I always kind of assumed that chiropracty was hand-waving and bullshit just because of the sheer volume of people that say it is, so when I got the opportunity I told a chiropractor about this back pain I used to get whenever I ran. I say "used to" because, after asking me some questions and having me stand up straight against a wall to examine my posture, he did an adjustment, right there on the spot, and it's never happened again. I am aware that the placebo effect can occur even when you don't expect the placebo to be effective but this was a pain that would occur literally every single time I would run and hasn't happened again, ever, since then, about three years ago.
I know there are some crackpots like the anti-vaccers mentioned in the OP but all this tells me is that chiropractors, like every other profession, are composed of people
Here's the thing: physiotherapy is a real, medically sound form of treatment for some injuries. Chiropractors (well, some chiropractors) use physiotherapy, usually in conjunction with their hand-waving bullshit. Some adjustments can indeed treat some conditions - like, for example, whatever was causing your back pain. But that's physiotherapy, and it's not a cure-all for everything, not even all sources of back pain.
If you'd gone to a physiotherapist, they could've done the same thing for you, but without also having an office full of pseudo-medicine.
With Love and Courage
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zepherinRussian warship, go fuck yourselfRegistered Userregular
I think the real problem is that getting your back cracked does make you feel better. So naturally feeling better=fixed, which as we know is not always the situation.
And there are legitimate alternate medicine paths that are reasonable, but with so many snake oil salesmen out there, and people who are simply misinformed it is hard to separate truth from fiction.
If nothing else, I wish there was a law prohibiting chiropractors from using the title, "doctor," in their practice and advertising. Almost all of them will, and all of them are Ph.Ds, at best. I don't se how that's not fraudulent.
I would get sued for running a medical business if my degree was in literature, I dont see why bullshit homeopathy should be any different.
To be fair, all you need is a Ph. D. to put Dr. on your title for anything.
I think the real problem is that getting your back cracked does make you feel better. So naturally feeling better=fixed, which as we know is not always the situation.
And there are legitimate alternate medicine paths that are reasonable, but with so many snake oil salesmen out there, and people who are simply misinformed it is hard to separate truth from fiction.
Also in the particular example cited, I seriously doubt back pain from running was solved by any "adjustment". I would wager, you've already been taking steps to fix it - for example, did you changes shoes - particularly running shoes - or start wearing orthodics around that time?
Because a really really well known cause of back pain due to running is having improperly balanced and padded shoes, and is easily fixed by getting shoes which work better with your feet. If you changed shoes, or even just socks or possibly gait, then you'd fix the problem seemingly permanently.
Also in the particular example cited, I seriously doubt back pain from running was solved by any "adjustment". I would wager, you've already been taking steps to fix it - for example, did you changes shoes - particularly running shoes - or start wearing orthodics around that time?
Because a really really well known cause of back pain due to running is having improperly balanced and padded shoes, and is easily fixed by getting shoes which work better with your feet. If you changed shoes, or even just socks or possibly gait, then you'd fix the problem seemingly permanently.
Dammit I'm a graphic artist, not a doctor, Jim - but I'm under the impression that some physio adjustments do have efficacy in pain relief (in the event that you've got a pinched nerve or slightly dislocated joint). Am I misinformed?
With Love and Courage
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Apothe0sisHave you ever questioned the nature of your reality?Registered Userregular
My main complaint is that 'Chiropractic' totally violates English morphology - nouns don't use the suffix "-ic" you turds.
That's been bugging me throughout the thread.
It looks like an adjective to me...
Exactly, but it is used as a noun as in "Chiropractic teaches that subluxations are the cause of disease and by manipulating the spine we can cure these diseases." or "I have been a practitioner of Chiropractic for years".
I could go on and on about this and all other pseudo-scientific magical medical thinking for days. If you want to read about Chiropractic Medicine 2.0 (a new century of magic medicine) look up Craniosacral therapy.
I love when I have a reason to quote you!
So, chiropractic care pisses me off.
See, I have scoliosis. Really bad scoliosis. (For those of you who know- I have a 45 degree curve to the right from C5 to T3).
My family, when my father was quite affluent, tried almost every single means of treatment barring surgery. I didn't want surgery, which kind of puts this on me, but hey I also wasn't the one signing myself up for these crazy therapies, and I hated each one. But also I was 13 so I had little say.
