Help With Rebutting Chiropracty

[Garrette]

I have a confession to make. I had a brain fart and was using "subluxation" to mean fixing organ problems by relocating joints, instead of the act of relocating joints themselves. I hope this makes my position clearer.

I believe you are wrong with either usage.

Subluxation is neither an act nor something that is used to fix something else.

Subluxation, as used in chiropracty, is a condition referring to the compression of nerves in the vertebral joints.

Subluxations are, in fact, what the chiropractor is attempting to fix, not what he uses to fix you.

 

[jhunter1163]

I have worked for a number of chiropractors in my life and spent about 15 years in the field. In my experience, probably about 60 percent of chiropractors are interested in maximizing their income. If you want to get disgusted by this, google Singer Chiropractic Seminars. Singer basically TELLS you how to commit insurance fraud.

That being said, I do believe that chiropractic (as practiced in the USA) is beneficial to some patients in some situations. A reputable chiropractor will take X-rays and perform orthopedic tests to rule out contraindications for chiropactic (fracture, disc herniation, etc.) If I had serious back pain, I'd go to a chiro long-term before I'd take pain meds long-term, just because of the risk of becoming dependent on the meds.

The UK seriously needs to revisit their guidelines and scope of practice for chiros. As it is now it appears to be ripe for abuse.

 

[Blue Wode]

A reputable chiropractor will take X-rays and perform orthopedic tests to rule out contraindications for chiropactic (fracture, disc herniation, etc.) If I had serious back pain, I'd go to a chiro long-term before I'd take pain meds long-term, just because of the risk of becoming dependent on the meds.

But as Josh Redstone has already pointed out…

…reliable information is not always provided, which is a shame, since not to many people will actually go out and research something like this before trying it. Like someone else already mentioned, many people are under the impression that a chiropractor is a back doctor, which isn't true.

So the big problem is knowing enough about chiropractic to seek out a reputable chiropractor - and as 89.8% of US chiropractors think that treatment should not be limited to musculoskeletal conditions, finding a reputable chiropractor isn’t going to be easy.

Regards the UK chiropractic profession seriously needing to revisit their guidelines and scope of practice, I couldn’t agree more. But with part of the General Chiropractic Council’s remit being to promote the profession, and with at least 4 out of the 10 chiropractors who sit on the General Chiropractic Council’s committees belonging to subluxation-based associations, a revising of its Code of Practice in favour of evidence-based techniques doesn’t look likely. Besides, it wouldn’t leave much scope for them that isn’t already covered by physiotherapy.

 

[robinson]

Is chirobase considered woo or not?

http://www.chirobase.org/05RB/BCC/01.html

"Today, many fine publications on joint manipulation come from the pens of orthopedic specialists in England."

I read several places that in England Orthopedic Doctors manipulate the spine. As in, like Chiropracters do. Is this true?

 

[ponderingturtle]

Is chirobase considered woo or not?

http://www.chirobase.org/05RB/BCC/01.html

"Today, many fine publications on joint manipulation come from the pens of orthopedic specialists in England."

I read several places that in England Orthopedic Doctors manipulate the spine. As in, like Chiropracters do. Is this true?

Ha ha, so because doctors proscribe medicine as a treatment that means that homeopathy which does the same thing is valid.

No one is saying that manipulative therapy doesn't work, what they are saying is that unlike what chiropractors want people to believe it cures deafness, cancer, and the like. They want to be primary care providers.

If you want to defend chiropractors please show one professional organization of chiropractors who believes that the use of chiropractic techniques should be limited to just muscular skeletal issues.

 

[robinson]

So, is chirobase a good source of information or not?

 

[ponderingturtle]

So, is chirobase a good source of information or not?

Looks to be pretty good, maybe you should read more of it like this quote

Chiropractic's uniqueness lies not in its use of SMT, but in its theoretical reason for doing so. just as prescientific osteopathy found its justification in the "rule of the artery" (the belief that manipulation improved circulation by reducing muscle spasms), chiropractic is based upon the "rule of the nerve" (the belief that SMT has important effects upon "nerve flow").

The word chiropractic literally means "done by hand." The term was adopted by chiropractic's founder, Daniel David Palmer. Palmer was a layman with an intense interest in metaphysical health philosophies such as magnetic healing (Mesmer's "animal magnetism"), phrenology, and spiritualism. In 1895, he claimed to have restored the hearing of a nearly deaf janitor by manipulating the man's spine.

