Twenty Things Most Chiropractors Won’t Tell You

[Glacier]

Have you ever consulted a chiropractor? Are you thinking about seeing one? Do you care whether your tax and health-care dollars are spent on worthless treatment? If your answer to any of these questions is yes, there are certain things you should know.



1. Chiropractic theory and practice are not based on the body of knowledge related to health, disease, and health care that has been widely accepted by the scientific community.

Most chiropractors believe that spinal problems, which they call “subluxations,” cause ill health and that fixing them by “adjusting” the spine will promote and restore health. The extent of this belief varies from chiropractor to chiropractor. Some believe that subluxations are the primary cause of ill health; others consider them an underlying cause. Only a small percentage (including me) reject these notions and align their beliefs and practices with those of the science-based medical community. The ramifications and consequences of subluxation theory will be discussed in detail throughout this book.



2. Many chiropractors promise too much.

The most common forms of treatment administered by chiropractors are spinal manipulation and passive physiotherapy measures such as heat, ultrasound, massage, and electrical muscle stimulation. These modalities can be useful in managing certain problems of muscles and bones, but they have little, if any, use against the vast majority of diseases. But chiropractors who believe that “subluxations” cause ill health claim that spinal adjustments promote general health and enable patients to recover from a wide range of diseases. The illustrations below reflect these beliefs. The one to the left is part of a poster that promotes the notion that periodic spinal “adjustments” are a cornerstone of good health. The other is a patient handout that improperly relates “subluxations” to a wide range of ailments that spinal adjustments supposedly can help. Some charts of this type have listed more than 100 diseases and conditions, including allergies, appendicitis, anemia, crossed eyes, deafness, gallbladder problems, hernias, and pneumonia.

A 2008 survey found that exaggeration is common among chiropractic Web sites. The researchers looked at the Web sites of 200 chiropractors and 9 chiropractic associations in Australia, Canada, New Zealand, the United Kingdom, and the United States. Each site was examined for claims suggesting that chiropractic treatment was appropriate for asthma, colic, ear infection/earache/otitis media, neck pain, whiplash, headache/migraine, and lower back pain. The study found that 95% of the surveyed sites made unsubstantiated claims for at least one of these conditions and 38% made unsubstantiated claims for all of them.1 False promises can have dire consequences to the unsuspecting.



3. Our education is vastly inferior to that of medical doctors.

I rarely encountered sick patients in my school clinic. Most of my “patients” were friends, students, and an occasional person who presented to the student clinic for inexpensive chiropractic care. Most had nothing really wrong with them. In order to graduate, chiropractic college students are required to treat a minimum number of people. To reach their number, some resort to paying people (including prostitutes) to visit them at the college’s clinic.2

Students also encounter a very narrow range of conditions, most related to aches and pains. Real medical education involves contact with thousands of patients with a wide variety of problems, including many severe enough to require hospitalization. Most chiropractic students see patients during two clinical years in chiropractic college. Medical students also average two clinical years, but they see many more patients and nearly all medical doctors have an additional three to five years of specialty training before they enter practice.

Chiropractic’s minimum educational standards are quite low. In 2007, chiropractic students were required to evaluate and manage only 15 patients in order to graduate. Chiropractic’s accreditation agency ordered this number to increase to 35 by the fall of 2011. However, only 10 of the 35 must be live patients (eight of whom are not students or their family members)! For the remaining cases, students are permitted to “assist, observe, or participate in live, paper-based, computer-based, distance learning, or other reasonable alternative.”3 In contrast, medical students see thousands of patients.

