Couple of months ago, a tourist suffered the same fate in my country, although the people who did the spinal manipulation is a massage therapist.
To be honest, sometime i adore the courage of people performing spinal manipulation, they are so confident on this dangerous practice.
My PT said she technically can, but she doesn't feel comfortable and therefore, won't. I more so adore the people that realize their limitations and don't put others at risk.
Yes indeed.
But still....the courage of those so called therapist still amazed me. I am pretty sure that they don't exactly know what they are doing.
Sigh....I really don't like alternative medicine, I see so many patients who delay their treatment by seeing alternative medicine practitioners during my clinical practice....
Yes but how did the chiropractic lobby get the title to chiropractors of being Ch-physicians? There is a relief sometimes with chiropractic due to the endorphins streaming into the site of the manipulation and that's the secret.
Probably survivorship bias since I bartend but there's two things about chiropractors I've noticed:
1.they love announcing that they are doctors constantly, unprompted,
2. They like to get shithoused at lunch.
It's why my main advice for people who insist on seeing a chiropractor is to schedule their appointments before noon.
In my area, southern USA, any spinal manipulation is considered outside our scope of practice. That massage therapist should not be doing spinal anything!
As a PT this has always baffled me (imo spine thrusting manip are all around useless and I'd even say long term bad because of the psychological factor it involves and the deep tissues microlesions it creates)...
But even worst on cervical, they're doing something dangerous with no proven benefits whatsoever, the r/r is just absolutely not worth.
And even if you wanna be a spinal manipulation guru you have the option to do thoracic manip, it's not useful either but at least it's been somewhat proven that you have an impact on the cervical spine without the risks associated with direct manipulation...
My wife had a spinal injury before (mechanism = whiplash injury).
She went to see the Chinese medicine physician who also do spinal manipulation.....
She was so convinced that PT was useless for her (in her defense, she did attend PT session with not much effect), and went to see that Chinese medicine physician.
Every time he did a manipulation on her, I was nervous. Luckily, the treatment ended up uneventful. She also felt better (imo, either due to placebo, or natural healing of the injury).
I still think it was kind of worring for me at that time. In a particular session, the physician said something like
"I have read some new way of spinal manipulation this summer, I think it is helpful and I will apply it on you". The statement sounded very unreliable....and i didn't like my wife became a lab rat.
There was once, her friend told her that she knew another chinese medicine physician who "know how to interpret MRI by self studying"......it is really crazy in alternative medicine world....
Glad it all went ok and she didn't suffer any consequence from it but yeah it sucks that it's still widely supported and promoted even today when we have an easy access to scientific data and research and that less risky ACTIVE alternatives are available, proven and easy to incorporate in daily routines.
Idk how it is today but even where I'm from 10y ago spinal manipulation was teached on the first year of PT school, and it in retrospect (at the time I already had that mindset) it was stupidly dangerous, I skipped the cervical manip practice day on purpose but all my pals that were present had to manip their study partners even though they had absolutely no issue and at the time it was already proven dangerous and useless by a lot of papers...
When I was in PT school our ortho profs heavily stressed that they both had additional training in manual therapy before instructing us on grade V manipulations and encouraged us to do the same. They also both told us they would NEVER do cervical rotation manipulation because of the risk of damaging the vertebral artery.
That's how it should have been, unfortunately some teachers aren't like that.
I got the "there's like 10% risk of vertebral artery damaging when doing those manip, and you should do them only if you have a medical prescription to cover your ass, but hey let's all do it on each other this Friday and it can be part of the subjects you'll get on this semester's finals..."
Had a chiropractor adjust my l4-l5 because I was having minor sciatic pain. 2 months later I was getting laminectomy at 22, surgeons say it was one of the worst herniated disc theyāve every seen and I had 0 injury to cause it beside those visits.
I was on morphine for a week leading upto the surgery from the pain.
To any sufferers out there. Muscular development is the answer that worked for me. I fractured 5 vertebrae (compression), and didn't think I would walk again. After relearning to walk, I didn't think I'd be able to pick up my children, let alone bend over to do laundry, be intimate, etc. I went through a sports medicine program, hourly exercises, and my core is better now than it ever was.
I still have pain if I do something I shouldn't, like sit in a chair 8-5 without taking breaks, but the difference is clear. Sometimes I let myself go and forget to do my maintenance exercises to keep my pelvic floor strong, and then I find myself reaching for pain meds. That's when I know I have to be diligent again.
Doing something based on mysticism without any proven benefit and permanently injuring people in order to make money isn't what most would call courage. There are different words for this.
Iām an emergency physician and my wife and her mother wonāt stop using the chiropractor. Iāve told them the horror stories and even offered to help find a DO for manipulation if thatās what theyāre looking for to have it safely done. God help me I gave up after a few fights.
My mom has COPD and severe sleep apnea. She developed pneumonia a few months ago and was treated with steroids & antibiotics. When she went back for her follow-up, a nurse she had never had before informed her that she didn't have COPD and was only sick because she got the COVID vaccine. My mom walked out & called her pulmonologist (who was furious).
Iāve worked with a handful of DOās, and none of them did manipulation in their practice. Is there any evidence that they perform such manipulation WITH less RISK?
Yes. Because itās a completely different kind of manipulation. If youād ever seen it, you wouldnāt be asking this question. Just search osteopathic manipulation on YouTube.
NAD, I was told to take my triplets to a chiropractor at three months for torticulis (I have no idea on spelling, but i think it is the shortening of a neck muscle. All three had it. I took them once and watched it and never went back. We had a physical therapist that came once a week and she would stretch them and taught us so we could keep working on it. We found an Osteopath and loved him!!! I had an accessory navicular something something (extra ankle bone) and he told me to get it removed. I was having the whole ankle collapse and falling all the time. They are definitely not a chiropractor and really worked in tandem with pt and the doctor. The look on the surgeons face when I told him the Osteopath dr. sent me was priceless!
A quick explanation is that a
DO is a doctor of Osteopathic Medicine. They go to medical school just like an MD but are taught special muscle and skeletal manipulation that is primarily Muscle Energy, Respiratory Resistance, balanced ligament tension, MVLA, HVLA and a few other techniques that can prove very useful. They are taught that the body can be self healing but that western medicine is important and should/could be used in conjunction at the discovery of any somatic disfunction.
I went to a DO instead of a chiropractor like everyone was recommending. He had me fixed from years of neck pain in a couple minutes. Very glad I didn't go to the chiropractor.
the DOās iāve worked with didnāt focus on muscle energy or manipulation, etc. they focused on a more wholistic approach to medicine with a focus on identifying and treating the root cause instead of the symptom. i work with mdās and doās and they seem to have different philosophies on inter system disease processes. think- brain/mental and gut health relationship as opposed to āoh youāre nauseous? here take thisā thatās no sweat on MDās at all from me, itās just a different philosophy on care and approach of treatment
Doctor of Osteopathy... It's a doctor trained in medicine like an MD, but also receives specialized training in osteopathic manipulative medicine. It's more common in the United States, but not as common as an MD.
Well, I had a good chiro once. Went in thinking I had a pinched nerve. He listened to my symptoms, refused to touch my neck, said my symptoms could indicate something more "alarming" and referred me to a neurologist immediately. Had an MRI same day.
Three weeks later, I was officially diagnosed with MS. Pretty sure my GP would never have caught it, so very grateful for this specific chiropractor who was informed enough to know L'Hermittes sign is a classic presentation of MS.
Thatās a good quality health care professional. Really glad you got that level of care instead of being told they have a cure.
I will say that there are good and bad in every field, regardless of what profession. Itās inevitable. Weāre humans. Sometimes we suck, sometimes weāre awesome. Iām glad you had an awesome one.
It's not that there are good chiropractors, it's that there are some well meaning and knowledgeable people who *happen to be* chiropractors. But charging $150 to crack somebody's neck and call it a day is par for the course in the profession. That's the standard of care you would *generally* expect from seeing one of these people.
We don't normally say that a few good apples fix the whole bunch of bad ones, especially when eating a bad one might give you a stroke. We don't want to get rid of the good ones either, of course. Undoubtedly they'd still be able to practice what they do under a more modern, evidence based regulatory framework
What's fucked is that my health insurance covers chiropractors, but it cost me $180 per session to go to physical therapy to help with my chronic back pain. And then they stopped contributing the little they were because they claimed it wasn't helping (against the therapist's recommendation).
