The Mudcat Café TM
Thread #58512   Message #934208
Posted By: Don Firth
15-Apr-03 - 05:19 PM
Thread Name: BS: Chiropractic
Subject: RE: BS: Chiropractic
Most interesting web site, GUEST. Thank you.

I think it gives a fair, if not totally accurate description of chiropractic (too superficial), but considering that there are several schools of thought and a number of different techniques, it would be difficult to give an adequate description of them all. For example, my current chiropractor uses adjusting techniques quite similar to those my father used, but not exactly. Before making the adjusting thrust, he relaxes the muscles surrounding a subluxated vertebra with something akin to acupressure, whereas my father used more standard massage. Apart from what might be thought of as a difference in "style" rather than in actual technique, the adjusting thrust itself is essentially the same. Both approaches work. Within recent years, a few chiropractors have adopted some osteopathic techniques. One is the "lumbar roll" (the first photograph on the web site). My father didn't use it, because he said that, as a method of adjusting a vertebra, there was not enough control over which vertebra was being adjusted and what direction it would move. He felt that, in certain circumstances, it could be dangerous. Chiropractors concentrate primarily on the spinal subluxations, whereas many osteopaths don't even attempt to adjust the spine (contrary to popular belief).   Since I'm not that familiar with osteopathy, I won't comment one way or another. Osteopaths may not apply that move the same way and/or for the same purpose. In any case, as far as I could tell, the web site at least attempts to be unbiased.

I notice that they brought up the matter of the incidence of stroke or blood-clot following a cervical adjustment, but there didn't seem to be any agreement on the statistics. I have never heard of that actually happening, certainly not to any of my father's patients.   If it ever had happened, we would have known about it. In the absence of any verifiable statistics or citation of actual occurrences, I tend to believe this is just another of the canards that have been circulated about chiropractic—like all those ribs that chiropractors are supposed to have broken. Even if one assumed it's true, considering the long list of potentially dangerous side-effects of many standard pharmaceuticals that millions of people take every day—and the statistics regarding their incidence—it's obvious that having a cervical adjustment is certainly no more dangerous than taking an aspirin.

Reading some of the letters was pretty interesting, if old stuff to me—and, by now, to those who have thoroughly read this thread. I am always amazed at the intensity of the vitriol that some people opposed to chiropractic seem to pour forth. Why so adamant? I find it curious how often those who condemn chiropractic most strongly turn out not to have had any experience with it, and often don't even know anyone who did. Strange.

And the beat goes on. . . .

Don Firth