars. Rates of misdiagnosis range from 15-25%. In certain specialties, oncology for example, diagnoses are incorrect over 40% of the time. Some attribute the frequency of misdiagnosis to over-confidence on the part of medical doctors. Medical education only rewards clinical certainty and questioning a diagnosis is resisted. Patients who request a second opinion are often seen as threatening to a medical doctor. From a patient’s perspective any diagnosis and proposed treatment plan should prompt questions to the doctor and unsatisfactory answers should result in seeking another opinion.
7. We offer lots of unnecessary services.
Many medical doctors provide unnecessary services. It is estimated that as much as 30% of health care is “waste.” The Institute of Medicine identifies waste as “spending on services that lack evidence of producing better health outcomes compared to less-expensive alternatives; inefficiencies in the provision of health care goods and services; and costs incurred while treating avoidable medical injuries…”
8. Prescribing a drug or performing a surgery often doesn’t mean much.
The medical ritual of a doctor visit, taking a drug or undergoing a surgery often works for reasons other than the biological response to the treatment. Most medical studies show positive results from placebo interventions. Sham knee surgery has been shown to be as effective as the real thing. Sugar pills can produce remarkable therapeutic effects. So the benefits of medical interventions have a 1 in 3 chance of having nothing to do with the technology.
9. If the first treatment doesn’t help you, more treatment probably won’t help either.
Much of medical practice is based on trial-and-error. Medical doctors take their best diagnostic guess and propose a drug or a surgery based on their specialist training, practice guideline, the newest drug or what will be paid for. The simple approach of “watchful waiting” is usually disregarded in favor of the medical propensity to “do something.” Interventions of behavior or lifestyle change take too much of a doctor’s time. Writing a prescription or doing a procedure are much easier and they are often what the patient expects, regardless of what actually may be the least invasive, the least risky and the lowest cost.
If the first spinal surgery or epidural steroid injection doesn’t work, the second, third, or forth are equally unlikely to help either.
10. We take too many x-rays and other imaging studies.
The use of diagnostic x-rays, especially CT scans, is results in patients developing cancer later in life. Estimates by researchers at the National Cancer Institute found that 29,000 future cancer cases could be attributed to the 72 million CT scans performed in the country in 2007.
MRIs, while much safer that x-ray radiation, have problems of their own. In a study of 221 patients who had MRIs, the results showed that only 5.9% actually needed to have an MRI done. The remaining 94.1% of the patients sacrificed their time and money. Much overuse of MRI is driven by doctors who view the test as a short cut to a diagnosis. Many patients demand an MRI to know what is “really going on.” A recent published study of MRI for low back pain found only about half of the studies were performed for justifiable reasons. A recent article in Spine concluded that “Early MRI without indication has a strong iatrogenic effect in acute LBP, regardless of radiculopathy status. Providers and patients should be made aware that when early MRI is not indicated, it provides no benefits, and worse outcomes are likely.”
11. Research on medical practice does not reflect what takes place in most medical facilities.
Research studies that look at medical interventions are generally done under strict protocols that protect patients from harm. The results reflect what happens when treatments are done on patients who are appropriately screened—usually by medical teams that exclude people with conditions that would make the treatment dangerous. But these results do not reflect what typically happens when patients are treated. The medical marketplace is a mess because many medical doctors ignore research findings and evidence based clinical practice guidelines. Instead they subject their patients to procedures that are based on their own opinions, what is customary in their community or are just plain unnecessary and senseless.
Researchers at Dartmouth have looked at the use of medical procedures across the US. They have found wide variation in medical practices from on geographic region to another. This variation cannot be explained on the basis of the severity of illnesses suffered by the patients. Rather one community of doctors are likely to use a procedure twice as often as their colleagues somewhere else. But doing twice as much does not translate to better outcomes for patients. They get twice as much care (and we spend twice as much money) for the same results.
Most medical specialties have evidence based clinical practice guidelines that use the scientific literature to inform clinical practice. Unfortunately these guidelines are frequently not followed and patients do not get the care that science says is best. Some estimates show as little as only 30% of patients in hospital receive care that is recommended by these evidence based guidelines. Treatments for certain conditions are even worse. A recent study found that primary care providers treating garden-variety low back pain followed scientifically based recommendations for first line medication only about 25% of the time.
12. Medical treatment is potentially dangerous.
Medical treatment is the third leading cause of death in the US, just behind heart disease and cancer. Up to 400,000 people die each year because of medical care.
13. Most medical doctors don’t know much about nutrition.
Medical doctors learn little about clinical nutrition during their schooling. Many offer what they describe as “nutrition counseling.” But this typically consists of superficial advice about eating less fat and various schemes to sell you supplements and prescribe drugs that are high-priced and unnecessary.
14. Medical doctors who prescribe drugs are influenced by drug companies.
The relationships between the pharmaceutical industry and the medical doctors who prescribe them is troubled by conflicts of interest, ethical lapses and, of course, money. Recent legislative regulations, ethics statements and professional education reforms have emerged to correct what can only be described as the too-cozy relationship between pharmaceutical manufacturers (“big pharma”) and medicine. While she has her critics, Marcia Angel, MD, the former editor of the mainstream medical journal The New England Journal of Medicine, blows the cover of the relationship between big pharma, the FDA and practicing doctors. She describes a well-oiled industrial machine that has discovered a way to make tons of money in the guise of helping patients. Doctors are all-to-wiling participants in this scheme beginning in medical school and moving into practice with generous perks, free gifts and other incentives to prescribe the newest (and usually most expensive) drug or medical device.
15. Medical doctors often have no business treating young children.
Many medical procedures have been studied only in adults. Unfortunately children are just “litte adults.”
16. The fact that patients swear by us does not mean we are actually helping them.
Satisfaction is not the same thing as effectiveness. Many people who believe they have been helped had conditions that would have resolved without treatment. Some have had treatment for dangers that did not exist but were said by the chiropractor to be imminent. Many chiropractors actually take courses on how to trick patients to believe in them. (See Chapter 8)
17. Insurance companies don’t want to pay for many medical services.
Some medical specialists love to brag that their services are covered by Medicare and most insurance companies. However, this coverage for many procedures has been achieved though political action rather than scientific merit. For example bariatric surgery was developed over the last decade but has not really become common until various states have mandated coverage for the procedure. The evidence that supports these procedures is scant. End-stage renal disease has been enshrined in Medicare coverage since an act of Congress in 1973. The US spent $32.9 billion for treating almost 600,000 patients, a ten-fold increase since 1980. It costs between $60,00 and over $80,000 per patient per year for this treatment. While one can’t argue that this cost is not necessary, after all it keeps these people alive, one can’t help but wonder if that $32 billion might be better spent.
18. Lots of Medical doctors do really strange things.
Medical quackery has a long and rich history. It is not confined to the past, but is alive and well, even in the age of modern, evidence based medicine. Contemporary medical education trains doctors to be over-confident in their skills and knowledge. While this sometimes leads to significant innovation,it can also lead to weird medical treatments offered by some medical doctors to willing and gullible patients.
The medical cosmetic industry is one current “specialty” that offers “treatments” that are only questionably necessary, not without significant risk and delivered for no other reason than patients want it and doctors have figured out how to deliver it. Liposuction, laser face lifts, breast augmentation and, most recently, genital cosmetic surgery (called vaginal rejuvenation), challenge any consideration of these procedures as rational medicine.
19. Don’t expect medical licensing boards to protect you.
Many medical doctors who serve on chiropractic licensing boards harbor the same misbeliefs and biases that are rampant among their colleagues. This means, for example, that most boards are unlikely to discipline medical doctors for diagnosing and treating imaginary conditions such as the need for “vaginal rejuvenation.” Medical boards are usually dominated by doctors and representation by lay persons is often discouraged. Even if a licensing board chooses to take action against a rogue doctor, the legal system often moves so slowly that the doctor continues in practice and harms more patients while the board dithers in legal limbo.
20. The media rarely look at what we do wrong.
The media rarely if ever address medical nonsense. The medical profession’s hammer lock on the media, while not complete, does have the general public convinced that they are in the business for the benefit of patients and the good of the public. Doctors are usually seen as selfless professional only doing what is right for their patients. They are not businessmen and women who make their decisions based on economics, income and profit.
Many politicians and media continue the fiction that the US has the best medical care in the world. The outcomes however suggest a much different story. The US spends more than any other developed nation on earth but has outcomes that are not consistent with the 16% of GDP that is medical care. Medical care now exceeds housing costs for the average American family. Recent Federal and state efforts at health care reform are the political and social response to an unsustainable trajectory of rising medical costs.
Well said.
LOL!
But do you have any criticism of what the OP actually said?
“Medical treatment is the third leading cause of death in the US, just behind heart disease and cancer. Up to 400,000 people die each year because of medical care.”
No, that’d be respiratory disease, and while those people often undergo medical treatment, the treatment is rarely a contributing factor.
It was a good snarky response up to that point, but you fell on your face there.
Pretty sure you just owned a MD know-it-all. XD
The absolute ignorance of this article is insane. Its almost funny. Most, if not all points are completely biased and manipulated to represent your opinion. Which is all this is. You have 6 references for 20 points. Wow. One reference is from S. Barrett (are you kidding me), another is from Ernst E (once again, are you kidding me). Another two of the references are 15+ years old. Its funny how you only look at research that supports your opinion, and seemingly forget the remainder which debates it.
Chiropractors are 5 years university trained. Have an enviable safety record (compare it against medicine). Enviable patient satisfaction record. Are registered and regulated by professional bodies nationally. We must continue to improve our self and our skills in order to maintain registered.
Many of you will be aware that the risk of injury in hospitals and reported adverse drug reactions has escalated over time and it is estimated in the (1) British Medical Journal 2000 (no recent figures available) that as many as 18,000 people die every year as a result of medical error in Australia, while 50,000 people suffer a permanent injury. These figures are estimated to now be significantly higher.
More recent statistics from the Therapeutic Goods Act of Australia (2) state that there were 233,300 reports ofsuspected adverse drug reactions in 2010. This does not include deaths or injuries attributable to medical care in 2010 nor does it include complaints relating to misconduct, advertising or communication issues.
In that same year (2010) there were 11 million estimated visits to chiropractors within Australia (3) and a totalof only 41 reported treatment complaints made about chiropractors. (4) (There were no alleged deaths or seriouscomplications in this time frame reported in the Australian literature.)
1.) Weingart SN, Wilson RM, Gibberd RW, Harrison B.Epidemiology of medical error. BMJ 2000; 320(77): 4-7
.2.) Adverse Drug Reactions, Australian Statistics on MedicinesV1.0 September 2011 Online.http://www.tga.gov.au/pdf/medicines-statistics-2010.pdf
3.) Chiropractors Association of Australia (CAA) records (2010)
Its always funny how certain things can seem “unsafe” when they are compared against nothing.
Shouldn’t this whole debate not be about shaming any one particular profession and more be about working together to improve patient outcomes? Because believe it or not that’s what its all about at the end of the day…the patient and their improvements. Not your ego.
People keep reading and researching for yourselves, don’t rely on incredibly biased blogs/articles like this that push a persons opinion on you.
Finally I leave you with this; Voltaire once wrote in an essay on tolerance: “Think for yourselves and let others enjoy the privilege to do so too.”
Article did make me laugh though.
@ C Simpson
And here’s 30 responses from medicine to its critics:
http://www.sciencebasedmedicine.org/answering-our-critics-part-1-of-2/
Number 30 is explained in more detail here:
http://www.sciencebasedmedicine.org/answering-our-critics-part-2-of-2-whats-the-harm/
I love chiropractic care, it helps adjust my hips which are out of alignment and cause me major back issues a few times a year. What I not love it having to go to three-four chiropractic office before I find one that doesn’t want to put some infrared laser on my skin to help “heal my muscle tension” or try and get me to buy their overpriced “homeopathic” sugar pills. Good list, what would be nice to see then is a list of appropriate things it is useful for… Like legit misalignment issues. Good work! I’d go to your office anyday if I could!
It would be better and cheaper to do strengthening exercises for your hips. A physio or biokineticist can help with that.
Chiropractors can and do teach rehabilitation and strengthening exercises.
How can one determine that strengthening exercises for your hips is a more beneficial treatment for Mr. Steen over chiropractic care? Are you Jesus? Do you know everything?
This man could have lytic metastasis in his appendicular skeleton and once he puts those hips under increased load (by exercising) he could ________ (insert a bad outcome)
And just some clarification on terminology (the science of terms) because I am not Jesus and I do not know everything (for example your background and it’s competency or lack thereof in diagnosis):
Metastasis = the spread of neoplasm from one region of the body to another. The defining characteristic of cancer!
