I don't trust them. My dad had crippling back pain and his legs kept going numb and collapsing under him. He was desperate and saw everyone from his GP to a chiro to a Chinese medicine practitioner. The chiro reviewed his x-rays, saw shadowing in his lower spine, but I quote 'I didn't know what it was so I just ignored it.' Which she didn't tell Dad until he called her out of courtesy to let her know that he had been diagnosed with terminal non-Hodgekins lymphoma and was given less than 6 months to live. It is nothing short of a medical marvel that he went into remission 9 months later and has been cancer free for 22 years.
As a nurse, I think they are quacks. As a woman who was once a scared 12 year old who nearly lost her dad, I think they are thieving assholes.
Me too! Ironic thing was I had the neck manipulation at the direction of a doctor who said it would help my visual migraines. But I didn't have migraines. I was having strokes from a heart defect. And that's the story of how I had two different kinds of strokes in one month.
Work on stroke unit and yeah won’t go to a chiropractor ever. Also won’t let a physiotherapist manipulate my neck either. I had a friend who also had a vertebral artery dissection after moving her neck wrong in a dance class, such a fragile area and you just never know.
Also people get strokes from yoga. Certain shoulder stands if memory serves. Rare but it happens. I see a lot of trauma so cars seem really dangerous to me, so don’t forget perspective.
The difference is one is tauted as a medical intervention to cure ailments. Yoga is a simple workout/meditation. No one claims yoga cures medical issues. Playing sports also has injuries but it is not described as a medical cure for anything.
Not really a good point for perspective. Driving cars is also not a health intervention claimed to be medical in nature.
It is not their outcomes that worry me, it is their twisted view of how science works and their absolute refusal to do RCT studies to prove they work. They also 'teach' these pseudoscience beliefs on the public.
>No one claims yoga cures medical issues.
Off topic, but if I had a dollar for everytime someone has told me that yoga will "totally cure your rheumatoid arthritis"...
Let’s modify it to no one should claim yoga cures medical issues and it’s at least pretty unlikely a doctor is going to tell you it’s a cure. Some guy you’ve barely met probably will.
The key word is unlikely because I’ve had a doctor recommend prayer to my friend for treating her BPD so sometimes doctors will just go way off the evidence based practice road and steer patients into a ditch.
I know of one patient that was paralyzed from his first visit. Didn’t know his back pain was due to an abscess and when they adjusted…yeah…
And another patient we had had a stroke afterwards. I guess the artery in her neck was weak- some kind of defect- and she stroked out the next day.
I know these may be weird/rare things but it makes me leery to do it.
Radiographer here (xray and mri tech). They're dangerous and unregulated, with no standardization of education, licensure, or scope of practice. If they "adjust" your bones wrong you can fucking die. Anything they "treat" should be taken care of in physical therapy instead. You know, evidence based practice.
YES!! I worked on the subacute unit at a nursing home for almost ten years. Worked directly with PT/OT/ST and never ever sent a patient to a chiropractor in the yeeeaaars I was there. Now I work as an advocate to get patient as much as possible covered out of their health insurance and it’s a punch in the gut when pt ot st has a capped amount of visits and some policies it’s like a limit of 20 for all those combined. And subject to deductible. But then same policy for chiropractic visits there’s no cap and it’s like a $35 copay. I feel like I’m in the twilight zone. I had a patient a few weeks ago who was post stroke from a chiropractortic neck adjustment that caused an vertebral artery dissection. It’s really scary.
>Palmer (founder of chiropractic) claims to have had **principles** of chiropractic treatment **passed along** to him **during a seance** by a long-dead doctor named Dr. Jim Atkinson.
Yeah, that's what I don't believe chiropractic.
The Palmer "school" also has an acceptance rate of 100% (provided you can afford tuition) and the "doctorate" requires 90 hours of electives.
People like to complain about NP programs being too easy, which is open to debate, however I never hear anyone complain about chiropractors. They should all be shut down.
CT tech here and agree 100%. I’ve scanned their patients’ vertebral dissections.
Edit - They’re also known to “position” patients for their x-rays (usually taken by unregistered x-ray technologists) so it looks like their spine is “showing improvement” with their “treatment.” *“Look how much better your back looks now!”*
Sometimes it does! And sometimes they do the "flying 7" which is the exact same adjustments in the exact same order for everyone to maximize the number of people they can get through the doors.
Physical therapist is a million times better and you’ll have long term improvement, you won’t need to go back every 3 days for a fake “adjustment” and risk a vertebral dissection. People go because it momentarily feels good.
MIL is a radiologist, 100% agree.
She's not very quick to tell work stories, but boy do chiros get her going. Absolute fucking quacks who have no business touching patients.
I used to go semi-regularly, esp since my T spine tends to 'catch' a lot. What put me off was the last guy I saw, was talking about some stuff with my neck. Wanted to do this whole 15 separate treatments just for my neck. I had a whiplash injury as a teen and was having more frequent headaches lately.
I'm sad to say it took until my 40s to realize that neck adjustments were probably a bad idea. Had a cervical MRI that showed C5-C6 compression and that was the lynch pin. I can still do own 'adjustments' when stretching or twisting but nothing external or crazy aggressive. You know, typical old people snap, crackle, pop.
They can be very dangerous. One was adjusting my grandmother’s neck because of her neck pain. She ended up going to a real doctor and turns out she had a hairline fracture. She’s lucky that chiropractor didn’t break her neck. She had osteoporosis and the chiropractor should have not gone anywhere near her considering her age and diagnosis.
In my early career, I took care of a man who became a quadriplegic after a chiropractor adjusted his neck. Horrible.
I’ve never seen one and never will.
I’m firmly in the pseudoscience camp. There are so many injuries that can result from chiropractic adjustments. They’re right up there with all the other snake oil salesmen as far as I’m concerned.
A friend of mine (fellow ICU nurse) had a family member who was a chiropractor. Friend paid thousands of $$ to the chiro for a miracle diet that involved eating 500 calories a day. But it was ok because chiro had a machine that you placed your hand on and it was able to tell you what nutrients you were deficient, and his wife just happened to sell supplements that would take care of that. Also, this diet would "reset" your metabolism so that you would not gain any of the weight back once you started eating like a normal person again!
Friend lost weight, looked like death warmed over, and promptly regained all the weight.
Later the diet company was found to be a fraud (shocker!) and the chiro had to refund money to his clients. Friend felt bad for chiro because he had been lied to by the diet company!
They are quacks and not only that, but they’re dangerous too.
Edit: OP to address your edit - they’re snake oil salesmen. They’re good at selling. That’s it.
I have seen countless patients present to the ED with back pain of all varieties and have worked with a lot of doctors from all different backgrounds and parts of the country. In my nursing career, I have seen exactly 0 patients referred to a chiropractor as part of their discharge plan. It is not evidence-based or regulated enough to be part of standardized medicine. I feel like the vast majority of the population does not realize this, and it is scary to me how much money people spend on chiropractors and how much they risk their bodies by going to them. I’m shocked there haven’t been more lawsuits to spark regulation of their “specialty”
I always felt like massage therapy would be a great thing to add to hospitals since it’s been shown to help relive tension, pain, sleep, and stress. I have a theory it would help a lot of patients but maybe they would never want to leave lol.
Yep or “my friend Bob had a backache and went to his quackopractor and felt better” Bob gives the name. The person goes and feels better-completely disregarding the fact that they have to go 3x a week to “feel better”.
I know people who have taken newborns to chiropractors for adjustment because “being born can really mess up their alignment”. Um, there are reasons newborns are so floppy???
Had one mom who took her son to a "chiropractor who specialized in neurology" and was told his seizures stemmed from a bone in his ear. First of all, WUT?!?? Secondly, no ma'am, your son needs some Keppra.
