I recently learned that chiropractors in Switzerland are very different. They are all medical doctors and need to fulfill strict requirements so they can work as chiropractor. It is also a common thing here to go to chiropractors and I have never heard of any accidents.
those are 'licensed physical therapists'.. the few good things that might be attributed to chiropractors are ready done by actual medical professionals... even here in the u.s.
the difference is, we allow quacks to pretend to be 'doctors' here. a certain subset of the population are drawn to the homeopathic, pseudo-science nature of it.
Uh, yeah, having had several accidents resulting in vertebral subluxation or a rotated SI joint that was only corrected and relieved by chiropractors, whoever came up with that conclusion can fuck all the way off.
Thank you for sharing your story! While it’s a great example of anecdotal evidence, the “whoever” that came up with these conclusions are called “scientists” who perform research based on scientific evidence. It’s great that you feel better for having seen a chiropractor, but many do not.
That’s also anecdotal stories, and it’s not my imagination that after attempting numerous other methods, that chiropractors were the only ones who did anything except say to walk it off or offer painkillers. You can fuck off along with those scientists.
By the same logic, all the “real” medical practitioners whose efforts and advice had zero positive effect on those situations are also quacks, or whatever. Fortunately for them, I have more realistic experience and understanding than that.
The only funny part about this to me is that the only advice any “real” medical practitioner gave me that helped any of these situations was to refer me to a chiropractor, after prescribing painkillers to help tolerate it until I could see one.
You must be partially illiterate since I’ve already said I went to doctors, and that I was recommended to see a chiropractor by at least one them, and that I experienced relief and long term correction for multiple accidents. Not just relief, but instant relief, from realigning the vertebrae from a position that created nerve entrapments. The mechanics of chiropractic and how they work is not difficult to understand. If any of these scientists were messed up badly enough to need one, they would also draw different conclusions.
edit: and yes, I do trust my own observations about the presence of pain and its elimination from my own body. I don’t need scientists or doctors to tell me that it didn’t actually happen. I was there.
As far as I’m concerned, you’re the ignorant one here. If you ever need chiropractic and decide not to get it because a group of people told you it’s worthless, I’m fine with it. I don’t have to live with any pain you may suffer from in the future or your decisions how to manage it.
And I’m not sure what you’re wishing me luck on, because due to my decision making, I’m pain free with full mobility, with exception for ringing in the ears, for which there is no cure at the moment, but I do use scientifically based hearing aids that play scientifically based disruption tones that work about 60% of the time, prescribed by my doctors and paid by my medical insurance. And I don’t avoid hospitals or other nonsense you’re projecting. Everything you’ve said is disposable.
Vertebral subluxation isn’t a thing. Chiropractors made it up. You might have had a dislocation, but subluxation is oogy boogy words.
Chiropractors DO have some evidence that they can provide short term, immediate pain relief for back pain. However, physical therapy and exercise after an adjustment is necessary or you have to see a Chiro forever.
Also a PT or DO can do the same kinds of manipulations with an actual medical degree.
edit: and if PTs and DOs are doing the same adjustments, then the adjustments are a legitimate therapy when done correctly, regardless of who is doing them, unless you’re saying PTs and DOs are also illegitimate. Your argument is nonsense.
That is ridiculous characterization of people who go through formal education to learn their craft. You are a fucking idiot.
Apparently 4-7 years of education and clinical practice at an average of $120,000 or more is equivalent to watching a few youtube videos. Only a dumbass would think something like that.
Not to mention that chiropractors are licensed by state medical boards. Get the fuck outta here with that nonsense.
And you’re still completely wrong about subluxation being a made up word. That post from Cleveland Clinic explains the difference to you, and the NIH link goes into thorough descriptions of it.
Hmmm, which should I rely on, Cleveland Clinic and NIH, or some idiot who couldn’t be bothered to look up the big words before saying they aren’t real? Gee, let me think.
But then again, you’re probably not competent enough to read the NIH discussion and understand it.
I also love how the goalposts have been moved from “chiropractic techniques are ineffective and have no value” to “well actually those same techniques are effective and legitimate when done by certain people.” That is hilarious!
What’s sad is that after 25+ years of having these arguments, you knuckleheads haven’t come up with anything original.
People should also be aware of the growing number of alternative mental therapists popping up everywhere due to the shortage in actual psychologists.
They are nothing more than life coaches with a six-month certificate in whatever-the-fuck, most of which are disguised as Masters qualifications from wherever-the-fuck.
According to “studies”, everything causes cancer and everything doesn’t cause cancer. Don’t pay too much attention to a wiki that could have easily been “doctored”.
I was under the impression that the assertion that chiropractic neck manipulation causes vertebral artery dissection is often suggested, but that evidence of such a causation is inconclusive. I certainly believe it, but I can’t assume. Chiropractors may twist the inconclusiveness into suggesting that such neck manipulation is safe, but that’s a fallacy.
I lean towards believing it, based on having met a person who suffered a vertebral artery dissection, and cerebellar infarcts, following chiropractic treatment.
