YSK that chiropractors are not medical doctors and "Systematic reviews... have found no evidence that chiropractic manipulation is effective"
en.wikipedia.org
"Systematic reviews of controlled clinical studies of treatments used by chiropractors have found no evidence that chiropractic manipulation is effective, with the possible exception of treatment for back pain.[8] A 2011 critical evaluation of 45 systematic reviews concluded that the data included in the study "fail[ed] to demonstrate convincingly that spinal manipulation is an effective intervention for any condition."[10] Spinal manipulation may be cost-effective for sub-acute or chronic low back pain, but the results for acute low back pain were insufficient.[11] No compelling evidence exists to indicate that maintenance chiropractic care adequately prevents symptoms or diseases.[12]"
Anything a chiropractor can do that will actually help, a PT can do better. They'll also teach you what exercises to do to prevent needing to see them again.
A chiropractor will just tell you to come to them more often, and take more of your money over time.
You can save a lot of money by just going to a masseuse instead of a chiropractor. People attribute the positive feeling they get from attention to well being improvements, and pseudoscience practitioners certainly achieve that at a premium price. If it's attention you want, get a massage, otherwise go to a PT and get some real help.
Also I think a massage therapist will tend to be more educated on the muscles and how they work together than a masseuse
A massage therapist tends not to provide the "extras" that you can get from a strip mall masseuse.
I come for the extras.
Just make sure they're not a cop first.
That would not be a happy ending to the story.
Depends on for whom. A good bust makes nearly everybody happy.
Busting makes me feel good
I don’t care, I’ll come on a cop.
In some places and depending on the specific details, the punishment for that offense wouldn't include jail time. Instead of a crime, it's just a penile code violation.
🤨
I swear, your honor, he just bent down and kissed my bottom!
Here is an alternative Piped link(s):
I swear, your honor, he just bent down and kissed my bottom!
Piped is a privacy-respecting open-source alternative frontend to YouTube.
I'm open-source; check me out at GitHub.
Or after the extras.
That's what they're for
My wife, bless her innocent heart, still doesn't get this. She's been to every strip mall, Groupon massage studio in the area and is constantly like "wow, I can't figure out why these $75/hr massages are so hit or miss."
I have tried explaining to her that it's because she doesn't have a penis, but she still doesn't get it.
How prevalent are these? I’ve always wanted to try but can never tell which is a safe place to approach
I can't believe I know this, but RubMaps used to (might still be?) a thing. If you looked at the outside of them on Google Maps you could very quickly start to pick up on the patterns among the listed locations.
do you want happy ending?
yes, heck you know what, lets have a happy middle too.. and a happy beginning.. ok make the whole thing happy please!
As a massage therapist that used to work in education (director of education at a massage school and taught anatomy/pathology) results will vary wildly across the States. The majority of states only started licensing in the last 10-15 years, and of course requirements for licensing and supervision varies. Some schools teach enough anatomy to get their students to pass the tests, then focus their time teaching spa type massage (aromatherapy, wraps, hot stones, etc.) or energy work. Not saying there's anything wrong with that, but it serves a different purpose.
There are definitely schools that exist that focus more on therapeutic/rehabilitative work, but even then the challenge is finding a therapist with an up to date approach who doesn't buy the old school "no pain no gain" who kicks the shit out of you. Massage shouldn't hurt. But if your find the right therapist for you, they're worth their weight in gold.
Massages should hurt if your body is full of deep tissue knots like mine is. My rhomboids and forearms are basically just knots most of the time.
But that's largely on me for not stretching.
Yup. At my first massage appointment, before I even got on the table, she told me where I hurt and why I was hurting that way. And she was 100% correct.
Just FYI, the generally preferred term these days is "massage therapist." Last I heard "masseuse" and "masseur" (the masculine version) have an implicit sexual connotation that "massage therapist" does not. Unless that's what you were recommending instead of chiropractic, in which case carry on!
Also it has a more professional connotation. RMTs go to school and work hard to be qualified and capable of their jobs.
As my sister who is a MT always said: "A massage therapist gives you a massage, a masseuse gives you a happy ending."
This. I'm seriously considering finding the money for an at home sauna. Get my muscles nice and warm and relaxed and then stretch the shit out of them.
Just be careful. There is such a thing as over stretching. I fucked up my knees stretching after a hot yoga session and could barely walk for a couple of years.
Everything in moderation.
One of the worst overstretches I did was in a pool. With my body weight canceled out I could get into deeper stretches, like by putting my leg up on the edge of the pool. Afterwards I realized I'd overdone it. lol
That must have sucked/hurt 🤕 ... But it sounded like a real funny story for some reason...
Mi bad...