Lytic = destruction, breaking down, etc
Appendicular = pertaining to bones attached to the trunk
Srer you in the UK? If you are, why haven’t yOu asked your GP for free physiotherAPY?
Im not about the UK, but I know is Aus you can ask your GP for 5 free chiro visits also.
The amount of physiotherapy to which you are enritled in the UK is unlimited – it goes on unitil you are better. I wonder why anyone would choose to pay for something with a less than certain reputation when they can get proper treatment for free. I do not understand the atraction of chiropractic when ther are better and cheaper alternatives to hand. This is I suppose the essential part of the argument – why choose this in the first place? That’a an honest question; I really don’t understand what makes people go for it.
Overall, this topic has a lot of exaggerated truth in it relating to the chiropractic profession. As it has been pointed out by previous replies the same could be done regarding medicine, physical therapy, massage, law, accounting, every profession known to the world!
Everyone guess what! The world of medicine has a term called…wait for it… SUBLUXATION…what?! GTFO!
Term has different applications and meaning for different professions but that is true for a lot of terms in the english language.
There are a lot of Medical Doctors in the world that profess the benefits of Doctor of Chiropractic care. There are a lot of Doctors of Chiropractic that profess the benefits of Medical Doctors care.
Next the author would have you believe he spent his own money writing a book to educate the masses and save the millions of people suffering from a wide array of adverse effects and potential death at the hands of their current Doctor of Chiiropractic. And that any monetary benefits to publishing a book and having 13 people buy it is a necessary evil and that he would “give it away for free if I could”.
The term Doctor can refer to any 1 of the following (or multiple): 1. Personal title 2. Fictional characters 3. Film and television 4. Music 5. nickname…. etc
So can someone please explain to me what a “REAL” doctor is?? A physician isn’t a “real” doctor, they are a Medical Doctor. A veterinarian isn’t a “real” doctor, they are a Doctor of Venterinary Medicicine. A dentist isn’t a “real” doctor, they are a Doctor of Dental Medicine. A chiropractic isn’t a “real” doctor, they are a Doctor of Chiropractic. a physical therapist isn’t a “real” doctor, they are a Doctor of Physical Therapy. A surgeon isn’t a “real” doctor, they are a specialized (very specialized albeit) physician with a Medical Doctorate degree.
I could go on for days! People need to get their facts straight. Your run of the mill GP (general practitioner) is not a “real” doctor, they are an individual with low board scores, entrance exams, etc that did not permit them to specialize in cardiology, gastroenterology, etc and has completed a 1 year residency program (not 3-5) with a Medical Doctorate degree.
You can read this anti-chiropractic article, book bathroom reader and the many others out there and believe it 10,000%
You could read an anti-vaccine, anti-pharmaceutical, anti-medicine article, book, bathroom reader and many others that are out there and believe it 10,000%
You could read a pro-chiropractic article, book, bathroom reader and the many others that are out there and believe it 10,000%
You could read a pro-vaccine article (such as the one that talks about 100,000 vaccines is perfectly healthy for a child and the subsequent challenge to that CEO to take 1000 vaccines in a 2 week time frame for $1 million if he survived. Needless to say the CEO did not accept the challenge), pro-pharmaceutical, pro-medicine book, bathroom reader and believe it 10,000%
You could believe that 10,000% is a “real” percentage! Is it? Is it not? Are you even smart enough to know? Have you learnt enough in your unsatisfactory, unimportant, sometimes nonexistent, careers to know much of anything?
By the way, the answer is that it is a real percentage but used incorrectly (for emphasis purposes) during the examples listed above. You cannot believe in anything more than 100%. For that matter if you only believe in something 50%, 80%, 10%, 99.8% do you really believe in it at all? However, prices, products, values, efficiency, etc can increase 10,000%.
So yes it is a true percentage.
What this reply/posting is meant for anyone reading it to discover is that no matter what your making an opinion on, whether it be chiropractic, medicine, vaccine, mortgages, hookers, law, sewing, dog grooming, etc you MUST EDUCATE YOURSELF FIRST! I repeat, EDUCATE YOURSELF! Don’t have this piece of shit chiropractor educate you on chiropractic. Don’t have a Medical Doctor educate you on chiropractic. Educate yourself and then you can make an educated opinion for you, yourself, and you ONLY! That last part is important, for YOU ONLY.
I wasted far too much of my life that I will never get back writing all this but that was only after I wasted more of my life reading this article and replies. There are far too many patients in acute and chronic pain or suffering from numerous ailments that I need to focus my attention on. Because guess what…this guy’s book solved 0 problems in the world and got that world 0% closer to solving it’s problems. Same goes for this reply and every other reply. I am a chiropractor (not sure what those of you reading this ASSumed about me) and I dont care what “real” doctor gets a patient better as long as that patient becomes healthier, can be an active part in their own lives and the lives of their loved ones and contributes to his/her community in a positive way.
Do you know how many people suffer from “loneliness”? They (as in big pharma, not physicians) make pills for that, you could probably visit the chiropractor and feel better, or a dentist, or the optometrist. You could also probably pay a prostitute for their “services” and feel better, feel much much better….maybe they are the “real” doctors.
FYVM
No animals were harmed in the making of that post.
I hope I did not offend anyone personally or any one profession, that was not the intent. I especially want to expand on the comments about a GP…I know many of them personally and some of them are absolutely amazing and CHOSE to be a GP and could talk circles around a more “specialized” physician, me, and other chiros too. I also know some “specialized” physicians who aren’t worth their weight in salt and the same goes for some GPs. I also know chiros who can talk circles around GPs, “specialized” physicians, etc. My comments were just another example (of many) for exaggerated, biased, unnecessary, non-peer reviewed, look hard enough and you’ll find it, waste of my time, quite possibly completely false, I’d rather shoot my dog, comments, truths, facts, lies, etc, etc, etc.
#hopeyouhaveonlysold13booksmakingmethebestguesserever
#mywifeishoti’mgoingtobed
@JDM
For your sake I rather hope you were dead drunk when you wrote this, even if it does not seem like you stumbled much on the keyboard? Then you might hav an excuse, albeit partial.
By this outrageous drivel you managed to terminated any respect for the pseudonym JDM on this blog. Any posts under that pseudonym will not be read by me at least. Your twaddle is not only an insult to your colleague and to Dr. Ernst but to all us readers of this forum.
At the same time you have put a very deep dent in whatever respect and credibility the proponents of chiropactic have left. Your lame attempt at a retraction in your next post does not help. Be a man and apologize under your real identity.
Bjorn…it was not a retraction…it was an expansion because not all GPs are bad or stupid. I used them as an example in the same way DCs were used in the article.
In response to Lachlan’s comment to me on Monday 21 October at 23:41:
I can only conclude that you’re not too keen on the precautionary principle as it applies to chiropractic.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Precautionary_principle
Now your using Wikipedia as a resource? Hahaha I can see you’ve written a lot of valued researched based papers. Wikipedia is not a source you can use for references. Anyone can make “edits” to any topic presented on Wikipedia. Yes the website is good in taking down nonsense information of someone decides to mess with a certain topic. But if an author can write professionally and intelligently they can author content on that website. Like @Lachlan has stated previously. Go find peer-reviewed sources from major publications. JMPT, JAMA, etc.
JDM,
If you don’t respect Wikipedia you probably don’t know how it works.
Ever see those tiny little numbers? They’re references. Those are articles. Peer-reviewed articles. Wikipedia is a secondary source. There is no reason to assume it is not reputable if it is accurately copied over.
It’s not like people just hop on there and type whatever they want.
Also you never even denied what the article said. Apprently this “awful source” was correct? Strange, isn’t it?
JDM wrote: “Now your using Wikipedia as a resource? Hahaha”
I don’t see anything wrong with using it as an introduction to understanding the precautionary principle. As for the rest of your comment, there’s ample scientific evidence in defence of my arguments in the links which I have already provided.
I think BW is right: to explain a term, Wiki is fine and certainly more evidence that the average chiro seems to muster.
Do you have any evidence for that claim?
Wikipedia is not only a good introduction to a topic, links to it are trusted because the website is well known for not having adverts and malware. For science- and evidence-based topics it is at least as accurate as encyclopaedias such as Encyclopaedia Britannica and it is considerably more accurate in many areas, such as optical physics.
It matters not if the Wikipedia article contains errors because anyone with an inkling to learn the truth can explore the sections towards the end of each articles. In this particular case, the sections are:
Criticisms (3 subheadings)
See also (24 links to further reading)
References (31)
Other publications (14)
External links (21)
One of the most commonly used tricks is to discredit a source because it has at least once contained an error. JDM is an imperfect human being who makes errors therefore, by this principle, JDM’s comments can be equally discredited and laughed at.
I have no use for Chiropractor adjustments any more, and it’s not because of this article…this article just confirmed what I have believed for a long time. I had a Chiropractor put a harness around my head with a chin strap , and a wooden handle attached … he used the wooden handle to stretch my neck. But he didn’t just stretch gently. He had another adult hold my legs so I wouldn’t slide. While this adult person was bearing down on my legs, the Chiropractor jerked my neck back so hard that the person holding my legs couldn’t keep me from sliding toward the Chiropractor that was doing the jerking. And I’m a 190 pound man. Talk about QUACKERY. I will never let him put his dangerous hands on me again. I let him do this several times and now my neck is sprained with soft tissue injury…it constantly hurts and there’s nothing I can do about it.
Minimum Required Hours
Chiropractic College Medical School
456 Anatomy/Embryology. 215
243 Physiology 174
296 Pathology 507
161 Chemistry/Biochemistry 100
145 Microbiology 145
408 Diagnosis 113
149 Neurology 171
56 Psychology/Psychiatry 323
66 Obstetrics & Gynecology 284
271 X-ray 13
168 Orthopedics 2
2,419 Total Hours for Degree 2,047
In the end there are always good doctors and poor doctors regardless of physician designation (MD, DC, DO, DPT). The difference is in the treatment.
In an ideal world, doctors, regardless of designation, work together for the management of the patient. It appears this profession (physicians) is evolving more and more and care is better co- managed when applicable.
Did you forget this Blue wode?
@ Blue Wode.
Thank you for engaging in a scientific debate.
Firstly, several things must be mentioned before continue. I referenced 3 quality references in my first comment. 5 quality references in my second comment. For which you combatted with links to opinion based Websites.
Any reader reading this comment, must first understand that websites are poor forms of evidence, and any scientist will not hold a website to high credibility or validity. Why? Because very often they are based on that authors opinion and are not assessed or peer reviewed like an article in a reputable journal.
Now we may continue.
Secondly, my remaining 7 pieces of peer reviewed literature remain to be critiqued by yourself. Why? Please provide supporting literature for your comments.
Your first link is to a website (poor level of evidence). This website is clearly biased towards your opinion considering the propaganda and advertising on the site. Which critiques cassidys 2008 paper. Most of which is opinion based via Ernst. If follow the link further to the next page. It leads you to 2 more supporting papers of cassidy et al. One (if you choose to read them) showed a decrease utilization of chiropractic care in certain regions of canada with an increase occurence of VBA stroke in those same regions?
What is your response to this?
2.) Your second comment and link talks about No adverse event reporting system. In AUS we have the Chiropractic Board of Australia AND AHPRA who regulate us and take complaints/adverse events. Just the exact same as a medical board and registrational board would. So unsure of your comment there? The link you supplied, once again is a website ( poor form of evidence), which links to the same biased opinion based blog, where several of the stories are quoted by Ernst, who is the direct author of this blog with which we currently reside. Bias once again enters the equation.
3.) Your third article is I believe an online newspaper link? Which is avery poor source of evidence. Where once again the bottom of the page is littered with links back to Ernst blog and online articles.
4.) I do believe if Trovaflaxcin was so excellent, then why was it removed from all public use and completely abandoned by the US government for being dangerous?
I read your final link also, also reading the systematic review hidden in the article. Please let me quote from it: ” CONCLUSION: There is no robust data concerning the incidence or prevalence of adverse reactions after Chiropractic. Further investigations are needed to assess definite conclusions regarding this issue”
He also states that MOST adverse events were benign and transitory and the rates of serious adverse events were between 5/100,000 adjustments at the absolute worst he could find. Interstingly he found that they were as rare as 1.46/10,000,000 adjustments. Are you serious?
SO YOU HAVE FAILED TO COMMENT ON MY REMAINING 7 SOURCES OF LITERATURE. YOU CRITIQUED 1 POORLY USING WEBSITES.
