Doctor: I have consulted decades of scientific literature to diagnose your ailment and provide a treatment plan based on humanity's continually improving understanding of the biochemical workings of our bodies.
Chiropractor: I have consulted a book written by D. D. Palmer in 1895 who was a magnetic healer, anti-vaccine, and anti-medicine. He says you have ghosts in your bones and it's messing with your natural healing powers. I'm gonna crack your back now. Yes I'm a doctor. Well not a doctor doctor, but you know.
What are chiropractors doing?
Placebo stuff? (e.g. nothing besides leaving an impression they helped)
Dangerous stuff that can work but could paralyze?
The explanations that chiropractors have for how it works are basically pseudoscience. It is for the most part a placebo (they pretend to fix alignment issues that just don't exist). But I'm not denying there may be instances where they actually fix something which could've been fixed by physical therapy as well. It's a dangerous gamble though, there are cases where people got paralyzed or outright died because of a chiropractor. This is a good overview: https://www.skepdic.com/chiro.html
Naturopathy, physical therapy, sports medicine, massage therapy.
Those are all the aspects of good chiropractors who see it as a part of a framework of nervous system health. Introducing movement into siezed up or healed injury areas.
Then there's the chiropractors thay do the weekly backsnap for every patient and, well, fuck them. They remove any value there could ever be in chiropractic.
And yet the chiropractor is the one who can provide you with immediate relief. If you've ever had a fucked up back or neck and pinched nerves, then you really understand how helpful a chiropractor can be. Are they the solution for everything? Of course not. Do they greatly help people who are in pain? Absolutely. My doctor has never provided me with any actual treatment for my back, just drugs. The chiropractor actually treats the symptoms and the causes, and it's usually immediate and long lasting relief.
My doctor sent me to physical therapy for a month and I haven’t had any issues for almost a year.
lol "never provised me with any actualy treatment for my back, just drugs" do you not realize that drugs... actually do things? are you really going to discount what a good anti-inflammatory agent can do for certain injuries? what pain-killers do for pain? treating inflammation and pain in itself is treating a "root cause" in a way, with recovery being expedited when inflammation is treated not to mention drugs that are more powerful than a simple anti-inflammatory agent
I'm a very fit and athletic person. The doctor doesn't need to tell me to exercise and stretch. Unfortunately staying fit doesn't stop your back from suddenly blowing out when you have old injuries from motorcycle accidents. Sure, I can take the Vicodin and muscle relaxers that the doctor gives me and sit at home all drugged up for 5 days, waiting for my back to feel better, or I can go to the chiropractor and be good to go within a day. It's weird how vehemently opposed to certain legitimate treatments the people on this website are. Chiropractors wouldn't exist if they didn't provide relief for some people. They're not the answer for everything, but they do help quite a lot in certain situations.
And yet the chiropractor is the one who can provide you with immediate relief.
So does heroine.
Opiates are what my physician gave me, not my chiropractor. Medical doctors are an essential part of modern life, but I haven't met one yet who can help with my back issues like a chiropractor can.
Thank you. I've had this conversation with family members way too often. They love their local chiropractor. They always leave feeling so much better, etc. I ask them what he does, what his advice is, and what kinds of questions he asks them, and everything they describe is not chiropractic. It's massage, or nursing, or physician. No wonder you love him: He's practicing medicine.
Gonna be completely honest: a chiropractor saved my life.
I experienced an injury and literally couldn't walk for 3 months. Three doctors kept ignoring my pain and thought I was exaggerating. They kept treating me like a drug-seeker and I couldn't afford more visits due to be uninsured & now unable to work. They also would not refer me to a physio/physical therapist without more appointments and several expensive tests.
A chiropractor gave me an initial "adjustment" and I was finally able to hobble for a few minutes without collapsing. But I could not afford more appointments.
The pain and anguish went on for over 2 years. I was literally on the verge of killing myself by the end of it.
Finally.. my dear mother referred me to another chiropractor and offered to pay for a few appointments. I was at the point of ending it anyway, so I figured "why not?"