I would also point out that any pro quackocracker post you see here is the one time they might have helped someone just out of random chance, those people are loud and tell everyone how great their quackocracker is. Its simple confirmation bias, they have a sample size of one, themselves, this is not how data works.
I go to a sports physiotherapy group. Much better results when the goal is to help me recover so I don't need to come to them.
You can also search out a GP that is a DO Instead of an MD in the US.
They still learn osteopathic manipulation, which is a broader form of manipulation not limited to the spine that helps with stretching-type exercises. But they are certified (often with the same board exams even) and licensed on par with MDs. Many clinics have DOs among their providers.
Important caveat of "in the US". In most countries, osteopaths are basically the same as chiropractors. In the US, DO licensing is the same as MD licensing, so they do have to learn real science and medicine in addition to the fake science and medicine of osteopathy. Personally, I wouldn't aim for a DO as my Dr., but if I already had one that I liked, I wouldn't worry about it too much. Osteopathic schools are easier to get into than medical schools, cause we have more people that want to get their MD than we have schools to teach them, so plenty of those people become DO's.
This is incorrect. You are likely confused due to the fact that the names of the fields are similar.
Osteopathy /=/ osteopathic
I'll discuss the fields as the are in the US, as I am not aware of how they are in other countries.
The AOA only recently (2010) decided to recommend that DO's no longer be called osteopaths. As they still practice and teach osteopathic manipulation, it's not inaccurate to still refer to them as osteopaths. When they abandon that pseudoscience and turn completely to evidence based medicine, I'll refer to them as DO's. Right now, all DO's are osteopaths, but not all osteopaths are DO's.
It doesn't have to do with homeopathy. Osteopathy is it's own pseudoscience alternative medicine and it is what they're trained as a side to their medical training. They do act like this training somehow makes them more holistic than MDs, but that's been proven to be largely false and they generally do not use that osteopathic manipulation in their practice.
Some non-doctor osteopaths might use homeopathy, but the basic theory of what osteopathy is remains pseudoscience even when it's done by DOs.
Osteopathy = Osteopathic.
Thank you, I didn't realize that homeopathy was not general term - I thought it was a generalized term for alternative medicine that wasn't eastern medicine, but I was wrong.
Anyway, I do still have some things to clear up for you.
You still seem to think that DOs are spending their 300+ additional hours after the MD learning the pseudoscience, which isn't the case. Those hours are spent with neurologists, orthopedics, physical therapists, and other fellowships and residencies only provided by the MEDICAL SCHOOL - which would absolutely not allow any pseudoscience within their walls. Yes, they might do very minor manipulation in their practices, but it's what's learned through neurologists, physical therapists, or orthopedists, etc. (in addition to their MD residenciea just like the MDs in family practice, OB, surgery, dermatology, oncology, etc). The goal of a DO is to treat a patient as the sum of their parts rather than symptomatically.
Patient-first rather than symptom-first. (DO vs MD)
Osteopathic rather than allopathic. (DO vs MD)
-If I go to an MD with an earache, I'll have my ear checked out and maybe find nothing wrong but walk out with Prednisone to see if it helps. Prednisone does nothing but make me gain water weight.
-If I go to a DO with an earache, I'll have my ear checked out and maybe find nothing wrong, but he might think since there was nothing obvious that maybe there's a nerve pinched near the top of my neck so he'll have me stand to look at my posture and notice that I'm standing awkwardly with my hips not level, checks out my ankles and realizes I've started to lean in on one of my ankles and writes an Rx for a custom insole and exercises to strengthen my ankle. The issue with the ankle was causing my hips to lean, which caused my back to curve the other way to compensate, which pinched a nerve in my neck, which caused an earache. Wear the insole while strengthening the ankle, earache goes away.
(This is a true story of something that happened to me, not an example of every experience with a MD or a DO)
There is nothing precluding and MD from also searching for the underlying cause, but allopathic medicine looks to treat symptoms.
Osteopathy is 100% the movement of muscles and bones and not taught in medical school.
Osteopathy /=/ osteopathic
What you're describing is a pseudoscience. It's a pseudoscience that IS allowed in osteopathic medical schools because, you guessed it, they're osteopathic. It is not evidence based medicine. I understand that DOs proclaim thatt they are more holistic than other practitioners. As I said, studies have shown that is not the case.
https://www.degruyter.com/document/doi/10.7556/jaoa.2014.166/html
https://www.acpjournals.org/doi/10.7326/M22-3723
Edit: To be clear, I'm an RN, and we're taught a whole hell of a lot more pseudoscience than DO's are.
