If we spread the word about chiropractic being a scam, perhaps it will deter attorneys from subjecting people to such treatments and thus save someone in a similar position as you were from a future permanent injury.
The whole point of scams is that money is on the line, otherwise it would just be random woo. In fact early Chiropractic was explicitly framed as a belief from irrefutable doctrine and rejecting inferential reasoning, essentially claiming defence as religious freedom, in order to exempt it from being regulated as practicing medicine without a license. Most Chiropractors nowadays do incorporate a degree of scientific reasoning and evidence into their practice, but personally it's not clear to me to what extent this is genuine or just adopting the terminology to paper over the holistic wellness metaphysics claptrap with a veneer of respectability.
Personally, I'd rather go to a real physiotherapist.
Chiropractic is a pseudoscience without any provable benefits. At best its placebo, at worst you die from it. It's literally a big scam made by a serial snake oil salesman, that has embedded itself in our health systems.
I just want to underscore: Chiropractic is a pseudoscience and injures more people than it helps. I have heard too many stories of injuries and paralysis. It's a huge shame that our society allows these frauds to practice and advertize the whole sham as a respectable profession. It is not evidence-based, it's a total sham.
I've dealt with a number of chiropractors. I go to one several times a year and have for the past decade.
There are those I respect and there are those that are scam artists. The ones I respect are the ones that know the limits of their practice. The ones that are scam artists often use x-rays and neck angle to dupe people into "treatment" they don't need, using words like "natural healing power" and "life force".
The over-arching problem is twofold.
First, like many alternative treatments, there is very little real scientific research backing up their methods. Within chiropractics, they do studies, but they typically fail to meet scientific rigor in a number of areas, including controlling for bias and methodology.
Second, and much more worrisome, is that chiropractors are not medical doctors and are rarely trained to properly refer people when a problem is outside their area of expertise. I've seen this with both of my parents. My mother had knee pain, which the chiropractor (which was one of the ones I respected) insisted was an alignment issue. In reality, she needed a whole knee replacement, and suffered unnecessarily for a number of months before seeing an orthopod, because the chiropractor insisted he could fix it.
My father had severe shoulder pain, extending all the way down to his fingers, and eventually started losing functionality in that hand. Again, the chiropractor thought he could fix it. My father had a severely herniated disk which was impinging a nerve. Again, he suffered unnecessarily because chiropractors do not refer people when they're out of their element. Finally, a neurologist determined that surgery was the only way to fix the problem, which it did. He has regained 95% of the function of his hand.
I think chiropractors have their place and can help with some skeletal alignment issues, but there are significant problems with the industry as well, and people should be aware of them before going in.
Chiropractors are charlatans so it was the same as any other healing elixir scam that was being run (which are notable and commonplace throughout history).
I have found that most people go along with the herd when it comes to money, and career.
Those that claim, "Not me!", are usually the last to raise their hand.
I have seen so many people con other people legally, and 1 out of a 100-1000 will even bring up the immoral/unethical behavior.
I walked out of Chiropractic School in the ninties after realizing it's a scam. The Subluxation is exceptionally rare.
I knew, along with my classmates that it was all a big scam, but we were invested.
A New Yorker, and myself were the only ones raising our hands when the instructor would say something rediculious like, "Chiropractic has over 17 different upper cervicsl techniques, and they all work equally well." Yea--Placbo Effect was a bad word.
In all honesty, it took a nervous breakdown to completely see the light.
I knew all along it was a sham, but figured I would be different Chiropractor. I would use the non-force techniques on patients, and refer if anyone didn't respond to my harmless placebo treatments.
In the end, I just walked, but took away something about human nature. Career, and money will cause most of you to look the other way.
Glad I saw chiropractic in that list. A lot of people I know tried to get me into it, and even on the surface it seemed shady af before I tried it. I ended up trying a few sessions which only resulted in my spine being hurt. I finally did some research on the practice and was shocked to discover its hokey and snake oil-like roots. What’s fascinating to me that in the US, it’s treated like an acceptable alternative to genuine medical treatment, but most studies have shown it’s no better than therapeutic massage. To increase legitimacy, many practitioners use the title of “Doctor” because of their Doctor of Chiropractic degree, fooling many into believing that this has some relationship to being a medical doctor.
I am not saying it’s totally useless, but the fact that chiropractic is so popular and is even a *thing* just seems very odd when we have well-established treatment modalities such as PT, therapeutic massage, and spinal surgery.
It's not just an internet thing. The entire profession of Chiropractic care has long been established to be a pseudo-scientific field. Research on the effectiveness of the treatment is at best conflicting and it's effectiveness is not scientifically established except to say that it may be as effective as Tylenol for certain types of lower back pains. That hasn't stopped people from rushing to them and governments from licensing and regulating them giving what is essentially snake oil salespeople the credibility of state backing.