MY FINAL QUESTION IS THUS. PLEASE COMMENT ON MY REFERENCES 1-2 DISCUSSING RATES OF MEDICAL ERROR AND INJURY, INCLUDING DEATHS.
Please compare these against the rates which you just provided me from your last link.
Lastly, anyone choosing to read this far. This argument shall not be won on a blog. Please once again read for yourselves, research actual research not opinion based blogs.
Thank you. My time in my life and with family and my patients is too important to continue here.
Cheers.
SPANKED>
@ fedup
No, I didn’t forget it. I answered it on Tuesday 22 October at 08:44.
lol. So you have no answer.You have been shown to be un-Scientific and biased in your answer and have very little in the way of a response.
” I referenced 3 quality references in my first comment. 5 quality references in my second comment. For which you combatted with links to opinion based Websites.
Any reader reading this comment, must first understand that websites are poor forms of evidence, and any scientist will not hold a website to high credibility or validity. Why? Because very often they are based on that authors opinion and are not assessed or peer reviewed like an article in a reputable journal.”
Very valid points that you have dodged quite nicely.
“SO YOU HAVE FAILED TO COMMENT ON MY REMAINING 7 SOURCES OF LITERATURE. YOU CRITIQUED 1 POORLY USING WEBSITES.” The usual Blue wode modus operandi.
@ fedup
If you adhere fully to proper CPD, then you should know that the precautionary principle tells us that the risks of neck manipulation currently outweigh its (perceived) benefits, and that robust scientific data are increasingly revealing that spinal manipulation for low back pain is no better than taking paracetamol and/or doing exercises. Unfortunately, chiropractic cannot be recommended for the latter due to problems with standardisation which encompasses the former – i.e. many chiropractors continue to manipulate their low back patients’ necks based on the (false) belief that such ‘adjustments’ act as a panacea. There is no more to add.
Good thing we aren’t taught to manipulate necks. Although I am fully aware that many chiros do that but mostly because they lack the skills and dexterity to adjust the cervical spine. Physical Therapists manipulate. Chiropractors adjust. There is a difference but you have to be educated in this field in order to understand.
It’s been said before…there are good doctors and poor doctors, good lawyers and poor lawyers, etc. even though they have the same degree and training certain people will always be inferior in skill and knowledge to others. A good chiropractor will not strain muscles of the cervical spine. As far as a VAD is concerned you can cause that yourself by checking your blind spot while driving! Although if you’ve ever driven n America you’d realize not many do that :/
Find a good chiropractor who ADJUSTS SPECIFICALLY and SKILLFULLY. I wish they were the majority but unfortunately they are not.
@ JDM
Yes, there is a difference JDM, but you’re forgetting to inform readers about its reality:
QUOTE
It is important to understand, however, that only chiropractors use spinal manipulation as a form of “adjustment”, that is, as a treatment for “subluxations”. This is never legitimate because the chiropractic subluxation does not exist. This distinction cannot be overemphasized: even if a chiropractor claims to be treating, for example, back pain with spinal manipulation, that use is legitimately indicated only if the diagnosis is supported by evidence-based criteria that indicate that manipulation may help. Subluxation-based diagnoses provide no legitimate basis for manipulating spines.
Ref: http://www.scienceinmedicine.org/policy/papers/Chiropractic.pdf
FYI, the paper linked to above is reprinted in full in Preston Long’s book on chiropractic abuse.
JDM said:
How would someone do that?
That’s EXACTLY what I am looking for after my fabulous chiro retired. He was SKILLED, specific, exact, never made a mistake, never hurt me and ALWAYS improved my health, it’s been a NIGHTMARE trying to find a chiro as good as he was…
What do I look for??!!
@Trik
Perhaps it is better to approach this task by elimination.
In the first place you can safely eliminate distance chiropractors. It is self-evident that they must either be out of their mind or totally corrupt… or both.
I would avoid antivaccinist and germ theory denialist chiropractors (there are many). Such muddled beliefs can hardly be compatible with good therapeutic abilities.
Eliminate all those chiropractors who advertise adjuvant pseudo-therapies like homeopathy, aromatherapy, ear candling, shiatsu, Ayurveda, flower remedies, gua sha, cupping, reiki, reflexology, visceral manipulation and other magical woo.
They are unlikely to be good chiropractors if they have to add silly-woo to their manipulative skills in order to attract patients.
Then eliminate anyone who insists on wringing your neck. Apart from not having been proven to be useful, it is known to be a russian roulette in rare cases able to injure your vertebrobasilar arteries with catastrophic results. It is simply not worth the risk.
Then eliminate anyone who says that children should be brought to a chiropractor for colic, bedwetting, birth trauma, asthma, tummy aches or whatever. More and more chiropractors are turning to children to fill their practice. Tired toddler-parents are an easy pray for placebo-by-proxy quacks.
Then eliminate those who say that chiropractic can help with infertility, indigestion, allergies, immune system problems, thyroid dysfunction, bowel dysfunction and other ailments totally unrelated to the state of the spine. These notions are based on the imaginary “subluxation theory”.
Many chiropractors wisely reject this fallacious theory, which was invented by DD Palmer in 1895.
And at last you should avoid what I call “serial chiropractors” who try to convince you that even when you are well you should drop by regularly, even weekly! for a 2-minute session of manhandling your spine, just to keep you (and the chiropractors economy) in good shape.
Now, what does that leave us with?
Thats it Blue wode, ignore the evidence put infront of you because you don’t agree with it. Please comment on the “7 SOURCES OF LITERATURE” you have ignored. You constantly go on about providing evidence and like a true “cough” skeptic when given some that is opposite to your views you just ignore it.
21. Chiropractors visit homeopaths for their healthcare, because homeopaths are specialist naturopaths, which can treat any ailment including injuries and shock (website say so!/reciprocating lack of references), without medications, without adverse effects, without contraindications and all without a university degree or a clue. Fortunately, chiropractors understand that homeopaths have a large non-educational-I-bought-this-expensive-magical-crystal-from-a-siberian-shaman debt that they need to pay off.
(Its dangerous and sad that people in alternative medicine prey on the vulnerabilities of the less educated. Its even sadder that some believe in what they are doing is right. Good on you Ernst Edzard for keeping people honest!)
I find this true for lots of the healthcare professions. There are good and bad practitioners everywhere. For example, a doctor misdiagnosed my knee as sprained when really I lost my ACL in my left knee. This is a doctor who is in your beloved medical profession. Afterwards I had problems with my posture and got misdiagnosed by an orthopedic surgeon, got terrible treatment from a chiropractor and some physiotherapists. It’s only now that I’m seeing a friend from high school who’s now a chiropractor that I’m getting slowly better.
Yes, Graham, even medical doctors sometimes get it wrong. But no one claimed they were perfect, did they? Do chiros always get it right?
Then you present unverified and unverifiable anecdotes. What do you think we should make of them?
This article makes me furious. Chiropractic is like any other medical treatment. You have good doctors and you have bad. You have some with a gift and others in it for money.
Not only does he degrade the Chiropractors but the patients! I am a smart, strong, non-nonsense kind of woman. I am not some bubblehead that can be “brainwashed”. I actually went to one of the bad chiropractors he is describing. He wanted me to sign a 3 year contract and he sold everything from vitamins and lotions to vodoo dolls. I left in a hurry. It was a long time before I went again.
I have herniated disc at L4-5 and C4-5. My lower back hurt so bad I couldnt lift my son, garden or dance. I was having migrains that were increasing in frequency and in pain. My internist did not believe in chiropractic. She gave me strong muscle relaxers and pain pills that left me groggy and confused. I was having rebound headaches for the strong pain medications. I had 3 neurosurgeons who wanted to fuse my vertebrae together. I didnt know anyone that had much success with that one and I said no. A friend kept trying to get me to go to her chiropractor. She was a wackadoo and between her reputation and my 1st experience with the Quack chiropractor, I put it off. My back got to the point that I had nonstop pain even when sleeping and I had migraines at least twice a week. I finally agreed to see him just to get her to leave me alone. I waited 2 weeks for the appointment and 3 days before I got a migrain that took me to the emergency room. They let me come home on strong drugs but it didnt stop the pain…it just made me too drunk to whine about it. I almost cancelled because I was still sick day of the appointment and too drugged to drive. My mother convinced me to go and drove me. 20 minutes after my adjustment, my migraine was gone. A few weeks later, I had the first night sleep where I didnt cry out in pain when I rolled over. Then I gardened without the trade off of excrutiating back pain and migraines. That was 20 years ago. I have never had any spinal fusions, I have a headache…not a migraine maybe twice a year. I dance, garden, ride horses and a motorcycle. My chiropractor allowed me to enjoy life again and that is not brainwashing. You cant argue with that kind of result. My chiropractor doesnt sell vitamins or anything crazy and he has never tried to put me on ANY kind of ongoing plan. In fact he always said, OUR GOAL IS FOR YOU TO SEE ME LESS AND LESS. He did give me back stregthening exercises and relaxation techniques. I am grateful for his conservative, effective treatment that saved me from a painful, unnecessary back surgery that had a very low success rate.
Quizative said:
Why? Was there something Prof Ernst got wrong? If so, please feel free to point it out so he can correct it.
Quizative, I notice that the experience with your chiropractor you related was 20 years ago, but you speak of him in the present tense: “My chiropractor doesnt sell vitamins”. Does that mean that, despite never putting you on an ongoing plan and him stating his goal is for you to see him “less and less”, you have in fact continued to see him regularly for the past 20 years?
i agree. A good chiropractor can readjust subluxations and the adjustment can, will and has helped many people. For example, have you ever met a parkinsons or asthma patient without a neck problem, I haven’t.. if you can show me one, i would be interested to see it, because i have seen 1000’s with this problem. As for scoliosis, and fibermayalgia patients; have you seen the reaction of what these are, and do you know the cause? have you ever considered that the spinal column, which if you cut or pinch can paralyze someone, disrupt every body part within the neuro-line might have just something to do with correction? Do you know that a vertebrae will adjust accordingly to pressure over time? Do you know that the same can be said for arms and legs? see polio(acute flaccid paralysis) have any doctors here ever seen what the autonomic system does, or looks like? When a person treats the symptoms, and not the cause, that’s when people die. Do you not know that the body is a highly intelligent system? Have you not seen inside the body, and read the studies? Does anyone here even know what a macrophage is? How is it possible to have a community of people that study a profession that do not trace the symptoms; a community of people that can retain knowledge, and repeat it with little to no thought to the causal problem? Start reading your scientific studies, and be a little more open to the results might be a good start. Every doctor should always continue learning, and analyzing no matter what, as with any profession in an analytical manner.
@Mike on Saturday 08 July 2017 at 18:57
Another bonehead chiro who has failed to realise that even chiros have disowned subluxations as a myth.
Surely, even someone as thick as this would appreciate that a subluxation has not been identified after 122 years.
“Start reading your scientific studies, and be a little more open to the results might be a good start.”
If you have one that shows the efficacy of chiro, please post it? By that, I mean a scientific study, not the normal half-arsed rubbish chiros posit as evidence.
“Every doctor should always continue learning, and analyzing no matter what, as with any profession in an analytical manner.”
Firstly, you aren’t a doctor, and secondly, learning what, the same rubbish you were dished up at chiro school?
Hi
I’m a Chiropractor myself, I do agree with point #13 on your list, I found my self laughing when I read some of your points. But I would dare to argue you on some of them.
Thank for the informative article either way.
Twenty Things Most Medical Doctors Won’t Tell You
Have you ever consulted a medical doctor? Are you thinking about seeing one? Do you care whether your tax and health-care dollars are spent on worthless medical treatment? If your answer to any of these questions is yes, there are certain things you should know.
1. Medical theory and practice are often not based on the body of knowledge related to health, disease, and health care that has been widely accepted by the scientific community.
Most medical doctors believe that the cause of disease is disordered biology that must be corrected chemically with a variety of medications or physically by surgery. MDs often overlook the power of the human body to seek health through physiologic mechanisms of homeostasis. Drugs and surgery would be completely worthless were it not for the human body’s inherent ability to heal itself. Most medical doctors believe that their interventions are the cause of healing. A small percentage of medical doctors realize that health and healing require much more than the correct drug or the best surgical procedure. They are technically very good at curing, but not so good at being healers.
2. Many medical doctors promise too much.
While many modern medical interventions are truly life saving, many others contribute little to lengthened life span or improved physical capacity. For example, a recent “breakthrough” in pancreatic cancer treatment has shown improved survival from 4 months to 6 and a t a cost of $6000 to $8000 per month. The most common forms of treatment administered by medical doctors are drugs and surgery. Most drugs have side effects and many surgeries risk serious complications. Medical interventions have recently emerged as the third leading cause of death in the US. Medicine is largely silent with regard to the lethal effect of modern medicine.