I have to ask: what do you think "holistic" means? You've said twice (once in each comment I've know replied to) that DOs "think they are more holistic than others"
Do you think it relates to holy?
It doesn't. It means that's parts of something are interconnected and can only be considered in reference to the whole of itself.
Which is the key difference between osteopathic and allopathic medicine, so of course they believe they are more holistic.
I'm not sure what you were trying to prove with those links. The first explains that while evidence based medicine uses statistics, it is a specific way of using data to determine clinical care - that it can determine the best route of care for the largest group of people that works most of the time, which is great for most people most of the time...but what about when you fall outside that group (my addition - yes, they could try the second choice when the first doesn't work or the third next, but that takes time and suffering). Whereas DOs consider the the first choice option as well as the outside options by evaluating everything. Consider the story above of my earache. That's what the link was describing. I'm not sure what you got from it, or what that has to do with being holistic (though considering outside treatment options that might involve other parts of the body would be considered holistic). The thing is, statistics are great to describe how a population reacts to treatments, not an individual. Appendectomies have a 95% success rate, but that doesn't mean that you have a 95% chance of surviving one. But evidence based treatments are based on the success rates, not the individual - that's where the patient-first idea come into play, DOs consider the patient as a whole rather than only the statistics when the statistics don't line up with the patient.
The second link says that healthcare costs between MDs and DOs are similar. Neither is more expensive, neither is less expensive. I'm not sure what that has to do with being holistic (either the actual definition or whatever you may think it means).
You're making the claim that what I described previously is pseudoscience because a DO saw that my ankle has turned inward and offered ankle strengthening exercises. Ankle strengthening exercises aren't pseudoscience, there is data behind it - the idea that it could cause ear pain due to the other issues it causes certainly would not be common, but it is explainable. Pseudoscience is something that uses no explanatory reasoning and avoids peer review. DOs routinely publish their findings.
I understand exactly what holistic means, and I provided that outcome based study (and I promise you, if you look in the literature there are many more), to prove that MDs (allopathic medicine) are treating the whole body as well. I provided that horses mouth osteopath description of why they can't quite match up to evidenced based medicine because it is as hollow as it sounds.
Patronizing me like I don't know what the words I use mean is incredibly tiresome. I said I was a nurse. One of the key claims of the nursing profession is that we provide holistic care over more medicine focused disciplines. It is horseshit when we say it and it's horseshit when the osteopaths say it.
I understand that's what you wanted to show with that article, but that's not the information that the article provided. That article did not provide any information about either MDs or DOs being holistic or not. It was about the use of statistics in their respective practices. Which is why I questioned knowledge of the definition.
But damn, I hope I never get you as a nurse. I used to teach in one of the top nursing graduate universities in the country, and your attitude is definitely not what we would aim for. Yes, we encouraged away from the pseudoscience and focused on research based approaches, but damn. Osteopathic is different than allopathic, but neither is exclusive to evidence based, nor is either inclusive to it.
That’s why I specifically said in the US. You have to be careful, though, some DO schools are easier to get into than some MD schools but there are also DO schools that are harder to get into than some MD schools (MD schools in the Caribbean for example) so unless you are being hyper vigilant about which school your GP went to, you’re still just relying on the fact that they all passed the same or equivalent boards anyway.
In my corner of the world, most CPs are also PTs. Or rather the other way around: they use chiropractic as one of many therapeutic means in their portfolio. I have to say, I very much appreciate this approach, as it relives the initial pain/discomfort but also addresses the underlying problem.
This is a great point. My MiL is a chiropractor (a non-quacky one), and she incorporated a lot of PT into her practice. Additionally, I read a couple years ago that PTs are beginning to incorporate the good things from chiro (whatever they are. I'm not a doctor) into their own practice.
A roundabout way of saying that we learned some things from chiro, but PT was always the future.
its not just not helpful, it can be deadly/dangerous.
strokes are triggered by these idiots.
Strokes, but also broken necks.
And some of these quacks do "adjustments" on children and infants.
Saw that on episode of Bullshit with Penn and Teller. Anyone who would do that to a baby should be imprisoned for life.
Yeah, the last time I went to a chiropractor for back pain, they also "corrected" my neck which in the past felt good but this time it just immediately pulled a muscle in my neck and left me in pain and barely able to turn my head for weeks.
It's better now, but I'll never go back to a chiropractor again because of the risk of making things worse for essentially no benefit.
Also animals, I saw a video of someone doing it to a pit bull and after he cracked the dogs neck the pit gave him the "I'm going to rip your fucking throat out" look.
It's straight up animal abuse.
https://www.ahajournals.org/doi/full/10.1161/01.str.32.5.1054
Thank your pointing this out. It's not just any stroke too, it's primarily vertebral/basilar artery distribution strokes. Those supply the brain stem which includes such necessary functions as control of breathing and consciousness. You don't want a stroke anywhere, but particularly not there.