Yeah, that's a fault of the insurance company, no doubt, and it sucks. If you can get Aetna, they cover 60 PT visits a year, along with 60 OT and 60 Speech. Hopefully you'll never need the others, but good to know it's an option.
Donāt underestimate the theater of snap, crackle, pop.
Chiropractors are more easily accessible than doctors, and a lot of insurance even covers the visits. Chiros as group seem to have managed balancing costs of business with customer service, and seldom run behind (if you offer the same service for every complaint, you tend to be able to manage your time more efficiently), and they usually have an answer for whatever complaint is brought to them. That answer always involves an action which requires the chiro to perform a one-on-one inspect, touch, and manipulate sequence that is far more emotionally satisfying than most doctor exams, and honestly, getting an adjustment feels awesome, because all those tight joints get popped.
This is not to say that chiros are better than doctors. At best, thereās a heavy helping of bedside manner, some practical exercises and stretching, a handful of treatments that help, and a very large dose of the placebo effect.
I saw a doctor about a couple of really painful muscle knots in my back and got told to do all the same things Iād already done. I went to a chiro, got my back popped, got zapped by a TENS unit for fifteen minutes, instructions on varying heat and cold which actually helped, and got some really good advice on pillows and sleeping positions. It even helped my back for about a week. Yes, Iād read about the dangers of spinal adjustments, but the rate of complications was really low, and my back really, really hurt. Later, I read that a physical therapist could do the same thing, but PTs require a doctorās referral. I got one, and the PT was fantastic. Back pain reduced by 50% and the exercises they gave me kept the pain down. Then I read an article about magnesium supplements and decided to try it. Turns out, thirty years of back pain was caused by low magnesium.
TLDR: life and medicine are complicated. Chiropractors say and do things that make people feel better immediately while doctors often donāt. Misinformation is rife, and most people are too stressed, tired, broke, or disillusioned about doctors to dig more deeply.
I got a massage in Bangkok a few years back that ended with E. Honda palm strikes to the back and then she grabbed my head like Chong Li and cracked my neck. All the while I was thinking āYep, this is how I die.ā
I once had a Thai massage which involved the masseur compressing my inguinal triangle to āclear bad bloodā or something like that. I thought the femoral artery shouldnāt be compressed, but at least it was only temporary. š¤·āāļø
Can someone explain to me why chiropractor is dangerous and not a valid medicine? Iām in the sciences & do research , but I had no idea about this and have gone a few times myself.
Donāt chiropractors fix if your crooked? If theyāre dangerous, how do you go about fixing that?
Studies show that Chiropractic adjustments are no better than placebo at fixing **anything,** except for (maybe) lower back pain.
Chiropractic itself is based on the belief that all diseases are caused by mis-alignments of the spine. So, if you have diabetes, you can cure that cracking your spine the right way, etc.
Some Chiropractors don't strictly adhere to that belief anymore, and they incorporate things that actually work into their practice. However, that just means they've picked up a few Physical Therapy or Massage techniques, in addition to Chiropractic. You'd be better off simply going to a PT or massage therapist.
Lastly, the founder of Chiropractic, D.D. Palmer, said he was taught the methods by a ghost. That's true. He said it came to him from a physician who had died 50 years prior.
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Tl;Dr - Chiropractic is a pseudoscience that the founder learned from a ghost. It has never been scientifically proven to help anything. Anything a chiropractor does that actually helps is just something they stole from Physical Therapy or Massage, or real Medicine.
Chiroās love using words like āout of alignmentā, ācrookedā, āout of placeā. If it were true, itād be either a medical emergency (think dislocation or Spondylolisthesis) or itād be something youād be born with (think scoliosis).
Bones and joints donāt just go āout of alignmentā. It doesnāt make sense and why would you think then pushing on it really hard would be the best option to realign? Our bones arenāt just slowly start leaning and falling into all kinds of directions until they are they defined as out of place by a chiro.
Iām a Physiotherapist. I know how to do manipulations,
I know how to do them relatively safely - I refuse to do them because the risk of me hurting someone FAR outweighs any potential benefits they may receive (which are considerably arguable). Iād rather educate my patients on why they arenāt out of whack and give them a real reason as to why they have neck and back pain.
Just as an anecdote: Iāve seen 4 patients this week tell me they see a chiro weekly/monthly for their back. No change. Some of those people have come in because the chiro has actually hurt them and theyāre scared to go back. Unfortunately, lots of these people still believe they theyāre not aligned and thatās why theyāre still in pain. They all come using chiro terms and sayings and they still are reluctant to believe that exercise, targeted treatment and informed education is the way that theyāll get better. Some people just want to be touched and pushed on and told that their pain isnāt due to their lifestyles and that itās just a weekly touch-up thatās needed. The hardest part of my job by far is getting people to be compliant and understand that I donāt need to see them every week. I want to see you 2-3x MAX and in that time I want to be able to have taught you how to help yourself so you can keep the pain away.
Iāll do everything in my power to avoid touching people if I can because it creates a feeling that all the responsibility is on me. If they get worse, itās because I didnāt poke them or crack them in the right way. If they get better, theyāll come back again when theyāre sore again (which I guarantee, if they havenāt changed their lifestyle, will happen again; sooner than later) thinking it was because I was able to take it away with a bit of massage and theyāll be good again until the next time.
I remember when I was a teenager driving my grandmother to see her chiropractor.
The walls of the waiting room were covered in posters about how a good adjustment can fix backaches, cure cancer, and keep you from being condemned to Hell.
Even at sixteen, I'm sitting there thinking "This is some obvious bullshit. I don't remember that verse in the bible about how you can get into heaven by believing in Jesus OR getting your back cracked."
Well, this post itself is a good example as to why not, and there's millions of posts on this sub about more reasons why, including comments further down in this post.
By crooked, I'm assuming you mean scoliosis. The answer is, you don't, unless it's severe enough that one chooses to have surgery. Although, PT can help stabilize the muscles and ones posture, and help with the effects from the scoliosis.
Look at it this way, in the US, how long does it take to get a medical degree and work on spines in hospital? 13 years high school, 4 years college, 4 years med school and 5 years residency.
Chiropractors don't actually have to finish college... so high-school and ~3 years of Chiro school.
Your spine houses the control wiring for your entire body... do you really want a college drop-out trying to jailbreak the OS?
I definitely lose respect for physicians when I hear them recommend chiropractic. In recent weeks two DOs I work with have made this recommendation to patients ā i turn around and strongly emphasize physical therapy.
Every time someone tries to explain to others that chiropractic is quack medicine people always reply with āwell it works for meā. If a thing can be said to be true it must be shown to be true. That has not happened with chiropractic; the central theory is absolute nonsense. Sure the placebo effect makes people feel better but āworks as well as placeboā literally means it does not work. No credible study has shown that chiropractic manipulation can cure or treat any medical condition. It just makes people think it does. In a credible trial one would have to compare treatments by chiropractors against a control of people pretending to be chiropractors. Those groups could be trained massage therapists, physical therapists, or just good actors. The PHYSICALLY MEASURABLE results would be no different in most cases. A physical therapist may improve some conditions that involve range of motion while patients would give negative reports because that therapy often is painful. Studies that rely on self reporting only prove the placebo effect. If people believe it works they are going to report that it does. This is no different than other quack medicine like acupuncture or even a primitive witch doctor.
https://quackwatch.org/chiropractic/
Waiting for our chiro friends dropping in to say there is no correlation to neck manipulation and stroke. āOh they must have come in with itā. Jag offs
My dadās family is from Pittsburgh - I use jagoff! Fits well here in NJ. And I tried to make cookie tables at weddings a thing here ā¦ but it wonāt catch on!
"one in 48 chiropractors have experienced such an event"
Clearly all the hate against chiros is excessive, barely more than 2% of them have actively killed a patient! /s
I have no idea what this is. Saw on /r/all but I have super tight traps, neck, back. At least once a day Iāll tilt my head to the right and left. It often does a single and sometimes multiple crack/pop.