Review of pharmaceutical websites and daily media advertising reveals remarkable claims of benefit for a variety of medications with only minimal discussion of costs, side effects, unintended consequences and problems associated with taking multiple drugs in combinations (polypharmacy). Surgeons routinely downplay risks of the surgeries that they recommend.
3. Medical education produces highly technically competent doctors who know very little about people.
Medical education requires dedication to intense study of science-based course work, but little in the way of personal or inter-personal awareness. Medical doctors’ training in academic medical centers focuses almost exclusively on high tech intensive interventions facilitated by ever more sophisticated and complex technology. However many patients and their families are not very satisfied with their care and once they leave the hospital, they fail to carry through with doctors’ orders. Compliance with medical treatment plans is very poor because patients do not or cannot follow through with the recommendations from medical doctors because of cost, lack of social support or the ability to comprehend detailed instructions. Doctors who take the time to understand their patient’s motivations, circumstances and preferences have much better health outcomes and patient satisfaction.
Unfortunately these doctors are a rare commodity.
4. A medical specialist’s scope is actually very narrow.
The health care system in the US encourages increasing specialization by doctors. Payment mechanisms favor care and procedures performed by specialists. Unfortunately increased specialization has led to a loss of a whole person perspective that most patients want and need. It is said that if your only tool is a hammer, every problem looks like a nail. If you are an orthopedic surgeon, every musculoskeltal ache and pain has a surgical solution.
Each specialist’s treatment is relevant only to a narrow range of ailments. But some specialists forget that their interventions can influence the course of nearly everything else in their patients life.
5. Very little of what medical doctors do has been studied.
Estimates from health policy experts suggest that as little as 15% of medical interventions are fully supported by solid scientific research. Others put that figure much higher, but nobody asserts that all of medicine is based on high quality research. Although modern medicine has been around since about 1925 as a result of the Flexner Report on medical education, only some of what medical doctors do meets the scientific standard through solid high quality research. Medical apologists claim to be the only health profession that is evidence based and they try to sound scientific to counter their detractors, but very little high quality research actually supports what medical doctors do. Review of the evidence for medicine as summarized for example in the Cochrane Collaboration shows that many mainstream and frequently used medical interventions have only fain to poor evidence supporting them.
6. Unless your diagnosis is obvious, it’s best to get diagnosed elsewhere.
Misdiagnosis in medicine is common, involves millions of patients and trillions of dollars. Rates of misdiagnosis range from 15-25%. In certain specialties, oncology for example, diagnoses are incorrect over 40% of the time. Some attribute the frequency of misdiagnosis to over-confidence on the part of medical doctors. Medical education only rewards clinical certainty and questioning a diagnosis is resisted. Patients who request a second opinion are often seen as threatening to a medical doctor. From a patient’s perspective any diagnosis and proposed treatment plan should prompt questions to the doctor and unsatisfactory answers should result in seeking another opinion.
7. We offer lots of unnecessary services.
Many medical doctors provide unnecessary services. It is estimated that as much as 30% of health care is “waste.” The Institute of Medicine identifies waste as “spending on services that lack evidence of producing better health outcomes compared to less-expensive alternatives; inefficiencies in the provision of health care goods and services; and costs incurred while treating avoidable medical injuries…”
8. Prescribing a drug or performing a surgery often doesn’t mean much.
The medical ritual of a doctor visit, taking a drug or undergoing a surgery often works for reasons other than the biological response to the treatment. Most medical studies show positive results from placebo interventions. Sham knee surgery has been shown to be as effective as the real thing. Sugar pills can produce remarkable therapeutic effects. So the benefits of medical interventions have a 1 in 3 chance of having nothing to do with the technology.
9. If the first treatment doesn’t help you, more treatment probably won’t help either.
Much of medical practice is based on trial-and-error. Medical doctors take their best diagnostic guess and propose a drug or a surgery based on their specialist training, practice guideline, the newest drug or what will be paid for. The simple approach of “watchful waiting” is usually disregarded in favor of the medical propensity to “do something.” Interventions of behavior or lifestyle change take too much of a doctor’s time. Writing a prescription or doing a procedure are much easier and they are often what the patient expects, regardless of what actually may be the least invasive, the least risky and the lowest cost.
If the first spinal surgery or epidural steroid injection doesn’t work, the second, third, or forth are equally unlikely to help either.
10. We take too many x-rays and other imaging studies.
The use of diagnostic x-rays, especially CT scans, is results in patients developing cancer later in life. Estimates by researchers at the National Cancer Institute found that 29,000 future cancer cases could be attributed to the 72 million CT scans performed in the country in 2007.
MRIs, while much safer that x-ray radiation, have problems of their own. In a study of 221 patients who had MRIs, the results showed that only 5.9% actually needed to have an MRI done. The remaining 94.1% of the patients sacrificed their time and money. Much overuse of MRI is driven by doctors who view the test as a short cut to a diagnosis. Many patients demand an MRI to know what is “really going on.” A recent published study of MRI for low back pain found only about half of the studies were performed for justifiable reasons. A recent article in Spine concluded that “Early MRI without indication has a strong iatrogenic effect in acute LBP, regardless of radiculopathy status. Providers and patients should be made aware that when early MRI is not indicated, it provides no benefits, and worse outcomes are likely.”
11. Research on medical practice does not reflect what takes place in most medical facilities.
Research studies that look at medical interventions are generally done under strict protocols that protect patients from harm. The results reflect what happens when treatments are done on patients who are appropriately screened—usually by medical teams that exclude people with conditions that would make the treatment dangerous. But these results do not reflect what typically happens when patients are treated. The medical marketplace is a mess because many medical doctors ignore research findings and evidence based clinical practice guidelines. Instead they subject their patients to procedures that are based on their own opinions, what is customary in their community or are just plain unnecessary and senseless.
Researchers at Dartmouth have looked at the use of medical procedures across the US. They have found wide variation in medical practices from on geographic region to another. This variation cannot be explained on the basis of the severity of illnesses suffered by the patients. Rather one community of doctors are likely to use a procedure twice as often as their colleagues somewhere else. But doing twice as much does not translate to better outcomes for patients. They get twice as much care (and we spend twice as much money) for the same results.
Most medical specialties have evidence based clinical practice guidelines that use the scientific literature to inform clinical practice. Unfortunately these guidelines are frequently not followed and patients do not get the care that science says is best. Some estimates show as little as only 30% of patients in hospital receive care that is recommended by these evidence based guidelines. Treatments for certain conditions are even worse. A recent study found that primary care providers treating garden-variety low back pain followed scientifically based recommendations for first line medication only about 25% of the time.
12. Medical treatment is potentially dangerous.
Medical treatment is the third leading cause of death in the US, just behind heart disease and cancer. Up to 400,000 people die each year because of medical care.
13. Most medical doctors don’t know much about nutrition.
Medical doctors learn little about clinical nutrition during their schooling. Many offer what they describe as “nutrition counseling.” But this typically consists of superficial advice about eating less fat and various schemes to sell you supplements and prescribe drugs that are high-priced and unnecessary.
14. Medical doctors who prescribe drugs are influenced by drug companies.
The relationships between the pharmaceutical industry and the medical doctors who prescribe them is troubled by conflicts of interest, ethical lapses and, of course, money. Recent legislative regulations, ethics statements and professional education reforms have emerged to correct what can only be described as the too-cozy relationship between pharmaceutical manufacturers (“big pharma”) and medicine. While she has her critics, Marcia Angel, MD, the former editor of the mainstream medical journal The New England Journal of Medicine, blows the cover of the relationship between big pharma, the FDA and practicing doctors. She describes a well-oiled industrial machine that has discovered a way to make tons of money in the guise of helping patients. Doctors are all-to-wiling participants in this scheme beginning in medical school and moving into practice with generous perks, free gifts and other incentives to prescribe the newest (and usually most expensive) drug or medical device.
15. Medical doctors often have no business treating young children.
Many medical procedures have been studied only in adults. Unfortunately children are just “litte adults.”
16. The fact that patients swear by us does not mean we are actually helping them.
Satisfaction is not the same thing as effectiveness. Many people who believe they have been helped had conditions that would have resolved without treatment. Some have had treatment for dangers that did not exist but were said by the chiropractor to be imminent. Many chiropractors actually take courses on how to trick patients to believe in them. (See Chapter 8)
17. Insurance companies don’t want to pay for many medical services.
Some medical specialists love to brag that their services are covered by Medicare and most insurance companies. However, this coverage for many procedures has been achieved though political action rather than scientific merit. For example bariatric surgery was developed over the last decade but has not really become common until various states have mandated coverage for the procedure. The evidence that supports these procedures is scant. End-stage renal disease has been enshrined in Medicare coverage since an act of Congress in 1973. The US spent $32.9 billion for treating almost 600,000 patients, a ten-fold increase since 1980. It costs between $60,00 and over $80,000 per patient per year for this treatment. While one can’t argue that this cost is not necessary, after all it keeps these people alive, one can’t help but wonder if that $32 billion might be better spent.
18. Lots of Medical doctors do really strange things.
Medical quackery has a long and rich history. It is not confined to the past, but is alive and well, even in the age of modern, evidence based medicine. Contemporary medical education trains doctors to be over-confident in their skills and knowledge. While this sometimes leads to significant innovation,it can also lead to weird medical treatments offered by some medical doctors to willing and gullible patients.
The medical cosmetic industry is one current “specialty” that offers “treatments” that are only questionably necessary, not without significant risk and delivered for no other reason than patients want it and doctors have figured out how to deliver it. Liposuction, laser face lifts, breast augmentation and, most recently, genital cosmetic surgery (called vaginal rejuvenation), challenge any consideration of these procedures as rational medicine.
19. Don’t expect medical licensing boards to protect you.
Many medical doctors who serve on chiropractic licensing boards harbor the same misbeliefs and biases that are rampant among their colleagues. This means, for example, that most boards are unlikely to discipline medical doctors for diagnosing and treating imaginary conditions such as the need for “vaginal rejuvenation.” Medical boards are usually dominated by doctors and representation by lay persons is often discouraged. Even if a licensing board chooses to take action against a rogue doctor, the legal system often moves so slowly that the doctor continues in practice and harms more patients while the board dithers in legal limbo.
20. The media rarely look at what we do wrong.
The media rarely if ever address medical nonsense. The medical profession’s hammer lock on the media, while not complete, does have the general public convinced that they are in the business for the benefit of patients and the good of the public. Doctors are usually seen as selfless professional only doing what is right for their patients. They are not businessmen and women who make their decisions based on economics, income and profit.
Many politicians and media continue the fiction that the US has the best medical care in the world. The outcomes however suggest a much different story. The US spends more than any other developed nation on earth but has outcomes that are not consistent with the 16% of GDP that is medical care. Medical care now exceeds housing costs for the average American family. Recent Federal and state efforts at health care reform are the political and social response to an unsustainable trajectory of rising medical costs.
@ Nick
And here’s 30 responses from medicine to its critics:
http://www.sciencebasedmedicine.org/answering-our-critics-part-1-of-2/
Number 30 is explained in more detail here:
http://www.sciencebasedmedicine.org/answering-our-critics-part-2-of-2-whats-the-harm/
As Harriet Hall on EBM is a great apologist and supporter of the propagandist, Stephen Barrett, one can hardly use EBM as a valid reference.
are you competing for the least convincing argument?
Someone already said that – perhaps you didn’t read the comments? Anyway, it is as irrelevant to the subject of this blog post now as it was then.
TBH I haven’t read the book and don’t intend to, but after reading this website that describes it, just basically bashes Chiro’s as a selling point for the book, in other words like many fashion magazines do to get people to buy their crap.
Look I’m not saying there are no bad Chiropractors out there, I’m 100% sure there are cause I’ve been to some JUST like I’ve been to some TERRIBLE Medical Dr’s (even worse than the bad Chiro’s I’ve been to) but the Chiro I normally visit actually tells me exactly the same thing which we agreed on and people should stick to within their scope of what they are taught and specialise in which MANY Chiro’s do not (even Physio’s and Naturopaths do not also, a lot are guilty of this not just Chiro’s) so the ones that do not give the others a bad name (again like other fields)
I’m not sure why you chose to point out Chiro’s, maybe just because it is the one you’ve come across as dodgy and maybe you need more life experience and you will find this is just HUMANS in general, no particular field…. but I’ve personally had more success with a Chiropractor than any other Dr. I could give you my whole medical history which I will not but it is not a another case of oh he cracks my neck to release the nitric oxide and makes me feel good case, far from it.