Some chiropractors might swing back that, you've only showed correlation not causation. Well, when we have no clear evidence of chiropractic neck manipulation being helpful for anything, and we have a likely very dangerous correlation, the clinical parsimony is just not there. So no one is going to run that study (give a large amount of people neck manipulation, a large amount of people no neck manipulation, and compare rates of stroke that occur afterwards), it would be very unethical, no institutional review board would ever approve that study as ethical to perform.
And it makes a lot of sense too, the vertebral artery is encased in the neck vertebrae, so violent movements of the neck vertebrae can stretch and tear those arteries. Those tears, called a dissection, can sometimes obstruct blood flow all on their own, but more often create a spot for blood clots to form that then move onward into the brain and basilar artery (since there's turbulent blood flow and a defect in the smooth artery wall that normally prevents your blood from clotting). So please, no violent neck movements for any reason, chiropractor or otherwise.
This. My friend had a triple stroke shortly after having neck manipulation done by a standin for his usual chiropractor. Luckily he survived, but it has very much opened my eyes to how dangerous it can be.
Yeah, I was coming in here to say similar.
Chiropractors aren't just not effective, they are fucking dangerous.
But boy, oh boy. Say this to a believer and get ready to loose an afternoon.
That’s alright. A chiropractor can tighten up that afternoon for ya.
Indeed. I’ve got a chiropractor in my family, and I actively avoid talking to them about their work because I’ve always been convinced that it causes more harm than good. I think they finally got the hint after the 1000th time I refused their offer of an adjustment. They do some genuinely bizarre stuff beyond the standard adjustments, and talk about it like it’s proven science.
Bizarre stuff like what?
“Testing” for allergies or nutritional deficiencies by holding a sample up to your forehead and then applying downward pressure to your outstretched arms to “determine” sensitivity. Weird stuff like that.
Edit: I believe it’s called Applied Kinesiology, but that just makes it sound legit. Which it’s not.
I always knew it was pseudoscience, but damn, how is that even allowed?
lobbyists, I presume
your insurance would much rather pay for someone to touch your back than pay for someone to provide medical care.
The core tenet of chiropractics is that "life force" flows through the spine and "blocks" in that is what causes diseases/pains.
Most people think they are some kind of spine experts, while in reality it is nothing like that and more like concepts of Chi and meridians.
The thing is, a lot of chiros don't delve into that crap, because it's such obvious bullshit, but some do and will tell you in all sincerity that cracking that L6-8 might just kill your cancer.
In any case, stay far far away from them.
In a roundabout way, this can be true. No host, no disease.
Scorched earth medicine, effective in 100% of cases! Life's overrated anyway.
Chiropractic was invented by a guy who learned it from a ghost.
Who knows better about relaxing the spine than a ghost that doesn't have one?
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.
These people, whoever-the-fuck they are, need to be regulated.
Or run out of town like Ye olde snake oil salesmen.
I sense a John Oliver episode any day about this
I re-read some of the comments in his voice, and it sounds right.
can see this in the future for the next fascist conservative president - MY CHIROPRACTOR SAYS I'M FINE!
Chiropractors and osteopaths only exist in such large numbers because they bill less to insurers than actual doctors & hospitals. So of course insurers are going to promote these quacks because it's cheaper than somebody going to an actual physiotherapist for treatment.
There should really be legislation that requires insurers to cover science & evidence based treatments. If someone wants woo it should be at additional expense to them, not part of a standard policy.
So, DO's in many of not most states in the US have the same licensure and practice limitations as MDs and charge/are reimbursed similarly. I'm many cases they actually attend the same residency programs as allopathic/MDs. Most I've worked with drop 99% of the Osteopathic manipulation stuff soon as they graduate. Naturopaths on the other hand....
If I pay for a business to make me a chocolate milkshake under the same health code regulations and standards as the place across town, I don't want them finishing it off by stirring in a spoonful of shit with the ice cream as a bonus. Even if >99% of what's in the cup is not shit, it isn't somewhere I'll go and I'll make an effort to discourage people from going there too.
Osteopaths, chiropractors and all those other flavors of cargo cult imitation medical quackery differ only by the proportion of ingredients. Making a distinction between them is meaningless, it just lets the less-obvious liars get a foot in the door.
(Additional note because this is the internet: This is a "spherical cow in frictionless vacuum" scenario and ignores things like accidental contamination as well as the narrow range of illnesses where an appropriately-prepared and administered fecal transplant (which this is not) may be indicated.)