I went in, the guy took x-rays, and informed me that one of my vertebrae was lodged in my pelvis, pinching so many nerves, he was surprised I was even standing. He said he'd see me again to assess me, then the third appointment he would hopefully be able to help.
To keep this from being any longer, he fucking fixed it. Over 2 years of near unbearable pain, and he cured it. I could walk upright. I could reach upward. I could reach the floor. I could hug my kid again.
He then told me to come back at least 3 times per week to keep everything in shape and I was like "lol no". To be fair, I did 3 more appointments to make sure this wasn't a fluke, but after that, I researched everything with a mind clear of pain and figured out how to heal and maintain.
Am I stupid for going to a chiropractor? No. I was poor. I was desperate. Did it help? Yes. Would I recommend them to others? Fuck no. They're predatory in the way they maintain their "patients". Swear to god, I'm pretty sure he tried to fuck something up in my shoulder to get me to return later.
But don't blame all folks who go to chiropractors. Some don't have much of a choice.
Still anecdotal and we could point you to all the people who lost their ability to walk due to chiropractors.
A physio or an osteopathic physician could have done the job just as well if not better 🤷
If I would have had the opportunity to go to a physio or physical therapist, I absolutely would have.
Unfortunately, I was unable because I had no money or insurance, and the doctors able to to refer me to one simply would not.
I was not at a chiropractor because I wanted to be: I was there because no one else would help me.
I am not endorsing chiropractors: I was explaining why folks might go to one.
They might have been able to but they didn't, and they didn't get sent to them by all the other doctors that saw them.
Because chiropractors don't work within the medical system and are reckless enough to take action without playing "20 ways to cover your ass" before they are willing to act, you sometimes get stories like this.
I've met chiropractors with above average medical knowledge for your typical mall worker. Being able to afford and use an x-ray machine implies more effort than any chiropractors I've met as well. But yeah, if you are gonna kill yourself or you are having a movement related issue and are unable to get doctors to treat you, they aren't that bad.
So… when people bring up examples of chiropractic work helping them, it’s anecdotal, yet when you bring up “all the people who lost their ability to walk…”
It’s not?
Chiropractic work can absolutely be predatory, but so can pretty much anything in the medical field.
No, I'm saying an anecdote is no better than an anecdote of the opposite experience. In the end chiropracty isn't recognized as medical science and they didn't go so someone who is actually qualified to attempt to fix people's health issues.
It absolutely IS recognized as medical science. They’re just not recognized as MDs.
And I’m not arguing in favor of chiropractors, I’m just arguing against blanket assumptions and accusations.
Everything that isn't from a peer reviewed source is anecdotal.
With that said, being a chiropractor is not a reserved title, and the peer reviewed research doesn't shine a good light on the chiropractic domain in general. There is a few edge case where it might work, but is otherwise about as good as the placebo effect.
but so can pretty much anything in the medical field.
In the US, for sure. It doesn't have to be that way though.
Those doctors sound awful. It's hard to imagine them at least not taking an X-ray if you came in telling them you have acute pain due to an injury, and why tf wouldn't they refer you to PT? Glad you're better
Yeah it's absolutely crazy that a chiropractor was the first person to think of X-raying chronic back pain.
Shit, I have back pain a lot less severe than this fella and my primary care straight up referred me to an MRI at my first appointment, which wasn't even primarily about my back. Doctors should have to maintain an empathy license.
It's usually the insurance company, not the doctor. My wife had to do a round of PT for her badly torn meniscus before they'd approve an MRI
Right?
Even if you're worried about drug seeking behavior, that's what the X-ray is for, confirmation.
I was actually x-rayed at the hospital after the initial accident, but they did so while I was lying down. The chiropractor x-rayed me while I was standing.
Hospital even told me that they don't catch much of the muscular-skeletal issues that may crop up in patients.
I assume they didn't want me wasting time & resources. Plus, y'know.. I was poor & uninsured.
Appreciate your kind words! I'll never be back to 100%, as I was left with a lot of nerve damage for leaving it for so long, but I can walk again without pain, which I'm so fucking thankful for!
