14 replies to this topic

[bnickle]

Real benefits or quackery?

[RShack]

Def not quackery.

 

I had surgeons telling me I needed back surgery... they wanted to fuse a couple discs.  That was in 1980.... a chiropractor had me feeling a lot better in a week, and perfectly fine after 4 weeks. 

 

The basic idea is that your bones are s'posed to be where they're s'posed to be.  Hard to argue with that.  They're like an alignment shop for your spine instead of your car.   With disc-y symptoms (and unless it's some kind of weird degenerative disease), the cause is not the disc, but rather that the disc is getting squished between vertebrae which are s'posed to be parallel but they're not.  So the chiropractor's adjustment gets them parallel again.  This relieves the pressure on the disc and the symptoms quite naturally go away.

 

Usually a lower back problem (e.g., sciatica) will requires adjustment to three locations.  This is because the body has some kind of magic mechanism (no shit) that keeps your head centered over your body.  So, if one lower vertebra tilts your spine to the left, then another one up higher will go out of whack tilting it to the right in order to keep your head centered.... and then a third one in your neck will go out of whack to keep your head perfectly vertical  So, one problem in your lower back means that three places need to be reminded of where they're s'posed to be.   The chiro will determine which ones need adjustment.  They can do this by feel, but because of legal stuff they always start with an X-ray.  They can easily show you on an X-ray exactly what and where the problem is, you can actually see it, no problem.  There's nothing hidden about it.

 

At first, the idea of somebody moving body parts around was kinda scary.  But it was the *idea* of it that was scary.  The reality was that it felt good,  It helps if you can get yourself to relax in spite of being nervous about it... but they're used to dealing with people who are both hurting and scared by it.

 

If you first go in when you're experiencing a lot of discomfort (which is usually the only thing that gets somebody to try a chiropractor), the usual drill is that they'll want to see you 3/wk at first... then 2/wk... then 1/wk... then 1 every 2weeks...then 1/month.  Once per month forever isn't a bad idea, but you likely won't really need it IFF you pay attention.   They always try to get you coming back.  The trick is knowing when they want that due to their income vs because you need it.  In truth, you will need one periodically.  (Everybody does)  But how frequently? 

 

With experience, I got to the point where I could feel when I needed a visit.  It's easy to learn to pick up on disc-y symptoms before they bite you.  Over time, I got to the point where I could feel when I needed one even before that happened.  So, usually a couple visits per year works for me.

 

They all study anatomy more than MD's do.  But, like anything else, some are better than others.  I never had a bad one, but I liked some better than others.

[Mike in STL]

Real benefits or quackery?

I've heard both.

I drove a delivery truck as a seasonal job for 3 months once. 8-12 hours a day, sitting in an uncomfortable box type truck cab. And moving around heavy boxes in between stops. I developed a sciatic nerve problem.

Got an xray and like 3 of my discs in the lower back are all kinds of jacked up. Saw a chiropractor once a week for 20 weeks. Zero improvement. Stopped going. I was under the impression that the chiropractor would be realigning things, or the compressed discs would return to where they would be, and that's not the case.

When we started our business and I was up and about, moving around a kitchen, on my feet for long hours, the pain subsided. This was months after the chiropractic treatment.

I can only assume being more active was more helpful than the massages from a chiropractor.

But my dad had back problems too, and he swore by his chiropractor.

[RShack]

I've heard both.

I drove a delivery truck as a seasonal job for 3 months once. 8-12 hours a day, sitting in an uncomfortable box type truck cab. And moving around heavy boxes in between stops. I developed a sciatic nerve problem.

Got an xray and like 3 of my discs in the lower back are all kinds of jacked up. Saw a chiropractor once a week for 20 weeks. Zero improvement. Stopped going. I was under the impression that the chiropractor would be realigning things, or the compressed discs would return to where they would be, and that's not the case.

When we started our business and I was up and about, moving around a kitchen, on my feet for long hours, the pain subsided. This was months after the chiropractic treatment.

I can only assume being more active was more helpful than the massages from a chiropractor.

But my dad had back problems too, and he swore by his chiropractor.

 

The chiro was giving massages?   I never heard of that.  Was he not giving you adjustments that featured rather abrupt movements of your body?