I think you're misunderstanding what most of them keep practicing. It's not the kooky cranial/cervical manipulation(you can make an argument that them having to learn that stuff in the first place is BS and a waste of time), but most do pick up a few muscle pressure point tricks and stretches that are essentially the same as what PT instructs patients on how to do. Is it bullshit? No more so than most medicine that's practiced(the data behind the vast majority of what your average physician does is at best all over the place, the truly "settled" clinical questions are few and far between). In my book though, anything that keeps you from having to prescribe a scheduled drug (read as:narcotic or muscle relaxer) to get someone functional from something like severe trapezius tightness or piriformus syndrome is a heck of a tool to have at your disposal in a primary care or urgent care setting.
A broken clock might be right twice a day but that doesn't mean you should rely on it for timekeeping. If something works, we study it in search of why, how and other details that may not be immediately obvious but could have an impact on patient outcomes. From what their product quality shows, chiropractors and their snake oil salespeople colleagues appear to be some combination of less diligent, less motivated and less capable when it comes to doing that sort of evaluation. Trying to blend that part of the market into the realm of legitimate evidence-based medicine is bad for almost everybody involved. Might as well start having the nurse follow the vitals check with a palm reading if the standard of "has a basis in reality" is too onerous for modern medicine.
We're constantly making bigger and brighter lights to shine out into the darkness of what we don't yet know while the Supplementary, Complementary and Alternative Medicine crowd sprints for the first patch of darkness to plant a flag and hide. You're right that there are a lot of unanswered questions but an answer is not a valid substitute for a correct answer.
I am actually really torn about this one, on one hand I had one episode of back pain that lasted nearly a year, swearing up and down the whole time that chiropractors were basically witch doctors and that I would never go to one. However, when I finally caved and went to one he fixed my issue after two sessions. On the other hand, my more recent back pain was not helped after I saw my chiropractor four times. In addition, I work as a nurse and have now seen at least three patients come in with vertebral dissections, essentially a stroke, that occurred literally right after they had seen a chiropractor for neck pain. Anecdotally, I would say it isn't worth the risk. Had I done physical therapy and used bought a tens unit the first time I'm sure it would have also fixed it without the chiro, but I was lazy
That's the thing. Chiropractic could be considered a manual treatment which is a therapeutic modality. PTs do manual therapies that are less traumatic and are one component of the musculoskeletal issues that contribute to pain that chiro claims to heal. For most situations of acute back pain they resolve in 4 to 6 weeks so even the ineffective treatments appear to help- it's just like treatments for the common cold.
I’m a radiologist and I too have seen multiple cases of vertebral artery dissections and stroke immediately following chiropractic manipulation. Absolutely no chance I would ever suggest someone see a chiropractor.
This is the entire problem with quackocrackers, they have no ability to diagnose any illness or disease. So people who think they just have a back ache and go to a quackcracker instead of a real dodctor are delaying getting a proper diagnosis, so then if they happen to have something more serious like cancer, they'll essentially be sacrificing their own life by going to quackocracker instead of finding out whats really wrong.
It's because what they're doing can sometimes provide temporary relief and when it works, it works fast. An underlying cause has made some inflammation, they stretch things out, relieve some pressure in places that shouldn't have pressure. But they're not fixing anything, just letting your body get back up to barely functioning until the underlying cause rears it's head again. Messed up discs are their bread and butter, but they're just resetting the house of cards you call a back.
Actually fixing the problem is a big, expensive, scary, painful deal and (US) chiros let insurance companies off the hook for a long time.
Someone who knows what they're doing, and knows the limits of what they can do, can benefit certain physical conditions you may have. But they're not doctors. They have no prescribing power. A lot of people go there thinking that they can also prescribe them a medication, which is not the case. But there's no standards for being a chiropractor, so each one is different and some may do little to help you or even hurt you or name you and in some rare cases, kill you
Not only can they not prescribe anything (because they are play doctors not real ones) but they have no access to the medical equipment (other than xrays which can literally only tell you if you have a broken bone) so they have Zero ability to diagnose whats really wrong with you, or your back, or anything really. Its all guesswork for them and the few people on here who say "quackocracked hepped me!!" is the one time they get it right out of 10 or 20 failures.
I'm 100% on board with science and evidence based therapies but I've had a similar experience with back pain. I won't let them manipulate my neck at all though.
I'd say the science is clear: humans don't understand what makes them sick and they don't understand why they get better. We value our own anectdotal evidence over actual research almost every time, and we keep making the wrong conclusions. I'd go so far as to say that you can't be "on board" with both science and with your own conclusions based on anectdotal evidence. It's one or the other.
Show me in the rules where I'm required to be internally consistent!
