Recommend a Chiropractor

[Iowa_Flames_Fan]

Originally Posted by peter12

The ideal rarely works out in reality. It's often medical studies that are erroneous, not the above statement.

http://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/...-science/8269/

The problems in medical research (and it would be silly to pretend they don't exist) are not really relevant to the question of whether chiropractic is quackery. The issue is that while medical science relies on an imperfect system that attempts to ground treatments in empirical data, chiropractic relies on no such methodology at all, preferring to ground their treatments on a theory of disease that was invented in 1895 and has since then failed to collect a shred of proof that it actually works in the way that its inventor claimed that it would. Don't forget: this is in the era of snake oil and carbolic smoke balls. Chiropractic is just more commercially successful, but that doesn't make the basic "subluxation theory" in which it is grounded any more valid. In scientific terms, it remains unproven. In rational terms, it's nonsense, which at best will cost you money and at worst will cause you physical harm.

I actually don't doubt that chiropractors can offer temporary pain relief on occasion; I've experienced it myself. It's when chiropractors start claiming that they can cure acid reflux, carpal tunnel syndrome and diabetes that I start hoping they'll get carted away by the dudes in the white coats.

[NBC]

A colleague of mine's "supposed" carpal tunnel syndrome disappeared after a few ART treatments. Reason being, he didn't have carpal tunnel syndrome, merely repetitive strain injury. On top of misdiagnosing a relatively simple health concern, his GP wanted to schedule surgery, fortunately for him he decided to seek another opinion/modality.

I also think that people are too hung up on this concept of "subluxation theory" - which I agree is complete bunk. I know a few chiropractors socially and I've never heard them mention this - not once. My sense is that it gives a certain element of the anti-chiropractic community something to help strengthen their argument(s) against the evils of chiropractics, which is largely superfluous as there are many other more valid reasons to to disagree with this particular modality.

I am highly skeptical as to the quality of a large percentage of chiropractors as many of them seem to operate on the repeat-visit philosophy - 3x/week for 3 months, etc. But some people - sane, rational, educated, erudite individuals - have experienced varying levels of success with certain treatments. Is this to say that all chiropractors are good, decent and upstanding practitioners? Absolutely not. But to dismiss an entire methodology of physical treatment based on the opinions of some individuals in the medical field, seems a bit hollow, especially when certain types of treatments have worked for many individuals. Research can be manipulated to show whatever results one wishes to show, irrespective of medial profession.

All of these law-like statements on how something is illegitimate based on wikipedia-type evidence is somewhat disturbing. While people are entitled to their personal opinions on a subject, this particular subject seems to be more vitriolic than the vast majority of CP threads.

Go figure.

[joe_mullen]

Originally Posted by NBC

A colleague of mine's 'supposed' carpal tunnel syndrome disappeared after a few ART treatments. Reason being, he didn't have carpal tunnel syndrome, merely repetitive strain injury. On top of misdiagnosing a relatively simple health concern, his GP wanted to schedule surgery, fortunately for him he decided to seek another opinion/modality.

not sure what that proves with regards to ART as this was simply a misdiagnosis. he wouldn't have had any surgery done anyways as his GP would have him see a plastic surgeon for a consultation. furthermore, surgery is not performed for carpal tunnel unless there are documented nerve conduction studies or neurological deficit on physical examination. going to ART simply got him a proper diagnosis quicker (which is obviously a good outcome).

[NBC]

It can show that someone can get relief - in this case permanent - from something so many here refer to as quackery, regardless of the original diagnosis.

[joe_mullen]

Originally Posted by NBC

It can show that someone can get relief - in this case permanent - from something so many here refer to as quackery, regardless of the original diagnosis.

i guess i'm being nitpicky here, but does it really show that ART worked? if it was a repetitive strain injury (quite plausible), wouldn't rest or a wrist brace provide the same benefit? the onus is on those providing the treatment (whether it be traditional western medicine, chiropractors, massage therapists, etc) to provide evidence that what they are doing works more frequently than placebo. i'm not sure myself, but is there evidence that ART actually works, and if so, for which particular injuries?

[NBC]

There may be a body of literature on the subject, I'm not sure.

I think for most people the proof that they need comes with the relief of symptoms. This isn't arcane to manipulation therapies as how many patients have access to the data sets and documentary evidence on clinical drug trials, yet they will take the prescription medication willingly because they believe it will help or that they have a level of faith in their GP. Do GPs provide more than their personal assurance that the medication they are prescribing will work? In my experience they do not. Patients of western allopathic medicine trust that the clinical trials are legitimate and that their GP actually knows what they are prescribing. This wasn't always the case as thalidomide has shown us.