I don’t think you understand the level to which people take chiropracty. People use it in a “cures what ails you” mentality. Colds, flu, hand arthritis, all sorts of diseases. There is a ton of danger in allowing “back cracking for healing” when it doesn’t do anything that couldn’t be done with massage.
Hell yes! The creator decided he wanted to be a doctor, but he didn’t want to go to doctor school. So he made up his own medicine—with blackjack, and hookers!
My insurance has chiropractors as a separate category with its own maximum $. Meanwhile physio & every other athletic therapy excluding RMT gets lumped into a single category. It’s fucking bullshit and I can only assume someone was payed off to make it happen. $500 a year of insurance $ I can’t use without endangering myself.
I know people that swear by it which I can kind of understand if you have pain and they “pop” something and you feel better. But is it really helping if you have to keep going back?
My wife went to a chiropractor weekly for the last few months of her pregnancy (the chiro office specialized in pregnancy chiropractic). It helped with managing some of the back pain she already had plus the new ones. The best way she described it was like a massage for your bones, feels good and alleviates pain in the short term but doesn’t fix anything long term
I used to see a chiro, stopped while I was pregnant after he ‘treated’ PGP. (I’m hypermobile, and pregnancy made everything ready to dislocate.) Daily pain went from 5/6 (manageable, barely) to a 9 and severe mobility limitations.
I was slowly moving, but able to move before that appointment. Could barely walk, and climbing stairs was not happening for months after.
A physio realigned everything, and I walked out of the first appointment and could take stairs again. Ended up at a specialist dealing with the aftermath of that chiros treatment.
Physiotherapy is my first stop now, and I will never set foot in a chiropractor’s office ever again.
I don’t believe in it, and I’ll never go, but my girlfriend does.
Yes, she has to keep going back, but when they “pop” the correct thing, she’s pain free for weeks. When she holds off going, she’s in pain and can’t sleep until she goes.
I personally don’t trust them, and it’s a lot of money for temporary relief, but I guess it kinda works? As long as you’re fine with the trade-off being fucking paralyzed when they crank your neck at the speed of sound.
There are good chiropractors who are just trying to treat pain. 95% of them are woowoo worshipping morally bankrupt bastards. Even those guys can be helpful if what you’re looking for is short term care for an injury that’s in the process of healing.
They are not good for treating chronic pain. They may be able to help you manage your pain in the short term while you seek real treatment. But over time, your risk of injury from a chiropractor only goes up. You should limit your exposure to chiropractic ‘therapy’ to as few sessions as possible, and the second they suggest they can treat anything other than a temporary injury, find someone else. It won’t be hard they’re fucking everywhere.
Physiotherapy is generally recommended for acute (and I believe chronic) injuries by actual medical doctors, so you should generally go to that over chiros.
Honestly, your girlfriend would be far, far better off going to a competent physical therapist. It sounds like there’s a muscular weakness that’s allowing a joint to not stay in place.
In almost all cases, people will get better long-term results by doing physical therapy rather than going to a chiropractor.
The thing is, this study is talking about “chiropractic manipulation” which is a very specific thing. (With that clicker thingy I think?) The thing is, chiropractors tend do do lots of different therapies, like stretching and massage. So you could go to a chiropractor who performs some kind of massage which is effective at temporary pain relief.
Sounds like the chiropractor has no reason to fix her for good. It’s for-profit healthcare, and she keeps coming back. If he fixes her properly he’s going to lose income.
I wonder if it’s a placebo effect. Like I go for a back massage every month or so and feel good for a few weeks but I’m fully aware it’s just muscle pain relief and not some permanent fix.
Muscle pain relief is pain relief. I don’t go to a chiropractor and I’m confident most of them are selling snake oil but I kinda view them as a next level masseuse.
If I were more comfortable with strangers touching me a massage might be nice. A chiropractor sounds like a next level up. I feel relief when I get a good back crack.
Then you should educate yourself and never visit one if you value your well being. It’s an incredibly unsafe practice. Ask any Orthopedic Surgeon how many near permanent injuries they’ve had to fix from a botched chiropractic adjustment.
They get paid a lot less per hour, have less support staff, and less equipment. Hence any given unit of time they spend with you costs less. Additionally you have more options of which to choose.
Been to a doc recently? Think of how fast they try to get you out of the room. Feels like you are begging them to please listen to you. Well a chiropractor can spend the time talking to a patient. Of course you feel better, someone heard you complain for over 30 seconds and really listened to you. And if you weren’t listened to you, you just go find another one.
It doesn’t, but it might be perceived as treatment.
Suppose you ask your GP to make it rain because your garden is dry and they tell you to go away. Then you go to a chiropractor that talks to you about your garden and then performs a complex ritual that takes a half hour or so. 2 days later it rains.
I don’t think you’re suggesting this proverbial chiropractor made it rain, only that the patient felt listened to, which may make them initially view the treatment favorably. When their symptoms later get better, as they always would have, they attribute it to the chiropractic treatment, not just healing over time
Clearly you’ve never been to a physiotherapist. It’s usually always a 30-60min appointment and they spend the entire time with you, bonus is they are actually trying to fix your problem instead of just temporary pain relief so you keep coming back forever. Not to mentioned they are board certified and didn’t get their certificate from a cracker jack box.
