Help With Rebutting Chiropracty

[Blue Wode]

The question of which specific problems are amenable is one I leave for anatomists of whatever persuasion and for the appropriate regulatory bodies.

But, unfortunately, the regulatory body for chiropractic in the UK (the General Chiropractic Council) doesn’t specify the scope of practice for its practitioners. What’s more, its Patient Information Leaflet leaves out a crucial piece of information…

http://www.gcc-uk.org/files/link_file/WhatCanIExpect.pdf

…subluxations and an explanation of what they are.

In view of the fact that there are several hundred chiropractors in the UK who are members of either the United Chiropractic Association or the McTimoney Chiropractic Association, both of which are subluxation-based, it seems very odd that information on subluxations has been omitted from that leaflet. In fact, the General Chiropractic Council’s website makes no mention of them either:
http://www.gcc-uk.org/page.cfm

And yet, here’s what the British Chiropractic Association (over 1,000 members) has to say:

As you go through life, a loss of proper function (movement) in the vertebrae, which some chiropractors call a subluxation, may interfere with the healthy working of your spine and the nerves that run through it. This may affect your body’s natural ability to recover from injury and you may find yourself increasingly unwell, unable to shake off apparently minor aches, pains and even some illness.

http://www.chiropractic-uk.co.uk/gfx/uploads/textbox/Servicing your spine.pdf

It seems to me that the regulators are intentionally keeping quiet about the fictitious subluxation lesion at the historical heart of chiropractic - even although it’s perfectly obvious that the subluxation theory continues to be fundamental to the practices of many registered UK chiropractors.

 

[Goshawk]

My husband, a veteran letter carrier, had back pain that his GP couldn't address, but a single visit to a highly recommended, serious, hospital-affiliated chiropractor made a huge difference. For starters, she pointed out that the standard printout of generic "Back Pain Exercises" that his GP had given him were totally wrong for his particular sort of pain, and she gave him a completely different--and in some ways, opposite--set of exercises, which helped.

So don't write off chiropractic completely as an entire discipline, because it does work for certain things.

 

[Ducky]

My husband, a veteran letter carrier, had back pain that his GP couldn't address, but a single visit to a highly recommended, serious, hospital-affiliated chiropractor made a huge difference. For starters, she pointed out that the standard printout of generic "Back Pain Exercises" that his GP had given him were totally wrong for his particular sort of pain, and she gave him a completely different--and in some ways, opposite--set of exercises, which helped.

So don't write off chiropractic completely as an entire discipline, because it does work for certain things.

What you are describing in this post fits more into physical therapy than chiropractic. Which, when everyone says "Chiropractic works for some things" what they are actually saying is "Physical Therapy works for some things." Everytime I have heard of a chiropractic success story it seems to always be a story of a chiropractor not mentioning subluxations and borrowing heavily from physical therapists.

 

[tkingdoll]

My husband, a veteran letter carrier, had back pain that his GP couldn't address, but a single visit to a highly recommended, serious, hospital-affiliated chiropractor made a huge difference. For starters, she pointed out that the standard printout of generic "Back Pain Exercises" that his GP had given him were totally wrong for his particular sort of pain, and she gave him a completely different--and in some ways, opposite--set of exercises, which helped.

So don't write off chiropractic completely as an entire discipline, because it does work for certain things.

I agree with Fowlsound on this one. If I said to you that chiropractic is the theory that disease is caused by a mysterious innate 'life energy' and that body has the ability to heal itself of any illness, and that germs do not cause disease, but instead it is caused by impossible-to-prove blockages called subluxations, would you then say don't write off chiropractic?

 

[Loss Leader]

Everytime I have heard of a chiropractic success story it seems to always be a story of a chiropractor not mentioning subluxations and borrowing heavily from physical therapists.

I agree except to say that chiropractic seems to be a specialty within phystical therapy. It concentrates on the effect of the muscle systems on the bones in the spine. The musles being loose and uninflamed, the spine is situated right and does not cause pain.

I would recommend the chiropracter in my business group to anyone with back pain before seeing a regular MD.

 

[Ducky]

I agree except to say that chiropractic seems to be a specialty within phystical therapy. It concentrates on the effect of the muscle systems on the bones in the spine. The musles being loose and uninflamed, the spine is situated right and does not cause pain.

...or it is just co-opting physical therapy techniques only for the spine. Subluxationas are still a crock, and the chiros that say they can cure hayfever and cancer are outright frauds. The ones that just focus on specific back pain aren't chiropractors by definition unless they are subluxating their way through your wallet. They're physical therapists.

I would recommend the chiropracter in my business group to anyone with back pain before seeing a regular MD.

I can think of at least one instance where your advice would have caused very severe damage and possible paralysis. That's a reckless and ill advised approach. Even if your Chiro takes Xrays first (very few do) I highly doubt they have the neccessary training or experience to properly diagnose.