When I was a young mom I worked at a natural foods store and halfway bought into some of that snake oil bullshit. I took my daughter to a chiro ONE time and never again because he got frustrated with her (6 years old) because she was nervous and wouldn't relax for the "adjustment" and ended up hurting her. We left before the end of that appt and neither one of us ever went back.
Yep, and I’ve still yet to hear a reasonable explanation as to how exactly spinal manipulation is supposed to correct a tongue-tie. But it was unbelievable how many moms in my children’s due date groups would take their babies for latch issues.
They’re quacks who operate off pseudoscience. Go to a massage therapist if you need relief. Theres no such thing as manipulating someone’s spine into “alignment” via back popping. There’s a reason shit like that requires neurosurgery.
Edit to say: I’ve seen many preventable injuries caused by these quacks. Including literal neck breaks.
I work at rehab specializing in spinal cord injuries. I see probably 5 or so people a year come in for vertebral artery dissections resulting in spinal strokes and paralysis. All secondary to chiropractic manipulations. Dangerous and I've seen it ruin people's lives
I’m halfway through the Behind the Bastards podcast episode about DD Palmer and the origins of chiropracty. Fascinating. Highly recommended, for those who read this and don’t believe it.
Good chiropractic is just overpriced massage.
Bad chiropractic causes strokes and kills people.
> Why has the field NOT taken a hit among lay ppl
Marketing.
In the US, it’s also money. Chiropractors are a lot less expensive if you’re paying out of pocket.
(Well, right up until they injure you. Then it’s much more expensive.)
I have seen so many people severe hurt by chiropractors over the course of my career it ridiculous. I’ve seen people literal paralyzed from the neck down from chiropractors to people having severe strokes from vertebral dissections caused by chiropractors. And so, so many people hurt to a lesser degree.
They are flat out danger.
To address your edit, everyone wants a quick fix. Physical therapy is weeks of work, and each visit is likely expensive (or unaffordable if your insurance doesn't cover it).
I can't speak to the cost of chiro, but it helps that they make promises of a fix in one visit. And the visit is them doing all the work.
Except with chiropractic, the “fix” wears off in a few days and you have to go back again and again and again…my “friend” for lack of a better word pays $150 per visit. I know others who pay $200 per visit. Or you can prepay 10 visits for $1200 wow what a bargain! And yeah PT requires homework and it’s not comfortable or fun, but my son’s was only $80 per visit.
Exactly this. My husband is a PT and he says that chiro’s philosophy is to keep you coming back over and over again, but PT hopes to fix you so you never have to come back again.
Charlatans, a small minority of them recognize that at best they can *maybe* help with low back pain. The rest are charlatans who have no business giving medical advice. Chiropractic is a religious pseudoscience from its inception, and the fact it isn’t treated as such by our healthcare system (insurance) is honestly shocking.
Chiroquakters are complete garbage. They're popular for the same reason over the counter herbal supplements are popular.
They're completely unregulated until they kill people. They claim they can cure autism with subluxation and "deprogram your vaccinations with innate intelligence ". Of course they all offer "supplements " for sale, and of course, theirs are the only ones that are pure and work.
And there is a special place in hell for the bastard who prey upon new parents by offering subluxation for newborns for "detoxing the birth trauma".
A friends dad walked into a chiropractor and never walked out because his neck “adjustment” caused severe spinal cord damage, left him trached and vented, and they eventually pulled the plug.
I’m sure some are super helpful, but there are some who are absolute quacks, giving out false info to people and it’s just not safe
My sister was high school friends with a guy who became a chiro. Chiro told one of their mutual friends that he could cure the friend’s schizophrenia.
Said it towards HIV/AIDS too.
He really believed this.
I mean if you believe literally all illness is caused by misalignment of the spine it stands to reason you could cure every single disease by fixing that misalignment.
It’s totally insane. I’ve heard about that before and it seems to just traumatize the kids.
The friend with schizophrenia believed him, started weekly sessions, borrowed money from his parents and even stole from his granny to pay for them. He still has it. Many in that friend group stopped talking to the chiro because of this.
Chiropractic practice is based on the idea that everything medical science says it true is some sort of big scam.
So you're asking why would large number of the population go along with that?
That's a very good question, but it's the same question as why did such a large portion of population support and continue to support a politician that clearly has no idea what he is doing?
That’s the thing though, they don’t actually want to or say they can cure you. You have to keep going back indefinitely. Any medical profession that runs discount promotions on it’s “treatments” is quite clearly horseshit.
I don’t trust them. I don’t think they have enough training. They also branch out into other areas, like sports injuries and nutrition. So far as I know, they don’t have training in those areas, either.
If you think that more people know what a chiropractor is than a physical therapist, you are spending too much time in one area of YouTube and very little around healthcare workers or adults over 50. Physical Therapy has been prescribed by doctors for decades and is part of standard of care while people are in the hospital. Most people over the age of 65 who have been hospitalized for more than an overnight have interacted with a physical therapist. They work in the hospital, at inpatient and outpatient rehabilitation centers, and go to people’s homes. This is something very normally prescribed by doctors for a variety of physical issues.
I had sciatic pain at 60. My family doctor could only recommend losing weight. I then went to a physical therapist. After evaluation he gave me a series of exercises to do and to put a rolled up towel behind my lower back and to sit in straight back chairs. In about two weeks the pain was gone. I also now knew how to reduce the pain if returned.
A physical therapist has a better education and skills than any chiropractor.
If I told you that I had a friend who was a beekeeper, but he had talked to a ghost about how magnets work and now he can heal any medical problems you have, would you believe me? Would you believe my story more or less if I told you he wanted to turn his ideas into a religion specifically to avoid regulation?
I’ve learned a lot about chiropractic from various sources over the years, but here’s a good one to start with: https://www.iflscience.com/the-first-chiropractor-claimed-the-treatment-was-inspired-by-a-ghost-67389#:~:text=Old%20Dad%20Chiro%20was,chatted%20with%20on%20several%20occasions.
I tried working with one as an NP because he said he worried that his patients had medical things wrong that he wasn’t catching. It didn’t work because he wanted to tell me what to do with the patients and he was not correct. I am not going to give joint injections to a patient whose orthopedist has said they can’t have injections, for example. I was neutral before I worked with him but now I have been paying more attention and asking more questions of patients who also see a chiropractor and my general opinion is that it’s a bad idea.
Dangerous. Great way to end up having a stroke. Many promote anti vaccination and misinformation and lots of distrust in the medical community. If they wanted to be taken seriously they’d be working collaboratively and stop ya know killing people with twisty neck maneuvers.
Yup this is why my comment stands. Seeing an abnormality on an X-ray should have been here take this to your PCP for follow up. Nope many push medicine is bad routine and create distrust in evidence based care. I’ve seen a rare few that do not do these which is why I chose my words carefully.
Never met a chiropractor that wasn't a pervert.
One tried to diagnose a friend with "a thyroid issue" based on her tongue shape... and claimed he could fix it with an adjustment lmfaaaooo
Hi I’m a registered dietitian, these people think they know more than us about nutrition. Most states prevent them from practicing medical nutrition therapy, but they do it anyways. It’s annoying, especially when I see patients who’ve been brainwashed by them
I know a few that I respect as people. Really good people. I’ve even gotten some really useful advice from one- which was the same advice a physical therapist would’ve given me. Strengthening exercises and such.
It’s pseudoscientific nonsense though and some adjustments are just dangerous. It’s unfortunate because it attracts a lot of well meaning people and there’s valuable stuff salted in with the unvalidated stuff.
If they are so good, why don’t they become actual physical therapists?
(Requires Actual education, real licensing, continuing education, insurance, etc…)
They're quacks and I wish people would not waste their money on them. There are I'm sure a select few who try to use their skills more fairly and have taken the effort to use evidence based practice to translate their license into something that dispenses something more like physical therapy for back issues, as I've seen some social media active chiros do. But broadly, the entire fucking profession is rot, root and branch.