Safe to say when you go to a GOOD if not GREAT Chiropractor you will be able to tell the WORLD of difference between a what you think to be good one, like I have in the past which turns out to be just awful.
Either way I’m looking at practising Chiropractic and would never cheat on any of my tests as I want to became a great Chiropractor and take zero shortcuts as I’ve said to heal and help people like the great ones (I’ve been to some 10 in my life? I’ve met about 4 great ones out of those) helped me.
Also your part of this blog where it states “3. Our education is vastly inferior to that of medical doctors.” is just quite simply untrue, I’m not sure what it is like in some countries but we actually put in MORE hours in the years we study than Medical Doctors and by the end of the 2 years we have seen hundreds of patients….. with it constantly being monitored by a fully qualified DC (Dr of Chiropractic) , that is just in Australia either way from what I got told due to my partner being specifically scared of being under trained so rest assured this is not the case, at least here.
Also in America
http://www.yourmedicaldetective.com/drgrisanti/mddc.htm
So I’m guessing it is the same there? Plus looking at that is pretty disturbing when it comes to some numbers of hours only that Medical Dr’s are putting in….. and where, it seems like they are basically just being trained up to prescribe drugs (which most people actually are finding out when they research THAT side of things) but you can see it clearly, lack of Diagnosis and even the human body in general with Anatomy/Embryology and Physiology….
Anyways as I said above (and from personal experience) I would put my faith in a Chiropractor anyday, I am glad I NOW know how to look for a good one, I’m sorry you’ve had a bad experience with yours.
Also PS all of the ones I’ve been to have never EVER preached to me all diseases etc etc come from the spine or can be cured through adjustments like this at all, ever, period. So again I’m guessing we have dealt with a different bunch? I really do have to agree with one of the comments above where you have seem to pick a few bad apples and labeled it across all Chiro’s which AGAIN I have to say you can say that about ANY field, so do yourself a favour if you are a TRUE skeptic AND researcher and find a GOOD one?
Also might put you at ease…. NZ (New Zealand) did the biggest research in the WORLD before approving Chiropractic (Australia took this research on board also and used it to approve their field) took years and the most thorough research to date, dug EXTREMELY deep getting ALL the hard facts out, so I think people should look at that and believe what they will over such a deeply funded and well researched past time on the subject before taking account one persons opinion with their book and blog.
Oh dear.
Vaughan Elphick “TBH I haven’t read the book and don’t intend to, but after reading this website that describes it, just basically bashes Chiro’s as a selling point for the book, in other words like many fashion magazines do to get people to buy their crap. I’m not sure why you chose to point out Chiro’s…”
If you read the book you’d fully understand why.
Have to agree with Well and Vaughan, blunty just going on about nonsense in order to sell a book. I like the points Vaughan also brought up. Alot of good facts right there, love the reply that it got also, another response in order to buy a book, who would have guessed!
Hi ‘Ausbloke’.
Since you’ve posted here previously, would you like to tell everyone else your real name?
What’s the point to this blog? It’s the least scientific thing I’ve ever read. Has everyone one here forgotten what science is? Where’s the detachment of bias and use of objectivity? Especially you Edzard Ernst. You are well known for being the biggest, most biased cherry picker of them all. Ok, you’re on a personal mission to discredit Chiropractic, you have been for years, but because it’s so personal to you, your bias leads you to the point you can no longer be regarded as a scientist. Bad science is no science.
can I refer you to my post about “Ernst’s Law” http://edzardernst.com/2013/11/ernsts-law/ and the one about ad hominem attacks http://edzardernst.com/2012/12/ad-hominem-attacks-are-signs-of-victories-of-reason-over-unreason/ ?
jonjay5
Ernst is not alone. He is joined by many who care to have a look at the problem. Modern communication and liberal attitude is making it easy for any kind of wannabe healers and make-believe doctors to sell their services to an ignorant public.
It is quite easy for someone with basic medical knowledge and understanding of anatomy and physiology to see through the nonsense of Chiropractics if they just care. It is especially easy once you have tried their services as I did once. I honestly believed the man would do me good as I read that the americans had found chiropractic helpful in uncomplicated lower back pain. But the only thing that improved was his bank account. I even, as he was so insistent on it, listened to an evening lecture and learned about the magical subluxation that he claimed could help with anything from infertility to appendicitis and I have studied their promotional material in detail and everything there is to find as far as research.
Since then I have cured my lumbago bouts myself for free and in much less time than it took when the chiro was calling the shots. The man even insisted on manhandling my neck even if I never had any problems from that region! Thank god I did not win the one in a million or two lottery for a life with locked-in syndrome.
They also do a fine job of discrediting themselves in public as we have seen many examples of here.
The real problem is that authorities are not even aware there is a problem and so many people get hooked by their “practice-building techniques” and start to believe that they are being helped by the manhandling.
What I resent most in their devious marketing is the way they lie and cheat about their abilities to help children with anything between bedwetting and asthma. An advertisement I saw recently stated that 95% [sic!] of neonates have spinal misalignment due to birth trauma(!!!) that should be corrected ASAP by a chiropractor. This is plain and simple fabrication and fraud.
I started to suspect things were not alright with the practice of chiropractics already at the first visit when he took extensive x-rays of my spine that were of excessively poor quality. You saw very little detail. Being trained in general and trauma surgery you know what is an acceptable quality x-ray picture.
People are coming to real doctors I know, with fogged whole-body x-rays, unduly terrified because chiropractors thought they saw something that should be checked. One radiologist friend told me a few days ago that a woman had brought her total body x-rays of her young child because the chiropractor had said the child’s pelvis was in many pieces adn this was a terrible thing!!!!! The child was absolutely normal of course. This chiro has the most modern digital equipment in town but he did not know how to read the unnecessary x-rays that gave a healthy child a wicked dose of ionizing radiation to add to its lifetime risk of cancer.
I am so perplexed by this article, blog, book and lie. There are people in the USA that die from Medical Doctors and Hospitals in the hundreds of thousands, JAMA said more than 300,000 patients die at there hands. Every medication has a side effect, which most times are worst than the condition being treated. M.D’s being paid to give medications that has never cured a disease. Actually, can anyone tell me the last cure we have had since small pox. Cancer? Nope, we are still running races to make more money for Susie K. foundation, Diabetes? Heart Disease? Lupus? hell the common cold? Oh yeah, there is no money in cures only maintaining people in a sick state. Yet we have a article the goes in length to bash a profession that doesn’t harm 1 soul, just because the person writing the article is either a chiropractor who either failed out of school, failed in business, is a MD that is loosing face in his community to chiropractors making a difference, disgruntled medical doctor or med school administrator who is seeing a decline in enrollment in there “unscientific medical schools”.
Food for thought if, an airline which has similar number of customers as hospitals with patients had over 300,000 killed in plane crashes each year, NO ONE WOULD FLY.
300,000 people a year in the US killed by guns, there would probably be a nation wide ban on guns,
300,000 people killed by any profession who definitely lead to alot of people going to jail.
WHY, because in other countries around the world we would call that, Genocide, not health care, not scientific evidence, not “real doctors”, just plane murderers. or in this case the cost of doing business.
Abdul
Oh dear.
I’ve no idea why you use the title doctor, but it would appear you didn’t earn it for critical thinking or research skills.
Abdul
You are parroting a nonsense mantra of altmed propaganda. You never even read the article in JAMA from 2000 which is talking about the poor state of health service in the us, not the state of medical science. It certainly says nothing about the usefulness of whatever you choose instead of real medicine, including chiropractics. The figures are pure speculation and saying that doctors are killing patients in such numbers is pain insolence.
Your comments on the progress of medicine only illustrates your ignorance. Cancer is for example not a disease. It is a class of hundreds of different diseases.
Simple. Md students have more patient during their clinical years due to any Joe Shmoe complaining of pain and easily getting a prescription in ANY ER in America, besides the fact there’s a huge epidemic of teenagers claiming they can’t focus and immediately get prescribed aderal. It’s easy for doctors to come across patients, besides the fact you have every other commercial describing symptoms that could apply to a 6 month old and a 60 yr old. People be AWARE!!!!! Md students have more school/clinical hours in perscription drugs then the study of the human nervous system!!!! The “father” of modern medicine believed In proper education and health and spreading that to the masses! Not you script happy opinion. There will always be someone on the other side of the table…. But you can’t argue the fact that studies are showing a huge decrease of md doctors, of nearly 100,000 in the next decade. Our health care system has made America fat lazy sick manipulated…. And the ppl are seeing it. Chiropractic isn’t for everyone, that’s fair to say, but modern medicine is killing. The ppl are seeing it now. Whole health is what is important. I don’t see how it’s possible to fully promote “medical” doctors and absolutely have others ppls best interest at heart. There’s more studies to show and prove it’s downfall verses it’s positive uprise. Chiropractic is not a job! It’s a life style! It’s not something to trick ppl steal manipulate… Most offices have no advertising. It’s about spreading healthy options of how to maintain optimal health. Helping those who had no other options, and most of those people wish it was their first but just didn’t have proper education or knowledge on the positive effects of chiropractic. Also there are thousand of offices that are cash not insurance run, unlike most MD’s, chiropractors don’t need to rely on health insurance companies for a paycheck. I see all the doctorates you have obtained and realize that you most likely find yourself more highly qualified than any other person here, and that right there will eventually be your downfall. To those of you who are wondering, I am NOT a chiropractor. I am not a chiropractor student. And my influence on this subject comes from a more powerful and smarter individual then who wrote this post. My love for truth and pointing out the mass manipulators is what drives me. You are wrong to attempt to exploit chiropractic. I am a person of complete rational thinking. You mention how chiropractors use politics for Medicare verses medical merit…. How did you not laugh and fall off your chair with that one??? The medical field is not only friends with but they are dick suckers to the politicians of this country. Big pharma owns your ass. There’s no merit in that. Chiropractors don’t say that regular medical care is never useful, in fact I have been to many important seminars that claim that chiropractors can’t heal bones or apply stitches, they don’t aim to be the worlds next greatest healer. They aim to help people obtain positive health through knowledge and regular chiro care. They believe in your body reaching its maximum Potential on a DAILY basis! Why would someone not want that? Why would someone not want to hear that the drugs their doctor is giving them is actually making them sick. Why would ppl not want to know of alternatives to fix the mistakes big pharma has caused. You say chiropractic isn’t for children?!?! I say VACCINES are NOT for children! Especially NEW BORNS! I say prescriptions are NOT meant for 5 year olds. I say that AUTISM is a NEW!! Disease in our human life span! Really look at everything people, don’t take one doctors opinion. Don’t take 12 doctors opinion. You believe what they want you to believe. Manipulated creatures. That’s the biggest illness epidemic now, ignorant manipulation. And then those same ppl feel qualified to defend a side they have never even fully understood. I hope you sleep well at night knowing you’ve influenced with the wrong information.
what point are you trying to make?
1 hour deep tissue myofacial massage $70:00, always makes you feel good.
Three minutes on a chiropractors table $65:00, dubious results at best.
You do the math.
Erin,
If you are going to say stupid things, please try to avoid saying them stupidly. The medication is spelled Adderall. ‘Newborns’ is one word. The grammatically correct phrase would be “There [are] more studies to show and prove its [no apostrophe] downfall verses its [no apostrophe] positive uprising.” Just to name a few. And until you are a medical professional, I would prefer it if you did not comment on things you have no education about, including the benefit of vaccines and the causes of obesity and laziness; please avoid defending a side you have very obviously never understood. I am glad that you have not been even slightly manipulated by this nameless “more powerful and smarter individual than who wrote this post.”
S246 wrote: “His book is garbage”
I’m interested to know what you make of the third paragraph on page 109 of Preston Long’s book, and also what important papers (according to you) he has *excluded* from his references at the end of each chapter. Thanks.
I think you are not really a Chiropractor and whatever you are it is obvious that you totally are trying to sabotage Chiropractors and Chiroractic, without having a real accurate knowledge about them and their education. You totally have exaggerated about the negative points you have mentioned and many things you have said are totally biased.
do you have any evidence to back up your opinion?
Amy said:
I sincerely hope that Prof Ernst isn’t moonlighting as a chiro! The shame!
But as he asked, do you have any evidence to substantiate what you say?
No one needs to read the book to understand he is right. MD’s see Chiropractors as their biggest threat to lose money. Although this is changing and a lot of MD’s are referring patients to DC’s and vice versa. You can see clearly you are just trying to sell a book here and nothing more, it is sad and pathetic really.
ad hominem attacks are the norm when there are no real arguments!?!
Well said:
Two very clear assertions. Care to try to back them up with evidence?
