More Evidence that Chiropractors Suck
I stumbled across an MSNBC article about Chiropractors Inducing Strokes with their cervical neck manipulations.
Dr. Kazmi examined her only a few minutes before he escorted her across the street to Montefiore Medical Center, where doctors took scans of her neck and brain. "Christa is lucky to be alive" he says. "I knew the moment I saw her that she had had a stroke." And he is convinced that the stroke was caused by Heck's neck adjustment, which tore a critical artery that keeps blood flowing to the brain. "I see at least two cases like this or worse a year" Dr. Kazmi says. "Cervical manipulation is a preposterous thing to do, and it should be banned."
...
According to Heck's medical records, the chiropractor's neck adjustment left a 4.5-centimeter tear in her left vertebral artery, one of four pathways that control blood flow to the brain (the others are the right vertebral artery and the left and right carotid arteries).
This is something I've known about for a while, from following James Randi's efforts to banish nonsense in all forms; including chiropractic "medicine". This isn't new information, just a far better publicized than average story about it.
Wade S. Smith, M.D., director of the Neuro-vascular Service at the University of California at San Francisco, was the lead author of a 2003 study in the journal Neurology that confirmed the connection between cervical manipulation and stroke. In the study, Dr. Smith says, patients with strokes caused by torn arteries were nearly five times more likely to have had a recent neck adjustment than those with strokes caused by something else, indicating that "recently seeing a chiropractor is an independent risk factor for stroke."
I mean, seriously, the story goes on to talk about people who got so fucked up from having their necks torqued around that they now have to eat their food through a feeding tube.
Given the enormous amount of chiropractic visits in this country, Dr. Schievink says, the risk per visit is tiny. On the other hand, patients see chiropractors an average of 10 times during treatment. "If you take into consideration how many times they go and how many manipulations are performed, it does become a public health concern" he says. "It's a low risk but potentially a life-threatening one."
Not that this will stop the 'true believers', but then, nothing ever does. Maybe it takes a catastrophic stroke to get some people to wake up, who knows. :dead:
Comments
That is why people with neck
That is why people with neck and back pain, including disc and spine ailments should undergo non-surgical herniated disc treatment and spinal decompression
Chiropractors that work out of their van....
I was told about this chiropractor that does house calls. So I decided to try it. The guy was grossly overweight, with bad body odor. He weight about 400lbs and every time he leaned over me sweat was dripping on me. After just a few minutes, I lied and said that i was better, just to get him out of my house. He since then has harassed me to the point that I changed my telephone number. I will never let any doctor do a "house call." Not only that he wanted cash, no check or credit cards, or insurance. Obviously he wanted to get paid under the table. Now my back hurts worse than before, and I can't even file a malpractice suit against him, because I can not find out who is carrier is. Can anyone help with this information? Don't trust chiropractors that do their job out of their van in Northern Denver.
I could have told you not to
I could have told you not to do this in the first place. Would you really expect that a random man like this, without his own practice would do house-calls? If you buy a TV off a van, you would expect it to be stolen, wouldn't you!? Would you seriously expect it to be sold to you by a licensed dealer!? I am Norwegian, where crime is ridiculously low, and not even I would be that ignorant.
The morale is to never trust a 400lbs guy working off the back of his car...
Physical Therapy
Years ago, I had a "wry neck" that is, the muscles in my neck had splinted (yes, like what runners get in their legs) so that I couldn't turn my head at all. My insurance didn't cover chiropractic which was my usual treatment of choice for neck splints. So, the doc prescribed physical therapy, and as the PT worked on my muscles to get them to relax, I found that the bones in my neck were spontaneously settling themselves back in place, even when I wasn't on the PT table being worked on. That, a neck brace made from a towel and safety pinned, plus some simple traction, relieved my wry neck. Now I sleep with a Tempur Pedic pillow, and haven't had a return of that kind of neck agony.
Inspired by chiropractic treatment
Chiroquacker break my neck
Chiroquacker burn in heck (Hell)
Chiroquacker Liar Liar
Hope you burn in Satan's fire
Chiroquacker you're a QUACK
Medical knowledge is what you lack
You lied on my records to justify your action
Your soul burning in Hell will by my satisfaction..!!!
If you lost your hands tomorrow
I would not feel any sorrow
Cracking bones is pretty insane
Chiropractor/Chiroquacker one and the same..!!!!
Ow
That just sounds extraordinarily painful...