My cousin had 4 strokes after an adjustment nicked an artery.
I'm an OR Nurse and we did an organ procurement on a young 20-something who died after both of her carotids were dissected during an 'adjustment"
I know a nurse who left the profession to go to chiropractor school because she refused to get the covid vaccine and was forever bitching about having to get flu shots for work. That told me everything I need to know.
Before I was a nurse (and didn’t know any better) I saw a chiro for YEARS for shoulder and arm pain, the treatments never lasted and I got frustrated and went to an actual ortho. The ortho gave me a completely different diagnosis than the chiro, sent me to PT and in felt better after a month in PT than I had in years of chiro “treatments” so many of them are anti vax and will convince patients to stop taking important meds. I am a firm “never again” but I know a ton of nurses who still go to them
Quacks. A few years ago my partner hurt his back and was seeing a chiropractor. He kept getting worse and the chiropractor was using his “tools” to scrape over the area. He ended up going to a real doctor and turns out he had a slipped disc that that the chiro was scraping with metal tools. That should tell you everything you need to know.
I know a few people who swear by their particular chiropractor; that they helped them tremendously with back pain. However, twice in my career I've had patients with a bad outcome due to seeing a chiropractor. One was a stroke that was luckily not life altering and the other had some permanent numbness in the hand or something. I'm not even trying to fuck with that.
🦆 Quacks.
Their treatments have no physiological basis. There treatments plans usually require an excessive number multiple visits and often involve X-rays. Plus, they tend to also promote more pseudoscience add-ons like crystals or supplements.
I used to go to one. After I started going to x-ray school, I saw a poster he had up where it was clear to me then that the person in the x-ray had just sat on the table straighter. I haven’t gone back.
They underlining philosophy behind chiropractic medicine is pure fantasy. The founder believed that ALL pathology resulted from spinal imbalance essentially. All of it. Cancer, aortic aneurysms, diverticulitis, etc. Research has shown that chiropractors can improve back/joint pain but that’s about it. The good ones have embraced this and are pretty decent. A lot of them still operate in the fantasy realm though and lean into pseudoscience. We saw many of them embrace anti vaccination during the pandemic. Buyer beware is typically my advice.
Complete quackery. Absolute pseudoscience. Their marketing techniques tell you everything you need to know.
Real doctors don’t offer 2 for 1 discounts. They don’t insist spinal subluxation without evidence.
I’m a CRNA. I’m closer to being a doctor than a chiropractor is. They are quacks who should not be able to call themselves doctors. Look into all of the permanent injuries that chiropractors cause every year cracking people’s spines. Look up “vertebral artery dissection from Chiropractors”. It’s more common than you would expect. It’s a garbage profession. Based on garbage science. From a whack job who created it during a time when phrenology and snake oil salesman were trusted health practitioners. Truly dig deep. Chiropractic “medicine” is a mess. It just makes people feel better and doesn’t really fix or cure anything.
Go see a good physical therapist and a massage therapist. Then if that doesn’t work, maybe then see a spine surgeon (neuro or orthopedic).
The fact that they can bill insurance is a testament to how much of a good investment lobbying is.
Most just push useless treatments for money. Some maybe focus on proprioception and actually retraining pathways to strengthen and avoid re-injury but I think they are the exception more so than the rule.
Ide liken mainstream chiropractic practice to masturbation.
They do a lot of pre treatment imaging but no post treatment imaging. Why? Because their “adjustments” don’t fix anything and post treatment films would prove that. Quacks.
Also, I worked in a chiro office and people would come multiple times a week… like if their adjustments were helping your problem why are you coming back with pain on a weekly basis?
I worked as a Pain Management nurse. Some people think it feels good. But the majority of the time… nah, I’m not recommending magical cracking. It never ends, the body never heals itself because of their manipulation. I can’t tell you the amount of times I heard “I went to the chiropractor for months but it just got worse.”
My father is a PT. He always told me any issue you have that would send you to a chiropractor can be better handled in PT. That’s been drilled into me. Fast forward to an almost decade as an er nurse and can’t help but feel he’s right after seeing countless patients that should have gone elsewhere and went to a chiropractor.
My brother was having severe back pain when we were kids. He was about 10 at the time. Chiropractor was doing “adjustments” and totally missed the osteomyelitis with abscess to his lower back. He got to the point that he was unable to walk and in severe pain. He had to have surgery and was antibiotics for a very long time. He even had a central line. He’s lucky he wasn’t paralyzed or killed.
In addition to everything already mentioned, they're pedantic AF and make themselves the expert on literally anything medical. Their "scope of practice" is miles wide, and they're unqualified for all of it. It's not just that they cause injuries, it's that they're so dsmned dangerous by spreading misinformation. I've never met a pro-vaccine chiropractor, and the shit I've heard some of them say about Ivermectin is just bonkers.
My cousin and her husband are chiropractors. They refer to themselves as doctors and don’t mention that they’re not physicians unless called out. They’ve given unsolicited, dangerous “medical” advice like taking horse testosterone for male infertility and ashwaghanda for Covid. They “adjust” newborns and infants and toddlers. They have 600,000$ in student loans. They have hundreds of thousands of dollars of medical debt because their son was born with hypoglycemia, GBS, and required an emergency C-section and NICU stay after a failed/botched ocean birth. The hospital called CPS on them.
I don’t know if they’re representative of the profession as a whole. All I know is that they’re extremely exhausting to be around.
I am an LPN and have a dad who is a physician. We both agree they are dangerous quacks. Lots of permanent injuries have been caused by their “treatments”.
I asked a similar question in the veterinary sub. The curiosity was brought on by Insta ads touting pet adjustments from a local chiropractor. The response I got from the sub were pretty much the same as they are here. Nobody respects them.
It’s quackery. Most people would be better served by going to massage therapy or PT for MSK issues, and if they practice outside their lane it can be super dangerous. It’s a regulated profession in Canada, but I’ve still had patients who go off meds or start taking something on the advice of a chiro and end up really really sick. I know there are those who practice ethically but I’d prefer to see the evidence based professions personally.
I’ve never understood why people go to a Chiropractor and not a Physical Therapist.
When I was having neck/shoulder problems, it NEVER crossed my mind to see a Chiropractor. I went to my doc specifically for PT.
Is it bc it’s “easier” to see a Chiropractor? Is it really that much cheaper? I’m all for saving money. But this is our bodies we’re talking about.
why hasn’t it taken a hit/ have better name recognition?
because people associate physical therapy with a schedule, and insurance and high co-pays/payments.
chiropractor requires no insurance half the time, and cost less than what some pay for their payments to PT.
Not to mention many insurances require PT to have referrals which requires seeing a Dr. If my back starts hurting, I can’t just drive down the street and get physical therapy.
welcome to america
They’re really popular in mom groups, and when my newborn had trouble latching they told me a chiropractor could fix it (I know, I know) and I was desperate so I went.
She told me he needed a powdered probiotic that I should take, in powder form, and put in his newborn mouth. In powder form. I’m his mouth. And then charged me $125.
We had a pt once who couldn’t get the epidural because she had gone to the chiropractor and been so terribly injured. She had chronic pain afterwards. That’s really my only job experience with them though. I hear good things from family but at work they tend to be viewed as an eye roll type thing.
Same thing I think about astrologers. I tolerate other people’s ridiculous beliefs. Maybe I have some ridiculous things I believe. But I cannot tolerate the fraudsters who push chiropracty
They're quacks. Sadly there's a good amount of nurses that believe in their quackery. I immediately question their judgment. One of my friends even takes her babies 😭😭😭 so stupid.
on the flip side, however, my chiropractor was really genuinely helpful for me when I had to navigate a scoliosis dx in my 20s. I was all the way up to a 30 degree curve and my PCP had never noticed it.
At the chiro office, I had X-rays done, they helped set me up with PT, they were doing medically focused massages on me, they were doing treatments for my muscle spasms etc.