I guess my point is that while evidence-based medicine is a good thing, most patients take it for granted, preferring to take the word of their GP as gospel thereby limiting their need for evidence or proof that something works outside of a physician's opinion.

[Nage Waza]

If you are suffering from back/neck pain and a doctor (or Chiro) has not recommended seeing a foot doctor, then you need to see different people. The foot is the place to start if you want to see what causes the pain and what can prevent the pain.

[ricosuave]

Ive had good success with Ernie Cosman at Mayfair Chiropractic

[I'll Be Your Huckleberry]

Interesting little debate. I'll weigh in because I am a chiropractor.

People should know chiropractic detractors offer the same arguments time and time again. Their arguments hold little validity and are often associated with secondary agendas.

1) Scientific.

The truth is very, very few "medical treatments" are scientifically validated using the same standards as our "friends of science" here would use to discredit chiropractic.

There is an unacceptable double standard at play.

Why should one profession have to carry the full burden of science while every other profession is held to lesser account?

Still, make no mistake, chiropractors are very proud of the scientific research in their field, especially the research that supports the safety and effectiveness of our procedures, and which is often done in conjunction with medical doctors, physiotherapists and assorted PhD's. Yes we work with everyone. Imagine that!

http://www.chiropracticcanada.ca/ecm...trokeStudy.pdf


Could chiropractic research be better? Of course. Could physiotherapy research be better? Yes. Could medical research? Absolutely.

Should all research in every discipline continue to improve? Of course. Why? Because it benefits the public.

Yet please don't be snowballed by some of these gentlemen into for one second, thinking that they have all the scientific research and we have none. That they are pure science and we, less so. They don't really believe that themselves. Many hide behind the curtain of science when it suits their purposes and disregard scientific principals when it does not.

They shouldn't throw scientific stones at our glass house lest their glass house is damaged as well.

2) Once you go you always have to go is another common myth.

Can any physio fix 20 years of the negative and ever accumulating biomechanical effects of being behind a desk? Really? Be honest. You can't. You know you can't. You piece people together, their lifestyle breaks them down. You start over. Same as every healthcare worker.

Sure, does exercise, nutrition, good ergonomics help mitigate the stress on a body? Absolutely. Does it counteract 5 days a week, 9 hour plus days, with over 330 days a year of sitting? No. People need assistance to deal with their lifestyles, chosen by them or forced upon them by circumstance. Does a physio who treats high performance athletes provide one course of treatment and than never again sees those athletes? Ridiculous. It's chiro, physio, acupuncture, massage or big pharma. Pick, and live with the consequences of your decisions.

Which ever course of care a patient chooses, it is the patients' lifestyle that determines visit frequency, not the practitioner.

Are their chiros who over treat? Of course. Physios? Yup. Medical doctors? Of course.

Anyone who will stand up and say their profession does not have bad apples, healthcare or other, is a bold faced liar.

When I eat at a bad restaurant, do I go back? No. Do I say all restaurants are bad and never eat out again? Ridiculous. Yet it is logical to say your uncle's, aunt's, cousin had a bad experience at a chiropractor's office, so I'll never go see one?

Why hold chiropractors to a higher standard than you, yourself, hold your medical doctor to? Have to keep taking your blood pressure meds? Have to keep taking your cholesterol meds? Even when you're helping yourself out by exercising and dieting? Than what is so illogical about ongoing chiropractic care? Why is ongoing medical care logical because of the results of a blood test but ongoing chiropractic care to combat the negative effects of a 21st century job, bad? People, look after your nervous system and joints, or high cholesterol with be the very least of your worries, I promise. Wanna spend less on your MD, chiro, physio, massage? Look after yourselves better. Consider career or other lifestyle changes.

Pretty basic stuff.

You know, it's really not physios vs. chiro as some would have you believe. We have more in common than we disagree upon.

If healthcare wanted to save money and increase space for real "medical emergencies'", people would start being billed for hospital visits that turned out to be musculoskeletal in origin. Think about it. If you have musculoskeletal issues, you pay to see a chiro, you pay to see a physio, you pay to see a massage therapist. Why shouldn't you pay to see your MD for musculoskeletal pain??

A level playing field would help both chiros and physios. More importantly, it would help the healthcare system by unburdening it under the weight of non-medical emergency visits. Most importantly it would help the patient who was suffering. Because lets face it. If big pharma had all the answers, I think both chiros and physios would be out of work.