Obsessed with uncovering "the primary cause of disease," Palmer theorized that "95 percent of all disease" was caused by spinal "subluxations" (partial dislocations) and the rest by "luxated bones elsewhere in the body." Palmer speculated that subluxations impinged upon spinal nerves, impeding their function, and that this led to disease. He taught that medical diagnosis was unnecessary, that one need only correct the subluxations to liberate the body's own natural healing forces. He disdained physicians for treating only symptoms, alleging that, in contrast, his system corrected the cause of disease.

Palmer did not employ the term subluxation in its medical sense, but with a metaphysical, pantheistic meaning. He believed that the subluxations interfered with the body's expression, of the "Universal Intelligence" (God), which Palmer dubbed the "Innate Intelligence." (soul, spirit, or spark of life). [9] Palmer's notion of having discovered a way to manipulate metaphysical life force is sometimes referred to as his "biotheology."

link

 

[Pipirr]

My wife was referred to a chiroraprator when we lived in Denmark. She said it helped a lot, but then, the sessions were mostly massage and stretching.

The chiropractor told her that the treatment was similar to physical therapy, and in fact chiropractors in Denmark attend a lot of the same programs as physical therapists. So why not just call himself a physical therapist? Well, at least once a session he would crack her back. For the sake of appearances, one assumes.

It sounded as though those dastardly evidence-based Danes had tried to regulate and train all the subluxation out of chiropractic, but it lived on nonetheless. Barely.

 

[Blue Wode]

My wife was referred to a chiroraprator when we lived in Denmark. She said it helped a lot, but then, the sessions were mostly massage and stretching.

Do you know if chiropractors are still part of the birthing team in Denmark?

Is there a minimum or maximum age for a person to receive chiropractic care?
There is no age excluded from chiropractic care. Even babies can have subluxations, due to the rigors of birth. In Denmark, for example, chiropractic doctors are part of the birthing team. Children’s subluxations should be treated early, as they interfere with nerves that control developing muscles and organs.. Abnormal stresses on a rapidly developing spine and other bones and joints can cause them to develop abnormally. Your chiropractor can detect these problems while they’re easy to correct.

http://www.drbutter.com/MostAskedQuestions.asp

 

[Pipirr]

Do you know if chiropractors are still part of the birthing team in Denmark?

I didn't know that they were. Why on earth would they be? Is that true?

The last person I would want near a newborn is someone who thinks medical care involves twisting the spine until it audibly cracks.

 

[Sagger]

Someone made reference to the fact that "at least in Canada students are required to have a Bachelor's degree". This is in fact not entirely correct. The school in Canada, CMCC, requires 3 years of undergraduate work. So in theory you could take a four year Honors Bachelor's degree in science and then leave after your third year to go to chiropractic college.

Also, keep in mind that the majority of the Chiropractors in Canada studied in the US. So they've by and large have been exposed to tons of woo. In the United States, there are only two schools that are somewhat evidence based (NYCC and WSCC). The extent to which even the so called evidence based schools are evidence based is even debatable.

One poster who worked for chiropractors in the past mentioned that a the vast majority of chiropractors are focused on the business aspect of chiropractic as a sales profession, where the goal is to maximize patient numbers and patient visits. For many unethical or desperate DCs, the key to doing this is through overutilization of services, billing for phony treatments and a host of any combination of criminal activity you can think of. If you want to see some examples, just put the word "chiropractor" in the google news search.

In my experience of going through the training to be a chiropractor at a straight chiropractic college, there was always an extracurricular agenda being targeted at the students. That agenda was to expose students to advertisements from vendors who were trying to get us hooked on their products which include seminars, techniques, orthotic footlevelers, books and devices. Almost any aspect of our training had some ad placement in the background. I even had a supervising Doctor once try to sell me a pair of special orthotic shoes when they were reviewing a patient file. They then recommended that I send that patient to their office (do you see a pattern yet?).

The pattern I am talking about is the tendency for chiropractors to sell stuff other than chiropractic. And the real money to be made in this profession is by selling stuff to other chiropractors, as an evil vendor sitting at the top of the chiropracty pyramid scheme.