It basically the human wave function. I can be consistant and inconsistent at the same time
If you see a youtuber calling themselves Dr. and giving out medical advice, 99% they are a chiropractor.
I met one of these in an airport bar! He introduced himself as a doctor then when I asked what specialty, he said he's a chiropractor. "Ohhhh, so not a doctor doctor."
He was not impressed.
I used to work with a neurologist who was formerly a chiropractor until he realized it was a bunch of quackery and decided to become a real doctor.
You mean they got a Ph.D.? ;-)
He also has a Ph.D. strangely enough.
Cool, so a real Doctor, then. ;-) I had a thing for getting letters after my name, and reached a certain goal, then gave up on the ego.
A medical doctorate would be more relevant to a neurologist.
Well, to be fair, some "doctor doctors" aren't even doctors.
"Medical Doctors" don't necessarily have a PhD, but colloquially we call them "doctors"
A doctor is anybody with a doctorate.
Somehow, colloquially, we came to only refer to MD's ( Doctor of Medicine ) as doctors.
A PhD is just a Doctor of Philosophy. A PhD doesn't make anyone a doctor more so than an MD or a JD. Yes, even a lawyer is a doctor.
Anybody with a doctorate degree is a doctor. And just for fun, all a doctorate means is the highest degree awarded by a graduate school or other approved educational organization. Feel like I'm getting too technical with this so I'm just going to stop writing this comment.
In Germany, if you are a medical doctor with a PhD, you are addressed as Herr Doctor Doctor.
And if your specialty is the protein filament that grows from skin follicles in mammals, would you be a Haar Herr Doctor Doctor?
If you have spinal or neck pain, see a licensed physiotherapist. If you have a toothache, do you go to a toothiologist to have your teeth punched? Or do you go to a doctor of dental medicine?
I mean a chiro would pop your back for your toothache.
I mean, if you want to re-shape your nose you can either go to a cosmetic surgeon, or run full speed ahead into a brick wall. Either method would accomplish the mission. One is cheaper, one is more predictable, both are potentially lethal.
Cosmetic surgeons are still surgeons though, even if the procedure is unnecessary.
typically you see your PCP first.
PCP is the one who makes referral to other physician specialists, like a pain and rehabilitation medicine physician. the PM&R's attempt to identify the pain generators through a series of different types of injections sometimes accompanied w/ PT, OT, MT, and possibly chiro.
when those fail (conservative treatment), the Pt is referred to either a neurosurgeon or orthopedic surgeon.
It does take an entire weekend of school to get certified though.
Wow, an entire weekend!
ADHD; "oh You think that's funny?"
No, I definitely don't think that's funny being allowed to 'treat' people after 'passing' a weekend seminar.
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?
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.
Massage therapy requires significantly more training than chiropractic does, at least in my area.
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.
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.
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.
Oh yeah. I have chronic pain, I'll be doing physiotherapy until the day I die.
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 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.
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.
First hit isn’t even free
One of my best friend’s fathers was an MD before retiring.
The cadaver he used in med school: broken neck during an “alignment” at a chiropractor’s office.
Anecdotal evidence for sure, but definitely a story that I think of whenever someone talks about going to a chiropractor.
How many fathers did they have?
Touché. Ya got me!
That image feels designed to look like porn at a passing glance.
Everything looks like a nail when you're a hammer.
Jackhammer grip reporting, everything looks like porn if you squint hard enough!
Can confirm. Am hammer.
They knew what they were doing.
Don't "patients" like die from this all the time/randomly?
They never complained afterwards.
Dead men leave no bad yelp reviews
-proverbs for the 21st century
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.
Quick reminder that Physios and Chiros outside America face different rules for accreditation, and may not warrant similar judgement.
Nope still bullshit here and not USA, you have problems with your bones and muscles? Go to a physiotherapist.
Laws and accreditation don't change how the human body works (and, importantly in the case of chiropractic performances, doesn't work). No energy lines to unblock, your humors or bile aren't unbalanced, a wheatstone bridge can't detect alien ghosts and some distant planet's apparent motion from the Earth's perspective isn't causing your misfortune. We're just meat machines no matter which map lines you're inside and a medical professional who can't keep their mysticism and fantasy out of the workplace can not be trusted to maintain their patients' physical or mental health.
If chiropractic was legit people wouldn’t have to keep going back for more “treatment”.
If you’ve got a bad back, watching your posture and doing some core strength training is more effective.