There are many other examples of pre-internet mass gullibility, like homeopathy, Reiki and assorted foolishness. Maybe the internet has made it easier to market foolishness, but I doubt we can say it has made us more foolish or gullible.
The history of Chiropractic shows it to be snake oil, with a litany of serious injuries along the way.
It was started by a charlatan who was passed the knowledge “in a seance”, was formerly into “magnetic healing”, opposed all mainstream medicine including vaccination, and who was jailed for practicing medicine without a licence.
The American Medical Association describes chiropractic as an “unscientific cult”
Chiropractors are not medically recognised, and if you have a friend who’s been taken in by this quack science, you really owe it to them to explain the facts.
If you read the article I linked, the relating articles, or the original author by Simon, you'd know that he was sued for describing chiropractics treating things like ear infections as "bogus". Things that no poorly executed "scientific" study would ever even dream of asserting chiropractics can affect.
The extent to which chiropractics can alievate back pain, the only sort of thing they can have a positive impact on in scientifically executed trails, they are only acting as (often unlicensed) physical therapists. IF this is what you go to the chiropractic for, and IF they are a licensed physical therapist, then call them your physical therapist. If on the other hand, they're not licensed, then do yourself a favor and go find one that is.
"Many whiplash victims are also referred to chiropractors."
The industry itself doesn't seem to agree that whiplash is among the defensible things they treat:
"If you have a website, take it down NOW.
"REMOVE all the blue MCA [McTimoney Chiropractic Association] patient
information leaflets, or any patient information leaflets of your own
that state you treat whiplash, colic or other childhood problems in your
clinic or at any other site where they might be displayed with your contact
details on them. DO NOT USE them until further notice."
--the McTimoney Chiropractic Association
This all said, even IF chiropractics can effectively treat a subset of the things the claim, they are still quacks for daring to claim the rest.
There is reason, though. For example, there is stigma against chiropractors [1]. Some nutritional supplements have been found a scam (rightly so), but the baby got thrown out with the bathwater [2].
Have you heard of sound therapy? Laser therapy? NLP? These are therapies you probably would never hear at a traditional doctor's office.
At best, Chiropractors are bullshit. At worst, they kill or paralyze people.
Their manipulations offer temporary pain relief because they forcefully mobilize the joint/bone structure. The only way to fix this long term is by correcting the muscle imbalances through physical therapy. Most people would rather get immediate pain relief vs months of therapy and exercise, so they have a constant supply of victims.
Chiropractic care should be outlawed as snake oil or health plans should stop covering it.
While I believe she may have suffered genuine impairment, chiropractors are charlatans who's entire business model is signing you up for a recurring treatment plan.
They are not physiotherapists, who actually practice useful rehabilitation.
> Chiropractice is not quackery from start to finish.
I would say it is. The wiki page is quite enlightening.
vertebral subluxation leads to interference with an "innate intelligence" exerted via the human nervous system and is a primary underlying risk factor for many diseases.
It goes on.
Your fortune teller could tell you they predict your health will improve if you lose weight and eat better, or you might get a real psychological benefit from acupuncture that helps your health for example. It is not that no "alternative medicine practitioner" or snake oil salesman can ever give good advice or help anybody in any way, it is that their practice is not based on science.
I'd never ridicule someone for using alternative medicine, or even doubt they get benefits. And I completely understand the draw of trying alternatives when people are desperate with health problems or have been failed by the medical system one way or another. I can't say I wouldn't try alternatives myself, and I know for a fact the whole medical system can be a shit show and is not always aligned to getting the best outcome for the patient. But I am happy to make people aware that chiropathy is not a field of medicine or based in science if it is being recommended, so they can make an informed choice. It masquerades as being a legitimate medical field, which is the real problem with it and is why I call it quackery.
You can certainly generalize, and chiropractics is a sham, but if there is some placebo effect or it makes people happy then fine so long as people are well informed then they can choose to go to these quacks if they like. The problem is person having a serious and undiagnosed neurological problem is referred to a chiropractor by an alleged real medical doctor.
Would you feel the same way if a doctor referred a depressed person to see an astrologist or psychic medium or a church? You will easily find thousands of anecdotes from people attesting to those helping them, and you might even find they could statistically help some peoples' mental health whether by placebo or giving them someone to talk to or a group to be part of.
Chiropractic medicine for anything other than lower back pain and Acupuncture are two forms of alternative medicine that are well known to work off the placebo effect, yet the article mentions their use despite alleging to be a skeptic. This is a major red flag.
Trying something to check whether it works is orthogonal to being skeptical about it. In fact, it's the heart of science.
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