Fyi, you have (had) a decent malpractice suit against the first doctors, if you care to entertain that.
That's a valid testimonial. Chiropractors exist because sometimes they fix people with chronic pain and mobility issues. However many bad ones there are some of them legitimately help people who fall through the cracks of generalized medicine
Yeah I had a chiropractor (the woo woo kind, not the 'have you been in a car accident' kind) who could twist my head and make something crack and then I'd get no migraines for a year or more. So I would go back once every year or two when they came back, and he'd do it again. Nothing else has ever worked like that. $40 a year to prevent migraines?
He was older and is retired and I have not ever been able to trust any other chiropractor to be able to do that.
And one time my mom had shoulder pain and her doctor sent her to a chiropractor and they fixed that.
I don't think it's magic but also don't think it's nothing. Like massage or other physical manipulations it can do some things.
They are predatory but that is not the only reason for them to make you return. What they do is merely stretching of muscles and ligaments releasing spasms and stress in them. These develop due to trauma, both due to injury and also due to one's daily activities. So the stresses and strains return.
These treatments are like Tai chi or yoga, which gently manipulates your body to its entire range of movements.
Chiropractor does violent manipulation thus are prone to injury.
Oh, no doubt.
There are obviously better more ways to get proper treatment from real licensed professionals who actually know what they're doing.
Unfortunately, those ways often require insurance, a doctor referral, or a lot of money.
I had a similar situation, couldn't walk anymore, chiro saved me big time.
But any time I bring it up I get downvoted to oblivion and everyone grasps at straws to try to explain it away.
This has the same energy as "Why don't homeless people just buy a house?"
Plus, other countries have their own issues with their healthcare systems. I am guaranteed nothing.
My newborn was having issues with reflux that affected their sleep. A mother in our support class recommended going to see an infant chiropractor for an adjustment.
I couldn't believe my ears, and I probably made an enemy by outright asking why the fuck you would let a chiropractor crack the back of your 4 week old baby.
It amazes me how commonplace chiropractics are, and how people put a lot of faith in them before trying anything else.
When someone offers you a panacea that requires 0 effort and is popularly accepted, it's pretty appealing. Especially if you're scientifically illiterate and don't know why it's bullshit.
Though amusingly my Mom's chiropractor is probably why she's doing as well as she is today. He happened to order some imaging for a bullshit chiropractic reason and he's looked at enough spinal imaging to notice when something's not right. He sent her to a real doctor and told her she needed to be tested for MS, which was diagnosed and had her under treatment before she had any real symptoms.
It just never occurred to me that it might be bullshit until somebody pointed me to some skeptical articles about it.
I heard something similar when mine was a newborn and had the same appalled reaction. Luckily it wasn't in person - I read it in a random thread when looking something up. Might have been on reddit?
I need something clarified by someone who doesn't go to a chiropractor and never has.
I've heard it's all bullshit from multiple sources over the years. I've heard they aren't even doctors most of the time and that there's no empirical evidence that supports chiropractic practitioners at all.
Every attempt to research this is met with thousands of results from low quality sources all singing its praise.
So is it bullshit?
It's bullshit.
It was invented in 1895 by a guy who thought health issues were due to nerves not trasmitting enough energy in the body, which could be fixed by his new fangled snake oil medicine.
"A subluxatrd vertebra is the cause of 95 percent of all diseases, the other 5 percent is caused by displaced joints other than those in the vertabral column"
lol I just watched a documentary about this.. guy was going around a couple states trying to open his practice then ended up going back to his home town.
Hi I'm an MD. Technically their schooling is not founded on solid science. In reality, most of them provide beneficial services for patients via massage, muscle stimulators, or gentle manipulation. I do not condone the aggressive spine cracking maneuvers of some chiropractors. As with most things in life, it's all very dependent on the individual in the room.
very dependent on the individual in the room.
As in, "if it's a chiropractor in the room, you're rolling dice with your spine and your wallet."
Fuck those charlatans.
