visited a friend’s family reunion and met his chiropractor uncle. dude said he could cure diabetes and cancer.
he could barely pronounce diabetes. I will never ever understand chiropractor quackshit.
In most cases, it seems like temporary relief. Like when your bigger, older brother picks you up and cracks your back. Feels great in the moment, but not a long-term fix.
I understand chiro quack shit the same way I understand crystals and essential oils quack shit. It’s all just quack shit.
What I don’t understand is why insurance actually pays for chiro, at least sometimes.
yeah never understood how it flies under the radar of quackery
In my experience it was for old insecure guys who were uncomfortable going to a massage or doing any structured stretching regularly so they’d get an adjustment from a quack a few times a year instead.
plausible!
don’t write it off completely… yes there’s a bunch of bullshit, but it’s also not entirely quack shit
australia’s healthcare system covers chiropractic in limited circumstances, and our system is generally very good at evidence-based health (you’re allowed to get private health insurance to cover alternative medicines if you want but stuff the government pays for is well supported by evidence)
with a GP referral and chronic condition management plan (written by your GP: this is an offical well defined thing) you get up to 5 total visits to “allied health” professionals which includes chiro, physio, dieticians, etc
Nonsense. It gives the same benefits that a simple massage does but a massage doesn’t put you at risk of paralysis or death.
It’s quackery.
The inventor of chiropracty claims a ghost taught it to him during a seance.
I mean this is where all great medical advancements come from, right?
The fact that insurance does or doesn’t cover something is not evidence of medical efficaciousness.
i agree… the fact that public health care does, given the rigorous structures that are in place to follow medical advice, does though
We see this pretty differently. I take the fact that insurance covers chiro to be evidence that insurance doesn’t know what the fuck it’s doing. You assume insurance know what they’re doing and take them as evidence that chiro must have value.
Taking assumptions out of it, what medical literature tells us is that chiropractic can be used to help alleviate lower back pain. This is an incredibly widespread ailment with no hard fix. A chiro adjustment offers a little pain relief. A massage or hypnosis or a blow job would probably perform as well in a blind trial.
What has happened is that a whole universe of quacks has taken advantage of the fact that chiro is unregulated to get all manner of shit paid for by instance. There are chiropractors who will “cure” your allergies by adjusting you back while you hold a bag of weeds, “aligning your energy with the energy of the plant.” And a million other similar quack bullshit things.
So yes, it’s not as if there is no case ever where chiro does anything. It’s probably about half as effective as a single ibuprofen at alleviating back pain. But it has become overwhelmed by quackery and fraud. Please tell me with a straight face that there is no fraud in the medical insurance area. Because that’s kind of what you keep saying. “Well insurance pays for it so that means it must be efficacious!”
no i’m saying that insurance has nothing to do with what i’m saying… government provided healthcare follows a whole different set of rules: i keep pushing back on that point and you keep bringing up insurance, which i agree would show absolutely nothing
however anything that has the government paying for it has has to pass significant hurdles before it gets added to the list of approved treatments - scientific hurdles; not just hand wavy nonsense
chiro might be unregulated where you are, but in australia it is regulated as a medical profession: https://www.chiropracticboard.gov.au/ which is part of AHPRA - the australian health practitioner regulation agency: https://www.ahpra.gov.au/
The inventor of chiropracty claims a ghost taught it to him during a seance.
Its a pretty narrow scope
https://www9.health.gov.au/mbs/fullDisplay.cfm?type=item&q=10964
To me this reads like coverage for massage or other forms of non-curative pain relief, intended for those with chronic conditions that have exhausted all other options, or can’t get an appointment with a physiotherapist. I really don’t think it would be prescribed to treat the chronic condition.
Regularly scheduled warning but chiropractor is not a real doctor and can paralyze you for life. You would receive equal or better results with massotherapy.
Also the guy who invented it learned the practice from a ghost during a seance
you’re fucking with me, right?
Is that another name for physical therapy?
Back in my old city, which has a large Chinese population, I went to a physical therapist a few times for a hurt back. The staff didn’t really speak English, but it was covered by workers compensation so I gave it a go. Those people were absolute magicians, I tell ya. I’m not exactly sure what they were doing, as I was almost always laying face down, but I’m pretty sure it involved needles, and they definitely did some electroshock therapy, but boy did it work great. I just let them do their thing, and it really seemed to help along the healing process.
