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Dusty_Traveler
New Member
1 Post |
 Posted - 04/02/2006 : 20:52:09
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It seems that many people think that chiropractors are quacks. My experiences indicate otherwise.
Years ago, I developed a bad case of wrist/hand pain. I worked as a carpenter at the time, and lacked the money to see a doctor and get it treated. After a year, the pain only worsened. Eventually, I saw a doctor. I was told that I had carpal tunnel syndrome that had been induced from repetitive shock/jolt from using a hammer. I was told that the problem could be fixed with surgery.
I scheduled a surgery for the next Wednesday.
On an unrelated incident, I was playing racquetball and injured my shoulder against the wall. I didn't know what I had done, but my shoulder was immobilized. Over the next few days, any motion would cause pain. My racquetball partner urged me to see his chiropractor, who he spoke very highly of.
I was initially skeptical, but my visit with this chiropractor set aside all doubts:
When I first entered the room, I had difficulty taking my jacket off, due to my shoulder. The chiropractor, Arthur, instantly assessed the situation and told me to start with the other sleeve. The jacket slid off painlessly.
He knew just from looking at me what was wrong.
"When did you injure your shoulder?" He asked me.
"Two nights ago," I recalled.
"Are you sure? Most people don't get curled up so tightly in just two days."
He was right! It had actually been 3 nights since I injured my shoulder.
The whole meeting was impressive. After the injury, any incorrect shoulder motion would cause pain, but Arthur was able manipulate it all over the place without causing any pain at all. After the session was over, I could move my shoulder in any direction and feel no pain.
He told me that he would need to see me again in a week to make additional adjustments. He asked if Wednesday would be good for me, but I told him that I had a carpal tunnel syndrome surgery scheduled for that day.
"Carpal Tunnel Syndrome?" he asked.
"Yes, I have a problem in my wrist..." I began.
"You don't have carpal tunnel syndrome," he interrupted.
"What do you mean?" I responded. How could he say that? He hadn't even known me for more than a few hours.
"From the way your standing. I could tell the moment you stepped in the room."
He grabbed my wrist and said, "That pain you feel, that's not the carpal tunnel." He twisted my arm and pulled. A pain shot up through my arm to my back. Keeping my arm in position, he moved behind me and pressed his finger into my back. I experienced what seemed like an razor slicing along the inside of my arm from back to my fingertips. "Feel that? Now that's the carpal tunnel. You don't have carpal tunnel syndrome, you just have an inflammation of the carpal nerve."
He manipulated my arm and back a few times and told me the pain would go away in a few days. He was right. As it turned out, the wrist pain vanished. The doctors had misdiagnosed it.
Thanks for the replies.
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Dave W.
Info Junkie
USA
26022 Posts |
Posted - 04/02/2006 : 21:20:51 [Permalink]
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That chiropractor is a quack. The "carpal tunnel" is less than an inch long, and carpal tunnel syndrome is inflammation of the carpal median nerve (and/or neighboring tendons). In other words, he said to you, "you don't have carpal tunnel syndrome, you just have carpal tunnel syndrome." The misdiagnosis was not your doctor's, the chriopractor plainly told you a bunch of nonsense. Doesn't matter that you felt better afterwards, your report of what he said clearly describes medical garbage.
I'm sure one of our members who works in the medical field will correct me if I'm wrong. |
- Dave W. (Private Msg, EMail)
Evidently, I rock!
Why not question something for a change?
Visit Dave's Psoriasis Info, too. |
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H. Humbert
SFN Die Hard
USA
4574 Posts |
Posted - 04/02/2006 : 21:38:46 [Permalink]
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Chiropractic medicine is indeed quackery. That isn't to say I doubt any of your story, but I would caution you from drawing any conclusion from your personal experience. It's natural, you know, to assume what you've "seen with your own eyes" to be real. But the research tells a different story.
Firstly, the entire premise behind chiropractic medicine is a load of hooey. They believe that something called a "subluxation" is responsible for any ill health you might be feeling, and I mean any. Supposedly "misalightments" in your spine can account for just about anything that ails ya, or at least interfere with the body's natural ability to "heal itself." Almost all quack medicines will make this claim. Now, quacks get away with practicing bogus medicine in part because the human body is very good at healing itself. Bones heal, torn muscles repair themselves, viruses are expelled from one's system. I would recommending reading this article for a good overview.
Also, many chiropracters can be good at dealing with specific types of ailments--back and joint problems are what they deal with everyday. You may have been incorrectly diagnosed the first time and the chiropracter you saw may have saved you needless surgery. But just because some professional doctors are sometimes wrong, or even worse, greedy enough to recommend unneeded surgery, that doesn't validate chiropractic medicine.
I'm glad you're feeling better and I'm glad you avoided surgery, but I would place the success of your recovery on the natural healing process and not on anything a chiropracter did. I mean, if you were out of work awaiting surgery, that rest time might have been all your shoulder needed to get better on its own.