Former National Council Against Health Fraud President William T. Jarvis, Ph.D., has noted that chiropractic school prepares its students to practice “conversational medicine”—where they glibly use medical words but lack the knowledge or experience to deal appropriately with the vast majority of health problems.4 Dr. Stephen Barrett reported a fascinating example of this which occurred when he visited a chiropractor for research purposes. When Barrett mentioned that he was recovering from an attack of vertigo (dizziness), the chiropractor quickly rattled off a textbook-like list of all the possible causes. But instead of obtaining a proper history and conducting tests to pinpoint a diagnosis, he x-rayed Dr. Barrett’s neck and recommended a one-year course of manipulations to make his neck more curved. The medical diagnosis, which had been appropriately made elsewhere, was a viral infection that cleared up spontaneously in about ten days.5



4. Our legitimate scope is actually very narrow.

Appropriate chiropractic treatment is relevant only to a narrow range of ailments, nearly all related to musculoskeletal problems. But some chiropractors assert that they can influence the course of nearly everything. Some even offer adjustments to farm animals and family pets.



5. Very little of what chiropractors do has been studied.

Although chiropractic has been around since 1895, little of what we do meets the scientific standard through solid research. Chiropractic apologists try to sound scientific to counter their detractors, but very little research actually supports what chiropractors do.



6. Unless your diagnosis is obvious, it’s best to get diagnosed elsewhere.

During my work as an independent examiner, I have encountered many patients whose chiropractor missed readily apparent diagnoses and rendered inappropriate treatment for long periods of time. Chiropractors lack the depth of training available to medical doctors. For that reason, except for minor injuries, it is usually better to seek medical diagnosis first.



7. We offer lots of unnecessary services.

Many chiropractors, particularly those who find “subluxations” in everyone, routinely advise patients to come for many months, years, and even for their lifetime. Practice-builders teach how to persuade people they need “maintenance care” long after their original problem has resolved. In line with this, many chiropractors offer “discounts” to patients who pay in advance and sign a contract committing them for 50 to 100 treatments. And “chiropractic pediatric specialists” advise periodic examinations and spinal adjustments from early infancy onward. (This has been aptly described as “womb to tomb” care.) Greed is not the only factor involved in overtreatment. Many who advise periodic adjustments are “true believers.” In chiropractic school, one of my classmates actually adjusted his newborn son while the umbilical cord was still attached. Another student had the school radiology department take seven x-rays of his son’s neck to look for “subluxations” presumably acquired during the birth process. The topic of unnecessary care is discussed further in Chapter 8.



8. “Cracking” of the spine doesn’t mean much.

Spinal manipulation usually produces a “popping” or “cracking” sound similar to what occurs when you crack your knuckles. Both are due to a phenomenon called cavitation, which occurs when there is a sudden decrease in joint pressure brought on by the manipulation. That allows dissolved gasses in the joint fluid to be released into the joint itself. Chiropractors sometimes state that the noise means that something therapeutic has taken place. However, the noise has no health-related significance and does not indicate that anything has been realigned. It simply means that gas was allowed to escape under less pressure than normal. Knuckles do not “go back into place” when you crack them, and neither do spinal bones.



9. If the first few visits don’t help you, more treatment probably won’t help.

I used to tell my patients “three and through.” If we did not see significant objective improvement in three visits, it was time to move on.



10. We take too many x-rays.

No test should be done unless it is likely to provide information that will influence clinical management of the patient. X-ray examinations are appropriate when a fracture, tumor, infection, or neurological defect is suspected. But they are not needed for evaluating simple mechanical-type strains, such as back or neck pain that develops after lifting a heavy object.

The average number of x-rays taken during the first visit by chiropractors whose records I have been asked to review has been about eleven. Those records were sent to me because an insurance company had flagged them for investigation into excessive billing, so this number of x-rays is much higher than average. But many chiropractors take at least a few x-rays of everyone who walks through their door.

There are two main reasons why chiropractors take more x-rays than are medically necessary. One is easy money. It costs about 35¢ to buy an 8- x 10-inch film, for which they typically charge $40. In chiropractic, the spine encompasses five areas: the neck, mid-back, low-back, pelvic, and sacral regions. That means five separate regions to bill for—typically three to seven views of the neck, two to six for the low back, and two for each of the rest. So eleven x-ray films would net the chiropractor over $400 for just few minutes of work. In many accident cases I have reviewed, the fact that patients had adequate x-ray examinations in a hospital emergency department to rule out fractures did not deter the chiropractor from unnecessarily repeating these exams.

