Armitage said:I like this thread mostly because people I respect and trust are confirming what I already believe.
Ladies and Gentlemen, I give you...THE INTERNET!
Armitage said:I like this thread mostly because people I respect and trust are confirming what I already believe.
Ladies and Gentlemen, I give you...THE INTERNET!
In reply to AngryCorvair :
camry.. the answer is always camry
I used to go to chiropractors quite regularly. Mine eventually devolved into disc issues and arthropathy so I graduated to steroid injections.
A good chiro is a thing of beauty. Unfortunately almost all of them are also in the business of making money and will suggest that you see them three times a week. I will say that I have seen intensive chiropractic treatments work wonders (my mother had a significant shoulder curvature/hump that is all but gone after about 6 months of going almost every week.) Be realistic about your needs and don't fall for sales. I suggest going to a chiro when you need it and judge the effectiveness of the visit. Request a copy of the xrays. Then the next time your back is about the same pain level, go to another one and judge that one as well. If you find one is better, stick with that one and let your back pain tell you how often to go. If you want a lifetime of maintenance and an empty wallet, go twice a week. If you just want to abate the pain when it hurts and save money, just go when its hurting.
Old school (bad) chiropractors are the ones that put you on a table and "crack" everything. It feels neat, but it doesn't really attack the issues. Good ones will do x-rays (usually for free) and focus on the exact issues that he/she sees. I had very significant progress with good chiropractors, and little or no progress with bad ones.
Much like with any practitioner (doctor, dentist, yoga instructor, car mechanic) it boils down to how the two of you jive; is the treatment helping? do they listen to you? Do you care if they listen to you? I went to four different chiros before finding the one that worked for me. Then when he started not being effective I went to an orthopedic doctor and got an MRI which revealed all of the soft tissue stuff. It was at that point that they recommended injections. 2.5 years later I am starting to notice a little bit of back pain if I abuse it, but it worked very well for me.
I had a few horseE36 M3 ones, and believed it was sorcery and lies. Then I got a good one. She did a lot for my migraine issues that couldn't be otherwise controlled without medication. I miss her.
my opinion...
orthopedic doctors fix the problem. chiropractors fix the symptoms.
If you go to an ortho, they will get you the correct physical therapy. some chiros CAN get you the correct therapy
They are few and far between.
p.s. ortho equals real md. chiros equals not real md...
I think it really comes down tip the person. When I was a young out of shape teenager, I screwed myself up pretty bad playing football. Went and saw a chiropractor, who was less than half my size, and a woman. My first thought was that she was the nurse, then she folded me up like a pretzel. It was great, after a few months my hips were fine and all was well.
A few years later, she'd moved far away so I went to someone else in the practice when I hurt my back at work lifting heavy things. I gave it 2 visits before I just bought a heat pad, because all they did was crack my back and put a heat pad on for an hour.
Meanwhile, the neighbor up the street from me was a chiro from the 60s on until retirement in the early 2000s and thought it could fix everything, even his child who was born with a genetic defect.
Since it's a friend of a friend, I'd say it's up to you if you trust their recommendations. Anything that makes my pain go away without pills is something I'm willing to try, but I know I don't and can't speak for everyone else.
I've probably been to a dozen different ones and only had two that were of any use at all. Those two focused on the soft tissue causing the misalignment and then just helped things back into shape. The others like to push things into alignment with the least possible work and hope you retension to the new alignment. Maybe it works if you go often enough to get right position to be frequent enough to be normal, but my experience has shown them to not very useful.
That all aside the roller traction table the chiropractor uses is so fantastic at relaxing my back that I bought one for at home. I would still have it in my living room but it didn't make the cut in the bachelor to husband transition.
I too have seen many chiropractors. The two who I stuck with spent about 5 minutes on adjustments and another 55 minutes on muscle retraining exercises.
Multiple times per week should only be for a few weeks. After that, "maintenance" should only be a few times a month. I went to a D.C. for two decades, and I'm very much convinced of their value. Give it a try and make the call yourself.
Like others have said the key is finding a good one. After the stroke my wife was having problems with trigger points and had no feeling on her right side. I was working on them as best I could with what the rehab nurses showed me and my mother recommended her chiropractor. He helped immensely And taught me some things to help at home but he's down by my parents so the 2 hour drive made it impractical. We tried a few by us and none seemed to understand the problem or solution.