We tried everything- regular orthopedic back braces, massage therapy, chiropractic care, craniosacral therapy, reiiki, acupuncture
Shit we even flew out to a place in Louisiana known as the Copes clinic and got on their plan.
Every single one of these things failed, but more importantly they failed continuously for a period of years while we funneled money into them.
With the exception of the orthopedic brace and three month X-ray checkups, every other therapy wanted to see me multiple times a week, for many many weeks. We bought it all and I tried each one for months at a time, all while watching my scoliosis get worse. The people in Louisiana even had the gall to suggest that it was because I was not following their specially formatted diet that my scoliosis was getting worse.
Dwell on that.
But the people we spent the most money on were chiropractors. I saw one of them three times a week for the better part of a year. He would come in, pop my back and neck a few times, give me some electrostimulation, and then I would get strapped into some fucking machine that would gently move my back around for an hour.
It was analogous to torture, for a 13 year old boy. Most of the time, to add insult to injury, the girl I had a MAJOR crush on would go with me to these things and hang out in the office while this creepy man did the chiropractic thing.
If it sounds like it gave me a complex, you are right! Not only am I shaking with rage thinking about it, I have serious psychological problems about people touching my back now. I can't get massages and I cant stand people touching me at the nape of the neck.
These fuckers tortured me (and were just goddam creepers. Craniosacral therapy involves putting your hand on the coccyx and 'manipulating energy'. I was a 13 year old kid, and older men were the ones doing this therapy. Also I was in my underpants, and they lit scented candles and turned off the lights. If that isn't fucking creepy I don't know what is.)
Then I got older and learned about Science! and learned that all these assholes made this shit up and I am like
Goddamit we spent so much fucking money and I wasted SO MUCH OF MY FUCKING CHILDHOOD WITH THESE GODDAM CRANKS.
As long as proper health care remains way too expensive for most people in America, I guess it's inevitable that we'll have these pseudo-doctor loosely-regulated cottage health industries like chiropractors (and to a lesser extent acupuncturists, although at least they can't do any harm to you). Yet another problem that would be solved by socialized medicine.
My impression is that Chiropractors are mostly seen by people with insurance, it's not really a money thing.
I think there is a group of people in any society who will seek out bullshit-remedies. It's not like these industries don't exist in Europe. Shit, usually these remedies are more expensive than normal doctors.
The stuff mentioned by Thanatos in the OP is more a result of the US just being very big and a curious aspect of the politics in the US. I doubt it has anything to do with the lack of socialized medicine, and if it does it's probably just a small part.
I doubt that it's anywhere near as big a problem in Europe. Over here, you have people saying "fuck, my back is killing me, and I can't take time off my job. But I can't go to a real doctor because it's too expensive." Guess I'll just go to a chiropracter/acupuncturist/faith healer instead, or maybe just pop some aspirin or drink some alcohol. And thanks to the magic of the placebo effect, sometimes that does make them feel better. But it bites us in the ass long-term,so we end up paying vast amounts through medicare to try and reverse decades of damage from lack of preventative care. And even then, we still end up behind almost all of Europe in life expectancy.
What about compared to getting surgery at a hospital?
Alternative medicine people are generally quite expensive. And while surgery and the like are way more expensive, they're also not the majority (or even close to it) of the treatments/visits. You also don't know what it's going to be before you go to the doctor.
People (and I realise this is anecdotal) seem to go to these guys because they heard it from family or don't trust doctors or any of a million reasons that aren't due to doctors being expensive. Alternative medicine shit is a big thing in Europe, IIRC homeopathic shit was partly covered here for some time.
Hearing "well I used to think but then [some anecdote]" makes me so angry. That's the fucking point. They play off that stupid anecdote! They rely on people trusting their guts and their idiot fucking friends instead of actual evidence. So yeah, no shit the special fake doctor made you feel better. They know how to make just enough people feel better for just long enough to recommend them to other people. The odd severe injury or death doesn't need to be paid any mind, because well you know that's not your guy. You're so motherfucking smart! You'd never fall for that.
It's like claiming three-card-monte isn't a scam because you saw this one guy who went right before you win.
My main complaint is that 'Chiropractic' totally violates English morphology - nouns don't use the suffix "-ic" you turds.