You are talking about
You are talking about chiropractics using words like "catastrophic"? What about thousands of other dramas in conventional medicine? Dramas related to malpractice, wrong diagnostics or even bad treatment. We can't put this stigma on chiropractics, it's a form of medicine and a lot of people get healed, why is that so difficult to accept? Sure it's possible that a chiropractor doesn't have the hands for this but it's also possible for a doctor to forget scissors inside you on the operating table. I am one of those people healed by chiropractics, if it weren't for my Austin chiropractor I would probably be in a wheelchair now so I think it's only fair to hear different opinions on that.
Ok, so if I understand this
Ok, so if I understand this right, you're saying that medical doctors sometimes make mistakes, thus chiropractors should get a free pass?
Chiropractic medicine gets a bad wrap because a large portion of the treatments have little basis in science. A lot of it is no different from getting a good stretch and a massage, which would be good for anyone. There's a disproportionately high number of quacks in the field claiming that they can cure cancer and other diseases by restoring the body's "energy". This is absurd.
I've seen far too many stories of people with pulverized disks, strokes, and nerve damage from chiropractors who lack the proper medical knowledge to know when their techniques have reached their therapeutic limits.
not exactly
i think what that last person was saying is not that medical error excuses chiropractic error but it is unfair to pick on chiropractic. I have MDs and dentist as patients. They understand the benefits of manipulation as well as the extremely low risk (when properly applied.
You are right that there is a disproportionate number of chiros who give us a "not so great name" but countless patients have benefited from safe chiropractic care. And really, our training is four years. We were taught when to and when not to adjust someone. In the context of mechanical and orthopedic issues - Medicine seems to be ok with casualties (averse drug reactions/ dependencies, overdoses, bad or unnecessary surgeries, death) and it is ok because its a numbers game and "that just how it is". Statically, serious or permanent injury at the hands of a chiropractor is numerically insignificant (meaning extremely safe). It is impossible to be zero risk and that kind of expectation is unrealistic.
There are a lot of us chiropractors who know what they are doing and unfortunately we can't help enough people because closed minded people like you think we are all idiots and the people who could really benefit from what we do, will suffer because you will scare them. I say, if you are looking for a good chiropractor, do your do diligence and find a good chiropractor if you need one. Research them. Find one you like, just like you find a dentist or md you like. It's common sense.
Re: Not exactly
Interesting post, but not very credible. For starters, it's "DUE" diligence, not "do." Also, "MD" is capitalized, not "md." Yes, chiropractors do have four years of specialized education, but it's taught by questionably qualified professors. In addition, the vast majority of chiropractic colleges admit 100 percent of applicants. Not a very selective admissions process if you ask me. In addition, the average GPA in most reputable medical schools of entering medical students is above 3.75, whereas most applicants to chiropractic colleges barely hit a 2.9, and quite a few don't even have an undergraduate degree. The author of the "not exactly" comment is disappointed that people are apparently (unfairly?) being discouraged from the benefits of chiropractic, but I would counter that people really do need to be "scared" away from chiropractic. Most patients of chiropractors do not realize their "doctor" may not have even have an undergrad education and were selected for admission to chiropractic school merely because they filled in an application and paid a $50 fee. Yes, there is a lower risk of malpractice with chiropractors, but that is because they don't open people up with scalpels or deliver babies, understandably high-risk procedures. They do, however, cause arterial dissections, disk herniations, and other complications with their high-velocity adjustment techniques. Caveat emptor!!!!!!!
The most IGNORANT thing I've
The most IGNORANT thing I've ever done was go to a Chiropractor/Chiroquacker..!!!
Before you go to one of these QUACKS, bring up Chiropractic Malpractice and read all the information..!!! 7 years ago I was permenently damaged by a Chiropractor/Chiroquacker. I live in pain everyday because of this Jack Ass Chiroquacker's action. I had the quacker's office send my records to several Lawyers and no one wanted to take my case even though my REAL Dr. was willing to go to court with me. Later I found out that the records the lawyers received were completely fabricated. The chiroquacker had lied on my records to justify his actions. If reading this keeps even one person from going to one of these quacks, then it is worthwhile..!!!
I hope so!
I'm still impressed that this keeps getting attention. I hope that at least one person can avoid getting themselves injured by these risky procedures, but I suspect that I'm mostly attracting die hard supporters or people who are already well aware of the risks.
Fair Enough
I will admit I'm probably a bit biased here; I've seen a lot of people bilked by scam artist psychics, acupuncturists, reiki healers, homeopaths, and other pseudo-scientific nonsense. There seems to be an unusually high number of people like that attracted to the chiropractic field; this makes me pretty leery of the entire thing.
