But what if you identify as benefiting from chiropracty?
How can we live in a world where it’s legal to perform something with zero evidence for benefit (neck adjustment from a chiro) when there are such incredibly dangerous and life changing risks?
And yet, insurance often covers chiropractic care- but doesn’t cover most dietitians.
My patient has also so kindly consented to me writing up her case to submit to a peer reviewed journal. I told her we will do everything we can to increase awareness about this egregious and horrible practice, and if we can save even one life, we have accomplished something.
I googled chiropracty after reading those and was fairly horrified to find that the results all took it for granted that it’s a legit branch of medicine. How did that happen?
When I was in college, I was told that chiropractors could cure my asthma. I have no idea how this would work. Fortunately, I was already skeptical of chiropractors (my mother had absolutely no use for them, and taught me early to be skeptical of their claims).
Insurance pays chiropractors; why? Social Security Disability will request the records of a patient’s chiropractor, but will not consider them in evaluating the claim; they only request them because patients feel they have not been treated well if we don’t consider them, so they are listed in the denial letters, but are not taken seriously. Or at least they weren’t when I worked their in the 1980s; I suppose that could have changed, but I doubt it. When it comes to handing out money to disabled individuals, the government wants to make sure the evidence supports it. But they will pay the insurance claims for their employees.
A doctor (cardiologist?) was speaking at a medical conference.
He asked for a show of hands: how many of the doctors in the audience had had a patient present with a dissected neck artery after a chiropractor had manipulated their neck?
He said just about every hand in the room went up.
I wouldn’t be surprised if some readers turn up here to defend chiropractic. Some of it is valid, and also the placebo effect can factor in to anyone’s anecdotal endorsement.
Basically, it’s a form of physical therapy, but it’s not necessarily good, or effective, or even safe physical therapy. Apparently there are sensible chiropractors who use evidence-based treatments for certain conditions, and good results are certainly possible in many cases. But the original theory behind chiropractic is full-on woo-woo — sort of an American version of acupuncture or reiki, with “subluxations” blocking “energy flow” and stuff like that. [And perhaps some B&W readers will write to defend those too…] Personally, I prefer my health care to be based on science.
The very worthy podcast Oh No Ross and Carrie, just finished a 3-part series on chiropractic, in which skeptical investigator Ross Blocher reported on his experiences with treatment sessions with three chiropractors who employed progressively woo-ier treatment modalities. That podcast is always very amusing and very informative and I recommend it!
I agree with Peter N, and I wonder if another element at work here is that a lot of patients resent the limited time they get from doctors — it’s not unusual for a doctor’s appointment to be fifteen minutes of a nurse or assistant taking your vitals and giving you questions from their stock form, and then 5-10 minutes of actual face time with the doctor. That’s not necessarily the doctor’s fault, it’s just how the economics work.
But you go to a chiro appointment, and he or she is going to be there most if not all of the session. That’s not a defense of the woo nonsense — I hear the same argument made in favor of fortune tellers and palm readers (“it’s like cheap therapy for lonely people!”) and I don’t buy it there, either.
If a field of medicine was founded in pseudoscience and continues to harbour pseudoscience peddlers within its professional ranks, the entire field is fit for the pit, as they used to say on an old TV show that taught kids to think critically about advertising. If some chiropractors are trying to be science-based, they ought to break away and start a new field with new name, science-based founding principles, overseen by a professional association to guard it against harmful pseudsocience. Chriopractic is dead from the ground up. It’s not salvageable.
There is more than one sort of chiropractic treatment. I have been seeing a McTimoney Chiropractor regularly for many years to control the disabling effects of an old injury. Conventional medicine had nothing helpful to offer.
McTimoney Chiropractic treatment is reputed to be gentler and more precise than the other sort. I will add that my first chiropractor came with a good recommendation and when she retired she recommended a successor who is also very good.
Before I began the McTimoney treatment I was in increasing pain and beginning to find it difficult to walk. Nowadays, with regular treatment, all I experience is a very occasional twinge.
I have heard chiropractors referred to colloquially as “quackerpractors.”
I have friends who say they have benefitted from chiropractic treatment, but when I accompanied one to the chiropractor’s office, the informational literature on offer seemed to promise cures for ludicrously disparate conditions, none of which seemed related to the spine. Made me steer clear.
Chiropractors get a lot of benefit from the reality that pain is one of the things that can respond well to suggestion. Since pain is difficult to quantify objectively, doctors are often unable to deal with it successfully. So someone goes to the chiropractor, who doesn’t point out that your tests don’t support that level of pain. They manipulate your spine, and the sensation of pain going away makes you believe.