Massotherapy is like deep tissue massage and stuff. If I understand correctly it’s basically just really advanced actually medical based massage that people get licensed for. I’m just going off of memory though you might get better mileage out of actually looking it up.
regularly scheduled reminder that real Chiropractors are highly trained and not paid extra money to prescribe you a medication that has a warning label that includes the very minor side effects of… may cause: dizziness, nausea, rashes, cancer, and a mild case of death.
Chiropractors are not doctors in any shape or form. There is no scientific data to backup the idea that popping random joints somehow cures illnesses. They’re nothing more than snake oil salesmen who have no clue WTF they’re actually doing.
Not to defend chiropractors or anything, but they legitimately have a doctorate degree and are given the title Chiropractic Physician.
Whether their studies they do in school are nonsense, they do get a degree for it. So they are technically doctors in some shape or form.
Honestly there is likely some small value in what they do, but that small value has almost definitely been absorbed into the Doctor of Osteopathy (actually medical doctor-like role), so I don’t see the need for them. Definitely think physical therapists are much more beneficial.
this is my general impression too, the origins of the practice is kinda bunk and it’s probably not worth the risk for a lot of people. I particularly dislike that a lot of people will see a chiropractor for pain before they’ll consider seeing a PT.
that being said, there are individual chiros out there that do good work. The main person I go to for non-chiro bodywork, who really knows her shit, sees a chiro herself and highly credits them for her recovery from pretty severe spinal issues. I’d probably see one only if I was referred from someone I trust.
but generally speaking there’s other alternative therapies I’d recommend over seeing just any random chiro. Acupuncture can be a game changer, and is starting to become less “alternative” as some PTs offer “dry needling” now. Craniosacral work can be great for some too, it’s a very gentle form of bodywork that can have a big impact nonetheless. Both of those are a lot less focused on manual adjustment, lowering the risk significantly.
Acupuncture can be a game changer, and is starting to become less “alternative” as some PTs offer “dry needling” now.
Why would you let someone who doesn’t believe in germ theory put needles in your body?
There is no evidence justifying acupuncture.
You’ll find more study in the West of “dry needling”, a technique directly inspired by acupuncture. Here’s one recent review.
I see an acupuncturist because the results for me are great, she’s good at what she does, she does believe in germ theory, she practices in a sanitary way, and she doesn’t claim to cure illnesses. These are the norms for modern licensed acupuncturists. I’m not saying every acupuncturist out there is like this, hokey grifters do exist in alt medicine spaces, and that’s kind of my whole point. It really depends on the practitioner.
Many of those studies in that meta analysis show limited short term effects.
Because there is no widely accepted sham protocol for DN research, researchers should incorporate cognitive influences that extend beyond the mimicking of tactile sensations to create a believable simulation of active dry needling.
I also think there’s a serious question about what sham/placebo dry needling would be, and if inconsistent standards could impact results.
Several did show some positive short term effects, but it’s no surprise that several don’t. Dry needling isn’t going to cure pain on its own or work for everyone, much like other forms of bodywork. Individual results vary and it needs to be done over a long period of time alongside other work to restore stability and mobility. A supplementary treatment just needs to be low-risk, accessible, and possibly beneficial enough to try. The risks associated with dry needling are less severe than those of several common PT interventions such as corticosteroid injections. To say nothing of the risks associated with chiropractic.
The lack of a standardized placebo is a problem, yes. This study had pretty good results from using a blunted needle glued in an introducer. The patient feels the sensation of the introducer being pressed against skin and “pistoned” in, but the needle doesn’t actually make contact. In the group of people who had not received dry needling before, only one correctly identified that they had received the placebo.
correction: chiropractors are not backed by studies funded by people who own companies that require you to pop pills for long periods of time.
remember that. and stop burying your heads in the sand like republicans do. it’s a sad and pathetic look for you.
The inventor of chiropractic practices literally said that a ghost taught it to him during a seance. Please educate yourself.
And the origin of doctors thought that draining the body of blood helped cure any and all illnesses. and the origin of most surgeries used today were developed by a Nazi who experimented on Jews.
educate yourself.
it’s sad how many idiots think that an origin of a particular activity decides whether or not you should use it.