That's been bugging me throughout the thread.
It looks like an adjective to me...
Exactly, but it is used as a noun as in "Chiropractic teaches that subluxations are the cause of disease and by manipulating the spine we can cure these diseases." or "I have been a practitioner of Chiropractic for years".
Physical therapists are the closest analogs to chiropractors within objective medicine.
I always thought Rheumatologists were the reality-based version of Chiropracy (or however you spell that bullshit). Have I got that wrong?
What pisses me off is that my health plan at work covers 20 Chiropracy sessions per year, which everyone happily takes advantage of because: "Hey, it's only $10 for an hour of adjustment." But when I pulled a muscle in my back I paid for some massage therapy completely out of pocket because: "We can't have our plan cover that. People would just get massage therapy for fun." We're self-insured, so it's up to HR what's covered. Now there's talk of adding accupuncture.
enc0re on
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syndalisGetting ClassyOn the WallRegistered User, Loves Apple Productsregular
Jesus, Arch, that bit about the candles and incense is just
Did they put on Barry White, too?
it gets better
the person doing the craniosacral therapy?
deacon at my church
I know people who perform CST. They are very well meaning folks who genuinely believe in what they are doing.
I also feel there is room for some "sugar-pill" esque placebo effect for people whose problems are mental in origin.
But it is useless as fuck when it comes to curing anything. And its fucking expensive. And it has the possibility of causing further damage to people who choose to use it over conventional methods of treatment.
syndalis on
SW-4158-3990-6116
Let's play Mario Kart or something...
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Tiger BurningDig if you will, the pictureRegistered User, SolidSaints Tuberegular
Chiropractry sounds like it should be the method by which left handed people are turned into right handed people. You know, good people.
Physical therapists use spinal compression to relieve pain and adjust but what chiropractors do is far more woo-based. Also, I thought pretty much anyone could get a chiropracting degree aaaaaaand that the "research" they do is highly suspect and all their subjects are chiropractor students.
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zepherinRussian warship, go fuck yourselfRegistered Userregular
I think the real problem is that getting your back cracked does make you feel better. So naturally feeling better=fixed, which as we know is not always the situation.
And there are legitimate alternate medicine paths that are reasonable, but with so many snake oil salesmen out there, and people who are simply misinformed it is hard to separate truth from fiction.
Also in the particular example cited, I seriously doubt back pain from running was solved by any "adjustment". I would wager, you've already been taking steps to fix it - for example, did you changes shoes - particularly running shoes - or start wearing orthodics around that time?
I think you misunderstand my statement, so for clarification are you asking for examples of alternative medicine used in a predictable replicable way to solve health problems?
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Magus`The fun has been DOUBLED!Registered Userregular
I could go on and on about this and all other pseudo-scientific magical medical thinking for days. If you want to read about Chiropractic Medicine 2.0 (a new century of magic medicine) look up Craniosacral therapy.
I love when I have a reason to quote you!
So, chiropractic care pisses me off.
See, I have scoliosis. Really bad scoliosis. (For those of you who know- I have a 45 degree curve to the right from C5 to T3).
My family, when my father was quite affluent, tried almost every single means of treatment barring surgery. I didn't want surgery, which kind of puts this on me, but hey I also wasn't the one signing myself up for these crazy therapies, and I hated each one. But also I was 13 so I had little say.
We tried everything- regular orthopedic back braces, massage therapy, chiropractic care, craniosacral therapy, reiiki, acupuncture
Shit we even flew out to a place in Louisiana known as the Copes clinic and got on their plan.
Every single one of these things failed, but more importantly they failed continuously for a period of years while we funneled money into them.
With the exception of the orthopedic brace and three month X-ray checkups, every other therapy wanted to see me multiple times a week, for many many weeks. We bought it all and I tried each one for months at a time, all while watching my scoliosis get worse. The people in Louisiana even had the gall to suggest that it was because I was not following their specially formatted diet that my scoliosis was getting worse.
Dwell on that.
But the people we spent the most money on were chiropractors. I saw one of them three times a week for the better part of a year. He would come in, pop my back and neck a few times, give me some electrostimulation, and then I would get strapped into some fucking machine that would gently move my back around for an hour.
It was analogous to torture, for a 13 year old boy. Most of the time, to add insult to injury, the girl I had a MAJOR crush on would go with me to these things and hang out in the office while this creepy man did the chiropractic thing.