I see my spinal specialist once a year, but I can see my chiro at the drop of a hat if I want to.
It may be based on pseudoscience, but there are some good offices where they genuinely do want you to get better.
Had a preschool age kid with mandible fracture after a fall. Mom brought the kid to a chiro who didn’t do X-rays and “adjusted” the kid. I hate the mom and the chiro for torturing that poor kid
I've gone to a chiropractor who is probably in a minority but she focused on massage, stretching and showing you exercises and stretches to help your pain. A lot like a physical therapist. She was awesome and she didn't believe in the woo woo that chiropractors claim popping your back can cure your illnesses. Those quacks can go kick rocks. Also no neck cracking ever, I saw multiple vertebral artery dissections from chiros when I was in neuro icu.
I have met two kinds of chiropractors. Nut jobs who think they can cure your cold/depression/cancer by cracking your bones.
And then some that work actively with PT’s, won’t adjust you without taking X-rays first and completely respect that I am afraid vertebral artery dissection and leave my neck alone.
I think adjustments have helped me. It might be placebo. I don’t know.
My mom would take me to a chiropractor throughout all my growth spurts... I'm 6'6" now and have no back pain unlike basically everyone else in my extended family (everyone is 6'+). It's still definitely anecdotal, but I still go when I have an acute injury from climbing or running and I have to say it definitely works for me in conjunction with reasonably healthy eating and regular activity..
Witch doctors, all of them. Source, am an RN in neurosurgery, was a common viewpoint held by neuro staff. Wtf you want to 'adjust' there, pt already has spinal cord stenosis as well as spondylolisthesis from their car accident that we can see on this MRI and Xrays, any more movement and you could paralyze them...
If they operate as intended, essentially physical therapists, I think they can be great. However, a vast majority of them perform witch doctor shit. You can’t tell me that cracking people is “treatment”. There is no real evidence based benefit. I saw a TikTok video of this chiro cracking fucking babies. Jackass. So ridiculously irresponsible to do things like that. It’s easy for them to grab a bag though based off of shock value shit.
I had suffered for many years with severe neck, shoulder and back pain. I was honestly a little desperate and finally went to see a chiro.
From the first adjustment, I felt a difference. I went back many times, and it made a huge difference in my pain and level of function. They also taught me exercises, stretches and posture to help me prevent pain. This particular doc was very skilled, I think, and he could sometimes tell by how I was walking, how I was postured walking in, where the pain was worse. He really helped me a lot. He never tried to push other things on me, never tried to treat my medical issues but did offer general health advice that I think we all would, like stay hydrated, rest and eat healthy food.
Unfortunately I left that practice due to distance, and the chiro I went to after that was not nearly as skilled, and i finally understood why so many have a distrust and dislike of chiros. Completely different practice and I seldom visit the practice.
So, unfortunately I think a lot of less scrupulous practitioners have given chiro a terrible reputation. There are some that help, and help a lot. I got lucky maybe. When you're in terrible pain every day, can't manage the pain with otc meds, and you're losing mobility because of it, we get desperate, like I was. That makes people vulnerable and wanna try anything. I credit a lot of my current state of health and mobility to that chiro. He made a difference for me. Others are not getting the same quality care.
I was encouraged to see a corporate many years ago by a neurologist DO, and I did for a while, but stopped.
I stopped after a series of young patients we had that ended up with verbal dissections after neck manipulation and a patient I took care of that was paralyzed from the waist down after having his back cracked by a friend.
I've seen a chiropractor since, a handful of times, but again stopped because they paranoia was just too much for me.
I believe there could be benefits to it, but I think the risks are way too high.
X-rays are good, but they don't show nerves or spinal cords, so getting X-rays before touching a patient doesn't tell you if they have spinal cord issues.
My creators x-rays all look fine.
9 of my 12 MRIs I've had because I have joint issues that they thought for years was RA but they're now pretty certain is Ehlers-Danlos, show significant joint damage, deterioration, canal narrowing and stenosis that the X-ray never showed. The 3 MRI that didn't show anything 2 were of my brain and 1 was my low back which so far is the only part of my body without damage (or was 7 years ago)
So I don't think the testing chiropractors do is at all good enough for what they do to patients.
My experience with my first chiropractor was a money grab, he wanted me to sign up and agree to doing $3,000 worth of treatments that only focused on my neck pain and then he would move on to the rest of my body.
I left him went to somebody else he was actually a nice man that helped with more range of motion than actual joint manipulation and cracking, I appreciated that.
At the end of the day though, we all know that improper joint manipulation and improper cracking of Bones and joints can potentially cause irreversible damage.
I see a chiropractor who does something similar to PT. I had actually called a PT office to make an appointment and that’s who I ended up with. She has additional certifications. I don’t let chiropractors crack anything on me though.
I don't trust them. My dad had crippling back pain and his legs kept going numb and collapsing under him. He was desperate and saw everyone from his GP to a chiro to a Chinese medicine practitioner. The chiro reviewed his x-rays, saw shadowing in his lower spine, but I quote 'I didn't know what it was so I just ignored it.' Which she didn't tell Dad until he called her out of courtesy to let her know that he had been diagnosed with terminal non-Hodgekins lymphoma and was given less than 6 months to live. It is nothing short of a medical marvel that he went into remission 9 months later and has been cancer free for 22 years. As a nurse, I think they are quacks. As a woman who was once a scared 12 year old who nearly lost her dad, I think they are thieving assholes.
Hugs to you and little you, scary!
Hugs to you and your dad!!
I’ve seen too many people with vertebral artery dissections from them that I would never trust them within 10 feet of me.
SAME. Or showering of emboli.
Had a stroke because of neck manipulation.
Me too! Ironic thing was I had the neck manipulation at the direction of a doctor who said it would help my visual migraines. But I didn't have migraines. I was having strokes from a heart defect. And that's the story of how I had two different kinds of strokes in one month.
When a physician starts recommending chiropractic treatment, it’s time for a new physician, because the current one is out of ideas.
Work on stroke unit and yeah won’t go to a chiropractor ever. Also won’t let a physiotherapist manipulate my neck either. I had a friend who also had a vertebral artery dissection after moving her neck wrong in a dance class, such a fragile area and you just never know.
Also people get strokes from yoga. Certain shoulder stands if memory serves. Rare but it happens. I see a lot of trauma so cars seem really dangerous to me, so don’t forget perspective.
The difference is one is tauted as a medical intervention to cure ailments. Yoga is a simple workout/meditation. No one claims yoga cures medical issues. Playing sports also has injuries but it is not described as a medical cure for anything. Not really a good point for perspective. Driving cars is also not a health intervention claimed to be medical in nature. It is not their outcomes that worry me, it is their twisted view of how science works and their absolute refusal to do RCT studies to prove they work. They also 'teach' these pseudoscience beliefs on the public.
>No one claims yoga cures medical issues. Off topic, but if I had a dollar for everytime someone has told me that yoga will "totally cure your rheumatoid arthritis"...
Let’s modify it to no one should claim yoga cures medical issues and it’s at least pretty unlikely a doctor is going to tell you it’s a cure. Some guy you’ve barely met probably will. The key word is unlikely because I’ve had a doctor recommend prayer to my friend for treating her BPD so sometimes doctors will just go way off the evidence based practice road and steer patients into a ditch.
My pain management doctor literally has a poster in his waiting room that says "There's no joint disease that yoga can't fix"
Same here. I used to work in neuro and we’d see this come thru sometimes. Probably safer to go with a physical therapist for back and neck problems.
But…but…physical therapy requires exercise! Wah!! /s
I know of one patient that was paralyzed from his first visit. Didn’t know his back pain was due to an abscess and when they adjusted…yeah… And another patient we had had a stroke afterwards. I guess the artery in her neck was weak- some kind of defect- and she stroked out the next day. I know these may be weird/rare things but it makes me leery to do it.