Did you want MD names that refer patients to DCs? I get several referrals a week, what year are you living in to think MDs and DCs are against each other? Obviously some are but many work together, even professional sports teams and the Olympic medical team have DCs on staff? Want to explain that then?
Hi ‘Well’.
Since you’ve posted here previously, would you like to tell everyone else your real name?
This is the biggest balogne I have ever seen and highly doubt this guy would bad-mouth his own profession (I guess he wanted to sell a bunch of books by rejecting his own business). There are a lot of chiropractic colleges, just like there are LOT of undergraduate universites. The quality of your education from a state school isn’t going to be nearly as good as a Harvard education. The only reason people in the medical community want to get rid of chiropractic is because it is a threat to their monopoly on medical care. DONE
do you have any real arguments?
Edzard said:
I somehow doubt it…
Lets report the damage done by prescriptions medications each day if you want to help people out. There will be bad and good in every profession but to just bad mouth one, shows you have an agenda against it and are not really trying to help anyone other then your injured ego. There are plenty of legitimate studies out showing chiropractic being the proper route of action before medicine/surgery. To disagree is to be blind and intentionally ignorant on the topic.
I agree that chiropractic can not cure everything and that docs that say it can are a black eye to the entire profession.
Keep in mind that I also believe medicine can’t cure everything and you should understand that also.
Rory wrote: “Lets report the damage done by prescriptions medications each day if you want to help people out.”
Here’s medicine’s answers to its critics:
Part 1
http://www.sciencebasedmedicine.org/answering-our-critics-part-1-of-2/
Part 2
http://www.sciencebasedmedicine.org/answering-our-critics-part-2-of-2-whats-the-harm/
And here’s a snippet from Death by Medicine:
QUOTE
“…a treatment is not very “safe” if it causes no side effects but lets you die. Most of us don’t just want “safe:” we want “effective.” What we really want to know is the risk/benefit ratio of any treatment. The ironic thing is that all the statistics these doctor-bashers have accumulated come from the medical literature that those bashed doctors have written themselves. Scientific medicine constantly criticizes itself and publishes the critiques for all to see. There is NOTHING comparable in the world of alternative medicine.”
Link http://www.sciencebasedmedicine.org/death-by-medicine/
As a Chiropractic graduate from Logan College, I could not agree more. It is such a quessing game. In retrospect I would have been better off telling patients that I would hit them in the “ass” with a shovel once a week and take their money. Then send them on their way. Tis would have done about the same thing as the bull I promulated for years, trying to sound scientific when in the end I was cheating the patient and lying to myself. How long can the public be deceived.
Test
I admit, I have not read the book. I simply read the excerpt from above. However, I am a current graduate of a Canadian Chiropractic College and I have a much different view than the author.
1)Cheating. There was little to no cheating by anyone I knew in my program; 2 students were expelled throughout my degree and the class was largely supportive of this action.
2)Education. I was required to see 35 patients, with a minimum of 350 subsequent treatments. A maximum of 7 could be students or family, and all were required to be alive. This was a minimum and many of us treated upwards of 50;500. I would agree that this should be more, however, this happens to be a logistic issue and rounds and outside learning/observing were stressed and encouraged.
3)”Subluxation” with a non-medical (partial dislocation) definition was a taboo word during school. I have yet to say it to a patient (or think it, for that matter).
4) Scope: Neuromusculoskeletal conditions. Any nerve, muscle or joint… I am proud of this because I do it well. I cannot cure AIDS & I know this. However, I can help with back, neck, shoulder, etc. pain.
5) Research: touche’, here is a valid point. RCT’s are the gold standard for empirical evidence and manual medicine is more difficult to study via RCT than prescription medication. This makes the studies longer, more rigorous, with a lot more ethical considerations and confounding variables to consider. Additionally, the profession is quite young in relation to medicine. Therefore, yes, chiropractic (and other manual therapy) evidence is lacking. In rebuttal to this comment, I will note that in order to graduate I was required to complete either a literature review or an approved undergraduate research project… the profession has taken note and is taking steps to rectify this (post-graduate work included).
6) X-rays: I have learned and follow the same imaging guidelines medical doctors follow, as do most of my colleagues.
I would just like to say that reading this post made my heart break a little. This gentleman clearly had a terrible time in school & just like picking a medical college (or any college for that matter), he should have researched a bit more. I attended my chiropractic college specifically because of an upstanding scientific reputation based solely on evidence-based medicine. I hope that people understand the way doctors of chiropractic practice varies widely, and searching out the best chiropractor for you is important & worthwhile. Ask friends, family or colleagues what has worked for them: personal referrals are the best source.
Totally agree with CanadaDC…. what was taught at the university I studied in Australia seems quite similar to that of Canada…. no pseudoscience, only MSK conditions
wow..your website is so PRO-medical..do you work for the government or simply wish people to stay drugged..
I am so disappointed in your ability to tell the truth.
P.S. I know more about health than you
so, tell us what you know about health. do you mean the nonsense you learnt in chiro-college?
Pro medical or pro evidence? Can you see a difference? That subtle difference in perception is what makes you think you know more about health. In fact its not that subtle a difference.
I hope you aren’t as arrogant in other aspects of your life.
Whose turn is it for the popcorn?
My infant daughter was in excruciating pain following an emergency c-section. Her neck was pulled out of alignment by the cord, which was around her neck. After one adjustment she showed visible improvement. I believe in the benefits of proper alignment, particularly when the misalignment is causing pain. I have been to several chiropractors who spent anywhere from 5 minutes ( or less) to 45 minutes adjusting me. I have gotten great relief from being adjusted properly. I have encouraged my kids to become chiropractors. When state medicaid will cover it, it has made giant leaps in being recognized as beneficial.
…and what tells you that, without ‘adjustments’, your daughter would not have improved to – or perhaps even faster?
@Christina
I am curious.
Why did you not sue the obstetrician who mishandled your infant? !
Why do I say this?
The neck of your daughter cannot have been pulled “out of alignment” in any other way than by the obstetrician as she was delivered by C-section. An emergency C-section was performed because there were signs on the fetal monitoring of intermittently decreased blood flow in the cord during labour. Had there been such a pull on the cord to have sufficed to pull the neck out of alignment, the blood flow in the cord would have had to stop for a good while and your daughter would have been dead some time before the operation could commence. That is why fetal monitoring has been devised, to save the child’s life before it is too late and the blood flow has stopped in the cord.
What is more, for this to happen (blood flow being affected in the cord) the head will have to be normally fixed in the pelvis thereby not being able to move in relation to the body. So the pull on the cord would have to be extreme in order to have an untoward effect on the unborn childs neck.
(How do I know? Well, I should know these things being a surgeon myself and having shared my life with an obstetrician wife for almost 30 years.)
Therefore, if your chiropractor is right about the neck having been misaligned, it must have happened when the obstetrician was handling the child at or after the Cesarean section.
So maybe you should confront the obstetrician (with your chiropractor and a lawyer present) with the fact that the child was in pain from a neck misalignment after the C-section, which the chiropractor successfully fixed. It will be interesting to hear what the obstetrician and her/his lawyer say.
Or…
Let’s say your daughter had been very unlucky and ended up in a wheelchair. Who would have been to blame, the obstetrician or the chiropractor?
No I don’t think so.
The truth is that the chiropractor community have made up these problems as a part of their “practice building”. Based on flawed and exagerated research about spinal problems from (even normal) delivery they have somewhat successfully expanded their customer base (and thereby income) to infants and children. They are in effect pretending to treat non-existent conditions using fictional methods.
Your daughter was presumably simply unhappy as she felt how you were upset after the chiropractor told you tall tales about an imaginary problem. Then when the chiropractor fondled and manipulated the child (gently of course) the child was, as expected, soothed and the charla… eh, chiropractor assured you that his/her magic had worked.
In the old days impostors were tarred and feathered. Now they are glorified on facebook.
Did you remember to thank the obstetric team for saving your daughters life.
As a second-generation chiropractor myself, I can tell you that much of what we learn in school is absolute nonsense. Chiropractors, at their best, can only provide temporary palliative relief to some types of musculoskeletal pain. At worst, we delay needed medical treatment by telling our patients lies. We have almost no critical thinking skills as well as a complete lack of understanding of the scientific method. This is best demonstrated by the vast number of chiropractors who (at least here in the US) still believe in the “subluxation theory”. There is really no reason for the chiropractic profession to exist at all. If one “needs” to have some manipulative therapy performed (adjustment), it can now (again at least in the US) be done by a doctor of physical therapy who in over half the states now have the right to manipulate. They can now also see patients without a referral, just like a chiro. Most chiros are unaware of this and I love hearing them say, “well our education/degree/title is superior to a PT, that is why we are considered to be portal of entry healthcare providers and PT’s are not…they need a referral from an MD” I have personally seen and heard other chiropractors tell their patients the most insane things and people lap it up- never underestimate how powerful it is to Mr. John Doe to hear the “doctor” take time to listen to his compaints and agree with him. The placebo effect is quite powerful and chiropractors use it to the fullest.
Evan Dadas wrote: “There is really no reason for the chiropractic profession to exist at all. If one “needs” to have some manipulative therapy performed (adjustment), it can now (again at least in the US) be done by a doctor of physical therapy who in over half the states now have the right to manipulate. They can now also see patients without a referral, just like a chiro.”
Interesting comment. The reformist, veteran chiropractor, Samuel Homola, signalled the following eight years ago:
QUOTE
“As I warned in Bonesetting, Chiropractic and Cultism, if chiropractic fails to specialize in an appropriate manner, there may be no justification for the existence of chiropractic when there are an adequate number of physical therapists providing manipulative therapy. Many physical therapists are now using manipulation/mobilization techniques. Of the 209 physical therapy programs in the US, 111 now offer Doctor of Physical Therapy (DPT) degrees. Some of these programs have been opened to qualified chiropractors. According to the American Physical Therapy Association,
“…Physical therapy, by 2020, will be provided by
physical therapists who are doctors of physical therapy
and who may be board-certified specialists. Consumers
will have direct access to physical therapists in all environments
for patient/client management, prevention, and
wellness services. Physical therapists will be practitioners
of choice in patients’/clients’ health networks and will
hold all privileges of autonomous practice…”
It matters little who does spinal manipulative therapy as long as it is appropriate and evidence-based.”
Ref. The Journal of Manual & Manipulative Therapy
Vol. 14 No. 2 (2006), E14 – E18
http://jmmtonline.com/documents/HomolaV14N2E.pdf
“Blue Wode” Why is it that you now do not argue against these doctors of physical therapy as you do against the use of manipulative therapy in chiropractic. Is it the notion of the name chiropractic itself your argue against?
@ Hans
Yes. Chiropractors need to eliminate the chiropractic ‘bait and switch’…
QUOTE
“Chiropractic is perhaps the most common and egregious example of the bait and switch in medicine. The deception begins with the name itself – “chiropractic” fails the basic test of transparency because it is not unambiguously defined. There are in fact numerous professions doing very different things and employing mutually exclusive philosophies under the banner of “chiropractic”.” Therefore someone may go to see a chiropractor and think they will be seeing a medical professional who will treat their musculoskeletal symptoms, but in reality they will see the practitioner of a cult philosophy of energy healing. So-called “straight” chiropractors (who make up an estimated 30% of all chiropractors) still adhere to the original philosophy of chiropractic invented by “magnetic healer” D.D. Palmer, which is based upon the claim that an undetected life energy called “innate intelligence” flows through the spinal cord and nerves and is responsible for health. Such chiropractors will treat any disease or ailment with spinal manipulation. Most other so called “mixer” chiropractors reject the notion of innate intelligence either partially or entirely, but still incorporate other pseudosciences into their practice. Chiropractors are the primary practitioners of homeopathy, applied kinesiology, and iridology in the US. The bait – claims that chiropractors are medical practitioners with expertise in the musculoskeletal system. The switch – practitioners of discredited pseudosciences that have nothing to do with the musculoskeletal system.
A more subtle form of the bait and switch among chiropractors is the treatment of musculoskeletal symptoms with standard physical therapy or sports medicine practices under the name of chiropractic manipulation. Ironically, the more honest and scientific practitioners among chiropractors are most likely to commit this subtle deception. The problem comes not from the treatment itself but the claim that such treatments are “chiropractic”.” Using techniques like massage, range of motion exercises, strength-building exercises, and mobilization of joints are all legitimate science-based techniques used by physical therapists and physicians with specialties in physiatry, orthopedics, and sports medicine. Some chiropractors also use similar techniques -and with good results. But by doing so and calling it “chiropractic” it legitimizes the pseudoscientific practices that are very common within the profession – like treating non-existent “subluxations” in order to free up the flow of innate intelligence.”