Chiropractors also use x-ray examinations inappropriately for marketing purposes. Chiropractors who do this point to various things on the films that they interpret as (a) subluxations, (b) not enough spinal curvature, (c) too much spinal curvature, and/or (d) “spinal decay,” all of which supposedly call for long courses of adjustments with periodic x-ray re-checks to supposedly assess progress. In addition to wasting money, unnecessary x-rays entail unnecessary exposure to the risks of ionizing radiation.



11. Research on spinal manipulation does not reflect what takes place in most chiropractic offices.

Research studies that look at spinal manipulation are generally done under strict protocols that protect patients from harm. The results reflect what happens when manipulation is done on patients who are appropriately screened—usually by medical teams that exclude people with conditions that would make manipulation dangerous. The results do not reflect what typically happens when patients select chiropractors on their own. The chiropractic marketplace is a mess because most chiropractors ignore research findings and subject their patients to procedures that are unnecessary and/or senseless.



12. Neck manipulation is potentially dangerous.

Certain types of chiropractic neck manipulation can damage neck arteries and cause a stroke. Chiropractors claim that the risk is trivial, but they have made no systematic effort to actually measure it. Chapter 9 covers this topic in detail.



13. Most chiropractors don’t know much about nutrition.

Chiropractors learn little about clinical nutrition during their schooling. Many offer what they describe as “nutrition counseling.” But this typically consists of superficial advice about eating less fat and various schemes to sell you supplements that are high-priced and unnecessary.



14. Chiropractors who sell vitamins charge much more than it costs them.

Chiropractors who sell vitamins typically recommend them unnecessarily and charge two to three times what they pay for them. Some chiropractors center their practice around selling vitamins to patients. Their recommendations are based on hair analysis, live blood analysis, applied kinesiology muscle-testing or other quack tests that will be discussed later in this book. Patients who are victimized this way typically pay several dollars a day and are encouraged to stay on the products indefinitely. In one case I investigated, an Arizona chiropractor advised an 80+-year-old grandma to charge more than $10,000 for vitamins to her credit cards to avoid an impending stroke that he had diagnosed by testing a sample of her pubic hair. No hair test can determine that a stroke is imminent or show that dietary supplements are needed. Doctors who evaluated the woman at the Mayo Clinic found no evidence to support the chiropractor’s assessment.



15. Chiropractors have no business treating young children.

The pediatric training chiropractors receive during their schooling is skimpy and based mainly on reading. Students see few children and get little or no experience in diagnosing or following the course of the vast majority of childhood ailments. Moreover, spinal adjustment has no proven effectiveness against childhood diseases. Some adolescents with spinal stiffness might benefit from manipulation, but most will recover without treatment. Chiropractors who claim to practice “chiropractic pediatrics” typically aim to adjust spines from birth onward and are likely to oppose immunization. Some chiropractors claim they can reverse or lessen the spinal curvature of scoliosis, but there is no scientific evidence that spinal manipulation can do this.6



16. The fact that patients swear by us does not mean we are actually helping them.

Satisfaction is not the same thing as effectiveness. Many people who believe they have been helped had conditions that would have resolved without treatment. Some have had treatment for dangers that did not exist but were said by the chiropractor to be imminent. Many chiropractors actually take courses on how to trick patients to believe in them. (See Chapter 8)



17. Insurance companies don’t want to pay for chiropractic care.

Chiropractors love to brag that their services are covered by Medicare and most insurance companies. However, this coverage has been achieved though political action rather than scientific merit. I have never encountered an insurance company that would reimburse for chiropractic if not forced to do so by state laws. The political pressure to mandate chiropractic coverage comes from chiropractors, of course, but it also comes from the patients whom they have brainwashed.