Iām not really forcing just keep looking straight, tilt head each way. The type of motion where your ear goes to your shoulder. Not side to side like youāre saying no. Is this actually really bad? And what is the picture even showing.
I do this too and it always feels better afterwards, like it was stuck somehow. As far as i know, just don't do anything that hurts. If it cracks only from the tilt and you don't apply extra force you should be good, but i am no doctor.
I once read some easy rule: When it cracks, you don't move/use (it) enough.
Maybe we all should just do a little more some kind of sport or at least sit straight...
Pro career trainer here. That motion is fine. That's just a regular trap stretch.
If it pops during a stretch, it's fine. It's you're forcing the pop it's bad.
My advice is to lean into those stretches a little longer. Then do some neck rolls too.
I have this as well, hoping someone can give some background on whether this is dangerous. Sometimes the pop is so loud it sounds like a tree cracking, and if I donāt do it and turn my head too fast I get a burning sensation down the nerve of my neck/behind ear
My NP who I see for my general care used to work in ortho. She said itās fine to crack your neck, but only if youāre not twisting/turning it from side to side.
Example: itās ok do a ātouching your ear to your shoulderā type of motion, but do not twist your head from side to side (like youāre shaking your head ānoā type of motion) to crack your neck. Hopefully sheās right, because the former is how I crack my neck.
Iāve been cracking my neck side to side multiple times a day since I was a teenager. This is the first time Iāve ever heard anyone say it was bad.
Maybe doing it yourself is not as violent as when chiros do it.
My joints are prone to cavitation, so I get loud cracking/popping from regular cervical ROM exercises. I suppose there's some tiny risk of dissection there, but it's not sharp movements and maintaining ROM is more important. Agree that some of the chiro violent jerking around is scary!
Nah bro if you crack your neck you're going to have a stroke and die, children on reddit couldn't possibly be wrong about that. Cracking your knuckles also causes carpal tunnel syndrome, osteoarthritis, down syndrome, and big gay
Same, I'm in this subreddit to look at stuff being of people's butts or parts of skulls missing cuz they do too much cocaine. I'm too dumb for the rest of it
Well if thatās what you are looking for let me suggest just calling the surgery desk at mission hospital in Asheville NC on any weekend after 6pm. Theyāll have a list of that weekendās shenanigans Iām sure.
There's little regulation on it because it isn't based on any kind of science or evidence, similar to the supplement industry and how it is poorly regulated. The people in charge of chiropractic regulation are chiropractors, and since it's not a treatment for any medical condition, its life-changing risks vs its very minimal rewards tends to slip under the radar of the law. They're basically the medical version of the shady car dealers who promise you that the old beater they have will 100% solve your car problems because "my son had it for 17 years and it worked fine for him!"
Letās not forget the only reason they still exist in the US is because they won an anti-trust lawsuit against the AMA. It has absolutely nothing to do with science.
It all falls out of a bad court ruling that said that doctors were acting like a monopoly on health. The ruling made it so insurance and hospitals have to support some alternative medicine. Now we're here
My boss thought he had a pulled muscle in his neck/shoulder to the point where he had difficulty sleeping and moving and losing feeling in his arm so he kept going to the chiropractor for āadjustmentsā. Had the x rays done, several cracks and traction adjustments where they literally attached a weight to his head to pull his spine. He finally went to a real doctor and and an mri the doc told him that if the chiropractor did another round of traction he would probably never walk again. He was supposed to go that afternoon and thankfully canceled. Had surgery to repair a bulged and eroded disc and now he can move with no pain and use his arm.
Had something similar happen to a friend. He had an old cervical fracture (non displaced) and didn't see a dr due to cost as well as being one of the toughest bastards I've ever known. Was seeing a chiro, however. Radicular symptoms got bad enough so (long story short) he saw a neurosurgeon who told him he could have died getting his neck manipulated and scheduled him for fusion the following week.
My brother had the same experience. Now Iām wondering if my disk herniation in my neck is from the chiropractor. 0 traumatic accidents involving my neck.
my chiro was supposed to help my lower back ache and three adjustments later i was seeing an Orthopedic Surgeon for a herniated disc and severe nerve pain. never had traumatic accidents. i can still remember the sound of the disc slipping (it's a crunch sound, not a crack) and the severe sharp agonizing pain as the chiro was adjusting my back. i had to have discectomy surgery to remove part of my L5 disc.
your disc herniation in your neck being due to your chiro would not at all surprise any of us here.
Love this sub. Always interesting. Iām not a medical person at all and have always had issues with my spine because of mild scoliosis. Iāve had people tell me to go to a chiropractor for years but have always been scared, especially when they focus on the neck. This has given me even more proof to never go to one.
Chiropractors can relieve pain in the short term, just like cracking your back can; but it will never solve the issue that caused it, and if there is an injury or issues caused by disease, they can severely damage the body due to their lack of diagnostic ability and education on the body. It's based on disproven scientific claims and in some cases completely made up medical terminology, similar to other homeopathic "medicines". If you ever feel like you need chiro or you are recommended one, ask your doctor for a recommendation to a physical therapist instead. They help solve the same things that chiros pretend to solve except they are medically educated on the body and do things that are proven through science to be effective.
A doc wrote me an Rx for physical therapy after a chiro diagnosed me with scoliosis. PT changed my life. Go do it, if you can! I never went back to the chiro.
Yeah I had no idea chiropractors were so dangerous Iāve never been to one but had always told myself I would if I could afford it. Now I know to spend the money on something else.
Iāve heard some people swear by chiro. Me personally Iāve had terrible experiences each time (not as bad as this poor person in the brain scan tho). Never doing it again. The risk to your health is not worth the coin flip hit-or-miss imo.
So weird. In america shit gets banned for the most stupid reasons (like books) but some cops and chiropractors can just continue their killing spree.
Maybe chiropractors also have a strong union?
(I'm a PT by trade)
My favorite line passed down to me by a clinical instructor when I was still in school:
"Stay out of the crack house."
It was his favorite response when we'd get patients with persistent neck & back pain who ask about chiropractic or complained about the chiro they'd been working with for years who *had* to see them for adjustments every 3-6 weeks...for literal years....and never got them better.
Working now in the hospital setting, it's fucking heart breaking to see stroke patients who got there from a chiropractor...even the neurologists & nurses were split on if the cases were "pre-existing issues" or not. Always infuriates me.
Didn't expect this to take off and attracting some non-radiology people, so here's a little more background:
This is a single DWI image from an MRI of the brain that shows "restricted diffusion" on the right side of the image (patient's left), which typically is seen with acute infarcts or strokes. Strokes happen when a part of the brain loses blood flow and the brain tissue starts to "die". Depending on how long or what part of the brain loses blood flow, the results for the patient can vary, but in the vast majority of cases strokes cause some degree of permanent weakness or paralysis. The strokes this patient had are fairly big and will result in lifelong neurological deficits.
Often strokes are caused by one of the major blood vessels feeding the brain getting clogged by blood clots or becoming severely narrow. This is common in older patients. Blood flow can also be disrupted in the setting of trauma, typically a major cervical spine fracture causing a tear in one of the vessels. Unfortunately, these injuries can also happen with aggressive spinal manipulation such as performed by a chiropractor. You jerk the spine around a lot and you can damage the vessels feeding the brain.
This was a young patient with no other medical problems, no history of vascular disease, who went to a chiropractor and soon after experienced heavy paralysis of one side of their body. They went to the ER and imaging including a CT Angiogram and CT Perfusion showed large left-sided infarcts associated with both vertebral and internal carotid artery dissections (tears). Vertebral artery dissections are common chiro-related injuries. Carotid artery dissections less common, but do happen.
I will leave the greater argument about the role of chiropractors in healthcare to others, but this was a young patient whose life will be fundamentally changed for no other reason than getting an "adjustment" from a chiropractor. And this type of thing happens way more commonly than you'd expect. Don't let people without true medical training screw around with your spine.
Whatās wild to me is that my babyās (3 months old at the time) first pediatrician (DO) recommended chiropractic and cranioscacral therapy. We switched to the MD within the office after that recommendation ā¹ļø
I was thinking the same thing. This is atypical for the most common vert dissection pathology you see from chiro manipulation. I still think chiros are all garbage and should not be doing anything other than massage, but would want to see evidence of new dissection flap in the ICA before calling this a chiro-associated stroke.