Some of the other things they claim to treat, like asthma, can also, to some degree, respond to suggestion; stress is a known asthma trigger, and having someone soothe you while popping your back can be very relaxing, I imagine. Frankly, a good massage will do the same, and I haven’t heard of serious medical problems from massage.
There once was a professional group, the Orthopractic Society, composed of Chiros, Osteopaths, a few MDs and physiotherapists; who practiced spinal manipulation without woo, ‘subluxations,’ and especially without rotary neck cracking. The professional chiro associations did their best to suppress them and they drifted into silence after a few years.
According to Samuel Homola, a reform chiro from way back, injury can be prevented by limiting the range of rotation….but that makes it more difficult and is less likely to generate the loud cracking sound that’s supposed to justify the practice.
Chiropractic ought to be outlawed. There’s no science supporting any of the claims made by its practitioners, which is why it’s quackery, and it’s bloody dangerous – especially for people like me, with connective tissue disorders. Unfortunately, we are amongst the people most likely to have undiagnosed or misdiagnosed chronic pain, the real cause of which doctors often fail to diagnose until we’ve been suffering for decades (I was 55 when I was finally diagnosed with EDS; it’s something we’re born with).
It’s the ‘regular treatment’ part of the quackery which marks its practitioners as scam artists. If it actually worked, repeated treatments would be unnecessary. If chiropractors genuinely wanted to help people, rather than rip them off, they’d become physiotherapists.
I have had excellent results from physiotherapy; not once has a physiotherapist told me that I must come back weekly (or monthly, or even annually) for the rest of my life. Instead, I was taught specific exercises, and sent home with a sheet or two of instructions for continuing them. I only ever get sent back to the physiotherapist when the weakening of my connective tissues leads to a new symptom to manage.
There have been no clicking or cracking sounds during any of the McTimoney treatments I’ve had.
Nor have either of the practitioners I’ve seen talked about helping anything but a misalignment in my bones, which is all too plainly apparent to me, and which was caused by an injury sustained in childhood in an episode I plainly recall.
I want to be relatively brief here. Chiropractic was founded by a loon who owned a hardware store and convinced himself that he could cure people by manipulating spines. The whole idea was ludicrous from the beginning. When this guy died, the business split into two factions, which essentially exist to this day. One, run by his son, retained the full spectrum of idiotic delusions, often claiming that Chiropractic could cure any disease, up to Cancer. The other one has, over time, restricted its claims until at this point it is basically (as was mentioned above) a form of physical therapy. Presumably, that might have some actual benefit in the right circumstances. If you find any practitioner from the other branch, however, you are probably in better hands if you go to a witch doctor.
When I was in college, I was told that chiropractors could cure my asthma. I have no idea how this would work. Fortunately, I was already skeptical of chiropractors (my mother had absolutely no use for them, and taught me early to be skeptical of their claims).
Insurance pays chiropractors; why? Social Security Disability will request the records of a patient’s chiropractor, but will not consider them in evaluating the claim; they only request them because patients feel they have not been treated well if we don’t consider them, so they are listed in the denial letters, but are not taken seriously. Or at least they weren’t when I worked their in the 1980s; I suppose that could have changed, but I doubt it. When it comes to handing out money to disabled individuals, the government wants to make sure the evidence supports it. But they will pay the insurance claims for their employees.
I read an account some years back.
A doctor (cardiologist?) was speaking at a medical conference.
He asked for a show of hands: how many of the doctors in the audience had had a patient present with a dissected neck artery after a chiropractor had manipulated their neck?
He said just about every hand in the room went up.
I wouldn’t be surprised if some readers turn up here to defend chiropractic. Some of it is valid, and also the placebo effect can factor in to anyone’s anecdotal endorsement.
Basically, it’s a form of physical therapy, but it’s not necessarily good, or effective, or even safe physical therapy. Apparently there are sensible chiropractors who use evidence-based treatments for certain conditions, and good results are certainly possible in many cases. But the original theory behind chiropractic is full-on woo-woo — sort of an American version of acupuncture or reiki, with “subluxations” blocking “energy flow” and stuff like that. [And perhaps some B&W readers will write to defend those too…] Personally, I prefer my health care to be based on science.
The very worthy podcast Oh No Ross and Carrie, just finished a 3-part series on chiropractic, in which skeptical investigator Ross Blocher reported on his experiences with treatment sessions with three chiropractors who employed progressively woo-ier treatment modalities. That podcast is always very amusing and very informative and I recommend it!
I agree with Peter N, and I wonder if another element at work here is that a lot of patients resent the limited time they get from doctors — it’s not unusual for a doctor’s appointment to be fifteen minutes of a nurse or assistant taking your vitals and giving you questions from their stock form, and then 5-10 minutes of actual face time with the doctor. That’s not necessarily the doctor’s fault, it’s just how the economics work.