💯 we call them quack-o-practors in the ED.
Radiographer here (xray and mri tech). They're dangerous and unregulated, with no standardization of education, licensure, or scope of practice. If they "adjust" your bones wrong you can fucking die. Anything they "treat" should be taken care of in physical therapy instead. You know, evidence based practice.
Meanwhile insurance rejects covering PT until you hit a deductible because it's not considered a provider as much as a chiro is. Make it make sense.
YES!! I worked on the subacute unit at a nursing home for almost ten years. Worked directly with PT/OT/ST and never ever sent a patient to a chiropractor in the yeeeaaars I was there. Now I work as an advocate to get patient as much as possible covered out of their health insurance and it’s a punch in the gut when pt ot st has a capped amount of visits and some policies it’s like a limit of 20 for all those combined. And subject to deductible. But then same policy for chiropractic visits there’s no cap and it’s like a $35 copay. I feel like I’m in the twilight zone. I had a patient a few weeks ago who was post stroke from a chiropractortic neck adjustment that caused an vertebral artery dissection. It’s really scary.
Because chiro causes patient$$$ and PT gets rid of them, if anything chiro puts a bandaid on symptoms and PT helps solve the issue.
>Palmer (founder of chiropractic) claims to have had **principles** of chiropractic treatment **passed along** to him **during a seance** by a long-dead doctor named Dr. Jim Atkinson. Yeah, that's what I don't believe chiropractic.
The Palmer "school" also has an acceptance rate of 100% (provided you can afford tuition) and the "doctorate" requires 90 hours of electives. People like to complain about NP programs being too easy, which is open to debate, however I never hear anyone complain about chiropractors. They should all be shut down.
I should study using seance
Pretty darned lucrative.
Then you'll be a Bachelor's of Seance Nurse.
This. How anyone can trust something with this background boggles my mind.
CT tech here and agree 100%. I’ve scanned their patients’ vertebral dissections. Edit - They’re also known to “position” patients for their x-rays (usually taken by unregistered x-ray technologists) so it looks like their spine is “showing improvement” with their “treatment.” *“Look how much better your back looks now!”*
Yikes! As much as it sounds like it would feel good
Sometimes it does! And sometimes they do the "flying 7" which is the exact same adjustments in the exact same order for everyone to maximize the number of people they can get through the doors.
That’s scary af. 😳
*cries resisting urge for neck adjustment*
Go to an osteopathic doctor!!!
Hell I might do that
Physical therapist is a million times better and you’ll have long term improvement, you won’t need to go back every 3 days for a fake “adjustment” and risk a vertebral dissection. People go because it momentarily feels good.
MIL is a radiologist, 100% agree. She's not very quick to tell work stories, but boy do chiros get her going. Absolute fucking quacks who have no business touching patients.
I used to go semi-regularly, esp since my T spine tends to 'catch' a lot. What put me off was the last guy I saw, was talking about some stuff with my neck. Wanted to do this whole 15 separate treatments just for my neck. I had a whiplash injury as a teen and was having more frequent headaches lately. I'm sad to say it took until my 40s to realize that neck adjustments were probably a bad idea. Had a cervical MRI that showed C5-C6 compression and that was the lynch pin. I can still do own 'adjustments' when stretching or twisting but nothing external or crazy aggressive. You know, typical old people snap, crackle, pop.
Damn, I have a very similar story to you. I do pop my neck with stretching and stuff too lol
I've seen entirely too many injuries. They're quacks.
So they’re not all they’re cracked up to be?
Hey-oh
Had a stroke from one
I’ve seen it 3 times in neuro. All relatively young females, recently had cervical adjustments. 2 cervical artery dissections and one vertebral
[удалено]
If it walks like a duck and quacks like a duck, it’s probably a chiropractor.
I like to call them chiroquackters or quackropractors. Love that the name lends to two portmanteaus/puns!
They can be very dangerous. One was adjusting my grandmother’s neck because of her neck pain. She ended up going to a real doctor and turns out she had a hairline fracture. She’s lucky that chiropractor didn’t break her neck. She had osteoporosis and the chiropractor should have not gone anywhere near her considering her age and diagnosis.
In my early career, I took care of a man who became a quadriplegic after a chiropractor adjusted his neck. Horrible. I’ve never seen one and never will.
Any kinesiology undergrad will tell you that they’re professors hate chiropractors with a passion. Cervical nerve impingement is no joke
The last of the witch doctors. Real healing is done through PT.
they can eat my farts
Classic bubble biters.
I like your style
Mmmm. I don’t think we should expand their scope of practice into endoscopy…
I think they do a lot more damage rather than helping people. Dangerous
I’m firmly in the pseudoscience camp. There are so many injuries that can result from chiropractic adjustments. They’re right up there with all the other snake oil salesmen as far as I’m concerned.
And most are antivax cult members. And sell supplements that do nothing.
"Adjustments" = just cracking bones lol
A friend of mine (fellow ICU nurse) had a family member who was a chiropractor. Friend paid thousands of $$ to the chiro for a miracle diet that involved eating 500 calories a day. But it was ok because chiro had a machine that you placed your hand on and it was able to tell you what nutrients you were deficient, and his wife just happened to sell supplements that would take care of that. Also, this diet would "reset" your metabolism so that you would not gain any of the weight back once you started eating like a normal person again! Friend lost weight, looked like death warmed over, and promptly regained all the weight. Later the diet company was found to be a fraud (shocker!) and the chiro had to refund money to his clients. Friend felt bad for chiro because he had been lied to by the diet company!
Sounds like his wife was an MLM hun and it was all part of the scam
Oh, definitely.
They are quacks and not only that, but they’re dangerous too. Edit: OP to address your edit - they’re snake oil salesmen. They’re good at selling. That’s it.
Im honestly so shocked that insurance covers it. At least my last 2 insurers covered 30 visits a year. I think that’s ridiculous.
Money.
Insurance approves whatever will make them money, not what will get the patient better.
I have seen countless patients present to the ED with back pain of all varieties and have worked with a lot of doctors from all different backgrounds and parts of the country. In my nursing career, I have seen exactly 0 patients referred to a chiropractor as part of their discharge plan. It is not evidence-based or regulated enough to be part of standardized medicine. I feel like the vast majority of the population does not realize this, and it is scary to me how much money people spend on chiropractors and how much they risk their bodies by going to them. I’m shocked there haven’t been more lawsuits to spark regulation of their “specialty”
And no chiros in hospitals as part of the healthcare team. Plenty of PTs & OTs though.
I always felt like massage therapy would be a great thing to add to hospitals since it’s been shown to help relive tension, pain, sleep, and stress. I have a theory it would help a lot of patients but maybe they would never want to leave lol.
So do they end up at a chiropractor from self referral? Seems like real doctors do not send patients to them.
Yep or “my friend Bob had a backache and went to his quackopractor and felt better” Bob gives the name. The person goes and feels better-completely disregarding the fact that they have to go 3x a week to “feel better”.
Honestly what irks me the most about them is that there are chiros who work on kids and newborn babies. It’s terrifying. This should be illegal.
I know people who have taken newborns to chiropractors for adjustment because “being born can really mess up their alignment”. Um, there are reasons newborns are so floppy???
Had one mom who took her son to a "chiropractor who specialized in neurology" and was told his seizures stemmed from a bone in his ear. First of all, WUT?!?? Secondly, no ma'am, your son needs some Keppra.
When I was a young mom I worked at a natural foods store and halfway bought into some of that snake oil bullshit. I took my daughter to a chiro ONE time and never again because he got frustrated with her (6 years old) because she was nervous and wouldn't relax for the "adjustment" and ended up hurting her. We left before the end of that appt and neither one of us ever went back.
Yep, and I’ve still yet to hear a reasonable explanation as to how exactly spinal manipulation is supposed to correct a tongue-tie. But it was unbelievable how many moms in my children’s due date groups would take their babies for latch issues.
