Chiropractors & Chiropractic Care

Discussion in 'Health & Wellness' started by Ken Anderson, Jan 21, 2020.

  1. Ken Anderson

    Ken Anderson Senior Staff
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    At work a couple of days ago, I was asked to take a break from the Software category that I was working on to flesh out our Chiropractors category in another part of the directory that I haven't had much to do with.

    We had chiropractors listed under alternative medicine, which is where a lot of people and organizations, such as Wikipedia, think they belong. Other directories that I have worked on have listed chiropractic care under alternative medicine too, so I can see why whoever put it there thought it was reasonable.

    True, chiropractic care can be used as an alternative to drugs and surgery, so in that respect, it is an alternative health field. The problem is that alternative medicine is generally described as pseudo-medicine, lacking plausibility, untested and untestable, or even proven ineffective, as well as quackery, which are all phrases that Wikipedia uses in its description of alternative medicine.

    Indeed, Wikipedia describes chiropractic as being pseudoscientific and as fringe medicine, lumping it in with acupuncture, aromatherapy, crystal healing, coffee enemas, colon cleansing, and copper bracelets.

    I am not arguing here, that some of these treatments couldn't be effective, although I do have trouble taking some of them seriously. But, my Medicare Advantage plan won't pay for coffee enemas or copper bracelets, but it will pay for chiropractic care. It might pay for acupuncture too, but I have never considered getting acupuncture so I haven't looked into that. In any event, I wasn't asked to fix the acupuncture category, if we even have one. I was asked to look into the Chiropractors category.

    After researching the subject, I moved it to our Health Specialties & Professions section and, while I was at it, I added a longer description and cleaned up the site listings. Maybe I'll take on the Health & Well-Being category tree after I finish with Computers & Internet. There are a lot of other things I'd like to fix.

    When I was a child, pretty much everyone I knew looked at chiropractic care as being nutty, and as chiropractors as quacks. But then, we didn't even see real doctors, so I don't know how much weight that carries.

    However, when I was working for Champion, our medical policy covered chiropractic care, and I know that my Advantage Plan covers it. The medical clinic here in Millinocket has a chiropractor on staff, and I think the hospital group does too. I received chiropractic care for a while a few years ago and found it to be helpful.

    Perhaps the bulk of the bad reputation that chiropractors have with rabble-rousers like Wikipedia is that it wasn't that long ago that chiropractic care was largely unregulated, and little or no formal training was required in order to set up shop. But, when you think of it, the same was true of medical doctors, but that was a bit longer ago. A kid could become an apprentice to a doctor and, with little or no formal education, set up practice as a medical doctor. I think chiropractic care is simply going through the same steps, only the medical doctors got there first.

    Have you ever received chiropractic care? Did it help? Do you consider chiropractors to be in a legitimate health profession or are they quacks? The part of the world you live in may have a lot to do with how you view chiropractic. It's against the law in South Korea, and completely unregulated in some countries.
     
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  2. Mary Robi

    Mary Robi Veteran Member
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    Yes, I have received chiropractic care and yes, it helped.

    Do I believe they can cure cancer, as some "fringe elements" claim? Nope, but they sure can make backs and shoulders and hips and …… feel better in a lot of cases.

    For a few years, I had a bad wry neck that was seriously affecting my quality of life. All the "medical" profession could offer me were pain pills and vague discussions of exploratory surgery (uh, no....). Several sessions with a highly-respected chiropractor and I've never had the problem again.

    On the other hand, I've had no luck with chiropractic treatments curing my sciatica.
     
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  3. Peter Renfro

    Peter Renfro Veteran Member
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    I've gone to a chiropractor several times for "adjustment". I walked out feeling like a million bucks,but within a few days, the weight of the world put my back and spine back into the same spot.
    My nephew is a chiropractor. His mother hates that I refuse to call him Dr. She refers to him as Dr. even in family conversations. Sick.
    He o longer practices. He had a practice in Florida for about ten years, then returned to NY where he started selling insurance.
    No one will say what happened. apparently he is still licensed but is uninsurable.
     
