Chiropractic Medicine

[Oso Rojo]

Don’t let the fuckers crack your neck. Look up “chiropractor and strokes”

When you do you will find that most of this is a myth. If it was so common then why do chiropractors pay on y about $4,000 a year in malpractice insurance when just general MD's pay tens of thousands?

If strokes from neck adjustments where anywhere near as dangerous as you claim don't you think there would be malpractice suits everywhere. Do you really think lawyers would pass up on a sure thing?

[Soule]

When you do you will find that most of this is a myth. If it was so common then why do chiropractors pay on y about $4,000 a year in malpractice insurance when just general MD's pay tens of thousands?

If strokes from neck adjustments where anywhere near as dangerous as you claim don't you think there would be malpractice suits everywhere. Do you really think lawyers would pass up on a sure thing?

I don’t really claim anything about the frequency in which this occurs; however, a good friend of mine’s sister had a stroke a day after getting her neck adjusted. That’s enough for me to say fuck getting your neck cracked.

Do you think a high velocity neck crank is a safe for the blood vessels in the back of your neck? We don’t allow even slow neck cranks at my BJJ academy.

I believe that some chiropractor’s don’t even do neck adjustments, but I don’t really know.

The potential dangers of neck manipulation & risk for dissection and devastating stroke: An illustrative case & review of the literature

Chiropractic neck adjustments linked to stroke - Harvard Health

Could Chiropractic Manipulation of Your Neck Trigger a Stroke? – WebMD

[Oso Rojo]

hahaha, you might want to read the studies before you link to them to support your opinion.

The Harvard study says, "It's not clear whether the neck therapy causes the problem or if the pain from a tear might prompt people to seek out such treatment." So they are saying it may or may not even be related to the neck therapy.

WebMD says ""Two studies that have come out recently said that there is no evidence that the force or direction utilized in cervical manipulation reaches the threshold of stretching the arteries to the point that they can be damaged," he said, adding that professionals who perform neck adjustments apply force that is "no greater than what people can do in activities of daily life." So after the wild headlines that smack of professional bickering between MDs and DCs they back pedal and say there is "no evidence."

A second point about the WebMD article, this is over five years old and there still are no new studies with better data? When you can't collect data that says something happens, it's likely not that common to happen.

BTW, the NIH article brings out the best point, "... we encourage increased communication between chiropractic and medical colleagues." Any doctor of any kind should be doing though intake of history and other conditions both treated and untreated. They even comment on doctors cross diagnosis of greater problems and advising the patient to get emergency care before treatment. Part of why there is so little data linking strokes to cervical adjustment is because all states hold DCs accountable to diagnosis of more serious problems and referencing them to the appropriate healthcare provider.

None of these article link cervical adjustments to creating strokes. They all caution that if your are predisposed to a stroke then it may be contributory. Which is the formal way of saying they don't know, but that patients with strokes sometimes say a chiropractor. Well patients with stroke also sometimes drove automobiles, but that doesn't say the car caused the stroke. Until someone creates an authoritative peer reviewed study then all you have is anecdotal data.

[Mark Rippetoe]

Until someone creates an authoritative peer reviewed study then all you have is anecdotal data.

Here is an alternative to this statement: let's say you work in the ER of a major market hospital, and 90% -- or even 30%, or maybe even 10% -- of the stroke patients you see had just come from the Chiropractor. Would a peer-reviewed study be necessary for you to associate cervical manipulation with the risk of stroke? Obviously not. But this is not the case, not at all. And if it were, there would be no cervical adjustments by Chiropractors.

[Soule]

Oso,

I think that you are misunderstanding my opinion on the subject. I realize that you have some skin in the game with your wife being a chiro, correct? I’m sorry that i referred to them as “fuckers” and I’m sure she’s a nice lady. Quite honestly I’d rather have a female chiro crack my neck, since they would likely apply less force than a male, generally speaking.

Like I said, I know a healthy female in her mid 30s who had a stroke a day after getting her neck adjusted. This made me question whether or not a neck adjustment can cause a stroke. The links i provided support that question, they do not provide a direct cause/effect relationship because there simply isn’t enough data on the subject, but there is enough correlation for several scholarly sources to look into this occurrence.

My own n=1 experience with a neck adjustment left me in much more pain for a long period of time. So for me, this shit isn’t worth the risk.

I’ll likely seek out a chiro again in the future, as I’ve been told they’re good with certain things like acute back pain, but I will skip the neck adjustment. I’m not trying to put your wife out of business; I’m just not convinced that neck adjustments do more good than harm. Then again, maybe I just don’t like giving people control of my neck

[TommyGun]

Outstanding thread. Learning a lot here. Didn’t know about the (possible) stroke correlation.

[Mark E. Hurling]

I've been treated by chiropractors for over 30 years. All of them were a little different in approach, even those based primarily in the Palmer method. They've straightened me out every time, mostly with one treatment, although on a few occasions it took a few follow ups before everything settled down. This includes my back, my shoulders, and my wrists now and again. Mostly my back though. I guess I've been lucky, none of them tried to push a wider set of practices outside the normal scope of cracking for relief of discomfort.

[bikesandcars]

I've been to a chiropractor before for upper back / lower neck pain and the treatment involved a massage and some mechanical manipulations. If felt good for a day, then it felt worse, but overall it didn't really help.
I then saw my doctor, he basically laughed at me for going and prescribed physical therapy.
I went to physical therapy and those girls were awesome, they gave me some effective stretches, a great myofascial type massage and some good weight training exercises that helped. That was more effective. I was really impressed by the physical therapy place.
I then connected something: I was in pain from a combination of stress, being weak and poor posture. After I started working out I think high bar squatting aggravated it. I couldn't reduce my stress so I worked on my posture and hit the gym. Since finding SS and low bar squatting I feel great. I also changed jobs reducing stress.

Summary: Pay attention to mobility and posture. Get Strong by lifting with good technique. Reduce outside factors (like job stresses). There's nothing wrong with a fancy chiropractic massage / release, but your ailment might not line up with their standard treatment. Sometimes it takes a combination of "treatments".

I think of these things like this: You can apply it to training, getting your car worked on, or almost anything else. Assuming professionals know what they are doing: The downfall is they always have limited time to deal with you (or you have limited money). You are in a much better position by understanding your issue and applying professionals as needed. They know their craft but you live in your body, it's up to you to put it together.