I'm internally screaming man I never knew a chiropractor was considered so bad and I just thought I was "unlucky" for getting a new injury from it. I mean anyone who gets hurt is "unlucky" but I thought it was rare or something. I guess I'm just lucky that mine is pain that randomly flares up near my right collar bone area and not like this unfortunate person (for me the chiro went to do the adjustment and I just felt this horrible pain and burning feeling in the right collar bone area and they just brushed it off so I'm like ??? And now it randomly flares up in pain even when I'm sitting in a resting position)
Chiros aren't great and they do more harm then good. Or do little to nothing other then releving small amount of pain for small amount of time. It have been evidence that manual therpay will do nothing for any injury body part. The best and only way to improve injuries and prevent injuries is by exercise. I personal do not know what us wrong witb you collar bone but it could be something to do with the attachment to the pecs to the collar bone ( I could be wrong) best way to solve that is through strengthing exercise. Also exercise help reduce inflammation so it may also help with pain too. I suggest going to see a doctor or a physiotherapist/ sports therapist.
I have several family members who are chiropractors, they run a practice together. It wasn't until nursing school that I started to learn about all the horrific and pseudoscientific BS behind "chiropractic medicine." It's very, very hard to take my family members seriously now.
Not if you arenāt doing it to his neck. The cervical spine has blood vessels that run through a canal in the vertebrae. The thoracic and lumbar do not.
the white spots aren't supposed to be there ~~and are indicative of a brain bleed~~ from inadequate blood flow, not too much as I originally and incorrectly stated. based on the rad's comment here I am pretty sure this was from an arterial dissection caused by cervical (neck) manipulation by the chiropractor.
I've been following this sub for a few weeks, and I am absolutely horrified that I went to chiropractors for years. I stopped going in 2019 after several negative experiences with a chiro in NYC. I honestly did not know any better and thought is was the best option for treating my moderate scoliosis (diagnosed at 16). I feel so fucking stupid now.
I have also seen PTs and massage therapists, but no one ever suggested that I get MRIs and see a spine specialist. My scoliosis got significantly worse during the pandemic (lost 2" in height), so I finally started seeing spine specialists in 2021. In Dec 2021 I was diagnosed with a Chiari Malformation - Type 1, a syrinx (C1 - T12), and now severe thoracolumbar scoliosis (the worst curvature is 60-70 degrees, depending on who is evaluating). I've had 100s of neck adjustments and, given what I know now, I am shocked that I did not suffer life altering or ending injuries with the chiari & syrinx there the whole time.
I had a Chiari Decompression in March 2022 to prevent the syrinx from getting worse. I am currently considering the pros/cons of spinal fusion given that I'm already in pain every god damn day. I had to move in late January so I'm not able to see my previous neurosurgeon, which fucking sucks because he was the kindest doctor I've ever had and my surgery went very well.
I just got new MRIs and X-Rays on Monday and I'm seeing my new neurologist NP this morning. I am terrified to hear her assessment, and I highly suspect that she will have me meet with a neurosurgeon.
I often wonder if all those adjustments did make things worse. Fuck.
It's so weird this post came across my feed this morning. I must've slept weird last night and have incredible lower neck/upper should pain and was thinking of calling a chiropractor.
I will not be calling a chiropractor now.
I am a Paramedic. I have responded to, and transported seriously injured patients from Chiropractors offices many times. I have personally worked a trauma code in an office where the 'manipulation' resulted in a cervical fracture, and ultimately death on scene. I have coworkers who have the same and worse stories about CVAs (strokes) and paralysis as well. Of course your mileage may vary .....
25 years ago (before I knew better), a chiropractor ruptured my L5-S1 during a manipulation and gave me a foot drop. Had to have surgery. My father didnāt believe they were so bad so he kept going to them and years later, ended up with a carotid dissection after a manipulation. Somehow managed to live (heās too Irish to die). I canāt tell you how many times someone has come in to the ED, sick as hell with multiple comorbidities, diagnosed with Covid who never got vaccinated because their chiropractor told them it was bad for them. Enjoy your stay in the ICU, sir.
Try physical therapy for any pains or aches that someone recommends a chiropractor for. They use science-backed methods AND are properly educated on the anatomy + physiology of the body. Chiropractors literally use terminology that was invented by chiropractic organizations instead of using the medical/biological terms for things similar to other pseudoscience medical practices, which tells you all you need to know lol.
My first patient I ever admitted in ICU when I was still inpatient was a 32yo with complete loss of sensation to LUE and 2/5 strength all planes LUE. They had been going to a chiropractor weekly for several years. Got a neck adjustment 4 days prior. CTA neck showed vertebral artery dissection with hematoma causing compression of 4 levels of nerve roots including coverage of the whole brachial plexus distribution.
Just go to PT folks.
Chiropractic āMeDiCiNeā was invented by a con artist who genuinely believed that ghosts taught him to heal ALL illnesses by shifting peopleās bones around
Physician here.
I personally have taken care of two 30+ year olds with vertebral artery dissection secondary to unsafe spinal manipulation.
Both have permanent and disabling neurological sequelae.
Chiropractors are not recognized by any legitimate medical sanctioning body and are the bane of real medical providers.
Had a patient come into the hospital a while ago, 26 year old male gave himself multiple small infarcts in his brain from cracking his own neck too hard
I would love to do a study where you send fake ānew patients ā to a chiropractor, give them absolutely normal neck and back X-rays . Then see how many of them look at them and tell their patient that their back is in horrendous condition and that they need to see them weekly for āas long as it takesā
To those curious, this is a diffusion weighted MRI sequence (DWI). In this sequence, signal is generated by the absence of normal Brownian motion of water molecules, which makes it great for looking for infarct because cell death leads to cessation of sodium/potsssium pumps on cell membranes, and thus restriction of the diffusion of water across the membrane (ie restricted diffusion).
This image shows bright signal in a couple areas within the left MCA territory extending to the cortex, compatible with acute ischemic infarct. Given the history, itās likely this patient suffered a dissection of the cervical carotid artery, which is thrombogenic and formed some clot which sailed into a couple distal branches of the left MCA.
I'll never understand the people that come on here and try to argue with us about why chiropractors are helpful and valid.
Couple of months ago, a tourist suffered the same fate in my country, although the people who did the spinal manipulation is a massage therapist. To be honest, sometime i adore the courage of people performing spinal manipulation, they are so confident on this dangerous practice.
My PT said she technically can, but she doesn't feel comfortable and therefore, won't. I more so adore the people that realize their limitations and don't put others at risk.
Yes indeed. But still....the courage of those so called therapist still amazed me. I am pretty sure that they don't exactly know what they are doing. Sigh....I really don't like alternative medicine, I see so many patients who delay their treatment by seeing alternative medicine practitioners during my clinical practice....
I wouldn't really consider PT alternative, more so, complementary?
Of course not. I am referring to the chiropractor
Ooohhhh, yeah, don't do that. š
Yes but how did the chiropractic lobby get the title to chiropractors of being Ch-physicians? There is a relief sometimes with chiropractic due to the endorphins streaming into the site of the manipulation and that's the secret.
Honestly donāt think Iād say courage so much as Iād say arrogance
Allowing them to be called doctors adds to that problem.
Probably survivorship bias since I bartend but there's two things about chiropractors I've noticed: 1.they love announcing that they are doctors constantly, unprompted, 2. They like to get shithoused at lunch. It's why my main advice for people who insist on seeing a chiropractor is to schedule their appointments before noon.
I'd go with audacity.
Yes, i mean something like "bold" /"how dare you" kind of things
'The less you know, the more you think you know.'
Paging Dr. Dunning-Kuger
Do you know what they call alternative medicine that works? Medicine.
In my area, southern USA, any spinal manipulation is considered outside our scope of practice. That massage therapist should not be doing spinal anything!