We did luck into finding a good acupuncturist locally. Go ahead and laugh. I don't believe it cures a lot of things but I have watched the trigger points melt away while she works them with needles and the difference in the wife is obvious.
My Chiropractor says that for me, "less is more," and he gets better results the less he sees me.
I'm not sure he's thought that all the way through.
Or maybe he's trying to get rid of me....?
A few of my relatives are chiropractors. One of the went to Chiro school in the early 60's & truly believed that anything, including head colds, could be treated with spinal adjustments. Several years ago he had a stroke which left him a bit disabled. He had the hypertension, etc. treated by another chiropractor. The next stroke a year or so later killed him.
Another very close relative died of pulmonary embolism a few years ago at age 50. He had seen one of our chiropractor relatives 2 days before his death,complaining of knee pain. Got an adjustment, died anyway.
Some of them do seem to make quite a bit of money. I'm not very favorably impressed with them.
Sonic said:I’ve reviewed the medical records of hundreds of people and have some family whose business it is to help people with injuries. Here’s my opinion from what I’ve observed
About 10% of Chiros are any good. The majority are useless. The last 10% can cause significant harm. I rarely see anyone that goes to a Chiro get better any sooner than they would have if they hadn’t been. If your spine is out of whack it is probably because the muscles are a mess and pulling it that way. You’re better off with a good PT and some deep tissue massage to get those tight muscles fixed.
Yes, this. I've reviewed thousands and thousands of different peoples' records as it relates to chiros, literally. A very small portion are actually of value, and actually seem to do their patients good. The vast majority are useless and many are outright fraudulent. I've seen some things in records that is rather scary, and as Sonic said, they can cause harm. Heck, I've seen them "treat" infants...seriously.
Don't bother with them.
pheller said:I once asked why a massage therapist can charge $65-$120 for 60 minutes when a chiropractor is usually cheaper, a DO is not much more expensive (with insurance) and physical therapists are right around the same price.
The folks I was asking were mostly massage therapists and were highly insulted.
I still think they charge too much.
Then again, I massage therapist or chiropractor simple say "doesn't that feel better, come back next week!"
A physical therapist says "do these exercises for a few weeks, stand up with better posture."
A Ostepathic Doctor says "eat better, exercise more, have better posture, and oh, take this for your blood pressure."
So maybe you're just paying more to not be told what to do.
Incorrect.
Have you ever actually been to a properly trained, license massage therapist?
I have a co worker that swears it's the best thing ever. He has chronic back issues from being punted by a cow. On the other hand one messed my wife up so bad 11 years ago that she ended up seeing a physical therapist for 2 years to fix the issue. So I'm guessing it depends on the chiropractor himself more then anything.
I was diagnosed with minor Sculeosis during my entrance physical into the Navy in '85. Around 2000 it finally started affecting me, to a small degree. I went to a friend's chiropractor and started getting adjustments.
I'm still going. Say they're quacks if you like. I can feel when it's been about 5-6 weeks since my last adjustment, and afterwards I can feel the difference.
If you think they can cure everything including cancer, yes they will be snake oil salespeople. If you think they can correct minor skeletal problems and ease the pain associated? Yes they are worth it.
See what Sonic said above, it's the truth.
My mother and my ex are physical therapists, they both had horror stories about chiropractors and their quackery. My personal favorite was the 27 year old weight lifter and paramedic who had some aches after driving 10 hours to his brothers' house for a visit. Brother recommends his "guy" who sees the paramedic that afternoon. "adjust, adjust, crack, crack feel better? Great!" Except the chiro had torn his vertebral artery and our formerly strapping young man now had a brain stem stroke and spent the next 4 years learning how to walk again.
tldr: do NOT go to a chiropractor. Find a quality PT and actually get better.
wvumtnbkr said:my opinion...
orthopedic doctors fix the problem. chiropractors fix the symptoms.
Could not be further from the truth. Strongly disagree. In fact, in many ways it is sometimes the opposite. For years (x-ray proven) results could be seen and felt by my chiropractor. One trip to the ortho and I get steroid injections to just mask the symptoms. I still have three bulging disks and a collapsed nerve canal, but those shots sure did take away the pain.