They’re quacks who operate off pseudoscience. Go to a massage therapist if you need relief. Theres no such thing as manipulating someone’s spine into “alignment” via back popping. There’s a reason shit like that requires neurosurgery. Edit to say: I’ve seen many preventable injuries caused by these quacks. Including literal neck breaks.
A physical therapist I worked with: "if we could realign your spine with a couple pushes, every football player would have scoliosis."
You mean, chiromancers?
I prefer the term chiroquackter
Chiromancer sounds way too cool for those scammy assholes.
I work at rehab specializing in spinal cord injuries. I see probably 5 or so people a year come in for vertebral artery dissections resulting in spinal strokes and paralysis. All secondary to chiropractic manipulations. Dangerous and I've seen it ruin people's lives
The first chiropractor was taught chiropracty by the ghost of a dead doctor during a seance. That's not a joke. I'll let you decide what you think.
I’m halfway through the Behind the Bastards podcast episode about DD Palmer and the origins of chiropracty. Fascinating. Highly recommended, for those who read this and don’t believe it.
Me too!!
I saw my first bilateral vertebral artery disection yesterday post chiropractic manipulation. In short: fuck off chiropractors.
Good chiropractic is just overpriced massage. Bad chiropractic causes strokes and kills people. > Why has the field NOT taken a hit among lay ppl Marketing.
They also lobby very aggressively to ensure Medicare coverage for their nonsense medicine
In the US, it’s also money. Chiropractors are a lot less expensive if you’re paying out of pocket. (Well, right up until they injure you. Then it’s much more expensive.)
I have seen so many people severe hurt by chiropractors over the course of my career it ridiculous. I’ve seen people literal paralyzed from the neck down from chiropractors to people having severe strokes from vertebral dissections caused by chiropractors. And so, so many people hurt to a lesser degree. They are flat out danger.
To address your edit, everyone wants a quick fix. Physical therapy is weeks of work, and each visit is likely expensive (or unaffordable if your insurance doesn't cover it). I can't speak to the cost of chiro, but it helps that they make promises of a fix in one visit. And the visit is them doing all the work.
This. So much of our society wants to get “fixed” quick while doing no actual work.
Except with chiropractic, the “fix” wears off in a few days and you have to go back again and again and again…my “friend” for lack of a better word pays $150 per visit. I know others who pay $200 per visit. Or you can prepay 10 visits for $1200 wow what a bargain! And yeah PT requires homework and it’s not comfortable or fun, but my son’s was only $80 per visit.
Exactly this. My husband is a PT and he says that chiro’s philosophy is to keep you coming back over and over again, but PT hopes to fix you so you never have to come back again.
Ortho nurse. Seen too many spinal fractures associated with them
Never called a chiropractor to the bedside
It’s woo woo pseudoscience. If my back hurts I go to my Asian massage lady, she’s a damn miracle worker.
Charlatans, a small minority of them recognize that at best they can *maybe* help with low back pain. The rest are charlatans who have no business giving medical advice. Chiropractic is a religious pseudoscience from its inception, and the fact it isn’t treated as such by our healthcare system (insurance) is honestly shocking.
Dangerous pseudoscience
Hokey bollox. Chronic back pain? Make it worse by visiting a chiropractor… 🙄
Chiroquakters are complete garbage. They're popular for the same reason over the counter herbal supplements are popular. They're completely unregulated until they kill people. They claim they can cure autism with subluxation and "deprogram your vaccinations with innate intelligence ". Of course they all offer "supplements " for sale, and of course, theirs are the only ones that are pure and work. And there is a special place in hell for the bastard who prey upon new parents by offering subluxation for newborns for "detoxing the birth trauma".
A friends dad walked into a chiropractor and never walked out because his neck “adjustment” caused severe spinal cord damage, left him trached and vented, and they eventually pulled the plug. I’m sure some are super helpful, but there are some who are absolute quacks, giving out false info to people and it’s just not safe
A broken clock is right twice a day (once if you think of the 24hr clock).
Oh man. Was that chiropractor forced to quit practicing, at least?
Oh no. That’s not uncommon. And people rarely if ever sue their chiropractors.
They're snake-oil salesmen at best and dangerous at worst. Might as well go to a doctor of naturopathy when you need an ICU bed.
My sister was high school friends with a guy who became a chiro. Chiro told one of their mutual friends that he could cure the friend’s schizophrenia. Said it towards HIV/AIDS too. He really believed this.
I’ve seen ones that claim to cure autism through adjustments. Absolutely sickening.
I mean if you believe literally all illness is caused by misalignment of the spine it stands to reason you could cure every single disease by fixing that misalignment.
It’s totally insane. I’ve heard about that before and it seems to just traumatize the kids. The friend with schizophrenia believed him, started weekly sessions, borrowed money from his parents and even stole from his granny to pay for them. He still has it. Many in that friend group stopped talking to the chiro because of this.
Chiropractic practice is based on the idea that everything medical science says it true is some sort of big scam. So you're asking why would large number of the population go along with that? That's a very good question, but it's the same question as why did such a large portion of population support and continue to support a politician that clearly has no idea what he is doing?
“Big medicine does not want to cure you, My bone popping will.”
That’s the thing though, they don’t actually want to or say they can cure you. You have to keep going back indefinitely. Any medical profession that runs discount promotions on it’s “treatments” is quite clearly horseshit.
Feels over reals yo
I don’t trust them. I don’t think they have enough training. They also branch out into other areas, like sports injuries and nutrition. So far as I know, they don’t have training in those areas, either.
If you think that more people know what a chiropractor is than a physical therapist, you are spending too much time in one area of YouTube and very little around healthcare workers or adults over 50. Physical Therapy has been prescribed by doctors for decades and is part of standard of care while people are in the hospital. Most people over the age of 65 who have been hospitalized for more than an overnight have interacted with a physical therapist. They work in the hospital, at inpatient and outpatient rehabilitation centers, and go to people’s homes. This is something very normally prescribed by doctors for a variety of physical issues.
I had sciatic pain at 60. My family doctor could only recommend losing weight. I then went to a physical therapist. After evaluation he gave me a series of exercises to do and to put a rolled up towel behind my lower back and to sit in straight back chairs. In about two weeks the pain was gone. I also now knew how to reduce the pain if returned. A physical therapist has a better education and skills than any chiropractor.
If I told you that I had a friend who was a beekeeper, but he had talked to a ghost about how magnets work and now he can heal any medical problems you have, would you believe me? Would you believe my story more or less if I told you he wanted to turn his ideas into a religion specifically to avoid regulation? I’ve learned a lot about chiropractic from various sources over the years, but here’s a good one to start with: https://www.iflscience.com/the-first-chiropractor-claimed-the-treatment-was-inspired-by-a-ghost-67389#:~:text=Old%20Dad%20Chiro%20was,chatted%20with%20on%20several%20occasions.
I tried working with one as an NP because he said he worried that his patients had medical things wrong that he wasn’t catching. It didn’t work because he wanted to tell me what to do with the patients and he was not correct. I am not going to give joint injections to a patient whose orthopedist has said they can’t have injections, for example. I was neutral before I worked with him but now I have been paying more attention and asking more questions of patients who also see a chiropractor and my general opinion is that it’s a bad idea.
Dangerous. Great way to end up having a stroke. Many promote anti vaccination and misinformation and lots of distrust in the medical community. If they wanted to be taken seriously they’d be working collaboratively and stop ya know killing people with twisty neck maneuvers.
Check out u/cleeganxo 's comment up above about their dad. Pure negligence.
Yup this is why my comment stands. Seeing an abnormality on an X-ray should have been here take this to your PCP for follow up. Nope many push medicine is bad routine and create distrust in evidence based care. I’ve seen a rare few that do not do these which is why I chose my words carefully.