Seriously. I had a friend extolling how good his experience with his chiropractor was, in response to my tale about physical therapy after a skiing accident. I ended the argument pretty quickly by asking "how often do you have to go back"
I think this depends on the kind of chiropractic work. If they are just there to pop bubbles for that crack, then nothing is happening. I got into a car accident and my insurance sent me to a chiropractor that never cracked my back. Instead he gave me physical therapy, got me MRI images to check for an cracks on my spine or hernias in my discs, and gave me some equipment to help relax my back muscles and provide support to my bacl. I feel like this kind of work actually does provide benefit. I don't go anymore since all of that stuff is cleared up now, but I would trust that guy with my back again if I needed it.
Yeah, If the chiropractor doesn't use chiropractic methods, it's definitely preferable.
Did you maybe go to a physiotherapist? That doesn't sound at all like a chiropractor, especially the MRI and actual treatment part.
Some chiropracters are more or less "bootleg" physical therapists that use the same treatment. Of course, there is no guarantee that a given chiropractor will use effective and proven treatments like a licensed PT practitioner.
I've seen a couple 'chiropractors' that are just giving good physio work and advice but taking chiro insurance money. Scammy maybe, but if they'll put me back together I'll take it.
If anything, I'd color that a "good" flavour of scam 😅
That's just a physiologist right?
Yup
A good chiropractor is one that doesn't use chiropractic "treatment"
Honestly the best you can get is good deep tissue, which is why many chiros employ a massage therapist.
How does a chiropractor prescribe an MRI? Seems like that shouldn’t be possible 🤔
I mean, all they're really doing is rubber stamping a form so insurance will pay. You can go to your hospital and give them cash to have an MRI done without a doctor being involved.
I’m not sure you could go to most hospitals and get an MRI just because. Diagnostic tests still carry risks, especially MRIs given how strong the magnetic field is and that you can’t easily turn them off.
The same way any degreed doctor would.
it's an interesting decision to exclude
and
from the title here
A massage never killed anyone, unlike chiropracty. Just get a massage.
and your masseuse doesn't make absurd claims about healing other maladies.
My RMT also doesn't refer to herself as a "doctor"
Hey, mine loves to talk up her blue ball cure.
Right? I feel like that is 90% of the reason to get it.
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.
There are people who bring their newborns for "alignments" back pain is definitely a reason to get it, but not the reason.
Physical therapy will always be the better route.
See also: How Chiropractic Started as a Ghost Religion
Here is an alternative Piped link(s):
How Chiropractic Started as a Ghost Religion
Piped is a privacy-respecting open-source alternative frontend to YouTube.
I'm open-source; check me out at GitHub.
Almost like alternative medicine is an alternative to medicine. Sue these scammers out of existence.
There's that old chestnut: "you know what they call alternative medicine that works? Medicine."
You know what they call alternative medicine that actually works... medicine
Well that's just great. Where am I supposed to go to get my vertebral artery dissection now?
With a little practice, you can do it yourself!
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.
Ya it doesn’t. It’s pseudo science that gives you temporary relieve. It doesn’t cure you of back pains permanently
This is one of those things, like acupuncture, that I will not fault anyone else for engaging in. There's no hard evidence that they are effective, but if it helps you with your problem (even if it's all in your head), then it was worth it, was it not?
I know people who have had their lives improved and their mobility restored thanks to chiropractors. I also know one or two who swear they got scammed for years because the pain always comes back really quickly.
I may not personally recommend a chiro to someone as a solution to their back or neck pain, but I won't discourage them from going if they are considering it.
Except chiropractors also occasionally maim and murder people.
Acupuncture can also fuck people up. Unsurprisingly it's dangerous to have someone with no medical training inserting long needles into your body.
Anyone benefiting from chiropractic probably just needs a real physiotherapist.
Oh you have back pain? Let me lightly stab you, I'm sure that'll help.
hell yeah, nothing wrong with scamming desperate people out of money
I guess my point is that it doesn't really matter if their practice is backed up by hard science or not if some people still experience tangible benefit from doing it. Is it still a scam if the scammer provided you the product that you paid for?
Like I said, I would never advocate for someone to go see a chiropractor, an acupuncturist, a homeopath, a shaman, or whatever alternative treatments that might be out there over going to a real doctor or therapist, but if they're already going to one and claiming that it's working for them, why bother trying to convince them otherwise? You can tell them it's pseudoscience until the cows come home, they're not going to be inclined to listen.
Acupuncture is quackery too. At the very least it should not be part of any public health service, or insurance policy, and people gullible enough to go for it should have to pay out of their own pocket.
This was news to me too not long ago, but acupuncture is legit and used in western medicine. I found this out because a friend of mine in the military received acupuncture to treat his back pain. Like a white dude named Brad that went to med school put 3 or 4 pins in his ear and his back pain was gone for the day.
