I’m hoping a medical professional could explain, in unbiased language (since there seems to be some animosity towards them), what exactly a chiropractor does, and how they fit into rehabilitation for patients alongside massage therapists and physical therapists. What can a chiropractor do for a patient that a physical therapist cannot?
Additionally, when a chiropractor says a vertebrae is “out of place” or “subluxated” and they “put it back,” what exactly are they doing? No vertebrae stays completely static as they are meant to flex, especially in the neck. Saying they’re putting it back in place makes no sense when it’s just going to move the second you get up from the table.
Thanks.
In: Biology
You won’t get a lot of answers on reddit other than Chiropratic is quackery.
Which it might well be.
However, from a holistic health approach, one goal of chiropratic adjustment is to ensure that the alignment of your spinal column is as good as it can be, reducing the noise coming from the nervous system allowing the body to ‘hear’ the real problems and work on fixing itself.
It isn’t all about “CRACK and the Pain is GONE!” – there is good quality research going on to determine why so many patients obtain objective benefit from chiropractic adjustment, over above what would be expected from a simple placebo effect.
One difficulty is finding a population large enough who do not know what to expect from a chiropractor to be able to do ‘blind’ trials (some receive a ‘real’ adjustment, some don’t – maybe they get a simple massage or physio-type joint cracks). There is work going on in some corners of the world where such populations do exist.
The number of patients that regularly attend a chiropractor and the on-going demand for newly qualified chiropractors (in New Zealand it is a 5 year course, with 3 years full time study and 2 years of study/internship) indicates, to me at least, that plenty of people get a benefit from visiting a chiropractor that they feel is worth the cost.
Source: son is studying to be a chiro.
Personal experience: went to a chiro for shoulder pain which was expected (per physio) to get worse. For the period of treatment, it didn’t get worse, then I went on holiday and it continued to not get worse and started to get better. I stopped going to the chiro as I didn’t perceive any further benefit to be gained. Shoulder continues to improve.
I’m not totally convinced, but also not dismissing the possibility that some people obtain benefit.
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