If it sounds like it gave me a complex, you are right! Not only am I shaking with rage thinking about it, I have serious psychological problems about people touching my back now. I can't get massages and I cant stand people touching me at the nape of the neck.
These fuckers tortured me (and were just goddam creepers. Craniosacral therapy involves putting your hand on the coccyx and 'manipulating energy'. I was a 13 year old kid, and older men were the ones doing this therapy. Also I was in my underpants, and they lit scented candles and turned off the lights. If that isn't fucking creepy I don't know what is.)
Then I got older and learned about Science! and learned that all these assholes made this shit up and I am like
Goddamit we spent so much fucking money and I wasted SO MUCH OF MY FUCKING CHILDHOOD WITH THESE GODDAM CRANKS.
Physical therapists are the closest analogs to chiropractors within objective medicine.
I always thought Rheumatologists were the reality-based version of Chiropracy (or however you spell that bullshit). Have I got that wrong?
What pisses me off is that my health plan at work covers 20 Chiropracy sessions per year, which everyone happily takes advantage of because: "Hey, it's only $10 for an hour of adjustment." But when I pulled a muscle in my back I paid for some massage therapy completely out of pocket because: "We can't have our plan cover that. People would just get massage therapy for fun." We're self-insured, so it's up to HR what's covered. Now there's talk of adding accupuncture.
Rheumatologists work with a lot of autoimmune and otherwise immunilogically-mediated conditions like rheumatoid arthritis. A lot of autoimmune problems cause degenerative joint damage, so rheumatologists do a fair amount of work with those patients. The don't really deal with primary joint dysfunction, though, so you'd never send someone with, say, back pain to a rheumatologist.
Physiatrists are probably the closest medical equivalent to chiropractors. They're essentially MD's who specialize in physical therapy and rehabilitation. It's a fairly new field, though, so they tend to be few and far between.
No, the increase in my scoloisis stabilized when I stopped growing so I am pretty much sitting at 45-ish degrees of curvature
50 is the cutoff point after which surgery doesn't really fix anything (or to put it another way- surgery only corrects about 50 degrees of curvature at best, so anything beyond that you are stuck with, but preventative surgery can usually prevent the curve from getting worse)
I have been through....9 major operations at this point? I didn't want anymore unless it was absolutely life threatening, and it wasn't and still isn't
Yet.
I am fully cognizant of the fact that I may need corrective surgery later but I will beat that when I come to it
Also I haven't had time or money for this shit for at least a decade
What insurance covers chiropractors? I've never had insurance that did (and rightly so).
Mine does. Anthem Blue Cross.
Lots of PPOs do, and often at the exact same copays as physical therapy.
Most auto insurance is required to if they're covering third-parties (i.e. the person they're insuring hits someone else). And chiropractors are really, really good about being able to take as many types of insurance as humanly possible. When you don't need to worry about actually medically treating people, you have way more time to focus on marketing and billing.
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Muse Among MenSuburban Bunny Princess?Its time for a new shtick Registered Userregular
Are you able to live okay, Arch?
I need a happy ending out of that story, holy crap.
As long as proper health care remains way too expensive for most people in America, I guess it's inevitable that we'll have these pseudo-doctor loosely-regulated cottage health industries like chiropractors (and to a lesser extent acupuncturists, although at least they can't do any harm to you). Yet another problem that would be solved by socialized medicine.
My impression is that Chiropractors are mostly seen by people with insurance, it's not really a money thing.
I think there is a group of people in any society who will seek out bullshit-remedies. It's not like these industries don't exist in Europe. Shit, usually these remedies are more expensive than normal doctors.
The stuff mentioned by Thanatos in the OP is more a result of the US just being very big and a curious aspect of the politics in the US. I doubt it has anything to do with the lack of socialized medicine, and if it does it's probably just a small part.
I doubt that it's anywhere near as big a problem in Europe. Over here, you have people saying "fuck, my back is killing me, and I can't take time off my job. But I can't go to a real doctor because it's too expensive." Guess I'll just go to a chiropracter/acupuncturist/faith healer instead. And thanks to the magic of the placebo effect, sometimes that does make them feel better. But it bites us in the ass long-term,so we end up paying vast amounts through medicare to try and reverse decades of damage from lack of preventative care. And even then, we still end up behind almost all of Europe in life expectancy.