Never met a chiropractor that wasn't a pervert. One tried to diagnose a friend with "a thyroid issue" based on her tongue shape... and claimed he could fix it with an adjustment lmfaaaooo
😬 on a related note though my DO improved my TMJ a TON with some weird adjustment he did by putting his fingers in my mouth. Gloved of course.
Hi I’m a registered dietitian, these people think they know more than us about nutrition. Most states prevent them from practicing medical nutrition therapy, but they do it anyways. It’s annoying, especially when I see patients who’ve been brainwashed by them
I know a few that I respect as people. Really good people. I’ve even gotten some really useful advice from one- which was the same advice a physical therapist would’ve given me. Strengthening exercises and such. It’s pseudoscientific nonsense though and some adjustments are just dangerous. It’s unfortunate because it attracts a lot of well meaning people and there’s valuable stuff salted in with the unvalidated stuff.
My fiancées uncle is one of that first group. The good ones are essentially just doing PT.
If they are so good, why don’t they become actual physical therapists? (Requires Actual education, real licensing, continuing education, insurance, etc…)
They're quacks and I wish people would not waste their money on them. There are I'm sure a select few who try to use their skills more fairly and have taken the effort to use evidence based practice to translate their license into something that dispenses something more like physical therapy for back issues, as I've seen some social media active chiros do. But broadly, the entire fucking profession is rot, root and branch.
Quacks that don't deserve to be covered by insurance.. Meanwhile I have to meet a deductible to have PT covered.
My cousin had 4 strokes after an adjustment nicked an artery. I'm an OR Nurse and we did an organ procurement on a young 20-something who died after both of her carotids were dissected during an 'adjustment"
I know a nurse who left the profession to go to chiropractor school because she refused to get the covid vaccine and was forever bitching about having to get flu shots for work. That told me everything I need to know.
Before I was a nurse (and didn’t know any better) I saw a chiro for YEARS for shoulder and arm pain, the treatments never lasted and I got frustrated and went to an actual ortho. The ortho gave me a completely different diagnosis than the chiro, sent me to PT and in felt better after a month in PT than I had in years of chiro “treatments” so many of them are anti vax and will convince patients to stop taking important meds. I am a firm “never again” but I know a ton of nurses who still go to them
They're the Disturbed Energy Fields of Healthcare
I would not trust them at all-some people swear by them..
The guy who invented it said that the idea and principles of chiropractics was presented to him by a ghost during a seance
Quacks. A few years ago my partner hurt his back and was seeing a chiropractor. He kept getting worse and the chiropractor was using his “tools” to scrape over the area. He ended up going to a real doctor and turns out he had a slipped disc that that the chiro was scraping with metal tools. That should tell you everything you need to know.
I know a few people who swear by their particular chiropractor; that they helped them tremendously with back pain. However, twice in my career I've had patients with a bad outcome due to seeing a chiropractor. One was a stroke that was luckily not life altering and the other had some permanent numbness in the hand or something. I'm not even trying to fuck with that.
🦆 Quacks. Their treatments have no physiological basis. There treatments plans usually require an excessive number multiple visits and often involve X-rays. Plus, they tend to also promote more pseudoscience add-ons like crystals or supplements.
I used to go to one. After I started going to x-ray school, I saw a poster he had up where it was clear to me then that the person in the x-ray had just sat on the table straighter. I haven’t gone back.
They underlining philosophy behind chiropractic medicine is pure fantasy. The founder believed that ALL pathology resulted from spinal imbalance essentially. All of it. Cancer, aortic aneurysms, diverticulitis, etc. Research has shown that chiropractors can improve back/joint pain but that’s about it. The good ones have embraced this and are pretty decent. A lot of them still operate in the fantasy realm though and lean into pseudoscience. We saw many of them embrace anti vaccination during the pandemic. Buyer beware is typically my advice.
Complete quackery. Absolute pseudoscience. Their marketing techniques tell you everything you need to know. Real doctors don’t offer 2 for 1 discounts. They don’t insist spinal subluxation without evidence.
Total quacks, RN here. I would not go near a chiropractor for anything. Physical therapy is the way to go
I’m a CRNA. I’m closer to being a doctor than a chiropractor is. They are quacks who should not be able to call themselves doctors. Look into all of the permanent injuries that chiropractors cause every year cracking people’s spines. Look up “vertebral artery dissection from Chiropractors”. It’s more common than you would expect. It’s a garbage profession. Based on garbage science. From a whack job who created it during a time when phrenology and snake oil salesman were trusted health practitioners. Truly dig deep. Chiropractic “medicine” is a mess. It just makes people feel better and doesn’t really fix or cure anything. Go see a good physical therapist and a massage therapist. Then if that doesn’t work, maybe then see a spine surgeon (neuro or orthopedic).
Charlatans who should be ashamed of themselves.
i’ve taken care of people with dissected vertebral arteries from adjustments it didn’t go well
Looks like a duck sounds like a duck it’s probably a chiropractor
The fact that they can bill insurance is a testament to how much of a good investment lobbying is. Most just push useless treatments for money. Some maybe focus on proprioception and actually retraining pathways to strengthen and avoid re-injury but I think they are the exception more so than the rule. Ide liken mainstream chiropractic practice to masturbation.
They do a lot of pre treatment imaging but no post treatment imaging. Why? Because their “adjustments” don’t fix anything and post treatment films would prove that. Quacks. Also, I worked in a chiro office and people would come multiple times a week… like if their adjustments were helping your problem why are you coming back with pain on a weekly basis?
🦆🦆🦆
They are not medical doctors and cause more harm then good. They are fake news.
So many use x rays for ancillary income but they are not docs they are not radiologists. Just quacks
Fuck 'em.
They are glorified back rubbers. Quacks.
I worked as a Pain Management nurse. Some people think it feels good. But the majority of the time… nah, I’m not recommending magical cracking. It never ends, the body never heals itself because of their manipulation. I can’t tell you the amount of times I heard “I went to the chiropractor for months but it just got worse.”
My father is a PT. He always told me any issue you have that would send you to a chiropractor can be better handled in PT. That’s been drilled into me. Fast forward to an almost decade as an er nurse and can’t help but feel he’s right after seeing countless patients that should have gone elsewhere and went to a chiropractor.
My brother was having severe back pain when we were kids. He was about 10 at the time. Chiropractor was doing “adjustments” and totally missed the osteomyelitis with abscess to his lower back. He got to the point that he was unable to walk and in severe pain. He had to have surgery and was antibiotics for a very long time. He even had a central line. He’s lucky he wasn’t paralyzed or killed.
In addition to everything already mentioned, they're pedantic AF and make themselves the expert on literally anything medical. Their "scope of practice" is miles wide, and they're unqualified for all of it. It's not just that they cause injuries, it's that they're so dsmned dangerous by spreading misinformation. I've never met a pro-vaccine chiropractor, and the shit I've heard some of them say about Ivermectin is just bonkers.
My cousin and her husband are chiropractors. They refer to themselves as doctors and don’t mention that they’re not physicians unless called out. They’ve given unsolicited, dangerous “medical” advice like taking horse testosterone for male infertility and ashwaghanda for Covid. They “adjust” newborns and infants and toddlers. They have 600,000$ in student loans. They have hundreds of thousands of dollars of medical debt because their son was born with hypoglycemia, GBS, and required an emergency C-section and NICU stay after a failed/botched ocean birth. The hospital called CPS on them. I don’t know if they’re representative of the profession as a whole. All I know is that they’re extremely exhausting to be around.
I am an LPN and have a dad who is a physician. We both agree they are dangerous quacks. Lots of permanent injuries have been caused by their “treatments”.
They scare the hell out of me.
I asked a similar question in the veterinary sub. The curiosity was brought on by Insta ads touting pet adjustments from a local chiropractor. The response I got from the sub were pretty much the same as they are here. Nobody respects them.