My main issue is that I've not yet seen a lot of sound science behind alternative medicines. Traditional "western" medicine can get a lot of things wrong, but generally there's at least a proper scientific method and an inherent self-correcting mechanism behind it all.
I deleted a post
Pretty sure it was spam. If not, well, sorry!
I've been getting a lot that are kind of borderline that make it through the captcha, so who knows.
Homer Simpson
Ever since I first saw that Simpson's episode where Homer became a chiropractor and was fixing people's backs by pushing them over a barrel, I can't take the entire profession seriously. Friends and family who go to see one seem to have to keep going back. It just seems shady to me.
Regards,
Trev
Ya Cracks can finish DC
Ya Cracks can finish DC school in 3 years, with numerous hours in bill and setting up practices and increasing revenues. if they go full time with breaks, no pun intended, please check out the schools web sites on curriculum, admissions and graduation requirements. So please stop with the dribble or implied dribble that they are as educated at MD's. I am sure crackers took the MCAT (medical school admission test) and failed and thus ended up on the fringe of medicine, i know of no one who has gone into the Cracker business that got accepted into medical school. I agree with the others post that's its a good message, but no basis in 'Evidence based Medicine'. The founder of Chiro's, Palmer was a grocer, that thought he could id's diseases by the bumps on your head. Here is no, I repeat no, medical journals, or properly run studies that show Cracker treatments are better than placebo.
Or they are so fricken
Or they are so fricken stupid, that they make your neck more painful than it was previously. And now, you have to spend mega bucks on specialists to figure out (a) what is wrong and (b) how to fix it. What to do? I am an attorney. I should specialize in suing chiropractors for messing up our lives.
Interesting... As I know
Interesting... As I know several MDs who also holds a chiropractic certification. And they tend to lean towards chiropractic practice as they find that line of work more rewarding than subscribing painkillers. Of course there are some black sheep, but you will always find that in any profession. As a future chiropractor (one year to go), I have seen people being cured of conditions which the traditional medicine has pinned down to being psychological - of course, this is the "hallelujah"-stories, but you also have the small issues which chiropractors resolve.
In Denmark, chiropractors follow the medical education for the first three years, with a couple of subjects in addition to the medical curriculum to distinguish between the two. After the first three years, they divide the chiropractors from the medical students, so that the different professions can specialize in their area.
I believe you should do your research more thoroughly before passing all this judgement. I could critique all plumbers for being rubbish after having one who messed up my bathroom, not completing the job. But I don't. Get some research to back up your statements and accusations. But then again. You may be right on the odd occasion - but not on a general basis. People malpractice, unfortunately. It will always be that way. People practice without a license, or they may be banned as chiropractors after an incidence. It is impossible to police everyone at any one time. It is healthy to be critical, but don't take a definite stand on things you don't know enough about. The first time i tried sushi, it was awful. I gave it one more go, and now I love it. It will not be great every time you try something for the first time.
Chiropractic = Pseudoscience
I don't pass judgement based on a handful of anecdotes; The entire theory behind chiropractic medicine is nonsense. I could easily pass this judgement without a single anecdote, as it's simply not a proper scientifically founded concept. The very concept of subluxations lacks any sort of strong scientific backing, and properly conducted double blind studies haven't found any real efficacy behind it that couldn't be attributed to more than simple placebo effect or the coincidence that people will generally heal on their own; it's the same as people who say they took some miracle cold cure and magically their cold went away a week later.
There's no scientific evidence that subluxations even exist. It's all based on concepts of some mysterious and never seen or measured 'life energy' that gets 'blocked' along nerve pathways. Some quack vitalist who was a grocer named D. D. Palmer made up in the late eighteen hundreds. This guy claimed to have cured a deaf man by manipuating his spine.
Chiropractic "medicine" is about as legitimate as homeopathy or ear candling.