From what I've seen, chiropractors tend to charge boutique prices, more than real doctors.
The issue isn't so much price, but that in American medicine, pain management is the redheaded stepchild of the field. Which is really, really fucking annoying when you're caring for someone who needs longterm pain mitigation.
Jesus, Arch, that bit about the candles and incense is just
Did they put on Barry White, too?
it gets better
the person doing the craniosacral therapy?
deacon at my church
I know people who perform CST. They are very well meaning folks who genuinely believe in what they are doing.
I also feel there is room for some "sugar-pill" esque placebo effect for people whose problems are mental in origin.
But it is useless as fuck when it comes to curing anything. And its fucking expensive. And it has the possibility of causing further damage to people who choose to use it over conventional methods of treatment.
The thing that I hate though is that the placebo treatments are taking up space where we desperately need an actual mental health infrastructure that people trust and utilize. It shouldn't be reserved for the extremely ill or the rich. This sort of quack bullshit just makes that harder, because it allows people to comfortably stay fucked and keep their prejudice against mental health care.
I need a happy ending out of that story, holy crap.
Oh yeah, I'm fine*. There is only mild pain but I have gotten used to it.
But the scoliosis IS the reason family photos look like this
HINT I AM THE ONE WHO IS VERY SHORT. ALSO I AM FIVE+ YEARS OLDER THAN ALL THESE FUCKERS
The scoliosis basically cuts four to five inches off of my height
I take everything pretty well; I roll with the punches easily and I am a pretty optimistic dude all things considered. Plus my life, aside from medical stuff, is pretty great
*
The rest of my medical problems are even more depressing! (SPOILER: My esophagus muscles barely work! I rely mainly on gravity to get food from mouth to belly!)
I went to a chiropractor a few months ago, because I had pinched a nerve in my neck and was in extreme pain. I went in, the chiropractor did very little to assess my issue, and almost immediately went to cracking my body. I felt a little better the rest of the day, but the pain came back. Fortunately, he only charged me $30.
When I visit a doctor, I want my shit fixed or at least told how to fix it myself. Chiropractors don't want to fix you. They want to keep you injured and returning week after week.
Hearing "well I used to think but then [some anecdote]" makes me so angry. That's the fucking point. They play off that stupid anecdote! They rely on people trusting their guts and their idiot fucking friends instead of actual evidence. So yeah, no shit the special fake doctor made you feel better. They know how to make just enough people feel better for just long enough to recommend them to other people. The odd severe injury or death doesn't need to be paid any mind, because well you know that's not your guy. You're so motherfucking smart! You'd never fall for that.
It's like claiming three-card-monte isn't a scam because you saw this one guy who went right before you win.
I heard a desire for a consensus medical opinion on chiropracty, so I will shamelessly copy and paste from a consensus website.
Lumbar spinal manipulation is probably mildly effective for patients with uncomplicated low back pain who cannot take or tolerate other pain relieving measures such as acetaminophen or NSAIDs, those who responded well to manipulation in the past, or patients whose symptoms have persisted at an unacceptable level for more than 10 days. (See 'Low back pain' above.)
There are limited data to support the use of manipulation of the cervical spine for neck pain and headache. (See 'Neck pain and headache' above.)
Spinal manipulation of the lumbar spine is felt to be a relatively safe procedure, although it may be associated with a number of minor complaints and, rarely, serious adverse events. (See 'Risks of spinal manipulation' above.
The section on risks:
Serious adverse events — The most common serious adverse events associated with spinal manipulation include disk herniation, the cauda equina syndrome, and vertebrobasilar accidents. Estimates of the incidence of these complications range from 1 per 2 million to 1 per 400,000 manipulations [30]. These estimates are primarily derived from published case reports, case series, and retrospective surveys, all of which may be unreliable due to underreporting and the dependence on recall.
Disk herniation and the cauda equina syndrome occur most commonly with lumbar manipulation [31]. Individuals with a herniated nucleus pulposus or an underlying bleeding disorder are postulated to be at increased risk of the cauda equina syndrome.
Vertebrobasilar artery ischemic events occur after cervical manipulation [32]. Some reports estimate it to occur as infrequently as once per 1 to 3 million manipulations [12], while others report an incidence as high as 5 per 100,000 manipulations [26].