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  4. Beth Gallagher

    Beth Gallagher Supreme Member
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    I have never been to a chiropractor; I've always likened them to a massage therapist of sorts. :D (Don't go to those, either.) I do know people who claim that visits to a chiropractor are helpful for various ailments but I've never had any reason to try one out.

    I remember that a family doctor we saw as a kid was a DO instead of an MD. I never really knew what that meant, so I looked it up...

    The differences between MDs and DOs are often subtle. MDs generally focus on treating specific conditions with medication. DOs, on the other hand, tend to focus on whole-body healing, with or without traditional medication. They generally have a stronger holistic approach and have been trained with additional hours of hands-on techniques. Some people claim that DOs put more emphasis on disease prevention, but prevention plays an important role in the work of both.

    When discussing the differences between these two types of doctors, it’s important to remember that both types are qualified doctors who must meet strict requirements before receiving their medical license.

    DOs are required to take an additional 200 hours of training in osteopathic manipulative medicine – the practice of manipulating musculoskeletal tissue to relieve pain – versus an MD which would, in theory, suggest taking pain relievers.


    So apparently DOs perform a bit of Chiropractic care. Who knew?
     
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  5. Ken Anderson

    Ken Anderson Senior Staff
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    A lot of chiropractors are dual-licensed as orthopedic doctors, which makes sense.

    My wife sees chiropractors more often than I do. Those who claim the greatest benefits from chiropractic care tend to see their chiropractor often, while my view of health care has more to do with fixing the problem so that I can go back to doing whatever I was doing before it occurred. Fortunately, chiropractors don't charge nearly as much as medical doctors, so even people without health coverage can afford to see a chiropractor once a week.

    I have been in a lot of chiropractic clinics and, while some of them concentrate on spinal manipulation and the sorts of treatments usually associated with chiropractic care, others make you feel like you're entering a New Age church rather than a medical clinic. These tend to be the ones who also employ massage therapists, aromatherapy technicians, and acupuncturists, and assorted witch doctors.

    I don't know about some of that stuff. Given that the spine is the center of our nervous system, from which all of our other nerves branch off, it makes some sense that a healthy spine might contribute to overall body health, but my chiropractor isn't going to be the first person I call when I am diagnosed with cancer or some other disease. On the other hand, I do believe that modern medicine is far too heavily dominated by pharmacology, so I don't discount all of this. Yet, skepticism seems reasonable.

    I suspect that because a chiropractor might charge only $25-30 for a visit, a lot of the high-priced teas, aromatherapy supplies, and supplements have as much to do with supplementing an income as anything else.
     
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  6. Lois Winters

    Lois Winters Veteran Member
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    Some physicians will recommend reputable chiropractors.
     
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  7. Teresa Levitt

    Teresa Levitt Veteran Member
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    chiropractors. ..like you said were considered "quacks".....

    i haven't been to a regular dr in over 17 years. ....some of those just hand out pills and order lots of tests...

    however. ...i did go for chiropractic care back in 1990's. ...after a bad car crash....after things settled down back in place...i was fine....now. ....things mighta settled on their own....that chiropractor just pushed them back quicker. ..i guess
     
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  8. John Houlihan

    John Houlihan Very Well-Known Member
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    Hi Ken,

    I do consider chiropractors of today to be a legitimate health profession based on my experience over 40 years of treatment. My backaches started back around 1980 with terrible backaches that were disrupting my work and sleep. I tried a conventional doctor who gave me pain pills that made me sleep all the time. That conventional treatment did not work for me.

    Fortunately, my next-door neighbor had had crippling back issues himself a few years earlier and some chiro adjustments cleared his problem. He highly recommended his chiropractor, so I decided to try it. Thank God I did because I got relief within a few sessions. I mean virtually immediate relief, so that was the beginning of my using chiropractors for the next 40 years.

    In my opinion, chiropractor treatment does not work for everybody because the nature of the back issue may differ. For instance, I recommended chiropractic adjustments to a good friend and his report was very negative. I think he used words equivalent to quackery. It did not work for him, but as sure heck worked great for me up until 2020.

    In 2020, Covid began, so I stopped going to the chiropractor. My backaches started again but fortunately, so I used a home treatment that has worked well for me ever since. I will describe it in my next post.
     