[SportsGuy]

I think it’s largely bs. Most health professionals don’t view them as real doctors.

That being said, I do know people that have been helped.

I think it depends on the injury/ailment.

[Mike in STL]

The chiro was giving massages?   I never heard of that.  Was he not giving you adjustments that featured rather abrupt movements of your body?

Adjustments. Thats what I meant. Not massages. But I was laying on my stomach while he adjusted my back. So, it looks like a rough massage. 

[RShack]

I think it’s largely bs. Most health professionals don’t view them as real doctors.

That being said, I do know people that have been helped.

I think it depends on the injury/ailment.

 

By "most health professionals", I assume you mean MD's.

 

Regardless of that, how do you know what "most health professionals" think?  You don't.  You're just spouting biases you picked up....

[RShack]

Adjustments. Thats what I meant. Not massages. But I was laying on my stomach while he adjusted my back. So, it looks like a rough massage. 

 

Gotcha...  sorry you had a rough time....

 

I never had any adjustments while on my back... they'd have me there while they felt around to assess what's what... but for adjustments I was always in a different positions.   But maybe we had different things wrong with us....

[Mackus]

I imagine that many of the people who think it's quackery are confusing chiropracture with acupuncture.

 

Chiropracture is sort of like physical therapy for your spine.  It's not a cure-all, some injuries will still need surgical treatment, but it's a good first step and can be very beneficial for certain things, as Shack is obvious testament to.

 

Acupuncture can be good for mental well-being.  It can be very relaxing and it can trigger a placebo response to make you feel better.  It can be helpful for migraines or other stress-related illnesses.  But it won't help with any actual physical ailments.

[SportsGuy]

I imagine that many of the people who think it's quackery are confusing chiropracture with acupuncture.

 

Chiropracture is sort of like physical therapy for your spine.  It's not a cure-all, some injuries will still need surgical treatment, but it's a good first step and can be very beneficial for certain things, as Shack is obvious testament to.

 

Acupuncture can be good for mental well-being.  It can be very relaxing and it can trigger a placebo response to make you feel better.  It can be helpful for migraines or other stress-related illnesses.  But it won't help with any actual physical ailments.

I guess if they are morons, this is the case.

 

I don't know how anyone can confuse the 2 though.

 

I think even people who are huge skeptics know that there are certain issues that a chiropractor can help with.

[DJ MC]

I imagine that many of the people who think it's quackery are confusing chiropracture with acupuncture.

 

Chiropracture is sort of like physical therapy for your spine.  It's not a cure-all, some injuries will still need surgical treatment, but it's a good first step and can be very beneficial for certain things, as Shack is obvious testament to.

 

Acupuncture can be good for mental well-being.  It can be very relaxing and it can trigger a placebo response to make you feel better.  It can be helpful for migraines or other stress-related illnesses.  But it won't help with any actual physical ailments.

 

I think it's more the opposite: in many cases chiropracture is advertised as a cure-all by either those undergoing treatment or those performing treatment. That doesn't mean it's worthless, it just means that due to the less-regulated and less-scientific-based nature of the system you need to be more careful with understanding what you are getting into and will get out of it.

 

There's an infamous story in baseball history for the 1970s where Gary Nolan was going through arm problems, and the Reds were doing everything they could to avoid admitting that they probably overworked him and got his arm hurt. At one point, a dentist contacted the team and said that he believed that the arm pain was connected to something with Nolan's mouth, and the Reds actually made him go see this guy (and afterward Nolan basically told them to screw off with any more non-treatments).

 

1. Where there is desperation and a lack of knowledge (like with arm injuries in the 1970s), people will believe anything.

2. Just because someone tries to sell something that is a lie, or because somebody is willing to believe it, doesn't make the entire system BS.

[RShack]

I imagine that many of the people who think it's quackery are confusing chiropracture with acupuncture.

 

Chiropracture is sort of like physical therapy for your spine.  It's not a cure-all, some injuries will still need surgical treatment, but it's a good first step and can be very beneficial for certain things, as Shack is obvious testament to.