Overall, my interpretation is that there's good data that it works about as well as massage therapy or physiotherapy for low back pain (which isn't saying much, because those don't work particularly well, but they are all superior to placebo) and inconclusive data that it works for anything else. I understand that there have been one or two cochrane reviews done on the subject that I don't feel like parsing right now, if anyone is sufficiently interested.
Also, since physiotherapy was raised: I am mildly to moderately sceptical of physiotherapy. I'm very uncertain of the strength of evidence leading to some of their treatments, especially their more gadgety stuff like ultrasonography and electric shock therapy. I also know for a fact that the field of sports medicine in general has a tendency to rush people back to full activity faster than they should sometimes. Long-term injury rates go down as people's activity levels increase right up to elite amateur levels until you hit professional athletes; then they go up, and the best evidence at the moment is because all the sports med experts, including MDs and physios, are pushing them back to the game too quickly.
Edit: oh yeah, apparently there are chiropractic radiologists and now some possible quack is starting up chiropractic neurology. I really don't know enough to comment on it one way or the other, though.
I think that most of physiotherapy probably does work, but I have my doubts about all of it and I have doubts it works as well as advertised. It's pretty difficult to do high-quality RCTs on physical therapy and the data I have seen is fairly low quality.
Basically, I'm sceptical that seen a physio once or twice a week for 8 weeks, at $30-50 a pop, is very much better than getting a list of exercises and doing them yourself and maybe spending a little bit of that money on a massage or two.
I'm also not certain that the massage does anything to affect the underlying pathology, but hell, it feels good.
Overall I have to say that as long as we think massage and physio are valid treatments for back pain we have to allow chiropracty, since there is good evidence that it works for back pain as well, and I have no problem with it as long as it sticks to the domain of back pain.
Because they very carefully word their advertisements and documents that you sign, and no one forces the people who go to them to not seek legitimate medical treatment. Of course, some of the bastards mess up and do end up in a situation where they can get prosecuted, and they do, but it's hard to do in the climate of capitalist America where FOX News can go to court and successfully argue they have a right to lie about things on television.
Posts
Here's the thing: physiotherapy is a real, medically sound form of treatment for some injuries. Chiropractors (well, some chiropractors) use physiotherapy, usually in conjunction with their hand-waving bullshit. Some adjustments can indeed treat some conditions - like, for example, whatever was causing your back pain. But that's physiotherapy, and it's not a cure-all for everything, not even all sources of back pain.
If you'd gone to a physiotherapist, they could've done the same thing for you, but without also having an office full of pseudo-medicine.
And there are legitimate alternate medicine paths that are reasonable, but with so many snake oil salesmen out there, and people who are simply misinformed it is hard to separate truth from fiction.
Mine does. Anthem Blue Cross.
Lots of PPOs do, and often at the exact same copays as physical therapy.
the "no true scotch man" fallacy.
To be fair, all you need is a Ph. D. to put Dr. on your title for anything.
You cannot use M.D. however.
It looks like an adjective to me...
Also in the particular example cited, I seriously doubt back pain from running was solved by any "adjustment". I would wager, you've already been taking steps to fix it - for example, did you changes shoes - particularly running shoes - or start wearing orthodics around that time?
Because a really really well known cause of back pain due to running is having improperly balanced and padded shoes, and is easily fixed by getting shoes which work better with your feet. If you changed shoes, or even just socks or possibly gait, then you'd fix the problem seemingly permanently.
Dammit I'm a graphic artist, not a doctor, Jim - but I'm under the impression that some physio adjustments do have efficacy in pain relief (in the event that you've got a pinched nerve or slightly dislocated joint). Am I misinformed?
heheheheh
chiroproctology
the "no true scotch man" fallacy.
I'm not saying that was causal, because that would be post doc ergo proctor hoc
the "no true scotch man" fallacy.
I love when I have a reason to quote you!
So, chiropractic care pisses me off.
See, I have scoliosis. Really bad scoliosis. (For those of you who know- I have a 45 degree curve to the right from C5 to T3).
My family, when my father was quite affluent, tried almost every single means of treatment barring surgery. I didn't want surgery, which kind of puts this on me, but hey I also wasn't the one signing myself up for these crazy therapies, and I hated each one. But also I was 13 so I had little say.