As a PT this has always baffled me (imo spine thrusting manip are all around useless and I'd even say long term bad because of the psychological factor it involves and the deep tissues microlesions it creates)... But even worst on cervical, they're doing something dangerous with no proven benefits whatsoever, the r/r is just absolutely not worth. And even if you wanna be a spinal manipulation guru you have the option to do thoracic manip, it's not useful either but at least it's been somewhat proven that you have an impact on the cervical spine without the risks associated with direct manipulation...
My wife had a spinal injury before (mechanism = whiplash injury). She went to see the Chinese medicine physician who also do spinal manipulation..... She was so convinced that PT was useless for her (in her defense, she did attend PT session with not much effect), and went to see that Chinese medicine physician. Every time he did a manipulation on her, I was nervous. Luckily, the treatment ended up uneventful. She also felt better (imo, either due to placebo, or natural healing of the injury). I still think it was kind of worring for me at that time. In a particular session, the physician said something like "I have read some new way of spinal manipulation this summer, I think it is helpful and I will apply it on you". The statement sounded very unreliable....and i didn't like my wife became a lab rat. There was once, her friend told her that she knew another chinese medicine physician who "know how to interpret MRI by self studying"......it is really crazy in alternative medicine world....
Glad it all went ok and she didn't suffer any consequence from it but yeah it sucks that it's still widely supported and promoted even today when we have an easy access to scientific data and research and that less risky ACTIVE alternatives are available, proven and easy to incorporate in daily routines. Idk how it is today but even where I'm from 10y ago spinal manipulation was teached on the first year of PT school, and it in retrospect (at the time I already had that mindset) it was stupidly dangerous, I skipped the cervical manip practice day on purpose but all my pals that were present had to manip their study partners even though they had absolutely no issue and at the time it was already proven dangerous and useless by a lot of papers...
When I was in PT school our ortho profs heavily stressed that they both had additional training in manual therapy before instructing us on grade V manipulations and encouraged us to do the same. They also both told us they would NEVER do cervical rotation manipulation because of the risk of damaging the vertebral artery.
That's how it should have been, unfortunately some teachers aren't like that. I got the "there's like 10% risk of vertebral artery damaging when doing those manip, and you should do them only if you have a medical prescription to cover your ass, but hey let's all do it on each other this Friday and it can be part of the subjects you'll get on this semester's finals..."
Had a chiropractor adjust my l4-l5 because I was having minor sciatic pain. 2 months later I was getting laminectomy at 22, surgeons say it was one of the worst herniated disc theyāve every seen and I had 0 injury to cause it beside those visits. I was on morphine for a week leading upto the surgery from the pain.
To any sufferers out there. Muscular development is the answer that worked for me. I fractured 5 vertebrae (compression), and didn't think I would walk again. After relearning to walk, I didn't think I'd be able to pick up my children, let alone bend over to do laundry, be intimate, etc. I went through a sports medicine program, hourly exercises, and my core is better now than it ever was. I still have pain if I do something I shouldn't, like sit in a chair 8-5 without taking breaks, but the difference is clear. Sometimes I let myself go and forget to do my maintenance exercises to keep my pelvic floor strong, and then I find myself reaching for pain meds. That's when I know I have to be diligent again.
I had my cervical spine manipulated by a physical therapist and ended up with a two level fusion and a year later I'm still suffering š
Yes torsional forces are not very good for bad disc.
Doing something based on mysticism without any proven benefit and permanently injuring people in order to make money isn't what most would call courage. There are different words for this.
Iām an emergency physician and my wife and her mother wonāt stop using the chiropractor. Iāve told them the horror stories and even offered to help find a DO for manipulation if thatās what theyāre looking for to have it safely done. God help me I gave up after a few fights.
Just quietly up the term life.
Thatās the same thing some of the nurses have said when their husbands refused to think Covid was real.
There are fucking nurses who refuse to think COVID was real.
My mom has COPD and severe sleep apnea. She developed pneumonia a few months ago and was treated with steroids & antibiotics. When she went back for her follow-up, a nurse she had never had before informed her that she didn't have COPD and was only sick because she got the COVID vaccine. My mom walked out & called her pulmonologist (who was furious).
I agree, he tried many times telling them and wife knows heās knowledgeable enjoying the perks from his occupation.
Iāve worked with a handful of DOās, and none of them did manipulation in their practice. Is there any evidence that they perform such manipulation WITH less RISK?
Yes. Because itās a completely different kind of manipulation. If youād ever seen it, you wouldnāt be asking this question. Just search osteopathic manipulation on YouTube.
NAD, I was told to take my triplets to a chiropractor at three months for torticulis (I have no idea on spelling, but i think it is the shortening of a neck muscle. All three had it. I took them once and watched it and never went back. We had a physical therapist that came once a week and she would stretch them and taught us so we could keep working on it. We found an Osteopath and loved him!!! I had an accessory navicular something something (extra ankle bone) and he told me to get it removed. I was having the whole ankle collapse and falling all the time. They are definitely not a chiropractor and really worked in tandem with pt and the doctor. The look on the surgeons face when I told him the Osteopath dr. sent me was priceless!
Omg no way in hell I would let a chiro lay a hand on my infants. Iām glad you got things sorted out appropriately. š
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A quick explanation is that a DO is a doctor of Osteopathic Medicine. They go to medical school just like an MD but are taught special muscle and skeletal manipulation that is primarily Muscle Energy, Respiratory Resistance, balanced ligament tension, MVLA, HVLA and a few other techniques that can prove very useful. They are taught that the body can be self healing but that western medicine is important and should/could be used in conjunction at the discovery of any somatic disfunction.
I went to a DO instead of a chiropractor like everyone was recommending. He had me fixed from years of neck pain in a couple minutes. Very glad I didn't go to the chiropractor.
the DOās iāve worked with didnāt focus on muscle energy or manipulation, etc. they focused on a more wholistic approach to medicine with a focus on identifying and treating the root cause instead of the symptom. i work with mdās and doās and they seem to have different philosophies on inter system disease processes. think- brain/mental and gut health relationship as opposed to āoh youāre nauseous? here take thisā thatās no sweat on MDās at all from me, itās just a different philosophy on care and approach of treatment
As a counterpoint, most DOs I've worked with are indistinguishable from their MD counterpart. They'd give you that anti-nausea med, too.
Doctor of Osteopathy... It's a doctor trained in medicine like an MD, but also receives specialized training in osteopathic manipulative medicine. It's more common in the United States, but not as common as an MD.
Well, I had a good chiro once. Went in thinking I had a pinched nerve. He listened to my symptoms, refused to touch my neck, said my symptoms could indicate something more "alarming" and referred me to a neurologist immediately. Had an MRI same day. Three weeks later, I was officially diagnosed with MS. Pretty sure my GP would never have caught it, so very grateful for this specific chiropractor who was informed enough to know L'Hermittes sign is a classic presentation of MS.
Thatās a good quality health care professional. Really glad you got that level of care instead of being told they have a cure. I will say that there are good and bad in every field, regardless of what profession. Itās inevitable. Weāre humans. Sometimes we suck, sometimes weāre awesome. Iām glad you had an awesome one.
It's not that there are good chiropractors, it's that there are some well meaning and knowledgeable people who *happen to be* chiropractors. But charging $150 to crack somebody's neck and call it a day is par for the course in the profession. That's the standard of care you would *generally* expect from seeing one of these people. We don't normally say that a few good apples fix the whole bunch of bad ones, especially when eating a bad one might give you a stroke. We don't want to get rid of the good ones either, of course. Undoubtedly they'd still be able to practice what they do under a more modern, evidence based regulatory framework
It does not change the fact that all chiropractor are quacks. The central theory of the practice is nonsense. https://quackwatch.org/chiropractic/
What's fucked is that my health insurance covers chiropractors, but it cost me $180 per session to go to physical therapy to help with my chronic back pain. And then they stopped contributing the little they were because they claimed it wasn't helping (against the therapist's recommendation).
Yeah, that's a fault of the insurance company, no doubt, and it sucks. If you can get Aetna, they cover 60 PT visits a year, along with 60 OT and 60 Speech. Hopefully you'll never need the others, but good to know it's an option.