Chiropractors still use the ghost-taught tricks. Doctors moved on to use scientifically proven practices. They are not the same.
https://journalofethics.ama-assn.org/article/chiropractics-fight-survival/2011-06
here is a link from the very group who claimed that Chiropractors were charlatans. it’s an interesting read that shows how the American Medical Association did every unethical thing they could to discredit chiropractors.
I did look up the main modern day opponents of chiropractic care. they all belonged to the same faction that did a bunch of unethical shit like straight up publishing fake deaths and injuries.
it and the cases involved are an interesting study. one that discredits 90% of all “Chiropractic care is harm” medical news stories.
Found the unlicensed chiropractor. Get bent dude. Chiropractors have caused more pain and suffering to people than they have ever helped. They’re nothing more than glorified physical therapists.
Also its a pretty pathetic look for you that you have to make this political.
found the idiot who thinks that anyone supporting real facts is a fake.
taken straight from a medical journal funded by real medical research not RFK style research (aka not from the hacks that say that vaccines and pills created autism) for orthopedics: Chiropractic care is an evidence based effective option for spine and joint injuries.
the only hack Chiropractors O have found are a bunch of Americans. Every other country in the world recognizes both chiropractors and alternative medicine as valid options. but I wouldn’t expect a fake leftist like you who gets his facts from Fox News to know the difference between fact and propaganda.
Bullshit. Chiropractors cannot prevent or cure any disease or condition. They can help you manage lower back pain. That’s it.
Thanks to immunotherapy, I am now four and a half years cancer free. See if a chiropractor can do that.
Clearly you never paid any attention to chiropractic studies made in the past 10 years.
Chiropractors treat physical injuries and can manage neurological issues if properly trained. there are only 17 chiropractors in America who have that training as they received that training after the 2019 conferences. but it is widely used in Europe for more than 10 years.
the only “chiropractors” who claim to cure cancer are the same idiots had medical licenses revoked.
just because you and a few other idiots got scammed because you couldn’t even bother with a simple google search… does not make all chiropractors hacks. hell with a single google search I can find over 2000 quack doctors that mainstream medical professionals swear are real.
I find it sad that you lot are spreading misinformation and lies when it serves your own narrative. makes you sound just like the standard incel who says “Tylenol causes autism. it is truth. internets says it’s true. durr durr”.
how pathetic can you lot get?
You obviously let that chiropractor crack your neck a few times too many.
You’re feisty and assertive, pretty good, but your analogies need work. Less guessing more facts
My facts come from published medical journals. not the first page of google which is mostly AI slop, paid advertisements, and “studies” that were all debunked or discredited weeks after being published.
but it’s ok. I know that most people can’t spring for the money needed to access Medical Journals (only about 28-30% of medical journals are open sourced and free).
Half the time when I read a medical journal that says that anything other than Western Medicine (pills and chemicals) are run by quacks… the study is paid for Big Pharma (obviously they will rarely publish anything that doesn’t profit them). and 25% of the time… within a year there are multiple studies and medical journals published debunking the first one. the rest of the time the Medical Journals state that while Alternative medicine doesn’t cure cancer or cure incurable diseases, the alternative medicines can slow down symptoms. Every Medical Journal I have found published over the last decade has even stated that Wholistic Chiropractors (different from mainstream chiropractors) can treat the aftermath of injuries including broken bones and torn muscles more effectively than Physical Therapy. they can’t fix the physical damage but once the bone or muscle heals (please do go to the ER and get a cast or an immobilizer), the chiropractors can break the patterns your body gets used to when injured.
What most people criticize chiropractors for is feeling pain after a session. most of the time what really happens is that the body gets shocked and remembers to start using a muscle that it has been bypassing due to nerves screaming in pain. sure it does hurt at first sometimes… but it’s like taking a new medication. you have to tailor the dose and type of medication to your specific situation. a doctor often tries multiple medications over time until one works since not everyone responds the the same medication the exact same way. chiropractors do the same thing. they make an adjustment, see how your body responds, and modified their approach till it works.
take Citalopram for example. In most cases it helps as an antidepressant. but there are cases where it doesn’t work or makes things worse. or say different cancer treatments… same thing happens. not everyone responds to the treatment the same way 100% of the time.