18. Lots of chiropractors do really strange things.

The chiropractic profession seems to attract people who are prone to believe in strange things. One I know of does “aura adjustments” to treat people’s “bruised karma.” Another rents out a large crystal to other chiropractors so they can “recharge” their own (smaller) crystals. Another claims to get advice by “channeling” a 15th Century Scottish physician. Another claimed to “balance a woman’s harmonics” by inserting his thumb into her vagina and his index finger into her anus. Another treated cancer with an orange light that was mounted in a wooden box. Another did rectal exams on all his female patients. Even though such exams are outside the legitimate scope of chiropractic, he also videotaped them so that if his bills for this service were questioned, he could prove that he had actually performed what he billed for.



19. Don’t expect our licensing boards to protect you.

Many chiropractors who serve on chiropractic licensing boards harbor the same misbeliefs that are rampant among their colleagues. This means, for example, that most boards are unlikely to discipline chiropractors for diagnosing and treating imaginary “subluxations.”



20. The media rarely look at what we do wrong.

The media rarely if ever address chiropractic nonsense. Reporting on chiropractic is complicated because chiropractors vary so much in what they do. (In fact, a very astute observer once wrote that “for every chiropractor, there is an equal and opposite chiropractor.”) Consumer Reports published superb exposés in 1975 and 1994, but no other print outlet has done so in the past 35 years. This lack of information is the main reason I have written this book.



References

1. Ernst E, Gilbey A. Chiropractic claims in the English-speaking world. New Zealand Medical Journal 123:36–44, 2010.

2. Bernet J. Affidavit, April 12, 1996. Posted to Chirobase Web site.

3. Standards for Doctor of Chiropractic Programs and Requirements for Institutional Status. Council on Chiropractic Education, Scottsdale, Arizona, Jan 2007.

4. Jarvis WT. Why becoming a chiropractor may be risky. Chirobase Web site, October 5, 1999.

5. Barrett S. My visit to a “straight” chiropractor. Quackwatch Web site, Oct 10, 2002.

6. Romano M, Negrini S. Manual therapy as a conservative treatment for idiopathic scoliosis: A review. Scoliosis 3:2, 2008.

[flamingfingers]

Excellent post, Glace...

All points merit repeating, especially this one:

12. Neck manipulation is potentially dangerous.

Certain types of chiropractic neck manipulation can damage neck arteries and cause a stroke. Chiropractors claim that the risk is trivial, but they have made no systematic effort to actually measure it. Chapter 9 covers this topic in detail.

as this article clearly shows:

Neurologists warn about link between chiropractic, stroke
Jennifer Jones
More than 60 Canadian neurologists have issued a statement warning that chiropractic neck manipulation can cause stroke and death. The neurologists and the Canadian Stroke Consortium caution that chiropractic manipulation involving the neck can cause arterial dissection.

http://www.cmaj.ca/content/166/6/794.1.full

[Phoenix Within]

I don't even know where to begin to argue against this...

All I'm going to say is that as someone who's seen a Chiropractor for years, as well as knowing people who've been helped by seeing a Chiropractor, I call bunk on most of the above statements.

I've never received "nutritional" advice from my Chiro, and saying they don't know enough; well the same could be said for most MD's out there. X-rays? Only x-ray I've had was for neck issues I was having, and that was in conjunction with my MD, who's okay with Chiropractors.

"Some even offer adjustments to farm animals and family pets." - Yup, and seen some amazing results from it. Animals aren't as susceptible to suggestion as humans are. I know some vets that recommend it too.

Just a start, but that's all that's worth commenting on for now.

[gardengirl]

I would say the amount of chiropractic quacks is increasing at a distressing pace.
I used to get chiropractic treatment from an "old school" guy. He helped me a lot.

After he retired, I had to find someone new. As time went on, these new guys kept trying to upsell me on new stuff.
There were all sorts of tests they offered which were supposedly diagnostic. I have no idea what exactly these things were or what training of qualifications they had to offer these things.