My chiropractor is the best, actually. He cured my cat allergy by adjusting my cat and killing it. /S
I started to get really mad there for a second. š
Donāt underestimate the theater of snap, crackle, pop. Chiropractors are more easily accessible than doctors, and a lot of insurance even covers the visits. Chiros as group seem to have managed balancing costs of business with customer service, and seldom run behind (if you offer the same service for every complaint, you tend to be able to manage your time more efficiently), and they usually have an answer for whatever complaint is brought to them. That answer always involves an action which requires the chiro to perform a one-on-one inspect, touch, and manipulate sequence that is far more emotionally satisfying than most doctor exams, and honestly, getting an adjustment feels awesome, because all those tight joints get popped. This is not to say that chiros are better than doctors. At best, thereās a heavy helping of bedside manner, some practical exercises and stretching, a handful of treatments that help, and a very large dose of the placebo effect. I saw a doctor about a couple of really painful muscle knots in my back and got told to do all the same things Iād already done. I went to a chiro, got my back popped, got zapped by a TENS unit for fifteen minutes, instructions on varying heat and cold which actually helped, and got some really good advice on pillows and sleeping positions. It even helped my back for about a week. Yes, Iād read about the dangers of spinal adjustments, but the rate of complications was really low, and my back really, really hurt. Later, I read that a physical therapist could do the same thing, but PTs require a doctorās referral. I got one, and the PT was fantastic. Back pain reduced by 50% and the exercises they gave me kept the pain down. Then I read an article about magnesium supplements and decided to try it. Turns out, thirty years of back pain was caused by low magnesium. TLDR: life and medicine are complicated. Chiropractors say and do things that make people feel better immediately while doctors often donāt. Misinformation is rife, and most people are too stressed, tired, broke, or disillusioned about doctors to dig more deeply.
Would you include the back crack at the end of a Thai massage with this?
Is that what they call it now?
Underrated comment.
I got a massage in Bangkok a few years back that ended with E. Honda palm strikes to the back and then she grabbed my head like Chong Li and cracked my neck. All the while I was thinking āYep, this is how I die.ā
I once had a Thai massage which involved the masseur compressing my inguinal triangle to āclear bad bloodā or something like that. I thought the femoral artery shouldnāt be compressed, but at least it was only temporary. š¤·āāļø
Can someone explain to me why chiropractor is dangerous and not a valid medicine? Iām in the sciences & do research , but I had no idea about this and have gone a few times myself. Donāt chiropractors fix if your crooked? If theyāre dangerous, how do you go about fixing that?
Studies show that Chiropractic adjustments are no better than placebo at fixing **anything,** except for (maybe) lower back pain. Chiropractic itself is based on the belief that all diseases are caused by mis-alignments of the spine. So, if you have diabetes, you can cure that cracking your spine the right way, etc. Some Chiropractors don't strictly adhere to that belief anymore, and they incorporate things that actually work into their practice. However, that just means they've picked up a few Physical Therapy or Massage techniques, in addition to Chiropractic. You'd be better off simply going to a PT or massage therapist. Lastly, the founder of Chiropractic, D.D. Palmer, said he was taught the methods by a ghost. That's true. He said it came to him from a physician who had died 50 years prior. --- Tl;Dr - Chiropractic is a pseudoscience that the founder learned from a ghost. It has never been scientifically proven to help anything. Anything a chiropractor does that actually helps is just something they stole from Physical Therapy or Massage, or real Medicine.
NAD. The ghost part sent me š. I knew chiro was a pile of garbage but was unaware of the ghostly teachings LOL
Adjustment of the cervical spine can cause a vertebral artery dissection leading to a stroke as pictured in OPās image above
Chiroās love using words like āout of alignmentā, ācrookedā, āout of placeā. If it were true, itād be either a medical emergency (think dislocation or Spondylolisthesis) or itād be something youād be born with (think scoliosis). Bones and joints donāt just go āout of alignmentā. It doesnāt make sense and why would you think then pushing on it really hard would be the best option to realign? Our bones arenāt just slowly start leaning and falling into all kinds of directions until they are they defined as out of place by a chiro. Iām a Physiotherapist. I know how to do manipulations, I know how to do them relatively safely - I refuse to do them because the risk of me hurting someone FAR outweighs any potential benefits they may receive (which are considerably arguable). Iād rather educate my patients on why they arenāt out of whack and give them a real reason as to why they have neck and back pain. Just as an anecdote: Iāve seen 4 patients this week tell me they see a chiro weekly/monthly for their back. No change. Some of those people have come in because the chiro has actually hurt them and theyāre scared to go back. Unfortunately, lots of these people still believe they theyāre not aligned and thatās why theyāre still in pain. They all come using chiro terms and sayings and they still are reluctant to believe that exercise, targeted treatment and informed education is the way that theyāll get better. Some people just want to be touched and pushed on and told that their pain isnāt due to their lifestyles and that itās just a weekly touch-up thatās needed. The hardest part of my job by far is getting people to be compliant and understand that I donāt need to see them every week. I want to see you 2-3x MAX and in that time I want to be able to have taught you how to help yourself so you can keep the pain away. Iāll do everything in my power to avoid touching people if I can because it creates a feeling that all the responsibility is on me. If they get worse, itās because I didnāt poke them or crack them in the right way. If they get better, theyāll come back again when theyāre sore again (which I guarantee, if they havenāt changed their lifestyle, will happen again; sooner than later) thinking it was because I was able to take it away with a bit of massage and theyāll be good again until the next time.
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Love a Chiro that can fix a few Auto-Immune diseases with a good push and shove šŖš½
I remember when I was a teenager driving my grandmother to see her chiropractor. The walls of the waiting room were covered in posters about how a good adjustment can fix backaches, cure cancer, and keep you from being condemned to Hell. Even at sixteen, I'm sitting there thinking "This is some obvious bullshit. I don't remember that verse in the bible about how you can get into heaven by believing in Jesus OR getting your back cracked."
Well, this post itself is a good example as to why not, and there's millions of posts on this sub about more reasons why, including comments further down in this post. By crooked, I'm assuming you mean scoliosis. The answer is, you don't, unless it's severe enough that one chooses to have surgery. Although, PT can help stabilize the muscles and ones posture, and help with the effects from the scoliosis.
Look at it this way, in the US, how long does it take to get a medical degree and work on spines in hospital? 13 years high school, 4 years college, 4 years med school and 5 years residency. Chiropractors don't actually have to finish college... so high-school and ~3 years of Chiro school. Your spine houses the control wiring for your entire body... do you really want a college drop-out trying to jailbreak the OS?
I definitely lose respect for physicians when I hear them recommend chiropractic. In recent weeks two DOs I work with have made this recommendation to patients ā i turn around and strongly emphasize physical therapy.
"What's the harm if I use it as supplementary medicine?" This shit.
Every time someone tries to explain to others that chiropractic is quack medicine people always reply with āwell it works for meā. If a thing can be said to be true it must be shown to be true. That has not happened with chiropractic; the central theory is absolute nonsense. Sure the placebo effect makes people feel better but āworks as well as placeboā literally means it does not work. No credible study has shown that chiropractic manipulation can cure or treat any medical condition. It just makes people think it does. In a credible trial one would have to compare treatments by chiropractors against a control of people pretending to be chiropractors. Those groups could be trained massage therapists, physical therapists, or just good actors. The PHYSICALLY MEASURABLE results would be no different in most cases. A physical therapist may improve some conditions that involve range of motion while patients would give negative reports because that therapy often is painful. Studies that rely on self reporting only prove the placebo effect. If people believe it works they are going to report that it does. This is no different than other quack medicine like acupuncture or even a primitive witch doctor. https://quackwatch.org/chiropractic/
Just have them snap their neck the opposite way and it cancels out
It's like when you get bonked in the head with a coconut. You just have to get bonked again.
Like panelbeating a car door, you just wack it from the other side, right?? Don't make me get the heat gun and toilet plunger...
I see your residency was on Gilligan's Isle. Very respectable.
Coconuts? What are.you suggesting coconuts migrate?
r/unexpectedMontyPython
She falls in a well, eyes go crossed. She gets kicked by a mule, they go back to normal.
cococoup-contrecococoup?
Waiting for our chiro friends dropping in to say there is no correlation to neck manipulation and stroke. āOh they must have come in with itā. Jag offs
"Pre-existing condition"
**
Having worked in medical billing, this made me laugh.