But you go to a chiro appointment, and he or she is going to be there most if not all of the session. That’s not a defense of the woo nonsense — I hear the same argument made in favor of fortune tellers and palm readers (“it’s like cheap therapy for lonely people!”) and I don’t buy it there, either.
If a field of medicine was founded in pseudoscience and continues to harbour pseudoscience peddlers within its professional ranks, the entire field is fit for the pit, as they used to say on an old TV show that taught kids to think critically about advertising. If some chiropractors are trying to be science-based, they ought to break away and start a new field with new name, science-based founding principles, overseen by a professional association to guard it against harmful pseudsocience. Chriopractic is dead from the ground up. It’s not salvageable.
There is more than one sort of chiropractic treatment. I have been seeing a McTimoney Chiropractor regularly for many years to control the disabling effects of an old injury. Conventional medicine had nothing helpful to offer.
McTimoney Chiropractic treatment is reputed to be gentler and more precise than the other sort. I will add that my first chiropractor came with a good recommendation and when she retired she recommended a successor who is also very good.
Before I began the McTimoney treatment I was in increasing pain and beginning to find it difficult to walk. Nowadays, with regular treatment, all I experience is a very occasional twinge.
I have heard chiropractors referred to colloquially as “quackerpractors.”
I have friends who say they have benefitted from chiropractic treatment, but when I accompanied one to the chiropractor’s office, the informational literature on offer seemed to promise cures for ludicrously disparate conditions, none of which seemed related to the spine. Made me steer clear.
Chiropractors get a lot of benefit from the reality that pain is one of the things that can respond well to suggestion. Since pain is difficult to quantify objectively, doctors are often unable to deal with it successfully. So someone goes to the chiropractor, who doesn’t point out that your tests don’t support that level of pain. They manipulate your spine, and the sensation of pain going away makes you believe.
Some of the other things they claim to treat, like asthma, can also, to some degree, respond to suggestion; stress is a known asthma trigger, and having someone soothe you while popping your back can be very relaxing, I imagine. Frankly, a good massage will do the same, and I haven’t heard of serious medical problems from massage.
Artymorty
There once was a professional group, the Orthopractic Society, composed of Chiros, Osteopaths, a few MDs and physiotherapists; who practiced spinal manipulation without woo, ‘subluxations,’ and especially without rotary neck cracking. The professional chiro associations did their best to suppress them and they drifted into silence after a few years.
According to Samuel Homola, a reform chiro from way back, injury can be prevented by limiting the range of rotation….but that makes it more difficult and is less likely to generate the loud cracking sound that’s supposed to justify the practice.
Chiropractic ought to be outlawed. There’s no science supporting any of the claims made by its practitioners, which is why it’s quackery, and it’s bloody dangerous – especially for people like me, with connective tissue disorders. Unfortunately, we are amongst the people most likely to have undiagnosed or misdiagnosed chronic pain, the real cause of which doctors often fail to diagnose until we’ve been suffering for decades (I was 55 when I was finally diagnosed with EDS; it’s something we’re born with).
It’s the ‘regular treatment’ part of the quackery which marks its practitioners as scam artists. If it actually worked, repeated treatments would be unnecessary. If chiropractors genuinely wanted to help people, rather than rip them off, they’d become physiotherapists.
I have had excellent results from physiotherapy; not once has a physiotherapist told me that I must come back weekly (or monthly, or even annually) for the rest of my life. Instead, I was taught specific exercises, and sent home with a sheet or two of instructions for continuing them. I only ever get sent back to the physiotherapist when the weakening of my connective tissues leads to a new symptom to manage.
A loud cracking sound in the neck is the goal???
There have been no clicking or cracking sounds during any of the McTimoney treatments I’ve had.
Nor have either of the practitioners I’ve seen talked about helping anything but a misalignment in my bones, which is all too plainly apparent to me, and which was caused by an injury sustained in childhood in an episode I plainly recall.
I want to be relatively brief here. Chiropractic was founded by a loon who owned a hardware store and convinced himself that he could cure people by manipulating spines. The whole idea was ludicrous from the beginning. When this guy died, the business split into two factions, which essentially exist to this day. One, run by his son, retained the full spectrum of idiotic delusions, often claiming that Chiropractic could cure any disease, up to Cancer. The other one has, over time, restricted its claims until at this point it is basically (as was mentioned above) a form of physical therapy. Presumably, that might have some actual benefit in the right circumstances. If you find any practitioner from the other branch, however, you are probably in better hands if you go to a witch doctor.