Ref: https://www.sciencebasedmedicine.org/the-bait-and-switch-of-unscientific-medicine/
The last line of Sam Homola’s article:
In reply to Blue:
“For those researchers striving to develop an inter-professional research agenda on the therapeutic use of manipulation,
it would be necessary to seek out evidence-based chiropractors, who can participate in joint-manipulation research that is free of bias and dogma.”
COCA already there! Support!
Craig Liebenson already there! Support!
Murdock University already there! Support!
Macquarie University already there! Support!
The momentum for change has gathered momentum here and the subbies are becoming worried and vocal!
Support the reformers and speed up the process!
Very odd. I can’t find a single statement above that is true of my chiropractor and trust me….I did insane amounts of research. I have been a poo-pooer of chiropractors my whole life. After spending literally thousand of dollars in neurologists and cardiologists, pain meds and cholesterol meds, I finally did the research and found a chiro. I go every other month at most, my insurance covers it, I get vitamins for half the cost of target or cub and I have been migraine free with a healthy cholesterol for years.
@ Laura
It’s good to hear that you are feeling better. However, when it comes to scientific medicine, personal anecdotes regarding benefit from a therapy have to be discarded. Here’s why:
QUOTE
“One of the hard won lessons of the process of scientific discovery is that anecdotal evidence is very unreliable. Psychologist Barry Beyerstein summarized it well when he wrote, “anecdotal evidence leads us to conclusions that we wish to be true, not conclusions that actually are true.” So anecdotes can be worse than worthless, they can be misleading. This conclusion was arrived at after centuries of being misled by anecdotes…What we mean, exactly, by anecdotal evidence is the report of an experience by one or more persons that is not objectively documented or an experience or outcome that occurred outside of a controlled environment. Such evidence is unreliable because it depends upon the accurate perception of the witness(es), often in a situation where the event was unexpected or unusual; it is dependent upon subjective memory, which has been overwhelmingly demonstrated to be extremely error prone and subject to a host of flaws; and it cannot account for the random vagaries of a chaotic world…the bottom line is this – we know for certain from countless historical examples that even people who have all the traits of a reliable witness can be profoundly mistaken.”
Ref: http://theness.com/neurologicablog/index.php/no-love-for-anecdotal-evidence/
I also suggest that you have a slow read through Barry Beyerstein’s classic essay, Social and Judgmental Biases That Seem to Make Inert Treatments Work. It’s a thorough analysis of alternative medicine and common errors of reasoning:
http://web.archive.org/web/20050329093720/http://www.sram.org/0302/bias.html
Yup, Laura’s post is anecdotal.
Edzard’s recent post: acupuncture didn’t work for someone – anecdotal. And his chiro story – anecdotal. Bjorn has posted about about a patient who tried gua sha for appendicitis – anecdotal. A friend of mine had a bad reaction to cipro causing her liver to fail – anecdotal.
Probably none of them will be trying those specific therapies again, based on personal experience or anecdotal evidence. Bjorn will probably not try gua sha for his arthritis, based on the patient’s experience. Even though I can rattle off 50 patients off the top of my head that effectively manage arthritis in their hands with gua sha. And fair enough – his experience would be enough to put anyone off gua sha. I’ll never take cipro, based on anecdotal evidence. Even though I know people who have gotten benefit from it. Even though her experience is anecdotal, I know that my friend will never take cipro for a UTI again.
On the other hand, Laura found success with chiro – anecdotal. I know hundreds of people personally, and know of many many more who get great results from gua sha – anecdotal. I know people who have gotten benefit from cipro – anecdotal. I hear great stories every day about acupuncture, gua sha, cupping, moxa, massage, and qigong working where nothing else did – anecdotal.
So while Laura reads the links you provided…you should learn from her experience and follow her example. Do your own research, find your own answers.
In the end, the only evidence that really matters is the evidence you collect for yourself.
are you not confusing experience with evidence?
nope
Yes, Laura. Happy to hear that you are healthier now and another of the millions of satisfied people of all ages around the world who have been helped with their migraines with natural, non-drug chiropractic health care.
But, I would have to agree with Blue Wode on this one. You apparently don’t know truth from reality, right from wrong, fact from fantasy. You certainly don’t know what helped you. Blue Wode does, though. And if you read his recommendations, I am confident your migraines will return and you can then go get some “scientific” medical help and drugs again and see a real doctor for sick care not health care — who, BTW, can’t help migraines. Just sayin’.
Congrats again.
Hi everyone! well this has been a heated discussion hasn’t it?
Well if one was to look into the history of chiropractic medicine it is rubbish. Being a graduate from a UC with a degree in Biology and emphasis in neuroscience, volunteering 400 hours in a ER, working as a EMT, working in many different dental offices, receiving acupuncture and chiropractic healthcare, I can honestly say there is an absolute need for both!
I broke the growth plate in my knee at a very young age. My right leg is a quarter inch shorter than my left. I was a runner growing up and that quarter inch has thrown off my pelvic height and thus my spine is tilted. I have more pressure on one side of my body than the other and my discs have been greatly damaged. I have been seeing doctors, neurologists my entire life. I have had taken massive amounts of pain killers which have caused more problems than than they helped. I have worn a back brace most of my life. I have 4 bulged discs and spondilo. Anyways, bottom line is I am in pain.
What finally resolved my back pain. I went and found an EVIDENCE based chiropractor after my SURGEON told me that CHIROPRACTOR would manually adjust my back and bring blood flow and nutrients to my herniated discs. My chiro adjusted me twice a week. He also made sure to se my x-rays and mri before he adjusted me. After two weeks I have had a massive decrease in pain. More mobility than I have ever experienced in my life. He recommended I read the book Foundation which was written by a DC and a PT and has helped athletes such as Lance Armstrong. This book has taught me back workouts that strengthened my back and changed my life.
I start chiro school next week. I understand that MD’s and DC’s are two completely different fields!!! I have needed both to help. The pain meds were rough, the anti-inflammatory’s meds helped, as well as the corizone shots into my back. But if it wasn’t for my chiro, my discs would have never regenerated as well as they did. If it wasn’t for my chiro I would have had surgery and spent SOOOO much money! My mobility is back and I live a healthy lifestyle now that strengthens my back rather than just guarding it from pain. My DC advises me to go to my primary care physician for some things regarding my back, and my MD advises me to go to my DC for others. They need to work in a synergistic relationship people! There are chiro schools such as my own that have been accredited by associations that are scientifically proven evidence based thought.
I like to think of my future practice someday as similar to that of a yoga practice. In fact, I believe both yoga and chiropractic are extremely healthy for the back and body. Going to a chiropractor has taught me to always be conscious of back and learn new movements, nutrition and exercises to make my back feel amazing. And when I have full restored mobility to my spine, my entire life and well being are energized. Chiropractic healthcare is becoming more and more evidence based by nature, because of the doubt many people have with the old teachings of “subluxations”, those chiropractors are being phased out. By the way, subluxations are functional not structural.
Anyways, I just wanted to chime in because I have spoke for many hours to my DC about the efficacy of chiropractic healthcare and what type of scam many DC’s are running out there. Sure, the vitamins DC’s are selling may be overpriced, and most will try to sell you things you dont need. But some DC’s will have vitamins that are excellent for anti-inflammatory purposes and wont damage your organs like most prescription grade AI’s. Being someone that has had damage from AI’s and painkillers I can attest that vitamins are the way to go. Anyone who has taken biochemistry knows that vitamins allow for processes to occur in the body that are natural. Prescription grade AI’s forces these processes to occur and damage organs.
Point being, there are phony’s out there, DC’s MD’s dentists, even PT! Some chiro’s out there may have not had an evidence based curriculum, which is extremely problematic and can give a horrible name to DC’s everywhere. As someone who has studied neuroscience in school, I can say that we are soooo advanced in this field. Also, the amount of information we have left to learn is compared to exploring the ocean. My mom has Multiple Sclerosis and I hope neuroscience one day figures out why her autoimmune system is being triggered to attack itself. We dont have the technology yet to study everything. Chiropractic medicine has everything to do with the nervous system and more information is constantly being published about the positive use of adjustments to help the nervous system in one way or another. Read articles on Pubmed.com for anything and everything!
There is a reason most adjustments by a reputable DC makes someone who has back problems feel better. Internally, at the cellular level, at the cellular communication level.
We need medical doctors dear god! and chiropractic doctors are more of a specialty that help people like me when all my other options in western medicine have been tried. Back pain is still and always will be a major complaint with more and more people sitting down, in doors, on social media and desk jobs eating crap, gaining weight throwing off their spinal alignment and pinching nerves. Thank god for chiropractic medicine
“Thank god for chiropractic medicine”
What a truly profound concluding statement! Neither gods nor chiropractors have yet managed to provide any solid empirical evidence for their efficacy beyond placebo. However, the similarity between gods and chiropractors hasn’t escaped the notice of those who understand the findings of science- and evidence-based medicine.
OK so I thought I would update my post.
“thank god for chiropractic medicine”~ I may have been a little overly excited. I am a Protestant Christian and this statement was pre-mature of me to say. But what I found yesterday did relate God to Chiro work and I must say, this disturbing similarity Pete 628 describes between God and chiros is NOT ok.
I went to orientation at chiro school yesterday. It was not all it was “cracked up” to be lol!!!!
I am so thankful I read this blog before I attended it. I tried to prove my point in the blog because, lets face it, a chiro did help my pain with bulged discs, but ultimately, my pain has come back.
I was disturbed at chiro school orientation by the “gimmick” feeling that was present. I was disturbed when a chiro told me we needed to learn 2,419 hours classwork so we could speak to MD’s on their level. That is on average 400 more hours of classwork than medical schools and for what? So chiro’s can just PROVE thier POINT? There seems to be a reason Chiro’s have to Argue how evidence-based their work really is. I was disturbed by the fact that for many, chiro school was a last resort. I was disturbed when I heard, “im just happy i FINALLY know what to do!” uttered for a students mouth. I was disturbed because I related and this was my last choice too….
I am getting out of chiro school as soon as possible. I am going to immediately take the 2 remaining classes I need to take to get into PA school and get my pre-reqs in order. I have always wanted to become a PA, I just never had the balls to do it. UNTIL NOW.
I will conclude with this.
quote me please…
Thank GOD I found out the quakery that takes place in even the best Chiropractic schools, and am now mentally prepared to do what I have to do to actually help people with medical problems!!!!!
HORAY for this blog, and thank you to the man that started writing it! He really did help the chiropractic community by giving a warning out to any of us that might be tricked into joining it!
I like that you updated your post. Definitely food for thought.
I did have one question though (and it’s an honest question.) Could you elaborate on why a student saying “I’m glad I finally know what to do!” disturbed you? That was the part that I didn’t understand, and I’m guessing there’s more to that part of the story. Everything else made sense to me (in context) except that part.
I don’t know, Bob. Your whole story sounds “gimmicky” to me. On the internet, anyone can write anything and be anyone they pretend to be. Your whole story sounds fishy at best. IOW, it fails the smell test, IMO.
If you are really a soon-to-be former chiropractic college student, you will be missing out on helping others with drug-free approaches to health care. But if drugs is your thing, go ahead and enjoy. Best you get out now. PA skool sounds nice. You can do all the things that real MDs do like examine, write scripts for drugs, jab people with needles, poke your finger in various holes, have people cough on you — all with just a couple of years of PA school. And, also without the title of doctor and without getting a cut of the pie.
So, get ready for long hours and plenty of work, making the MDs job easier since no one seems to get to see them anymore, you mostly see a PA now, and also no benefits an MD/partner would get. Bringing less MDs into the practice, means less partners, which means they don’t have to divide up the pie into ever smaller pieces. You just get a salary tjat upi will be happy to get since you will need a job and you will hope they will be in a good mood and give you a raise every few years. Otherwise you will leave after a few years like many do, seeking better wages.
But if you are getting out of chiropractic college now, it is good that you listened to your inner voice and saved you and the college four years of aggravation. I am sure they will be sending you a thank you note shortly after your disappearance.
Best of luck, Bob. Hope the grass is greener in PA land … (translation – It’s never greener in the other fellows yard.)
HA it is so much greener over here!!!
Ahh I was so afraid the school would try and keep my FASFA money, being that more research I do I see now that after Palmer invented his “subluxation” THEORY in 1885 it was just that a THEORY, and chiropractic is just a business model to make money teaching other chiropractors!