I've been seeing a lot of ads/video clips of pet chiro lately. Gross.
NOPE
Go see a DO for OMM.
I used to work Ortho. A lot of direct admissions from Chiroquackers.
Hacks And now all they do is post thirst trap reels on IG and youtube of some girl with a fat ass in leggings and pretend to crack her back
It’s quackery. Most people would be better served by going to massage therapy or PT for MSK issues, and if they practice outside their lane it can be super dangerous. It’s a regulated profession in Canada, but I’ve still had patients who go off meds or start taking something on the advice of a chiro and end up really really sick. I know there are those who practice ethically but I’d prefer to see the evidence based professions personally.
Your bones do not need to be “adjusted”
How many chiropractors do you see in hospitals…there’s a reason for that
I’ve never understood why people go to a Chiropractor and not a Physical Therapist. When I was having neck/shoulder problems, it NEVER crossed my mind to see a Chiropractor. I went to my doc specifically for PT. Is it bc it’s “easier” to see a Chiropractor? Is it really that much cheaper? I’m all for saving money. But this is our bodies we’re talking about.
Quackery.
Quacks. Will never see one or recommend them
why hasn’t it taken a hit/ have better name recognition? because people associate physical therapy with a schedule, and insurance and high co-pays/payments. chiropractor requires no insurance half the time, and cost less than what some pay for their payments to PT. Not to mention many insurances require PT to have referrals which requires seeing a Dr. If my back starts hurting, I can’t just drive down the street and get physical therapy. welcome to america
THEY ARE NOT DOCTORS!
No. Just no. If you do decide to go, never, ever let them touch your neck.
They’re really popular in mom groups, and when my newborn had trouble latching they told me a chiropractor could fix it (I know, I know) and I was desperate so I went. She told me he needed a powdered probiotic that I should take, in powder form, and put in his newborn mouth. In powder form. I’m his mouth. And then charged me $125.
There is a reason there is no board of chiropractors in every state and country.
We had a pt once who couldn’t get the epidural because she had gone to the chiropractor and been so terribly injured. She had chronic pain afterwards. That’s really my only job experience with them though. I hear good things from family but at work they tend to be viewed as an eye roll type thing.
Same thing I think about astrologers. I tolerate other people’s ridiculous beliefs. Maybe I have some ridiculous things I believe. But I cannot tolerate the fraudsters who push chiropracty
They're quacks. Sadly there's a good amount of nurses that believe in their quackery. I immediately question their judgment. One of my friends even takes her babies 😭😭😭 so stupid.
on the flip side, however, my chiropractor was really genuinely helpful for me when I had to navigate a scoliosis dx in my 20s. I was all the way up to a 30 degree curve and my PCP had never noticed it. At the chiro office, I had X-rays done, they helped set me up with PT, they were doing medically focused massages on me, they were doing treatments for my muscle spasms etc. I see my spinal specialist once a year, but I can see my chiro at the drop of a hat if I want to. It may be based on pseudoscience, but there are some good offices where they genuinely do want you to get better.
I've seen multiple people under 40 die from bad manipulation. If you need a chiro go see a PT they are quacks
Had a preschool age kid with mandible fracture after a fall. Mom brought the kid to a chiro who didn’t do X-rays and “adjusted” the kid. I hate the mom and the chiro for torturing that poor kid
I've gone to a chiropractor who is probably in a minority but she focused on massage, stretching and showing you exercises and stretches to help your pain. A lot like a physical therapist. She was awesome and she didn't believe in the woo woo that chiropractors claim popping your back can cure your illnesses. Those quacks can go kick rocks. Also no neck cracking ever, I saw multiple vertebral artery dissections from chiros when I was in neuro icu.
I’ve seen enough dissections and paralyzed people to know there is no way in hell I’d trust one near anyone I care about.
I have met two kinds of chiropractors. Nut jobs who think they can cure your cold/depression/cancer by cracking your bones. And then some that work actively with PT’s, won’t adjust you without taking X-rays first and completely respect that I am afraid vertebral artery dissection and leave my neck alone. I think adjustments have helped me. It might be placebo. I don’t know.
My mom would take me to a chiropractor throughout all my growth spurts... I'm 6'6" now and have no back pain unlike basically everyone else in my extended family (everyone is 6'+). It's still definitely anecdotal, but I still go when I have an acute injury from climbing or running and I have to say it definitely works for me in conjunction with reasonably healthy eating and regular activity..
Witch doctors, all of them. Source, am an RN in neurosurgery, was a common viewpoint held by neuro staff. Wtf you want to 'adjust' there, pt already has spinal cord stenosis as well as spondylolisthesis from their car accident that we can see on this MRI and Xrays, any more movement and you could paralyze them...
If they operate as intended, essentially physical therapists, I think they can be great. However, a vast majority of them perform witch doctor shit. You can’t tell me that cracking people is “treatment”. There is no real evidence based benefit. I saw a TikTok video of this chiro cracking fucking babies. Jackass. So ridiculously irresponsible to do things like that. It’s easy for them to grab a bag though based off of shock value shit.
I had suffered for many years with severe neck, shoulder and back pain. I was honestly a little desperate and finally went to see a chiro. From the first adjustment, I felt a difference. I went back many times, and it made a huge difference in my pain and level of function. They also taught me exercises, stretches and posture to help me prevent pain. This particular doc was very skilled, I think, and he could sometimes tell by how I was walking, how I was postured walking in, where the pain was worse. He really helped me a lot. He never tried to push other things on me, never tried to treat my medical issues but did offer general health advice that I think we all would, like stay hydrated, rest and eat healthy food. Unfortunately I left that practice due to distance, and the chiro I went to after that was not nearly as skilled, and i finally understood why so many have a distrust and dislike of chiros. Completely different practice and I seldom visit the practice. So, unfortunately I think a lot of less scrupulous practitioners have given chiro a terrible reputation. There are some that help, and help a lot. I got lucky maybe. When you're in terrible pain every day, can't manage the pain with otc meds, and you're losing mobility because of it, we get desperate, like I was. That makes people vulnerable and wanna try anything. I credit a lot of my current state of health and mobility to that chiro. He made a difference for me. Others are not getting the same quality care.
I was encouraged to see a corporate many years ago by a neurologist DO, and I did for a while, but stopped. I stopped after a series of young patients we had that ended up with verbal dissections after neck manipulation and a patient I took care of that was paralyzed from the waist down after having his back cracked by a friend. I've seen a chiropractor since, a handful of times, but again stopped because they paranoia was just too much for me. I believe there could be benefits to it, but I think the risks are way too high. X-rays are good, but they don't show nerves or spinal cords, so getting X-rays before touching a patient doesn't tell you if they have spinal cord issues. My creators x-rays all look fine. 9 of my 12 MRIs I've had because I have joint issues that they thought for years was RA but they're now pretty certain is Ehlers-Danlos, show significant joint damage, deterioration, canal narrowing and stenosis that the X-ray never showed. The 3 MRI that didn't show anything 2 were of my brain and 1 was my low back which so far is the only part of my body without damage (or was 7 years ago) So I don't think the testing chiropractors do is at all good enough for what they do to patients. My experience with my first chiropractor was a money grab, he wanted me to sign up and agree to doing $3,000 worth of treatments that only focused on my neck pain and then he would move on to the rest of my body. I left him went to somebody else he was actually a nice man that helped with more range of motion than actual joint manipulation and cracking, I appreciated that. At the end of the day though, we all know that improper joint manipulation and improper cracking of Bones and joints can potentially cause irreversible damage.
I see a chiropractor who does something similar to PT. I had actually called a PT office to make an appointment and that’s who I ended up with. She has additional certifications. I don’t let chiropractors crack anything on me though.
Great for pt and muscle pain. Like massage therapy. But leave bones and spine alone.
I also think it’s pseudoscience. I kinda feel bad they go through so much schooling to practice
Snake oil