We tried everything- regular orthopedic back braces, massage therapy, chiropractic care, craniosacral therapy, reiiki, acupuncture
Shit we even flew out to a place in Louisiana known as the Copes clinic and got on their plan.
Every single one of these things failed, but more importantly they failed continuously for a period of years while we funneled money into them.
With the exception of the orthopedic brace and three month X-ray checkups, every other therapy wanted to see me multiple times a week, for many many weeks. We bought it all and I tried each one for months at a time, all while watching my scoliosis get worse. The people in Louisiana even had the gall to suggest that it was because I was not following their specially formatted diet that my scoliosis was getting worse.
Dwell on that.
But the people we spent the most money on were chiropractors. I saw one of them three times a week for the better part of a year. He would come in, pop my back and neck a few times, give me some electrostimulation, and then I would get strapped into some fucking machine that would gently move my back around for an hour.
It was analogous to torture, for a 13 year old boy. Most of the time, to add insult to injury, the girl I had a MAJOR crush on would go with me to these things and hang out in the office while this creepy man did the chiropractic thing.
If it sounds like it gave me a complex, you are right! Not only am I shaking with rage thinking about it, I have serious psychological problems about people touching my back now. I can't get massages and I cant stand people touching me at the nape of the neck.
These fuckers tortured me (and were just goddam creepers. Craniosacral therapy involves putting your hand on the coccyx and 'manipulating energy'. I was a 13 year old kid, and older men were the ones doing this therapy. Also I was in my underpants, and they lit scented candles and turned off the lights. If that isn't fucking creepy I don't know what is.)
Then I got older and learned about Science! and learned that all these assholes made this shit up and I am like
Goddamit we spent so much fucking money and I wasted SO MUCH OF MY FUCKING CHILDHOOD WITH THESE GODDAM CRANKS.
But at least the dude in Louisiana was convicted of fraud so.
TL;DR- fuck alternative medicine
Alternative medicine people are generally quite expensive. And while surgery and the like are way more expensive, they're also not the majority (or even close to it) of the treatments/visits. You also don't know what it's going to be before you go to the doctor.
People (and I realise this is anecdotal) seem to go to these guys because they heard it from family or don't trust doctors or any of a million reasons that aren't due to doctors being expensive. Alternative medicine shit is a big thing in Europe, IIRC homeopathic shit was partly covered here for some time.
Hearing "well I used to think but then [some anecdote]" makes me so angry. That's the fucking point. They play off that stupid anecdote! They rely on people trusting their guts and their idiot fucking friends instead of actual evidence. So yeah, no shit the special fake doctor made you feel better. They know how to make just enough people feel better for just long enough to recommend them to other people. The odd severe injury or death doesn't need to be paid any mind, because well you know that's not your guy. You're so motherfucking smart! You'd never fall for that.
It's like claiming three-card-monte isn't a scam because you saw this one guy who went right before you win.
Seriously?
This must be stopped.
Did they put on Barry White, too?
the "no true scotch man" fallacy.
it gets better
the person doing the craniosacral therapy?
deacon at my church
chiropraction
chiropractice
unfortunately, chiropractic is the official nominal form for the term
I always thought Rheumatologists were the reality-based version of Chiropracy (or however you spell that bullshit). Have I got that wrong?
What pisses me off is that my health plan at work covers 20 Chiropracy sessions per year, which everyone happily takes advantage of because: "Hey, it's only $10 for an hour of adjustment." But when I pulled a muscle in my back I paid for some massage therapy completely out of pocket because: "We can't have our plan cover that. People would just get massage therapy for fun." We're self-insured, so it's up to HR what's covered. Now there's talk of adding accupuncture.
I also feel there is room for some "sugar-pill" esque placebo effect for people whose problems are mental in origin.
But it is useless as fuck when it comes to curing anything. And its fucking expensive. And it has the possibility of causing further damage to people who choose to use it over conventional methods of treatment.
Let's play Mario Kart or something...
So.. did'ja get surgery?
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Rheumatologists work with a lot of autoimmune and otherwise immunilogically-mediated conditions like rheumatoid arthritis. A lot of autoimmune problems cause degenerative joint damage, so rheumatologists do a fair amount of work with those patients. The don't really deal with primary joint dysfunction, though, so you'd never send someone with, say, back pain to a rheumatologist.