Chiropractors obtain a first
Chiropractors obtain a first professional degree in the field of chiropractic.[49] Accredited chiropractic programs require that applicants have 90 semester hours of undergraduate education with a grade point average of at least 2.5; many programs require at least three years of undergraduate education, and more are requiring a bachelor's degree.[50] Canada requires a minimum three years of undergraduate education for applicants, and at least 4200 instructional hours (or the equivalent) of full‐time chiropractic education for matriculation through an accredited chiropractic program.[51] The World Health Organization (WHO) guidelines suggest three major full-time educational paths culminating in either a DC, DCM, BSc, or MSc degree. Besides the full-time paths, they also suggest a conversion program for people with other health care education and limited training programs for regions where no legislation governs chiropractic.[19]
Upon graduation, there may be a requirement to pass national, state, or provincial board examinations before being licensed to practice in a particular jurisdiction.[52][53] Depending on the location, continuing education may be required to renew these licenses.[54][55] Specialty training is available through part-time postgraduate education programs such as chiropractic orthopedics and sports chiropractic, and through full-time residency programs such as radiology or orthopedics.[56]
Chiropractic is established in the U.S., Canada, and Australia, and is present to a lesser extent in many other countries.[9] In the U.S., chiropractic schools are accredited through the Council on Chiropractic Education (CCE) while the General Chiropractic Council (GCC) is the statutory governmental body responsible for the regulation of chiropractic in the UK.[57][58] CCEs in the U.S., Canada, Australia and Europe have joined to form CCE-International (CCE-I) as a model of accreditation standards with the goal of having credentials portable internationally.[59] Today, there are 18 accredited Doctor of Chiropractic programs in the U.S.,[60] 2 in Canada,[61] 6 in Australasia,[62] and 5 in Europe.[63] All but one of the chiropractic colleges in the U.S. are privately funded, but in several other countries they are in government-sponsored universities and colleges.[64]
Regulatory colleges and chiropractic boards in the U.S., Canada, and Australia are responsible for protecting the public, standards of practice, disciplinary issues, quality assurance and maintenance of competency.[65][66] There are an estimated 53,000 chiropractors in the U.S. (2006),[67] 7,000 in Canada (2009),[68] 2,500 in Australia (2000),[69] and 1,500 in the UK (2000).[70]
A 2008 commentary proposed that the chiropractic profession actively regulate itself to combat abuse, fraud, and quackery, which are more prevalent in chiropractic than in other health care professions, violating the social contract between patients and physicians.[22] A study of California disciplinary statistics during 1997–2000 reported 4.5 disciplinary actions per 1000 chiropractors per year, compared to 2.27 for MDs; the incident rate for fraud was 9 times greater among chiropractors (1.99 per 1000 chiropractors per year) than among MDs (0.20).[71]
Yuck
There's a Chiropractor's office near where I live that's been doing a big fall/winter promo that getting a chiropractic alignment boosts your immune system to help fight off the flu and the common cold. "Bring in the whole family for an alignment to boost your immune system and avoid sick days this winter!". Complete drivel.
I love Chiropractic
MD's screw up, surgeons screw up, it's not suprising that a Chiropractor could mess up. They're all human and fallible. I actually hear more about MD's & surgeons killing people/injuring people than Chiropractors. I'm not a Chiropractor. I've had Chiropractic care my entire life. I rarely get sick, almost never get headaches, and recover from exercise/sports quickly- to name a few benefits. I think Chiroractics has enhanced my life in every way. I think it's important to research out your Chiropractor like you would your family doctor etc. Don't just choose someone who has a fancy office or is cheap. Look for someone who's been practicing a long time and really cares about their patients. It's definitely sad when an accident like that happens. I hope they recovered fully.
Poem inspired by chiropractic treatment
Chiroquacker break my neck
Chiroquacker burn in heck (Hell)
Chiroquacker Liar Liar
Hope you burn in Satan's fire
Chiroquacker you're a QUACK
Medical knowledge is what you lack
Actually, chiropractors don't
Actually, chiropractors don't know what they are doing. I supposedly am going to one of the better chiropractors around and he loosened my ligaments in my neck so badly that I (a) can't keep my bones in place and (b) I can't sleep. So, now I am seeing a physical therapist to fix his mess and it sucks.
Chiropractors ARE NOT doctors. I want to sue the guy for screwing up my life, making it way worse when I had neck problems before. Stay away from chiropractors; they don't know what the hell they are doing.
Poem inspired by Chiropratic treatment
Chiroquacker break my neck
Chiroquacker burn in heck (Hell)
Chiroquacker Liar Liar
Hope you burn in Satan's fire
Chiroquacker you're a QUACK
Medical knowledge is what you lack
Chiroquacker
The most IGNORANT thing I've ever done was go to a Chiropractor/Chiroquacker..!!!
Before you go to one of these QUACKS, bring up Chiropractic Malpractice and read all the information..!!! 7 years ago I was permenently damaged by a Chiropractor/Chiroquacker. I live in pain everyday because of this Jack Ass Chiroquacker's action. I had the quacker's office send my records to several Lawyers and no one wanted to take my case even though my REAL Dr. was willing to go to court with me. Later I found out that the records the lawyers received were completely fabricated. The chiroquacker had lied on my records to justify his actions. If reading this keeps even one person from going to one of these quacks, then it is worthwhile..!!!
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