Here's an article more scientific than my antidote. https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC1129299/
You know it's a legit therapy if a dead doctor told you in a seance about it.
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!
I like the doctors that didn't die.
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.
Saw a chiropractor because I was starting to wake up with back pain every morning. Bought into something like a 3 month, twice per week program because the loss of sleep was really bad and he said he was pretty sure it would help.
After 3 months, I was still having a lot of difficulty. After an adjustment I'd be fine the next night but it would come right back.
So I decided to just go buy a high end new mattress. Boom. Every night after was a no-pain night. Never went back to the chiro.
This. Go buy three different pillows and experiment to discover which one gives you the best sleep. It's cheaper that one trip to the chiro and will more likely yield long term results...
The amount of people in this thread not reading more than the headline is mind numbing.
And completely expected
I went to a chiro for a while and it did help but I think it was mainly because they'd have me do a fairly comprehensive set of stretches at the beginning of each visit. I stopped going to the chiro but I keep doing the stretches.
Even if they made me feel better it is so temporary that I'd have to come again, and again. I'd rather go to a massage therapist who could also get the rest of my body too without the risk of vertebral artery dissection.
The best thing I've found for my back is slow, varied motions and stretches. I do tai chi and qigong and they really loosen me up.
So in other news the sky is blue.
More like chiroquacktors! Haha, you get it? Because....
They have a twisted relationship with ducks
No, with Quakers
Pseudo-scientific jibber-jabber doesn't actually work? Color me shocked
Generally agree with this, but one time when I was little landed on my back on the edge of a trampoline and really hurt my back. After some back and forth my parents took me to a chiropractor who fixed my pain, saying I probably moved a disk onto a nerve or something like that.
So I think pain caused by physical movement of the spine like my injury is totally legit as a reason to go to one
Astrology works the same way. Anecdotal evidence is really effective but the data clearly show you'll get more consistent relief with real doctors and real physical therapists.
I don't disagree with you. For me there is a fine line for appropriate and inappropriate use. Those who swear by chiropractors definitely cross it
I don't doubt whether you and your parents believe that going to a chiropractor fixed your pain. Can't exactly zip around with a time machine and see what would have happened in that scenario if you'd gone to a doctor, done some stretching on your own, or just gone about your day ignoring it (among other options). Anecdotes like yours suggest that there's a helpful effect from going to chiropractors but when it's studied by competent professionals, those benefits disappear because chiropractic practitioner beliefs and performances are not constrained to the narrow limits of reality.
If someone is injured beyond the simple stuff like cuts that you can slap a band-aid on or sprains/strains to be treated with RICE (Rest, Ice, Compress, Elevate), go to a doctor. Head, neck or back injuries in particular are not something to gamble on but I'm glad your case turned out okay.
I used to know a chiropractor and I always called him Mr. _____ instead of doctor.
You're still allowed to call them "doctor", you just have to pronounce the quotation marks.
I'm allowed to call a cult leader "God" and I'm allowed to call the idiots at the apple store "geniuses" but I'm not going to devalue those words either.
I read about one of these guys breaking sick arm bone lol. On the other hand, where I live, these guys have to literally go through similiar shit like physiologists so theyre as safe as any other quack with paper is. I have mixed feelings.
Yeah, that's kind of where I'm at. I don't want to give any credit to pseudoscience, but but I also know chiropractors receive at least some real medical training, at least in regards to basics like anatomy. I've known people who studied chiropractic medicine (and acupuncture, which I put in the same category), and they were not idiots or scammers. And of course so many people swear by their chiropractors. I don't consider patient testimonials a replacement for scientific studies, but until I see a study that explains why so many people feel that way (in specific terms, not just a general reference to the placebo affect), I find it hard to completely dismiss their experiences.
For the sake of not sounding totally gullible, I should probably mention I've never seen any kind of alternative medicine practitioner, and I probably wouldn't except as an act of total desperation.
As an anecdotal evidence, I've visited chiropractors twice. One was pretty wierd and didn't do much in terms of massage but succeeded to make my muscles relax somewhat. Another one was applying quite a lot of force but hopefully didn't make any damage. Both were somewhat successful for very short-term neck ache improment.
Long term I should do gymnastics, that works better and is safer, but as of lately I don't 😞
Did you have any bone issues in neck or just muscle pain.
I do have scoliosis, but issues were purely with muscles.
Well, I'm not sure how that's called, like stretching neck muscles, doing different exercises with elastic rope that loads neck and spine, and such. It seems to be different complex with every other practitioner that's teaching what to do, but what worked best for me is standing on elastic rope holding it in both hands and lifting hands to T-pose (not an advice, consult a medic insted)
Sure, thanks.