"Real MD" sometimes just means you get "real drugs" to cover something up.
Let's say you have uneven tire wear and strange steering. You go to a chiro and he says you need an alignment, puts in a few shims and you're fixed. Go to an ortho and he puts new tires on, or cuts and welds the control arm.
There is sometimes a need for an ortho. In my case I had fantastic luck with chiro until an injury took me beyond what a chiro could do. Sometimes you NEED to have a control arm welded. That's when you go to an ortho. Sometimes you need a shim or two. That's when you go to the chiro.
I think I am going to see my family MD and get a second opinion on the same Xrays and see what the comparison is.
My beef is that I could not get up off the ground, and nothing the chiro said indicates that he found why that was. Arthritis is bad, but he can't fix that he said (and I believe him). My back is curved funny, but he can fix that, but I don't think that's causing me to all of the sudden not be able to stand. I don't see a smoking gun.
"Hey Mr. mechanic, my good mechanic buddy said to come to you because yesterday when I started my car, it caught fire. I put it out, and it seems to be working now, but I really want to make sure it doesn't happen again."
"Well Mr. new customer, what you need is an alignment, an oil change, transmission fluid and brake fluid along with a good wash and wax"
I know those things are good, but they don't fit the problem to my non-MD-engineer mind.
Armitage said:I like this thread mostly because people I respect and trust are confirming what I already believe.
Science has a name for that and it's very common.
My doctor of many years to me a long time ago that he thought chiropractors are mostly a waste of time. They can do one or two things that are beneficial but those things are so basic and simple anybody can do them. I believe that.
I know some chiropractors. I also know how they became chiropractors and I would never see one for anything.
Do you know what they call "alternative medicine" that actually works? Medicine.
If there are no science-based double-blind studies showing that a particular treatment or practice works, then the default assumption should be that it doesn't. It's not like nobody's ever thought of doing those kinds of studies on chiropractice (is that a word?) before, and there's no conspiracy to suppress the results either.
In my (admittedly limited, thankfully) experience, the rate of quackery is higher among MD's than DC's, and the potential for your chiropractor doing harm is miniscule compared to that of your drug industry salesman, er... MD.
And remember, MD's are the third leading cause of death, right behind cancer and heart disease.
https://www.cnn.com/2016/05/03/health/medical-error-a-leading-cause-of-death/index.html
The placebo effect is real!
My father would develop Sciatica and go to a chiropractor for relief. He would be good for quite awhile.
Years later I developed a severe case of sciatica and I went to the emergency room for relief of the severe pain. They gave me some good stuff for the pain. x rays showed some arthritis. Not sure if it was a doctor or a nurse showed me an exercise that they said might help. I do this nearly every day and have not had a repeat since.
Curtis said:wvumtnbkr said:my opinion...
orthopedic doctors fix the problem. chiropractors fix the symptoms.
Could not be further from the truth. Strongly disagree. In fact, in many ways it is sometimes the opposite. For years (x-ray proven) results could be seen and felt by my chiropractor. One trip to the ortho and I get steroid injections to just mask the symptoms. I still have three bulging disks and a collapsed nerve canal, but those shots sure did take away the pain.
"Real MD" sometimes just means you get "real drugs" to cover something up.Let's say you have uneven tire wear and strange steering. You go to a chiro and he says you need an alignment, puts in a few shims and you're fixed. Go to an ortho and he puts new tires on, or cuts and welds the control arm.
There is sometimes a need for an ortho. In my case I had fantastic luck with chiro until an injury took me beyond what a chiro could do. Sometimes you NEED to have a control arm welded. That's when you go to an ortho. Sometimes you need a shim or two. That's when you go to the chiro.
Where and how does the chiro put in shims? More like forces the alignment back to where and should be and hopes it stays. however, they know it wont stay so they make you go back about 40K times.
The Chiro simply cracks your back and that fixes it?
No!
The point is that the Ortho uses science to fix the problem and should address the underlying situation (usually muscular). A Chiro simply cracks your back. A good Chiro will actually get the person to do stretches or physical therapy, which is actually outside the scope of a Chiro.
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