Surely the ones who aren't scam artists call themselves masseuses or sports therapists
I'm an osteopathic medical student and I will tell you that chiropractic practice is all bullshit. It was invented by a guy who claims he got the information from ghosts, and their education doesn't cover a fraction of what gets covered in nursing school, let alone medical school.
If you're interested in manipulative treatment, look for an osteopathic physician because our training is everything that MDs do plus the osteopathic manipulative medicine that's based on studies of anatomy and clinical trials.
Chiropractors are the ones that paralyze people and kill them by dissecting vertebral arteries. At best, their treatment will do nothing to help and just make crunchy noises, at worst, their techniques can kill you.
It was very hard to tell whether or not his youtube channel is satire, but given the websites and email address listed, I think this person that appends their name with alphabet soup is probably taking themselves at least somewhat seriously. I have serious concerns about his professionalism just based on the video titles, categories, and thumbnails.
Yes. If you want an expensive massage that makes you feel better, go for a tuggy at the local knocking shop.
Depends, some will message you, if you're there for muscle related therapy or some kind of physical therapy they do, that's pretty reasonably effective, but popping your bones is a very temporary kind of relief, and sometimes it can cause major health problems. It's a lot of risk for a half hour of relief a Tylenol might have equally helped with.
I need something clarified by someone who doesn't go to a chiropractor and never has.
Why would somebody who's never been to a chiropractor be the best person to ask whether or not it's bullshit? If this is how you find out if something is true, you're gonna be in for a rude awakening, and probably sooner than later.
Because of confirmation bias.
If everyone who goes to a chiropractor says it's good but all evidence says otherwise then I need an outside opinion without the confirmation bias.
Being free from confirmation bias doesn't make you an expert, though. Their opinion could be influenced based on something they heard or all kinds of other things that have no bearing on whether or not it's true.
Yeah I worded it wrong initially.
Someone who's gone and didn't say it was good would still be able to give me a better frame of reference.
I've been to a chiropractor.
The woman claimed basil essential oil could be used in place of: ibuprofen, hand sanitizer, soap, and a few other things.
That's right, not only was she a chiropractor; she was an essential oil salesperson.
Snake oil. Chiropractors are snake oil salesman, no different from TCM peddlers. I think TCM peddlers are actually, at least in the U.S. where you can't sell water that's had dead animals fermenting in it, better because acupuncture won't permanently damage you. It just gives you that nice placebo.
I’ve gone once due to hip pain. He cracked my back then went through some range of motion stretches with my leg, basically the same shit I did before football practice every day. Go to a doc or physical trainer in sports medicine, chiros are a waste of money and potentially dangerous.
That would be me. My parents took me to a chiropractor as a kid, but I stopped going in my teens, and now consider it bullshit.
There's a few odd cases of back pain where manipulating the spine can work. Some of this got integrated into mainstream physical therapy. If it stopped there, then there wouldn't be a problem, but chiropractors claim they can heal just about anything by manipulating the spine. Any time you see someone claiming their one weird trick can cure anything from neck pain to the common cold, you should be very, very skeptical. It's on them to prove that, and they have not proved that after more than a century.
I think it was just bad wording
Source I'm dyslexic and didn't notice anything wrong lmao
Would a journalist whose written for Bellingcat, and been a war correspondent be enough, if so here's a podcast about how Chiropractors came to be a thing:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=f8lLVK_1O6s
It's a good podcast called Behind The Bastards.
Also of note is that Chiropractic practice has a yearly death toll... People literally die and become disable by their manipulations each and every year. It's dangerous pseudo science, developed by spiritualist "healers".
I was recently reading a blog post by a generalist doctor (Baptiste Beaulieu). His kid, a baby (so no possible placebo effect, right?), was having trouble sleeping. His companion not being a doctor, wanted to try a baby chiropractor. Needless to say, he was very dubious about the whole thing, but nothing in his medical training was helping.
Twice they went and twice the chiropractor essentially lightly touched the baby here and there and done (no cracking anything!). Yet for months afterwards the baby would sleep soundly.
There are countless such anecdotes, but rarely anything scientifically reproducible. Ie, it's that baby chiropractor who's doing it. And he can't tell what exactly he did, so that BB could reproduce the effect, despite being a trained doctor.