Most people go to a Clinical style of Chiropractors which works for some but not others. and when that chiropractor’s particular style doesn’t work. they say all chiropractors are bad. it’s like eating a bad batch of shrimp and saying that all shrimp are bad.
I’ve gone to 7 different chiropractors over a 20 year period. the Clinical ones that use tools… they don’t work for me. my skin literally crawls after adjustments and my knee always hurts afterwards. But the wholistic ones that press on pressure points and make small adjustments to the spine and use that pogo stick looking tool (idk it’s name) they work for me… no skin crawling and no joint pain. it’s just that the closest one to me currently… is about 60 miles away. too far to drive over and back once a week. My best friend… any time she goes to a more clinical chiropractor, she’s fine. but wholistic ones don’t work well for her.
i was in the hospital and just had had a few major organs removed. like, hours before. a chiro i had never met but who went to the same cult as my parents walked into my hospital room unannounced and started lecturing me about how i would have been able to keep my organs if i’d let him give me a spinal adjustment.
my friends, a chiropracter was saved by an orderly that day.
Flip side:
Woke up in agony. I couldn’t walk without aid. Why to GP, “it’s sciatica. It’ll be ok in a few weeks. Two months at most”
6 months later and I can’t walk still.
Hospitals did the scans, X-rays, MRI, etc etc, but found nothing wrong. They did acupuncture, physio, hydrotherapy etc.
All slightly helped. However two years later I still couldn’t walk without help and then just kept on offering me pain killers.
Nope!!My mate, “Hey, try my new chiro guy. He did wonders for me”
Me, “Lol, quacks.”
My mate, “What have you got to lose?”
Me, “Money…”
…
Mate, “Hey, told my chiro guy about you. He said pop in. The first month is free. If no improvement after then you go separate ways. What have you got to lose?”Long story short.
On that first appointment he said he thought it was piriformis syndrome. Not back problems.
Within a month I was sitting almost pain free for the first time in two years. Within 3 months I was walking unaided for the first time in years. In 6 months I was running again.
Within a year I was 95% of what I was before the back issues. I’ll never be 100% because it wasn’t diagnosed in time and everything had ‘healed’ incorrectly.Now, with that said, the guy was more than a chiro. He did sports body mechanics, and other things that I can’t remember now. He worked with the local lower league football squad for about ten years. And whilst they were no Manchester United they wouldn’t just let any quack work on their team.
Plus in the UK chiro’s have to be registered and follow guidelines. If they do anything illegal they are fucked.
Flip side to my flip side:
The mother in law went to a chiro who said he could cure her spine curvature disorder. Anyways I find out when she’s complaining of (extra) back pain, so I tell her to stop going as the guy is obviously a dodgy bastard. Within the year the guy was arrested for his illegal shenanigans.He did sports body mechanics, and other things that I can’t remember now.
Ok, so he had more training than most US chiropractors.
So many are basically malpractice that it’s safer to say the whole bunch is spoiled atp
Yes
It sounds more like you didn’t see what the US would consider a “chiropractor”, but rather an orthopedics/sports medicine specialist. Maybe he was just advertising as a chiropractor to attract clients or maybe your buddy was confused about his credentialing?
Chiropractors don’t need to be licensed or registered with anything in the US. It’s all pseudoscience mumbo-jumbo.
So that’s why I keep getting confused because around here, a chiropractor absolutely needs a license and I never heard them taut the cure-all bullshit I keep reading about.
They absolutely require licensing. It’s by state.
let me tell you the first illegal thing the chiro did the day i saw him
walk uninvited into a hospital he was unaffiliated with.
short version, he lost his license. we ran him out of the state.
Chiropractors in the US don’t have medical degrees
There’s a lot of international folks here getting downvoted because
AMERICAN CHIROPRACTORS ARE QUACKS.
Can we please step out of our American bubble for a fucking second to realise there is whole world out there of real healthcare.
In the vast majority of the world Chiropractors are exactly the same as Osteopaths and Physios, they have to go to the same schools, lectures, have the same training. They are purely musculoskeletal. Why they are insane in America is anyone’s guess. But this is a problem with America, not Chiropractors.