Ex had an issue. 6 treatments and she was done for good, never went back. So yes, sometimes they know what they’re doing sometimes it works.
Painting the whole profession as witch doctors? Meh, they’re not touching my neck, but I’ll listen to what they say. Educated and licensed doctors and nurses can be total fruitcakes as well.
I will add, as someone with a connective tissue disorder, that a quick “pop” can help a subluxated/dislocated joint, but that’s something that can and should be done by an actual physician. And if someone has joints that are especially unstable (for example, bc of a connective tissue disorder), subluxations/dislocations can happen pretty regularly.
This is NOT a defense of chiropractors. And chiropractors are even more dangerous for people like me because it’s easier for them to seriously damage our joints. Go to a PCP, a rheumatologist, a physical therapist, it doesn’t matter, just go to a real doctor.
All the time? No, but it’s happened before. Particularly with high neck manipulations that sever the spinal cord above the point where the nerves that control autonomic functions branch off from the neck (I think that’s C2?) Randomly? Also no. It’s a very predictable result of spinal manipulation. Just like lung cancer doesn’t happen ‘randomly’; if you smoke enough and long enough, it’s pretty likely, but if you don’t smoke at all it’s very, very rare.
It’s definitely happened. I think the technical term is “vertebral artery dissection.” I don’t think it’s like a daily occurrence or anything, but there is a very real risk of it happening whenever you get a chiropractic adjustment on your neck. Basically you have some delicate arteries running through your neck bones and the sharp sudden movement of certain chiropractic adjustments have the potential to rupture them. It can cause a stroke and some various other bad things that can happen when blood flow through the spine is interrupted.
This is a very north american opinion, which also happens to be very condescending in tone, while op explicitly dismiss commenters who disagree with them. The practices designated by the various terms, such as chiropractors, osteopath, physical therapists, etc. vary depending on the countries and contexts, especially in some european countries where chiropractors must answer to the same standards and regulations as the other medical professions. This should be taken into account.
Well regulated snake oil is still snake oil. Just cause a regulatory board says its relatively safe doesnt mean its actually effective. Chiropractory is no more effective than a good massage, and you know what if thats all they advertised it as then fine. But it aint theres a whole bunch of woo mixed into it.
That’s just not true, regulations imply healthcare reimbursement, which implies strict control on the treatment and the practicians, because insurance companies hate paying.
Actually, a DC goes to school for 4 years to learn what they do. A PT used to go for 4 years undergrad, then 2 years for the MS. Now you really can’t practice without a PhD. When a DC says they can do everything a PT can do plus Rx certain things, it really pisses PTs off. They work within the scope of a MD’s direction. DC don’t. Both use Phillip Greenman’s Principles of Manual Medicine in their training (an Osteopathic text).
Osteopathy was originally pseudoscientific quackery, but has long abandoned the woo crap that was not supported by medical evidence. Osteopathic medicine today is grounded firmly and exclusively in actual science.
Physical therapy is, and always has been, medical science based therapy.
Chiropractic therapy is founded upon disproven theories and requires no actual medical training. The industry regulates its own certifications, and chiropractors are taught a perverted concept of physiology.
Considering osteopathy was invented in the United States by an American, who was basically just making shit up, and all of the underlying theories and mechanisms of action have been thoroughly debunked, I’d say that a lie is a lie anywhere in the world, regardless of legal status.
Psychoanalysis was invented almost at the same time in Vienna and a lot of freudian concepts have since been critiqued due to his biases. Does it mean Austria forever owns psychoanalysis and anything that could be discovered since? There is a difference between a field of research, a scientific discipline and a paradigm. Debunking a theory that was invented more than a century ago doesn’t disqualify every research done after that. Also, paradigm change often comes from opposing theories from the same field they oppose. If we did like that, there wouldn’t be a lot of research field left standing.
You accept yourself that osteopathy was able to go beyond its suspicious origin, but refuse to imagine that chiropractice could do the same. Which is why I reiterate: chiropractice requiring no medical training is a north american thing.
It means anyone anywhere practicing Freudian therapy is peddling debunked medicine.
Chiros anywhere still crack your joints, even though it’s an imaginary benefit and a very real risk. Patients of chiros would be better served in physical therapy or massage therapy. There’s nowhere on earth that this isn’t true.
You’re just presenting nuanced conclusions as overwhelming truths to put weight on your opinion, while taking a few shortcuts. You’re entitled to your opinion of course, but that doesn’t mean you get to dismiss any contradicting ones by deciding unilaterally what the words mean.
Chiropractice in the US might be just “cracking joints”, but it’s not true everywhere. If you can’t accept that, then I don’t know what to tell you.
Worked for my ex-wife. 6 treatments and he sent her home, fixed for good. The bad stories may outweigh the good, but let’s not pretend all practitioners are dumbasses.
For people who point to certifications and education, I’ll remind them that plenty of doctors and nurses smoke and are anti-vax. It ain’t a perfect world.
They are not practitioners. They hold no medical degree and you should not trust them with any medical care. Treat them for what they are, glorified back crackers who peddle pseudoscience and may kill you by accident.
en.wikipedia.org
Oldest