It's as fascinating as it is infuriating for people who've dedicated their lives to studying medecine (amongst them, my father and my wife).
There are countless such anecdotes, but rarely anything scientifically reproducible.
These are called coincidences. If you take the baby to the chiropractor and the baby suddenly gets well, of course you're going to talk about it! That doesn't mean that the chiropractor had anything to do with it. What's the chiropractor's success/failure ratio?
Also, the idea of a "baby chiropractor" squicks me out. Maybe this one only lightly touched the baby, but I've heard horror stories about them harming babies. People think "Oh, the worst that can happen is that nothing changes." No, the chiropractor can make things worse.
my sister has a dog chiropractor. she takes her dog two every other month for $50.
dog was having issues with certain sitting positions and randomly yelping in pain. vet didn't do anything, but the chiropractor does something and the dog no longer has pain and isn't yelping anymore.
it's bullshit, but it's bullshit that works for some people. just like lonely depressed people stop being so once they find god or some other 'purpose' in their lives. and it doesn't work for others.
it's bullshit, but it's bullshit that works for some people.
It's also bullshit that can harm people.
yeah? and? every single medical procedure and drug you take comes with risks as well.
That's why I like to use treatments that are backed up by science. Don't take risks without a good reason.
If it was months it could be that it would've gone away in that time anyway. Our baby had colic for four months and for couple months she did go to baby massage or some other quack doctor (mother's father insisted and paid so what the hell..) and the mother still believes it helped because of that... I'm sure it didn't do shit and it would've gotten better anyway in that time frame.
it is and it isn't.
it works for some things for some people, but it has no consistent or replicable results across things and patients, so it isn't scientific.
it's more like mental health therapy. therapy works for some folks in some circumstances with certain therapists... but again it isn't explicable. there is no general set of emotional therapeutic principles that will work for everyone.
and for many folks this type of stuff is a placebo effect. we all know someone who goes to therapy... but it never fixes their problems... but it convinces them that they are 'fixing it'. just like person you know who went gluten free who 'no longer gets headaches'.
compare that to drug where the entire point of a drugs/medical procedures where the entire point is reproducibility. a certain drug is supposed to cure a certain problem for all folks that have that problem.
I experienced an injury and literally couldn’t walk for 3 months. Three doctors kept ignoring my pain and thought I was exaggerating. They kept treating me like a drug-seeker and I couldn’t afford more visits due to be uninsured & now unable to work. They also would not refer me to a physio/physical therapist without more appointments and several expensive tests.
Could you explain how you don't think mental health therapy is a science? We have psychology as a major in most universities, unlike chiropractic studies which are usually offered in different or specialized institutions. We have doctors of psychiatry that are actual doctors that can prescribe medications, just like general practice doctors. Therapy in different fields, whether it is in individual mental health or couple's therapy are active areas of research in academia with published works you can read up on. So I'm not sure how you're equating Mental health with Chiropractic practice.
It isn't a placebo effect, as you mentioned. Therapy isn't a cure/medication like drugs or a surgery for some diseases, therapy is more akin to exercising your mind so that you can face stress/fears/ any kind of emotional turbulence without losing it. Or as an avenue for personal growth or reducing effects of mental trauma. Saying it's a placebo effect without backing it up could be actively harmful for people who might be considering it and actually need it. Yes, it's not for everyone, and every therapists is different and every patient may or may not be willing to put in the work for it, but that doesn't make it ineffective or a placebo effect. But how is that different from, say, how the covid vaccine affects one person vs the other (some experience more protection and/or suffer from mild symptoms for a couple of days, etc.) or how chemotherapy may work for some patients but not for others?
it's not scientifically reproducible, that's how.
that isn't to say you can learn shit from it. but it's there are simple way too many variables to control. medicine is messy.
it's not scientifically reproducible, that's how.
Look up Cognitive Behavior Therapy. It's a type of therapy that has some solid science behind it.