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  9. Ken Anderson

    Ken Anderson Senior Staff
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    We don't question whether our local cancer treatment center is legit, yet cancer treatments work for some people and not for others, depending on the nature of the cancer and perhaps some other variables.
     
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  10. John Houlihan

    John Houlihan Very Well-Known Member
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    Ken, reading your reply about the local cancer treatment center, I wondered if football teams used chiropractors. I googled the question and got the following answer:

    Football chiros.png
     
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  11. John Brunner

    John Brunner Senior Staff
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    Around 2011 or so, I saw a chiropractor who does work for the athletic department of University of Virginia. He refers to his practice as "Integrated Medicine." He really helped my back, but I also think a part of my getting better was the heating pad, the vibrating bench, and the exercises I did when I was in his place (stretching, treadmill, etc.) I had him try to fix my scarred right hamstring I trashed from bike riding, but he could not do anything for it.

    I actually experienced two ends of the spectrum while I was seeing him. The guy who owns the practice went to the violent school of chiropracty. You relaxed, and he shoved down on your back as hard and fast as he could. *OOF!* He was the same way with cracking your neck. He went on vacation for a week or two and had another chiropractor cover for him. This guy had a small device he would put on your spine, push it, and then it would *snap* as though it were spring loaded. The replacement guy never laid a hand on me. My regular chiropractor never used any such device. I found it on Amazon (handheld spine adjusting tool):

    [​IMG]

    One interesting thing...years earlier, I had a doctor tell me that he saw the beginnings of spinal stenosis. But the chiropractor put the x-rays up and told me he saw no such thing.
     
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  12. Ken Anderson

    Ken Anderson Senior Staff
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    I don't see a chiropractor regularly but there have been times when I have pain in my neck or lower back, maybe from sleeping in a bad position or something, and, if it doesn't go away by itself in a few days, a chiropractor can usually take care of it, often in one visit.
     
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  13. Don Alaska

    Don Alaska Supreme Member
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    Chiropractic certainly has applications in medicine. Like a previous poster, I don't think they can do all they claim, but some can be miracle workers. I damaged a shoulder carrying sheetrock years ago. I went to several doctors and they took x-rays and other images and found nothing other than my clavicles had been worn out from hard physical work. Surgery to removed the ends of my collarbones was recommended to eliminated what they diagnosed to be osteoarthritis I went to an experienced chiropractor who worked with all the high school sports teams in the area free of charge. He palpated my shoulder and found that I had popped a ligament that held a tendon in place at the front of my right shoulder. The chiropractor pushed the tendon back into place and the pain eased dramatically. He put tape and braces on the shoulder and gave me transdermal steroid patches to relieve the inflammation. The shoulder healed enough that I function well enough, but I can no longer throw a baseball accurately overhand. I am sure the doctors could have found the issue, but the chiro just paid more attention to the symptoms without relying on drugs, surgery and imaging. Many chiropractors try to string you along for as much treatment as your insurance will pay for regardless of what the issue is, however, and I consider that a form of quackery.
     
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  14. John Brunner

    John Brunner Senior Staff
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    The guy I went to had his wife working the front desk. They offered a discount package...no one here has mentioned going in to get issues remediated and then being put on a "maintenance program." I thought that was pretty common. So when I decided to commit to "X" visits for the discount, she thanked me for being "all in." That was a little off-putting, but I was glad I did. Using their exercise room was as close to getting back into a gym as I've been since moving here.
     
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  15. Lois Winters

    Lois Winters Veteran Member
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    I know a couple of doctors who see Chiropractors regularly and even will recommend them to their patients. However, be aware that this is used for many treatable situations, such as hip alignments, shoulder straightening and various other problems that are easily treated by these men and women. I have a couple of friends who are chiropractors and will not touch my problem. They know I have spinal stenosis which is causing this pinched nerve, so they will not mess with this sciatic flare up I've been dealing with for months now. Friday, I am hoping my Neurologist will come up with something that will give me relief. Perhaps an epidural of Cortisone, which is very painful for about a week, but then relief for approximately 18 months or so. I'll let you know.
     
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