[Ashartus]

"I'll Be Your Huckleberry" - no one is saying chiropractors can't have a role or help with some biomechanical/musculoskeletal issues, particularly for short-term relief. However, for chiropractors to be taken seriously by the rest of the medical community, they need to:
a) stop using something with no basis in reality (i.e. subluxations) as the foundation of their practice.
b) stop claiming to be able to treat anything other than musculoskeletal problems, despite this being not only highly implausible but demonstrably false.

[Ducay]

Ashartus summed it up pretty well. No one is saying Chiro's aren't good at a good back cracking, but the thing people have issues with is their quackery on other ailments and the general sleazyness of most practitioners.

[I'll Be Your Huckleberry]

People.

Let me start by saying that whenever someone uses the word Subluxation, 99.7 % of the time they work somewhere within healthcare.

Ashartus obviously has a healthcare axe to grind with chiropractic. He/she is entitled to their opinion, but make no mistake, there is an underlying agenda at play here.

Chiropractic is a treatment for the betterment of the nervous system, and not, a treatment for any particular condition. The nervous system runs your entire physiology. It's logical and rational to assume that if the master control system improves, so to will other conditions.

Do all conditions improve with the betterment of the nervous system, equally, amongst all patients? Of course not. Despite my terrific skills at improving the integrity of the nervous system, I have never regenerated a missing limb. LOL. If tissue is damaged beyond a certain point, it is beyond repair, whether a person's nervous system is working well, or it isn't.

To elaborate further. If a patient eats potato chips for breakfast, lunch and dinner ( to use an exaggerated example ) how many of my adjustments does it take for them to be healthy? 1, 8, 7000? They could have a thousand treatments a day from me and still, they would be unhealthy. Why? It's because it takes more than a healthy nervous system to be at your best.

However, if I have any condition, do I want to face it with a healthy nervous system or an unhealthy one?

Those who make outrageous claims that chiropractic claims to treat "condition x or condition y" are usually not chiropractors.

I see no chiropractors making such claims here.

I see a few gentlemen espousing that chiropractic is this, or it is that, but they themselves are not chiropractors.

They are chiropractic detractors seeking to discredit the profession.

They employ their usual "anti-scientific" mumbo jumbo in the hope that the general public will buy into their rubbish and not find out for themselves, just what chiropractic is, and how it may offer them relief.

Which of the detractors here will now say chiropractic has no effect on your nervous system? Someone, please step up.

Originally Posted by Ashartus

"I'll Be Your Huckleberry" - no one is saying chiropractors can't have a role or help with some biomechanical/musculoskeletal issues, particularly for short-term relief. However, for chiropractors to be taken seriously by the rest of the medical community, they need to:
a) stop using something with no basis in reality (i.e. subluxations) as the foundation of their practice.
b) stop claiming to be able to treat anything other than musculoskeletal problems, despite this being not only highly implausible but demonstrably false.

[kipperfan]

Originally Posted by I'll Be Your Huckleberry

People.

Let me start by saying that whenever someone uses the word Subluxation, 99.7 % of the time they work somewhere within healthcare.

Ashartus obviously has a healthcare axe to grind with chiropractic. He/she is entitled to their opinion, but make no mistake, there is an underlying agenda at play here.

Chiropractic is a treatment for the betterment of the nervous system, and not, a treatment for any particular condition. The nervous system runs your entire physiology. It's logical and rational to assume that if the master control system improves, so to will other conditions.

Do all conditions improve with the betterment of the nervous system, equally, amongst all patients? Of course not. Despite my terrific skills at improving the integrity of the nervous system, I have never regenerated a missing limb. LOL. If tissue is damaged beyond a certain point, it is beyond repair, whether a person's nervous system is working well, or it isn't.

To elaborate further. If a patient eats potato chips for breakfast, lunch and dinner ( to use an exaggerated example ) how many of my adjustments does it take for them to be healthy? 1, 8, 7000? They could have a thousand treatments a day from me and still, they would be unhealthy. Why? It's because it takes more than a healthy nervous system to be at your best.

However, if I have any condition, do I want to face it with a healthy nervous system or an unhealthy one?

Those who make outrageous claims that chiropractic claims to treat "condition x or condition y" are usually not chiropractors.

I see no chiropractors making such claims here.

I see a few gentlemen espousing that chiropractic is this, or it is that, but they themselves are not chiropractors.

They are chiropractic detractors seeking to discredit the profession.

They employ their usual "anti-scientific" mumbo jumbo in the hope that the general public will buy into their rubbish and not find out for themselves, just what chiropractic is, and how it may offer them relief.

Which of the detractors here will now say chiropractic has no effect on your nervous system? Someone, please step up.