Physiatrists are probably the closest medical equivalent to chiropractors. They're essentially MD's who specialize in physical therapy and rehabilitation. It's a fairly new field, though, so they tend to be few and far between.
50 is the cutoff point after which surgery doesn't really fix anything (or to put it another way- surgery only corrects about 50 degrees of curvature at best, so anything beyond that you are stuck with, but preventative surgery can usually prevent the curve from getting worse)
I have been through....9 major operations at this point? I didn't want anymore unless it was absolutely life threatening, and it wasn't and still isn't
Yet.
I am fully cognizant of the fact that I may need corrective surgery later but I will beat that when I come to it
Also I haven't had time or money for this shit for at least a decade
Wooo american health care
I need a happy ending out of that story, holy crap.
The issue isn't so much price, but that in American medicine, pain management is the redheaded stepchild of the field. Which is really, really fucking annoying when you're caring for someone who needs longterm pain mitigation.
The thing that I hate though is that the placebo treatments are taking up space where we desperately need an actual mental health infrastructure that people trust and utilize. It shouldn't be reserved for the extremely ill or the rich. This sort of quack bullshit just makes that harder, because it allows people to comfortably stay fucked and keep their prejudice against mental health care.
Oh yeah, I'm fine*. There is only mild pain but I have gotten used to it.
But the scoliosis IS the reason family photos look like this
HINT I AM THE ONE WHO IS VERY SHORT. ALSO I AM FIVE+ YEARS OLDER THAN ALL THESE FUCKERS
I take everything pretty well; I roll with the punches easily and I am a pretty optimistic dude all things considered. Plus my life, aside from medical stuff, is pretty great
*
When I visit a doctor, I want my shit fixed or at least told how to fix it myself. Chiropractors don't want to fix you. They want to keep you injured and returning week after week.
I love this post.
The section on risks:
Overall, my interpretation is that there's good data that it works about as well as massage therapy or physiotherapy for low back pain (which isn't saying much, because those don't work particularly well, but they are all superior to placebo) and inconclusive data that it works for anything else. I understand that there have been one or two cochrane reviews done on the subject that I don't feel like parsing right now, if anyone is sufficiently interested.
Also, since physiotherapy was raised: I am mildly to moderately sceptical of physiotherapy. I'm very uncertain of the strength of evidence leading to some of their treatments, especially their more gadgety stuff like ultrasonography and electric shock therapy. I also know for a fact that the field of sports medicine in general has a tendency to rush people back to full activity faster than they should sometimes. Long-term injury rates go down as people's activity levels increase right up to elite amateur levels until you hit professional athletes; then they go up, and the best evidence at the moment is because all the sports med experts, including MDs and physios, are pushing them back to the game too quickly.
Edit: oh yeah, apparently there are chiropractic radiologists and now some possible quack is starting up chiropractic neurology. I really don't know enough to comment on it one way or the other, though.
You are mildly skeptical of the idea that broken bones should be held / pinned in place for healing?
I think that most of physiotherapy probably does work, but I have my doubts about all of it and I have doubts it works as well as advertised. It's pretty difficult to do high-quality RCTs on physical therapy and the data I have seen is fairly low quality.
Basically, I'm sceptical that seen a physio once or twice a week for 8 weeks, at $30-50 a pop, is very much better than getting a list of exercises and doing them yourself and maybe spending a little bit of that money on a massage or two.
I'm also not certain that the massage does anything to affect the underlying pathology, but hell, it feels good.
Overall I have to say that as long as we think massage and physio are valid treatments for back pain we have to allow chiropracty, since there is good evidence that it works for back pain as well, and I have no problem with it as long as it sticks to the domain of back pain.
Oh, you're right. I have my disciplines totally mixed-up.
Sorry.
I don't think this got the recognition it deserves.
Which should take the form of a heavy sigh and a disappointed shake of the head.
Why aren't these people in prison?
Because they very carefully word their advertisements and documents that you sign, and no one forces the people who go to them to not seek legitimate medical treatment. Of course, some of the bastards mess up and do end up in a situation where they can get prosecuted, and they do, but it's hard to do in the climate of capitalist America where FOX News can go to court and successfully argue they have a right to lie about things on television.
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