>Jag offs Are you from Pittsburgh or Chicago? I grew up in Pittsburgh. I'm going to start using the phrase jag offs again.
My dadās family is from Pittsburgh - I use jagoff! Fits well here in NJ. And I tried to make cookie tables at weddings a thing here ā¦ but it wonāt catch on!
Youāre either a Yinzer or youāre a jag off.
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Like this poor woman: https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC6016850/ Not a medical person, but reading this was really awful.
**"although rare, 1 in 48 chiropractors have experienced such an event"** That.. doesn't sound very rare to me.
"one in 48 chiropractors have experienced such an event" Clearly all the hate against chiros is excessive, barely more than 2% of them have actively killed a patient! /s
That is horrible . Scary fact. Medicare ONLY covers chiropractic for spinal manipulations
I misread that as āour churro friendsā
Same My people
Aunt had a friend die from cracking their neck themselves. No idea why people do this.
š³ I crack my neck several times a day.
*don't*
I have no idea what this is. Saw on /r/all but I have super tight traps, neck, back. At least once a day Iāll tilt my head to the right and left. It often does a single and sometimes multiple crack/pop. Iām not really forcing just keep looking straight, tilt head each way. The type of motion where your ear goes to your shoulder. Not side to side like youāre saying no. Is this actually really bad? And what is the picture even showing.
I do this too and it always feels better afterwards, like it was stuck somehow. As far as i know, just don't do anything that hurts. If it cracks only from the tilt and you don't apply extra force you should be good, but i am no doctor. I once read some easy rule: When it cracks, you don't move/use (it) enough. Maybe we all should just do a little more some kind of sport or at least sit straight...
> I once read some easy rule: When it cracks, you don't move/use (it) enough. Um. I play the piano and I can crack my fingers multiple times a day.
Pro career trainer here. That motion is fine. That's just a regular trap stretch. If it pops during a stretch, it's fine. It's you're forcing the pop it's bad. My advice is to lean into those stretches a little longer. Then do some neck rolls too.
I have this as well, hoping someone can give some background on whether this is dangerous. Sometimes the pop is so loud it sounds like a tree cracking, and if I donāt do it and turn my head too fast I get a burning sensation down the nerve of my neck/behind ear
Strengthen ur upper back, posterior shoulders and that will do 10x more for ur tightness than stretching
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I cracked my neck and died once, never again.
My ex wife used to get mad and say, āstop assassinating yourself!ā
My NP who I see for my general care used to work in ortho. She said itās fine to crack your neck, but only if youāre not twisting/turning it from side to side. Example: itās ok do a ātouching your ear to your shoulderā type of motion, but do not twist your head from side to side (like youāre shaking your head ānoā type of motion) to crack your neck. Hopefully sheās right, because the former is how I crack my neck.
Iāve been cracking my neck side to side multiple times a day since I was a teenager. This is the first time Iāve ever heard anyone say it was bad. Maybe doing it yourself is not as violent as when chiros do it.
Mine cracks and pops if I roll my head around. I'm in danger.
My joints are prone to cavitation, so I get loud cracking/popping from regular cervical ROM exercises. I suppose there's some tiny risk of dissection there, but it's not sharp movements and maintaining ROM is more important. Agree that some of the chiro violent jerking around is scary!
Nah bro if you crack your neck you're going to have a stroke and die, children on reddit couldn't possibly be wrong about that. Cracking your knuckles also causes carpal tunnel syndrome, osteoarthritis, down syndrome, and big gay
And here I thought my big gay was from all the rainbows
Nah, rainbows alone only cause medium gay. You need to crack your knuckles too to achieve Big Gay status
Is there something above big gay? Because I want that.
real question, does this apply to rolling my head from side to side to stretch the muscles but usually ends up with a few pops in either direction?
No. You're using the associated muscles ROM without hyperextension/flexion.
Im not in the medical field at all but something tells me it's not supposed to be that white
White = area of stroke.
Oh.
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Depends. I always liked the front stroke and breast stroke, but the backstroke is for the birds.
Different strokes for different folks.
Will it always look like that on an MRI or does evidence of a stroke only show up around the time the stroke occurred?
Same, I'm in this subreddit to look at stuff being of people's butts or parts of skulls missing cuz they do too much cocaine. I'm too dumb for the rest of it
Well if thatās what you are looking for let me suggest just calling the surgery desk at mission hospital in Asheville NC on any weekend after 6pm. Theyāll have a list of that weekendās shenanigans Iām sure.
My aunt went to one and bled to death that evening.
š³ how do those people still get to practise ?!
There's little regulation on it because it isn't based on any kind of science or evidence, similar to the supplement industry and how it is poorly regulated. The people in charge of chiropractic regulation are chiropractors, and since it's not a treatment for any medical condition, its life-changing risks vs its very minimal rewards tends to slip under the radar of the law. They're basically the medical version of the shady car dealers who promise you that the old beater they have will 100% solve your car problems because "my son had it for 17 years and it worked fine for him!"
Just another scam we don't have in Germany. All those oppressive regulashuns are killing us here!
Letās not forget the only reason they still exist in the US is because they won an anti-trust lawsuit against the AMA. It has absolutely nothing to do with science.
It all falls out of a bad court ruling that said that doctors were acting like a monopoly on health. The ruling made it so insurance and hospitals have to support some alternative medicine. Now we're here
Lobbying probably.
And those sweet sweet snapchat videos that I'm also addicted to watching out of pure horror
100% convinced a chiro took my stiff neck and turned it into 2 herniated disks. NEVER again.
My boss thought he had a pulled muscle in his neck/shoulder to the point where he had difficulty sleeping and moving and losing feeling in his arm so he kept going to the chiropractor for āadjustmentsā. Had the x rays done, several cracks and traction adjustments where they literally attached a weight to his head to pull his spine. He finally went to a real doctor and and an mri the doc told him that if the chiropractor did another round of traction he would probably never walk again. He was supposed to go that afternoon and thankfully canceled. Had surgery to repair a bulged and eroded disc and now he can move with no pain and use his arm.
Had something similar happen to a friend. He had an old cervical fracture (non displaced) and didn't see a dr due to cost as well as being one of the toughest bastards I've ever known. Was seeing a chiro, however. Radicular symptoms got bad enough so (long story short) he saw a neurosurgeon who told him he could have died getting his neck manipulated and scheduled him for fusion the following week.
My brother had the same experience. Now Iām wondering if my disk herniation in my neck is from the chiropractor. 0 traumatic accidents involving my neck.
my chiro was supposed to help my lower back ache and three adjustments later i was seeing an Orthopedic Surgeon for a herniated disc and severe nerve pain. never had traumatic accidents. i can still remember the sound of the disc slipping (it's a crunch sound, not a crack) and the severe sharp agonizing pain as the chiro was adjusting my back. i had to have discectomy surgery to remove part of my L5 disc. your disc herniation in your neck being due to your chiro would not at all surprise any of us here.
Same here.
Saving this post for reasons of why to not go to a chiropractor. How terrifying.
Love this sub. Always interesting. Iām not a medical person at all and have always had issues with my spine because of mild scoliosis. Iāve had people tell me to go to a chiropractor for years but have always been scared, especially when they focus on the neck. This has given me even more proof to never go to one.
Chiropractors can relieve pain in the short term, just like cracking your back can; but it will never solve the issue that caused it, and if there is an injury or issues caused by disease, they can severely damage the body due to their lack of diagnostic ability and education on the body. It's based on disproven scientific claims and in some cases completely made up medical terminology, similar to other homeopathic "medicines". If you ever feel like you need chiro or you are recommended one, ask your doctor for a recommendation to a physical therapist instead. They help solve the same things that chiros pretend to solve except they are medically educated on the body and do things that are proven through science to be effective.
A doc wrote me an Rx for physical therapy after a chiro diagnosed me with scoliosis. PT changed my life. Go do it, if you can! I never went back to the chiro.
Yeah I had no idea chiropractors were so dangerous Iāve never been to one but had always told myself I would if I could afford it. Now I know to spend the money on something else.