Dear god, is there some kind of rule that you have to fail high school english before becoming a Chiro? This thread certainly makes me wonder if there is. I think it is pretty rich how the vast majority of chiropractors (present company definatley included) feel there is some massive conspiracy keeping them down. Take these last few posts as an example; Ashartus comes in, makes a very reasonable, non inflamatory statement in response to the Chiro's claims and because of that he:

"has a healthcare axe to grind with chiropractic. He/she is entitled to their opinion, but make no mistake, there is an underlying agenda at play here."

What the hell does that even mean? A Healthcare axe??

Hey Chiro, do us all a favour and take off that tinfoil hat, there is no conspiracy. The only conspirtacy I can see is the one involving you and all your fellow Chiro's calling yourselves doctors, there is something we should really look into.

[kipperfan]

Originally Posted by I'll Be Your Huckleberry

People.

Let me start by saying that whenever someone uses the word Subluxation, 99.7 % of the time they work somewhere within healthcare.

How do you know? I work "somewhere within healthcare" and I can assure you that you're way, way off. Perhaps start associating yourself with more intelligent types if the only people you know that say "subluxation" are your chiro buddies.

[photon]

Originally Posted by I'll Be Your Huckleberry

Let me start by saying that whenever someone uses the word Subluxation, 99.7 % of the time they work somewhere within healthcare.

Lol? I've used the word, and I don't work in heath care. Subluxations are the foundation of chiropractic aren't they? Then wouldn't that be a word a chiropractor would use with every patient that they work with?

Are subluxations the basis of chiropractic? Do they exist?

Originally Posted by I'll Be Your Huckleberry

Ashartus obviously has a healthcare axe to grind with chiropractic. He/she is entitled to their opinion, but make no mistake, there is an underlying agenda at play here.

The only agenda I see is for things to be based on evidence. To accuse Ashartus of any further agenda just because of that is paranoid.

Originally Posted by I'll Be Your Huckleberry

Those who make outrageous claims that chiropractic claims to treat "condition x or condition y" are usually not chiropractors.

Nonsense. It's well documented that there is a vocal group within chiropractors that seem to ignore germ theory and promote subluxations as the cause of infectious disease and advocate manipulation in lieu of vaccinations (for example).

That's part of the problem with the chiropractic industry IMO, is failure to actually regulate themselves where they should.

I have no beef with a chiropractor that sticks to evidence based stuff and stays away from silly stuff.

Incidentally, how did you find this thread? Do you know the other person in this thread that was (poorly) trying to advocate chiropractic, Clutch?

[Knut]

A Similar situation in my field, Optometry, would be someone extolling the virtures of Iridology (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Iridology). While Optometrists are not MD's we do follow scientific method and proper research to treat our patients. As others in this thread have said, the issue with many Chiropracters is that they delve into "alternative medicine", which can be harmful to patients.

[photon]

Out of curiosity, if there was an Optometrist that was practicing iridology and the regulating body (Canadian Assn. of Optometrists?) was made aware, what if any would be the result?

[Knut]

^ He would be taken into remediation if he is doing it within the confines of our office. It would be considered out of our scope of practice to diagnose systemic diseases. If he/she was using it as a "just for fun" thing there would be no real repercussions.

[TheSutterDynasty]

Originally Posted by photon

Nonsense. It's well documented that there is a vocal group within chiropractors that seem to ignore germ theory and promote subluxations as the cause of infectious disease and advocate manipulation in lieu of vaccinations (for example).

While completely different, isn't 'I'll Be Your Huckleberry' making a similar jump in logic (albeit a lot less significant) when he says:

Originally Posted by I'll Be Your Huckleberry

Chiropractic is a treatment for the betterment of the nervous system, and not, a treatment for any particular condition. The nervous system runs your entire physiology. It's logical and rational to assume that if the master control system improves, so to will other conditions.

Maybe I'm reaching, but what I get from this is "crack your back --> nervous system improvement in area cracked --> total nervous system improvement --> potential for other, unassociated conditions to improve".

[photon]

Yup I agree, the chain of logic gets called into question at step two, to say spinal manipulation is improving the "master control system", we'd need to first determine that the control system is in need of improving (which is what subluxations are supposed to be but don't exist EDIT: the chiro definition I mean, a medical subluxation is real and can be seen), and then determine that the action changes something (which if you can't see subluxations, makes it kind of difficult). Of course you can just say that they must exist because the manipulation had an effect, but that's a different logical error.

Plus there's tons of conditions that would still exist regardless of how well the master control system is running, and he admits that with the missing limb thing, so I gave the benefit of the doubt for now and just skipped that.