Then they was the "recall" system. With that, they would book you for treatment every few weeks whether you required it or not. Supposedly it was like a "tune up". Interestingly, they booked enough to use up whatever your medical plan would cover.

I read the articles in the newspapers written by local chiropractors. They rarely have anything whatsoever to do with the care and treatment of the back and spine. More often, they are about nutrition and alternative therapies. I have even seen ones about the merits or dangers of immuniuzation. *bleep*?

Seriously. There are a lot of quacks out there charging patients a lot of money for things which they are not licenced to do, and have no qualifications for.

I stopped going to the chiropractor when hurt my back and went in for an adjustment. The guy (who I had been going to for several years, and who writes articles for many different publications) went ahead and did an adjustment without assessing my condition at all. He made an adjustment based on my needs in the past and sent me on my way. For the next several days I was in absolute agony. When I finally got another appointment, he discovered that he had manipulated my spine in entirely the wrong direction. He had, in fact, caused further injury to me.

[Lady tehMa]

I know some of them can be real quacks.

However, the one I found when I put my hip out (never do a hip opening yoga class followed by a zumba class) really did help me. I went from limited range of movement with a LOT of pain to being able to move again. He also is not one of the "you HAVE to come back and do continual maintenance" type of guys. He asked questions about the injury, assessed my range of movement, and then did what felt like a bit of massage before adjusting. I'll be keeping this one for when I injure myself again.

[steven lloyd]

All I'm going to say is that as someone who's seen a Chiropractor for years, as well as knowing people who've been helped by seeing a Chiropractor, I call bunk on most of the above statements.

I've gone from lying curled on my back with pillows under my knees and neck doped up on pain killers barely able to move, to back on my feet running and playing football and tennis again (into golf now). Chiropractor saved my (quality of) life. What impressed me about my GP at the time is he referred me to the chiropractor. I’ve never allowed a chiropractor to use extreme neck adjustments (doctor advised me to state that out front but the idea freaks me out anyway) but the spinal adjustments were beautiful. What an incredible relief after weeks of debilitating pain that literally had me in bed and doped out on drugs.

Today I do spinal rolls as a part of my morning work-out routine. Best I can describe it is I roll back and forth on my back with my knees raised to my chest on a firm surface (I have a piece of carpet on a concrete floor in my basement where my gym is set up), roll back and extend my legs out back over my head. I can hear the disks between the vertebrae “crack” as I roll. It feels very good. I also do some hip flexor movements that twist my lower spine. These two exercises help keep my spine “supple” – something that chiropractors try to create with their “adjustments”. I haven’t been to a chiropractor in awhile but I owe having an active life back to chiropractic care, and learned from it how to keep my spine supple. If I ever tightened right back up again I wouldn’t hesitate to go back to a chiropractor and get my spine “worked-over” again.

[Jonrox]

A girl I went to high school with died after a series of neck manipulations. Scared me off of them for life.

[smoky500]

THIS IS SO MISGUIDED i HAVE TO RESPOND TO SOME OF THESE RIDICULOUS STATEMENTS.
3. A DCs education is quite equal in quantity and quality to an MD.

5. More studies have been done on DC treatment for low back pain than for any other treatment and most conclude that chiro treatment is safe and effective (google the Manga report)

6. Part of a DCs education is differential diagnosis.

9. Healing takes time and sometimes more than 3 treatments, how many antibiotic pills does it take to cure an infection?(more than 3!!)

12. Current research shows that chiro treament is safe including necks. If their treatments were so dangerous, why has the profession continued to grow and expand around the world, even with all the negative press they recieve?? (#20)

13. Most DCs have more education and knowledge of nutrition than MDs.

14. ANY STORE that sells vitamins charges more that what they pay for them!!!

15. Children have spines too!!

17. Insurance companies are beginning to understand that DC treatment is cost effective.

18. Lots of PEOPLE do REALLY STUPID THINGS!!