That said, this is fucking hilarious and I have sent it to a friend to take the piss.
Chiropractics literally started as an alternative to germ theory. The quackery was baked in from the start. They may couch their quackery in medical jargon now in some places but I’ve yet to see stats where people who went to chiropractors did better than people that went to massages or physical therapy.
Example from England last year:
Cases like this should obviously be taken seriously, as it was here. But it doesn’t invalidate the whole field any more than it does for medicine, physiotherapy etc.
In this case, the woman went against medical advice, and did not tell the chiropractor about her injury or give him her notes. This is why it was recommended to be standard practice to request them. This chiropractor was also clearly an idiot.
These types of cases happen all the time with all medical professionals, it would be disingenuous to suggest otherwise. In fact, here, it also happened with the paramedics.
Since Chiropractic medicine was invented in America by a spiritualist quack, I would say trying to use the same name for valid medical practices in another country is the mistake of whoever decided that was ok to do. It’s like saying yes, wizardry is bullshit in America, but in many other countries it’s a valid form of pharmacology. Just call it the valid term that has regulations.
I’m in Australia, it’s quackery here too.
It’s quackery everywhere.
They’re insane in the US because the weirdo cult leader who started US chiropracty based on his dreams about literal ghosts was fucking insane.
It has nothing to do with medicine, and it should be illegal to impersonate medicine like that. It’s shameful.
Everyone who has been swindled by it (eta meaning every patient of it) should file a class-action suit, since that seems to be the only recourse under the US system.
Yup. And I should say you can find good ones in the U.S., you just never know.
Mine was from New Zealand and worked with one of their Olympic teams. She never cracked my neck but gently massaged and manipulated it to release a whiplash injury after a car accident.
For every one of her, there are 20 quacks who claim they can cure cancer with foot baths.
The “chiropractors” in other countries that aren’t quacks, are simply a mistranslation of some sort of real medical field. Anyone in an English speaking country called a chiropractor is at best an amateur masseuse scamming people and at worst a dangerous cultist.
I have known a few chiropractors. Two were decent naturopaths who were also nutritionists, physical therapists, and masseuses. Whole body and nervous system health. Never cracked or popped a joint.
The third charges $35 bucks, no insurance needed, and just pops your middle back and gropes you. Absolute worst and he bought the business from one of the first.
Good chiros are about nervous systems. Bad chiros, the vast majority, are witch doctors selling bunk cures.
nutritionists
Just a heads up, but anyone can call themselves a nutritionist. It is not a protected term. You don’t have to pass any exams. The only thing you need is to be interested in the subject.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nutritionist
The actual professional term is dietitian.
In the US it is even worse. Like Certified Clinical Nutritionists (CCN), which are quacks and prescribe things like homeopathy and herbalism. They are neither Certified nor Clinical.
Yeah I was using common nomenclature. I don’t recall if they were licensed dietitians or not.
The one sold supplements and vitamin tinctures his wife made, so they weren’t far off from the unlicensed category. But they were both also licensed/certified physical therapists and masseuses. He had done some kind of sports medicine if I recall correctly before starting his business.
The other guy was really into the whole gambit of chinese herbology and such, but he kept himself grounded with physical therapy regimens and promoting tai chi every other sentence.
Iono chief, still doesn’t sound great to me. Being good at physical therapy by a different name? Great! Also misleading patients into wasting time, money, and energy on stuff that doesn’t work? Find a new person. The willingness to believe bs will lead to some big error in judgement, sooner or later.
It’s been over 20 years, but I do remember the acupuncture was beneficial. The physical therapy exercises helped with a shoulder injury, and it was accessible for a laborer without insurance.
I should also mention they were also religious and gave you a pocket bible every visit. It was a very different time and location in my life.
Fair enough, I’ll use my pitchfork elsewhere, even though I did just finish sharpening it.
Good chiros aren’t chiros.
I mean, that’s kind of the implication.
The inventor of chiropracty said that a ghost taught it to him during a seance. Yes, really, I’m not making that up.
Yeah I think he also said he fixed a deaf janitors hearing by popping a neck vertebrae into alignment, if I remember the lore. This was ‘drink heroin for medicine’ era too.
Well, what have we learned?
With a professional the difference is like day and night.