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"A man is his own easiest dupe, for what he wishes to be true he generally believes to be true." --Demosthenes
"The first principle is that you must not fool yourself - and you are the easiest person to fool." --Richard P. Feynman
"Face facts with dignity." --found inside a fortune cookie |
| Edited by - H. Humbert on 04/02/2006 21:40:23 |
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beskeptigal
SFN Die Hard
USA
3834 Posts |
Posted - 04/03/2006 : 02:36:33 [Permalink]
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The one subject on Quackwatch I disagree with Dr Barret on. Chiropractic medicine is indeed a completely unsupported field. It's based on an easily disproved premise. There are lots of anecdotal stories supporting its effectiveness but good placebo controlled studies are lacking with a few exceptions. No chiropractor can tell an "adjusted spine" from an unadjusted one in any study ever done.
And the risk of rupturing the vertebral artery is a real risk from such adjustments. If not immediately corrected one becomes a quadriplegic. |
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JohnOAS
SFN Regular
Australia
800 Posts |
Posted - 04/03/2006 : 03:29:40 [Permalink]
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If I was to base my judgement purely on experience, I'd probably agree with Dusty. Many moons ago, when I was at Uni and actually had time to do things like exercise, I managed to do something to my lower back during my martial arts classes. One of the girls I worked with recommended a chiropractor so I went along.
The manipulation was good, relatively painless and provided some immediate relief. It also came with advice to walk around some and do a few stretching exercises. The experience was neither entirely good or bad, but hardly enough to make a conclusive judgement either way.
As young and fit as I was back then, there's a pretty good chance I would've gotten better pretty quick anyway, although I don't discount the possibility that the manipulation helped, however I dare say a swedish massage, shiatsu, or even a non-professionally administered generic "rub" from my girlfriend would likely have achieved much the same thing.
It was talking to a bunch of chiropractic students later, training with me in Taekwondo that set me to thinking about chiropractic as a discipline. Others have provided some good links, and 5 minutes with your favourite search engine will provide many more. I'd recommend some serious research before entrusting any serious problem with a chiropractic solution.
I've personally heard testemonials from a good friend that their iridologist was just at as effective at diagnosis and cure recommendations. Iridolgy is based on a completely different premise than chiropractic. Both claim to be able to diagnose and solve any health problem, with mutually exclusive underlying theories. I believe both testimonials to be equally honest. Testemonials, however genuine, don't constitute proof of much at all. |
John's just this guy, you know. |
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beskeptigal
SFN Die Hard
USA
3834 Posts |
Posted - 04/03/2006 : 13:44:02 [Permalink]
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| I saw one of those quadriplegics in the ICU if you want to exchange anecdotes. He fell off a roof and instead of going to the doctor he went to a chiropractor. Five days later he was paralyzed and in the ED. The ruptured artery deprived his spinal cord of blood. The tissue died. |
| Edited by - beskeptigal on 04/03/2006 13:45:56 |
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furshur
SFN Regular
USA
1536 Posts |
Posted - 04/07/2006 : 12:36:14 [Permalink]
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quote:
I saw one of those quadriplegics in the ICU if you want to exchange anecdotes. He fell off a roof and instead of going to the doctor he went to a chiropractor. Five days later he was paralyzed and in the ED. The ruptured artery deprived his spinal cord of blood. The tissue died.
Yikes!
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If I knew then what I know now then I would know more now than I know. |
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Ghost_Skeptic
SFN Regular
Canada
510 Posts |
Posted - 04/07/2006 : 15:00:41 [Permalink]
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quote:
Originally posted by beskeptigal
And the risk of rupturing the vertebral artery is a real risk from such adjustments. If not immediately corrected one becomes a quadriplegic.
Not to mention the risk of transecting the carotid artery during a neck manipulation. That will kill you. I don't know if many chiropracters do this still, but it has happened. |
"You can lead a horse to water but you can't make him drink. / You can send a kid to college but you can't make him think." - B.B. King
History is made by stupid people - The Arrogant Worms
"The greater the ignorance the greater the dogmatism." - William Osler
"Religion is the natural home of the psychopath" - Pat Condell
"The day will come when the mystical generation of Jesus, by the supreme being as his father in the womb of a virgin, will be classed with the fable of the generation of Minerva in the brain of Jupiter" - Thomas Jefferson |
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Gorgo
SFN Die Hard
USA
5310 Posts |
Posted - 04/08/2006 : 04:12:13 [Permalink]
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Well, here's a guy that can travel back in time and fix you up by remote chiropractic:
http://www.bahlaqeem.com/ |
I know the rent is in arrears
The dog has not been fed in years
It's even worse than it appears
But it's alright-
Jerry Garcia
Robert Hunter
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Gorgo
SFN Die Hard
USA
5310 Posts |
Posted - 04/08/2006 : 04:18:23 [Permalink]
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quote:
Originally posted by beskeptigal
The one subject on Quackwatch I disagree with Dr Barret on. Chiropractic medicine is indeed a completely unsupported field.