First of all, I agree that it would be great if a drug/medicinal procedure would cure a certain condition in each and every patient or at least the vast majority of them. Sadly, that is rarely the case, but that by no means is equivalent to say that when this drug or procedure helps, it's mostly or entirely due to the placebo effect. That's the whole reason we need randomised controlled trials as their might be a significant difference in treatments that only becomes clearly observable once a certain sample size is reached and possible confounding variables are controlled for (usually by randomisation). The human body and many of diseases are incredibly complex so it's naive to assume we could forsee each and every possible influence on a drugs efficacy and therefore determine without error how a patient will react to it.
While there is quite a big group of non-responders when it comes to psychotherapy, it is, on average, an effective treatment clearly proven by a vast body of research. There is still much more to find out, but putting it on the same level as not consuming gluten is in no way defensible.
Now to get back to chiropractics, I don't know too much about it, but I thought it's mostly short term pressure and pain relief, which however rarely combats the underlying issues. Can still be helpful, of course, as pain relief helps with getting more physical activity, as this is often a culprit for example back problems.
That said, I personally wouldn't let anyone touch my spine or neck like some chiropractors do. I'd be too scared of irreparable nerve damage.
Cool, I know several people and a dog or two who use chiropractic services. To them it's like getting an oil change in their car or taking the car in when the brakes squeal for a brake job.
Most folks don't give a fuck how shit works or where it's 'real' or not. They just want the annoying thing to go away and find someone who makes it go away.
Are there good people to see for back pain? Because I feel like looking for that is gonna turn up chiropractors as well and I'm not so sure I should even trust them with that shit.
Physical therapists! I swear by physical therapy. I had sciatica for about a year, and after a few weeks of physical therapy, it was 100% gone.
The doctor I went to before that said basically "lose weight and come back in 6 months". My first PT session, the therapist did some deep tissue thing to my lower back and (temporarily) made the pain go away almost completely. She was like "Yeah you have an injured muscle that tenses up weird now, do these exercises at home and it should clear up" and ended up being 100% right.
I second this. I have a bulging disc on my spine, and the PT taught me stretching and core strengthening exercises, and nowadays I only have problems when I over exert myself. PT worked wonders.
Probably some combination of doctors and a physical therapist. A good general practitioner should be able to refer you to someone.
I'm not sure, but I do know that everyone I've ever known to go to a chiropractor for back pain has had poor results. Relief for a few days, then booking their next appointment, rinse and repeat, until eventually they stop wasting money on it.
Well yeah, that's the rub with chiropractic. All they're really doing is providing temporary relief, not addressing the root cause of the issue. It's why you see people going to a chiro weekly for years, spending all that money, but still end up going as a routine. It never occurs that an actual doctor would prescribe a treatment regiment that would alleviate their need to see them, but that's not the business model of chiropractic.
Physical therapy is what I use for my neck and back pain. They do massage then work the muscles and give out exercises for me to do at home.
Chiropracty is the equivalence of some random Joe seeing someone doesnt doesnt have a pulse and pulling the cable out of a lamp to shock them.
Sure it may cause a localized release of endorphins that may make the pain temporarily subside, but like using a defibrillator without knowing the patient's heart rhythm, you'd carry a huge risk of doing more harm than good
Eta: Forgot to add that physical therapy would be the first stop. If there is damage that may need medical intervention, it would be an orthopedist.
If you go to a physical therapist, make sure they actually consider your other health issues (if any).
My recent experience: I tried multiple PTs. One said they were familiar with my issues, but kept trying to make me do things that were painful and then tried to gaslight me by saying I wasn't actually in pain. Another one didn't even ask about my other health issues (which absolutely affect their work), and then proceeded to send like 6 different assistants in to guide me through the exercises. None of them asked me how the exercises were for me and I wasn't even told how long I was supposed to do them for. I finally just booked an appointment with a PT that I already know is good, but I can't get in for a few months and it's a couple hours round trip to go in person. It sucks but at least with them I can trust relatively well that they aren't going to actively harm or gaslight me.
Chiropractors never expect Science Inquisition. NOBODY expects Science Inquisition.
Science Inquisition: https://youtube.com/@scinquisitor