I am so relieved I dodged that bullet. My sister is a nurse and she loves it, I have friends that are PA’s a Love it. I wanted to go into chiropractic originally to help others with a more naturopathic outlook. But i realized, I can do that in the medical field! I dont have to recommend tons of drugs that cover up the symptoms and don treat the real problem.
FYI- just because nerves in the spine run to different areas of the body does mean “cracking” an area of bone around them will heal anything! But lets face it, placebo affect is still very important to those that are giving up hope and are willing to spend money and try anything.
Anyways, comment how you like about me, I just wanted to tell my story. Last time I ever look at this blog.
I am so happy I didnt sell out and give up on medicine and turn to something I thought would sound prestigious and make money. CHiropractic????!!! LOL Its the blind leading the blind!!!
Hey btw,
Skepdoc, when you get the flu do you take medication or get adjusted LOL
Dont answer that, the correct answer is medication. But I know you will say adjustment 🙂
I am personally disgusted with this article, this book, this thread.
Chiropractic correction has changed my life.
Medication nearly killed me.
“REAL DOCTORS”? Seriously?
Please…keep going to the drug pushers and “death prolongers”. I will stick with what has worked for me. What has worked for the thousands of patients I have seen over the last 20 years…..
We need to thin the herd anyway.
Shelly
[email protected]
If only you could provide good evidence…
She did. “I will stick with what has worked for me. What has worked for the thousands of patients I have seen over the last 20 years…..”
LOL!
Yeah, lol is my usual response when you use your ‘provide good evidence’ comment.
I wish I knew the doctors you do. It’s like getting blood out of a stone to get any medication from mine, even with demonstrated need.
For all you who say chiropractic does not work to fix back and neck pain: You could be right that for some reasons getting adjusted does not work but here is my testimonials for times in which I received some sort of chiropractic and how it helped me. At Ft. Hood Texas, I used to get my neck adjusted by Korean barbers who I would get an extra hair cut from later on in the week so I could tip and get the awesome massage after work because they would crack your upper neck just right to eliminate any pain, allowing a good sleep. I now see a chiropractor and get my lower back adjusted after getting slammed in the back of a HMMWV in OIF II and I feel pain relief, so if this is the goal, then it does work for that in my opinion. I know that this will never solve the debate, but thought I would add my observances so that it may help someone in the future.
It took me a very, very long time to get through all this but I wanted to make sure that I had read everything before I comment. I am originally from Germany and chiropractors are definitely not as popular over there as they seem to be in the USA or Canada. A lot of people don’t even know about this field.
I have had my first experience with a chiropractor in NZ in 2009 after I experienced acute pain in my lower back that rsulted in me not being able to get up or move anymore. I have never felt that helpless in my life before. my former boss recommended I should see a Chiro so I did and I felt a lot better afterwards. When I discontinued my sessions due to me moving back to Germany my back problems came back on a regular basis and more and more frequent. I have consulted doctors, orthopedists, osteopaths as well as physio therapists and nothing seems to be THE right thing for me. Which is really frustrating. I now live in Canada and the two doctors I went to (both emergency doctors) have done little to nothing to examine me, tried to sell me on the idea that the back pain I experience might be due to problems with my kidneys and all they did was prescribe Tylenol and diclofenac. Needles to say they did jack squat in my case. Well, the diclo gave me stomach cramps after a while even though I took them with a meal. I have now started seeing a chiro again and at first I was quite optimistic. But now after having read all this I am doubting my desicion. I have had three consecutive sessions with him. He took a lot of time examining me, taking four x rays, explaining the procedures and adjusting me. I liked the fact that I wasn’t rushed through. But so far I have not felt an improvement yet. I know that people re very sore after their first adjustments but I can hardly move. That’s how sore I am. Basically, I only have one question. What could an MD do for me in this case? What would they do differently? I am quite certain that my pain is due to my hip displasia and the fact that one of my legs is 14mm (a little more than half an inch) longer than the other. Can that be regulated through adjustments?
no
So, what would you say I could do?
Astrid
How do you know one leg is 14 mm longer than the other and why do you think it is a source of pain?
Why would you go to ER doctors for an ongoing problem?
Hi Astrid, you need chiropractic adjustments followed by some form of orthotic to address the leg length difference. If you do not do something to counter the drop on the short side you will get no long term benefit from any therapy. You will not need 14mm the possible actual difference but 5-7mm will more than enough to have a positive effect on pelvic alignment.
what she needs is a proper diagnosis and certainly no advice via a blog
The fact that the NHS don’t refer is enough for me to be suspicious. That and the Chiropractor I saw told me I have flat feet when I know full well I don’t. So yes, let’s expose some of the less good things so that people aren’t diddled.
The “chiropractor” who started this thread is questionable. He illustrates the gullibility of many people. Does anyone really believe the a man would bash his own professions to such a degree. This foolishness confirms the extent to which the medical “profession” will reach to bash anything and anyone who competes with their dismal failure to cure disease and injury. How many people every year die at the hands of a chiropractor? How many die at the hands of a medical so-called professional? Over 250,000. In fact, there are a myriad of treatments with which chiropractors are very familiar that are successful at treating diseases at which the medical community is an abysmal failure. Cancer for just one example. Millions have died under the care of so called medical “doctors”, not from the cancer, but from the treatment. There have been cures for cancer for over 200 years. Chiropractors know about many of these but are not allowed to mention them because of the tyranny of the medical racket and the pharmaceutical industry, the most diabolical crime syndicate on the planet. You have to leave the U.S. to get treatment for cancer if you want to live and then pay for it out of you own pocket because the pharmaceutical industry and the medical racket have a stranglehold on so called “healthcare”. If the medical community is so successful at treating disease and injury, why have they moved heaven and earth to crush their competition? If a doctor of medicine OR chiropractic published a book about curing cancer, they will not only be put out of business, but many times have been mysteriously killed in one car “accidents”. The cancer industry is a racket and if we truly had an honest health care industry and an honest legal system with all modalities published and available, thousands of the chemotherapy and radiation pushers would be executed for murder. Check out all the books written about the Cancer racket by Ralph Moss and how the cures have been suppressed. And this is just ONE disease. There are many at which the medical community are a complete failure. I believe this guy who started this absurd thread is a plant. How much do you suppose they paid him to print this ridiculous nonsense?
“There have been cures for cancer for over 200 years. Chiropractors know about many of these but are not allowed to mention them because of the tyranny of the medical racket and the pharmaceutical industry, the most diabolical crime syndicate on the planet.”
YOU ARE ALLOWED TO MENTION THEM HERE. WHAT ARE THEY? LET US ALL BENEFIT FROM YOUR KNOWLEDGE, PLEASE.
oh, by the way: cancer is not just “ONE disease”.
Here’s the way I see it. Chiropractors are like automotive mechanics. A good one will look at the problems you describe, diagnose the issue in terms of their ability to repair, and work to fix the issue. A bad one will try and tell you that you are low on headlight fluid and that your flux capacitor is broken.
Chiropractors are a very specialized form of medical professional who have a specific field of study. I personally would not trust a chiropractor who said they could aid with anything non-musculoskeletal, because that is what they are supposed to do. Likewise, I would not trust a dentist who said he could cure my impotence by removing my right bicuspid (I’ve actually had this happen).
Chiropractors are considered pseudoscience hacks by the community at large because of a loud group who feel the need to take advantage of unsuspecting dolts. I have gone to chiropractors multiple times for minor adjustments due to my lifestyle as a martial artist. I have never once had a chiropractor suggest that I come in for 50-100 sittings. The most I have ever had for sessions for a single issue was about 7. That was because the pain, while slowly lessening, didn’t go away after three visits.
I guess what I’m trying to say here is that you need to do your research before approaching any medical professional. Make sure they have training from a reputable school. If they offer services outside the realm of musculoskeletal then look somewhere else, and if they try and sell you some grossly large number of treatments then walk away.
Well I AM an automotive technician and I can assure you that chiropractors are *nothing* like me. What I do cures the problem in question and has guaranteed and proven results. Neither good nor bad automotive mechanics would enter into discussions about flux capacitors (like chiropractic subluxations, they belong in the world of fiction). Even the worst ones won’t offer to manipulate your chassis subframe in order to cure a misfire from the engine.
Strangely enough there are a whole load of people out there who are incapable of assimilating simple facts about very simple machines such as are automobiles: yes you can buy snake oil for cars too, and there is a whole industry living off that very fact…. oil additives….. fuel additives… silly magnets to go around your fuel pipes….. no need to constrain your pre-enlightenment, pre-luddite predilections to the doctor’s surgery: They can prevail throughout all of your life.
I have read this list of 20 objections to chiropractic and I want to tell you that chiropractic has changed my life. When I started serious chiropractic – 3x a week for a year, 2x a week for a year, then 1x a week for a year, now I go every month – I was seriously subluxated, and I was physically and psychologically impaired. Chiropractic has opened u my nervous system, improved my immune system, and improved my sleep and overall feeling of wellbeing. All a medical would have done for me is give me drugs. If I dont go to the chiropractor, my body begins to stiffen up and I develop problems in my knees, which are immediately resolved by chiropractic. I dont believe chiropractor is good for specific diseases, nor do I want or need this. Chiropractic improves my overall level of health, wellbeing, and functioning, and that is what I need and want. I suppose there is some risk with anything, but I have never had an adverse reaction to chiropractic and I get this benefit without the use of powerful drugs that weaken the body and increase the body’s susceptibility to disease by weaking the natural capacity of the body to heal itself. thank you
I am so glad for you – have you tried faith healing yet?
@Edzard.
Alexander is already receiving faith healing. The faith is his. His faith in the chiropractor.
@Alexander
You know what? When I tried this kind of faith healing for my lumbago many years ago, my knowledge of anatomy, physiology and neurology soon had me lose faith in the chiropractor. A friend who, like you, spent regular money on the bloke just in case, had recommended this to me and I was in really bad shape so I was ready to believe anything. My faith started dwindling fast when the chiro tried to tell me they could heal everything from Appendicitis to Zoster by thumping the spine. But I kept going because I wasn’t really recuperating and the literature said chiropractic could help with uncomplicated LBP, which was what I had.
I quit when the bl…y bunco artist stopped being all friendly and relaxed and forthcoming and started his weekly 2-minute money-making repetitions on me. Then I realized at last that he was only in it for the money. The only thing that really improved during these months was his bank balance.
I look back on this time with horror because the bloke insisted on wringing my neck every other session even if I have never had problems with it. He said it was a preventive measure.
He could have torn my VBA’s and I could have ended up worse than dead, for Christ’s sake!!! :/
Did your chiro warn you about the possible but rare complications?
“Bjorn and Edzard” I am happy that you feel the need to seek truth through discussion and scientific evidence. But do you not feel sad regarding how many times you state personal attacks are petty and have no place here while continuously doing so yourselves?
Alexander Duncan said:
Oh?! Did your chiropractor tell you that?
I have not read the book, but want to contribute my experience with GP and DC’s for its anecdotal worth.
In attempting to treat lower back pain and sciatica which was impacting my ability to work significantly, I went the GP route. The GP’s offered me drugs, some of which were later pulled by the FDA for causing damage to heart and digestive areas. I took myself off the drugs before these were pulled as I observed symptoms/side affects. I also saw various types of specialists from othopedics to rheumatologists. I was offered a surgery which would have quite certainly had devastating long term impacts on my mobility (offered to fuse my hypermobile SI joint), I declined. I was offered drugs which would seriously diminish my immune system (on purpose to lower inflammation) and I declined over my concerns for increased risk of cancer (statistically significant). In short, the GP’s offered short term relief which all but guaranteed serious long term complications. Pass. Mind you, my pain was so bad that I was on crutches most days as a young man in my mid twenties.
I had been simultaneously seeing a few DC’s to see if I could get some relief. I ran across many quacks but then got a referral to a DC that was trained in Atlas Orthogonal methodology. Within two weeks I was feeling much better. The acute phase was past and I was able to patiently continue to research and try to find non-invasive ways to manage my health (dietary changes, supplements, and physical therapy). Within 6 months I was back to surfing, climbing trees and carrying my children and oh yeah, working.
Fast forward almost twenty years, I live in area without an atlas orthogonal DC. I CAREFULLY selected a chiro and they know not to manually adjust my neck. I call when I feel I need a visit and they don’t pressure me into signing up for a plan. I am on no prescriptions.
There are lots of quacks out there in both GP and DC practice. Some will take your money. Some will compromise your future health. I have found that you have to take the mindset that you are the contractor and they are the subs. Know what you want done. Choose them carefully. Watch them closely. Fire them quickly if needed.
For what its worth, both DC’s that I have respect for have graduated from LIFE and are within the Upper Cervical Specialty class of DC’s.