Manipulation as harsh as chiros use would cause very severe damage for anyone with a plasmacytoma starting in their spine (which is at least one specific case of back pain that is very hard to diagnose without MRI and high res imaging. The image I linked to was my spine after a year of severe back pain.) Not to mention neck manipulations causing strokes.

 

[Loss Leader]

I can think of at least one instance where your advice would have caused very severe damage and possible paralysis. That's a reckless and ill advised approach. Even if your Chiro takes Xrays first (very few do) I highly doubt they have the necessary training or experience to properly diagnose.

Fair enough. I would recommend this particular chiropractor to anyone suffering normal lower (radiating or non-radiating) intermittent back pain that seems to get better with heat or anti-inflammatory analgesics.

 

[ponderingturtle]

I agree except to say that chiropractic seems to be a specialty within phystical therapy.

Except legaly and in training, and you have no way of knowing if your chiropracter has ruined more backs than they have helped and...

Manipulation thearapy can be helpful, but I would still be highly reluctant to go to a chiropracter with out a recomnendation from a more legitimate medical profeshional. I would interview them to see if they believed they cure cancer by fixing subluxations, and I would never let them manipulate an area that is not causing pain.

 

[Blue Wode]

Manipulation thearapy can be helpful, but I would still be highly reluctant to go to a chiropracter with out a recomnendation from a more legitimate medical profeshional. I would interview them to see if they believed they cure cancer by fixing subluxations, and I would never let them manipulate an area that is not causing pain.

But with regulators who seem to deliberately turn a blind eye to the rampant quackery in the profession by failing to define and limit it, and by failing to publish factual and accurate information that makes clear the differences between scientific manual therapy and chiropractic philosophy, it is, unfortunately, not very likely that many other people would take such precautions - and therein lies a huge problem.

Loss Leader, I’m a little confused by your post:

I would recommend this particular chiropractor to anyone suffering normal lower (radiating or non-radiating) intermittent back pain that seems to get better with heat or anti-inflammatory analgesics.

If their intermittent back pain seems to get better with heat or anti-inflammatory analgesics, then why would they need to see a chiropractor?

Lianad, sorry to load you up with more information, but I think you might also find this summary of chiropractic to be of some help:
http://skepdic.com/chiro.html

 

[ponderingturtle]

If their intermittent back pain seems to get better with heat or anti-inflammatory analgesics, then why would they need to see a chiropractor?

Becuase as it is the kind of thing that gets better on its own mostly it is one of the easist to convince people that your treatment helped regardless of its actual effectiveness.

 

[Loss Leader]

Loss Leader, I’m a little confused by your post:

If their intermittent back pain seems to get better with heat or anti-inflammatory analgesics, then why would they need to see a chiropractor?

Because who couldn't use a good massage?

 

[Blue Wode]

Because who couldn't use a good massage?

I still find it puzzling why anyone whose intermittent back pain seemed to get better with heat or anti-inflammatory analgesics would want to pay a chiropractor for “a good massage”. But perhaps it’s different in the USA. Here in the UK there’s very little provision made for chiropractic treatment on the NHS which means that the vast majority of chiropractors work in private practice with their patients having to foot the (very expensive) treatment bills themselves. Anyone going to a chiropractor for the first time for "a good massage" would have to pay around £50-£80 for the compulsory initial consultation, possibly £80-£100 for x-rays, and would, more than likely, be told that they required some sort of ongoing treatment (which could quite easily entail more than they bargained for).

So, personally, I’d stick with the heat and the anti-inflammatories if they were doing the trick.

 

[Goshawk]

If I said to you that chiropractic is the theory that disease is caused by a mysterious innate 'life energy' and that body has the ability to heal itself of any illness, and that germs do not cause disease, but instead it is caused by impossible-to-prove blockages called subluxations, would you then say don't write off chiropractic?

But see, my point is, there are plenty of people out there who have hung out shingles as chiropractors who don't preach "subluxations" at you, but who only concentrate, yes, on physical therapy. So those are the chiropractors that I want the OP to not dismiss automatically, out of hand, just because they've hung out a shingle as a chiropractor. I'm saying don't dismiss an entire discipline just because of a few wack practitioners.

There are wack dentists and veterinarians, too, but you don't dismiss dentistry or veterinary medicine as entire disciplines because of that.

Is my point.

 

[HeyLeroy]

I was wondering if anyone had any links to good summaries of why Chiropracty is pure junk and nonsense that they could share. I know I've read a few things here in the past and being an avid P&T fan, saw their ******** episode on it. But I was looking for more information and summaries of the general concessus here. I have quite a few people I work with who are always ranting and raving about their chiropractor and up until this point have remained silent about it because I didn't have enough facts to back up my belief on it being pure garbage.