What specifically did you disagree with Quackwatch about? I don't see any support for chiropractic there.
http://www.quackwatch.org/01QuackeryRelatedTopics/chiro.html |
I know the rent is in arrears
The dog has not been fed in years
It's even worse than it appears
But it's alright-
Jerry Garcia
Robert Hunter
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Gorgo
SFN Die Hard
USA
5310 Posts |
Posted - 04/08/2006 : 04:23:51 [Permalink]
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| Speaking of anecdotes, I am told that my cousin had a stroke (in his 30's) because of chiropractic adjustments. I have not verified that, but because it's anecdotal, it must be true! |
I know the rent is in arrears
The dog has not been fed in years
It's even worse than it appears
But it's alright-
Jerry Garcia
Robert Hunter
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JohnOAS
SFN Regular
Australia
800 Posts |
Posted - 04/08/2006 : 17:21:02 [Permalink]
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quote:
Originally posted by Gorgo
Well, here's a guy that can travel back in time and fix you up by remote chiropractic:
http://www.bahlaqeem.com/
That's truly awesome Gorgo, they even have a testimonial from a dog:
quote:
Attention pet owners read the following from a dog.
"I am a 10 year old Bassett Hound and I have been in a lot of pain in my neck area. I would even wake up during the night and yowl from the pain. My owner called Jim Burda and described the way I was moping around and walking with my head down. Over the phone he was able to work on me. He found the area in my vertebrae that was out of place and was able to manipulate it into place. I am feeling much better and I hold my head up high again. There hasn't been a reason to yelp now for several weeks! Thank you." DaisyMae
The above was written by Daisy Mae's owner KL
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John's just this guy, you know. |
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Ghost_Skeptic
SFN Regular
Canada
510 Posts |
Posted - 04/08/2006 : 23:37:38 [Permalink]
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quote:
Originally posted by Gorgo
Speaking of anecdotes, I am told that my cousin had a stroke (in his 30's) because of chiropractic adjustments. I have not verified that, but because it's anecdotal, it must be true!
You should investigate that further. It is very likely aince ther have been strokes caused by neck manipulaitons damaging the carotid artery. |
"You can lead a horse to water but you can't make him drink. / You can send a kid to college but you can't make him think." - B.B. King
History is made by stupid people - The Arrogant Worms
"The greater the ignorance the greater the dogmatism." - William Osler
"Religion is the natural home of the psychopath" - Pat Condell
"The day will come when the mystical generation of Jesus, by the supreme being as his father in the womb of a virgin, will be classed with the fable of the generation of Minerva in the brain of Jupiter" - Thomas Jefferson |
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beskeptigal
SFN Die Hard
USA
3834 Posts |
Posted - 04/10/2006 : 00:02:14 [Permalink]
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quote:
Originally posted by Gorgo
What specifically did you disagree with Quackwatch about? I don't see any support for chiropractic there.
http://www.quackwatch.org/01QuackeryRelatedTopics/chiro.html
I am amazed. He not only supported it he wrote some kind of thesis on it. I have had an e-mail exchange with him about it. He wouldn't budge. This looks like a completely different stand. I'm going to have to investigate. If he actually paid attention to my e-mails I'd be tickled pink.
1983 Interviewquote:
I think chiropractors should take a serious look at what they are doing and take disciplinary measures to expel those people engaging in unethical behavior. The fact is that there's been some critical comments made about these people, but some of these chiropractors are still members of national organizations. There's no enforcement. There's no ethical standard. I think chiropractors should do two things: one, they should read what I have written about them; and two, they should take a serious look at unnecessary spinal adjustment. They should define what it is they do and set up some criteria as to who should get adjusted and how often. Chiropractors should also take a look at their scope of practice. Did you know that the former executive director of the ACA said chiropractic should not have to define its scope? It's in one of the ACA publications. I think chiropractic should define its scope. I don't think it can. But I think it should.
I think the issue we had was he wouldn't out right condemn the whole practice as based on nonsense. He thought they still did some good. There's sort of a hypocritical stand that some people claim. Supposedly there are chiropractors who don't believe in the basis of the therapy (spinal manipulation cures all ills). I couldn't find a single school that didn't base the practice on that premise.
I've had board discussions with more than a few folks on this, maybe even on SFN. |
| Edited by - beskeptigal on 04/10/2006 00:21:23 |
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Dude
SFN Die Hard
USA
6891 Posts |
Posted - 04/10/2006 : 01:08:11 [Permalink]
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Well, chiropracters are probably not all insane (or stupid) enough to believe the whole premise of the thing.
And letting them "adjust" your neck has the risk of major complications.
That said: I sometimes go to see one, because getting your back cracked and popped feels good, add in a nice 30-60 minute massage and there is some legit theraputic effect on tight muscles (if only from the massage).
But my opinion is probably a bit baised. The chiropracter I occasionally (like once or twice a year) see is seriously HOT! So are her two massage therapists.
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Ignorance is preferable to error; and he is less remote from the truth who believes nothing, than he who believes what is wrong.
-- Thomas Jefferson
"god :: the last refuge of a man with no answers and no argument." - G. Carlin
Hope, n.
The handmaiden of desperation; the opiate of despair; the illegible signpost on the road to perdition. ~~ da filth |
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Ricky
SFN Die Hard
USA
4907 Posts |
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