 

Acupuncture can be good for mental well-being.  It can be very relaxing and it can trigger a placebo response to make you feel better.  It can be helpful for migraines or other stress-related illnesses.  But it won't help with any actual physical ailments.

 

Daughter is a vet... had to give up small animal surgery because she got MS... so she went into animal acupuncture in her spare time, just to have something to specialize in besides just the normal vet stuff that she mostly does... at the time we had an old dog, late teens.... she had trouble getting up the stairs, her back legs just wouldn't do it the normal way, so she kinda invented some kind of odd bunny hop to do it....

 

Whenever we went to ATL, the pooch would come and get a single dose of acupuncture... which is not ideal, it should be more regular than the odd application a couple times a year... but, I swear to God, for about a month after each time, she'd be running up the stairs like she was a dang puppy... amazed the hell out of me... but then, from about a month to 6-weeks after it, she'd gradually revert back to her normal stair-challenged old self...

 

You know a dog's not gonna BS you about it...   

[RShack]

I think it's more the opposite: in many cases chiropracture is advertised as a cure-all by either those undergoing treatment or those performing treatment. That doesn't mean it's worthless, it just means that due to the less-regulated and less-scientific-based nature of the system you need to be more careful with understanding what you are getting into and will get out of it.

 

There's no doubt that chiro is often good for spine-related stuff... where it gets tricky is for stuff beyond just that...

 

Chiro got started when a guy gave a deaf guy an adjustment to his sore neck... and all the sudden, the guy could hear... (no shit...)

 

This and other things have lead some schools of chiro to teach that our basic life force is distributed throughout the body via the nervous system... which would mean it goes thru your spine... so, they see anything that is out of whack in the spine as creating some impairment to the flow of life energy.... that's how they get to a place where they recommend it for stuff that's not overtly spinal...  AFAIK, there is no big body of research which validates this view... but there are a surprising number of one-off reports of it fixing things that you wouldn't think it would... so, as you can see, it gets tricky...

 

One thing that chiro's did to me a number of times was to test my strength in various simple ways... like "stick your arm out and I'm gonna push down on it, and your job is to resist that, to keep your arm out straight".... when I was even just slightly out of whack, no pain or discomfort, one side would be notably weaker than the other side... but once adjusted, it was no longer weaker... not only that, but based on the details of the strength assessment, they could tell without the X-ray exactly where the problem was... they could tell exactly which vertebrae were not parallel to each other, just based on that simple strength test.  Does that validate the life force idea?  Maybe... maybe not... beats me...

 

I figure they're not just making up the life energy force idea... obviously, there is some kind of life energy force, which standard medical science pretends doesn't exist...  but I'm also sure that it's not adequately understood yet... so, it ends up being something of a projective test...

[bnickle]

Ive been consdering giving it a try. My dad had some back issues and periodically went to see a guy. He felt like it helped him. Some of the research Ive done makes me skeptical. I definitely wouldnt go for anything but some spinal manipulation that may provide some short term relief of my back pain. I just feel like massage, hot/cold relief, stretching, anti inflammatory probably would do just as good a job.

[RShack]

Ive been consdering giving it a try. My dad had some back issues and periodically went to see a guy. He felt like it helped him. Some of the research Ive done makes me skeptical. I definitely wouldnt go for anything but some spinal manipulation that may provide some short term relief of my back pain. I just feel like massage, hot/cold relief, stretching, anti inflammatory probably would do just as good a job.

 

It's possible those things would do just as much... but personally I doubt it IFF you have some back trouble that includes disc-y symtoms... those things are not addressing the cause, they're just a way of dealing with symptoms... that's what you should be expecting only short-term relief from...  if you don't care if the problem shows up again, then maybe... plus, some back problems simply disappear within a couple weeks for no obvious reason...

 

Another thing to consider, especially if your back-pain symptoms aren't disc-y:

https://articles.mer...d-emotions.aspx

The guy who's web site that is, well, he wants everybody to have an absurdly no-fun diet... so, I don't put much stock in what he says about that, simply because he's a complete nut about it... but he's a good source of links to perfectly legit science that you'll not find elsewhere, e.g., I found some things there which have definitely helped my bride with her RA symptoms... but you have to judge for yourself in each case... (if you don't know how to do that, I can maybe help...)