Any help appreciated.

Welcome to the forum, and, boy, did you come to the right place.
Use the 'search' tool at the top of the page, you'll find some very good discussion threads in the archives.

I have the Chiropractic degree but have chosen to not practise because of many of the reasons you already know yourself. I would like to post links to some sites, however since I am new here I have to wait until my 15th post in order to post links.

Yet you can google the following:

Chirotalk: This is a discussion forum that is dedicated to exposing quackery in chiropractic, controversial practises and gets a lot of contribution from former chiropractors who have left the profession because they realized they were sitting on a pile of woo.

Chirobase: This site has a lot of articles on specific topics about chiropractic, and takes a skeptical view of chiropractic from many different angles.

Welcome to the forum. I'm sure your contributions will be appreciated around here!

Heh. I see the post on my paper is still listed there.

Here's a good one to ask a chiropractor...

ask him how he would fix this.

Here is the correct answer.

As far as I know there is no mechanism a chiropractor has to fix that, and in fact had I gone to one before the surgery I would most likely be paralyzed.

Subluxate that up your ass, chiropractors.

Hey, Fowlsound, long time no see. Been gone for a while. I was just wondering if you were still around after seeing one of your threads bumped in another section.

The reason your paper is still there is because it's so damn good. Cheers.

 

[Ducky]

But see, my point is, there are plenty of people out there who have hung out shingles as chiropractors who don't preach "subluxations" at you, but who only concentrate, yes, on physical therapy. So those are the chiropractors that I want the OP to not dismiss automatically, out of hand, just because they've hung out a shingle as a chiropractor. I'm saying don't dismiss an entire discipline just because of a few wack practitioners.

There are wack dentists and veterinarians, too, but you don't dismiss dentistry or veterinary medicine as entire disciplines because of that.

Is my point.

Someone once tried to say on this forum that there are compact discs that are not 44.1/16 in format. Of course you can record any format you want on optical media, but to be a Compact Disc you have to be 44.1/16 or RedBook format.

Without Subluxations they aren't "Chiropractors." They're Physical therapists. Why co-opt the name if you aren't adhering to the philosophy?

 

[Ducky]

Hey, Fowlsound, long time no see. Been gone for a while. I was just wondering if you were still around after seeing one of your threads bumped in another section.

The reason your paper is still there is because it's so damn good. Cheers.

To quote Richard Pryor:

"I AIN'T DEAD YET MOTHERF***ERS!"











...ok bad example. He is dead.

I am well. Good to see you again. We should talk about writing some stuff together.

 

[Blue Wode]

But see, my point is, there are plenty of people out there who have hung out shingles as chiropractors who don't preach "subluxations" at you, but who only concentrate, yes, on physical therapy.

-snip-

I'm saying don't dismiss an entire discipline just because of a few wack practitioners.

The most up to date statistics show that 89.8% of (USA) chiropractors feel that spinal manipulation should not be limited to musculoskeletal conditions.
[Ref: McDonald W, Durkin K, Iseman S, et al. How Chiropractors Think and Practice. Ada: Institute for Social Research, Ohio University, 2003.]

 

[HeyLeroy]

To quote Richard Pryor:

"I AIN'T DEAD YET MOTHERF***ERS!"

...ok bad example. He is dead.

I am well. Good to see you again. We should talk about writing some stuff together.

Always good for a chuckle, mister.

About the writing, I'd be honoured. Dunno what I could contribute, You're pretty up there.

I could PM you a short story I wrote, if you're interested.

 

[Blue Wode]

But see, my point is, there are plenty of people out there who have hung out shingles as chiropractors who don't preach "subluxations" at you, but who only concentrate, yes, on physical therapy.

-snip-

There are wack dentists and veterinarians, too, but you don't dismiss dentistry or veterinary medicine as entire disciplines because of that.

This is worth a look:

Telephone Survey of Chiropractic Practices (2004)
James R. Laidler, M.D.

This survey found a 100% incidence of beliefs and practices that are unsubstantiated or clash with established scientific knowledge.

http://www.chirobase.org/02Research/laidler.html

 

[ponderingturtle]

But see, my point is, there are plenty of people out there who have hung out shingles as chiropractors who don't preach "subluxations" at you, but who only concentrate, yes, on physical therapy. So those are the chiropractors that I want the OP to not dismiss automatically, out of hand, just because they've hung out a shingle as a chiropractor. I'm saying don't dismiss an entire discipline just because of a few wack practitioners.

There are wack dentists and veterinarians, too, but you don't dismiss dentistry or veterinary medicine as entire disciplines because of that.

Is my point.

And the failure you make here is that the wack dentists are not a significant majority of dentists and supported by most dental schools and dental associations. There might well be some, but finding one will be quite hard.