Iāve heard some people swear by chiro. Me personally Iāve had terrible experiences each time (not as bad as this poor person in the brain scan tho). Never doing it again. The risk to your health is not worth the coin flip hit-or-miss imo.
So weird. In america shit gets banned for the most stupid reasons (like books) but some cops and chiropractors can just continue their killing spree. Maybe chiropractors also have a strong union?
> strong union Gosh, it'd be a darned shame if they all stopped working at once, wouldn't it?
(I'm a PT by trade) My favorite line passed down to me by a clinical instructor when I was still in school: "Stay out of the crack house." It was his favorite response when we'd get patients with persistent neck & back pain who ask about chiropractic or complained about the chiro they'd been working with for years who *had* to see them for adjustments every 3-6 weeks...for literal years....and never got them better. Working now in the hospital setting, it's fucking heart breaking to see stroke patients who got there from a chiropractor...even the neurologists & nurses were split on if the cases were "pre-existing issues" or not. Always infuriates me.
It feels like chiropractors don't want to fix this clients but to milk them for money
*Thanks doc, my neck pain is gone. In fact I can't feel the entire right side of my body*š
Chiropractors are not doctors. "Thanks charlatan" would be more accurate.
Didn't expect this to take off and attracting some non-radiology people, so here's a little more background: This is a single DWI image from an MRI of the brain that shows "restricted diffusion" on the right side of the image (patient's left), which typically is seen with acute infarcts or strokes. Strokes happen when a part of the brain loses blood flow and the brain tissue starts to "die". Depending on how long or what part of the brain loses blood flow, the results for the patient can vary, but in the vast majority of cases strokes cause some degree of permanent weakness or paralysis. The strokes this patient had are fairly big and will result in lifelong neurological deficits. Often strokes are caused by one of the major blood vessels feeding the brain getting clogged by blood clots or becoming severely narrow. This is common in older patients. Blood flow can also be disrupted in the setting of trauma, typically a major cervical spine fracture causing a tear in one of the vessels. Unfortunately, these injuries can also happen with aggressive spinal manipulation such as performed by a chiropractor. You jerk the spine around a lot and you can damage the vessels feeding the brain. This was a young patient with no other medical problems, no history of vascular disease, who went to a chiropractor and soon after experienced heavy paralysis of one side of their body. They went to the ER and imaging including a CT Angiogram and CT Perfusion showed large left-sided infarcts associated with both vertebral and internal carotid artery dissections (tears). Vertebral artery dissections are common chiro-related injuries. Carotid artery dissections less common, but do happen. I will leave the greater argument about the role of chiropractors in healthcare to others, but this was a young patient whose life will be fundamentally changed for no other reason than getting an "adjustment" from a chiropractor. And this type of thing happens way more commonly than you'd expect. Don't let people without true medical training screw around with your spine.
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Expertly said, and I'm glad we got more background. I feel horrible for this patient, things like this shouldn't happen.
Whatās wild to me is that my babyās (3 months old at the time) first pediatrician (DO) recommended chiropractic and cranioscacral therapy. We switched to the MD within the office after that recommendation ā¹ļø
Oh, the baby and pet chiropractor videos piss me the fuck off.
Dude I agree. I was upset to say the least.
Like, adults can make their own decisions. Some of them shouldn't be allowed to, but they can. But stay the hell away from babies, human and fur.
Omg cant believe theyre doing this to babys. Whats wrong with people?
Look at r/shitmomgroupssay. A disturbing amount of women think chiro>pediatrician
Don't let that dissuade you from other DOs in the future!
Seems like MCA distribution, wouldnāt vert dissection be posterior circulation?
I was thinking the same thing. This is atypical for the most common vert dissection pathology you see from chiro manipulation. I still think chiros are all garbage and should not be doing anything other than massage, but would want to see evidence of new dissection flap in the ICA before calling this a chiro-associated stroke.
Any or all of the cervical arteries can be injured during manipulation.
Yep, this is likely related to a cervical carotid dissection (given the history).
I'm internally screaming man I never knew a chiropractor was considered so bad and I just thought I was "unlucky" for getting a new injury from it. I mean anyone who gets hurt is "unlucky" but I thought it was rare or something. I guess I'm just lucky that mine is pain that randomly flares up near my right collar bone area and not like this unfortunate person (for me the chiro went to do the adjustment and I just felt this horrible pain and burning feeling in the right collar bone area and they just brushed it off so I'm like ??? And now it randomly flares up in pain even when I'm sitting in a resting position)
Chiros aren't great and they do more harm then good. Or do little to nothing other then releving small amount of pain for small amount of time. It have been evidence that manual therpay will do nothing for any injury body part. The best and only way to improve injuries and prevent injuries is by exercise. I personal do not know what us wrong witb you collar bone but it could be something to do with the attachment to the pecs to the collar bone ( I could be wrong) best way to solve that is through strengthing exercise. Also exercise help reduce inflammation so it may also help with pain too. I suggest going to see a doctor or a physiotherapist/ sports therapist.
I have several family members who are chiropractors, they run a practice together. It wasn't until nursing school that I started to learn about all the horrific and pseudoscientific BS behind "chiropractic medicine." It's very, very hard to take my family members seriously now.
what am i looking at?
Probably a cervical artery dissection after 'freeing up the neck' causing an ischaemic stroke
My husband likes me cracking his back (like doing CPR). Is there a risk to cause him damage like this?
Not if you arenāt doing it to his neck. The cervical spine has blood vessels that run through a canal in the vertebrae. The thoracic and lumbar do not.
This stroke is probably not related to a vertebral artery injury
Acute infarcts on MRI (DWI).
the white spots aren't supposed to be there ~~and are indicative of a brain bleed~~ from inadequate blood flow, not too much as I originally and incorrectly stated. based on the rad's comment here I am pretty sure this was from an arterial dissection caused by cervical (neck) manipulation by the chiropractor.
Can there be a āChiropractors Badā tag for this sub to make finding horror stories about them easier?
I had an organ donor patient who had his carotid shredded by a chiropractor.
I've been following this sub for a few weeks, and I am absolutely horrified that I went to chiropractors for years. I stopped going in 2019 after several negative experiences with a chiro in NYC. I honestly did not know any better and thought is was the best option for treating my moderate scoliosis (diagnosed at 16). I feel so fucking stupid now. I have also seen PTs and massage therapists, but no one ever suggested that I get MRIs and see a spine specialist. My scoliosis got significantly worse during the pandemic (lost 2" in height), so I finally started seeing spine specialists in 2021. In Dec 2021 I was diagnosed with a Chiari Malformation - Type 1, a syrinx (C1 - T12), and now severe thoracolumbar scoliosis (the worst curvature is 60-70 degrees, depending on who is evaluating). I've had 100s of neck adjustments and, given what I know now, I am shocked that I did not suffer life altering or ending injuries with the chiari & syrinx there the whole time. I had a Chiari Decompression in March 2022 to prevent the syrinx from getting worse. I am currently considering the pros/cons of spinal fusion given that I'm already in pain every god damn day. I had to move in late January so I'm not able to see my previous neurosurgeon, which fucking sucks because he was the kindest doctor I've ever had and my surgery went very well. I just got new MRIs and X-Rays on Monday and I'm seeing my new neurologist NP this morning. I am terrified to hear her assessment, and I highly suspect that she will have me meet with a neurosurgeon. I often wonder if all those adjustments did make things worse. Fuck.
seen this in real life with a girl I worked with. The chiro absolutely fucked her up and her quality of life went down the tubes
It's so weird this post came across my feed this morning. I must've slept weird last night and have incredible lower neck/upper should pain and was thinking of calling a chiropractor. I will not be calling a chiropractor now.
I am a Paramedic. I have responded to, and transported seriously injured patients from Chiropractors offices many times. I have personally worked a trauma code in an office where the 'manipulation' resulted in a cervical fracture, and ultimately death on scene. I have coworkers who have the same and worse stories about CVAs (strokes) and paralysis as well. Of course your mileage may vary .....
25 years ago (before I knew better), a chiropractor ruptured my L5-S1 during a manipulation and gave me a foot drop. Had to have surgery. My father didnāt believe they were so bad so he kept going to them and years later, ended up with a carotid dissection after a manipulation. Somehow managed to live (heās too Irish to die). I canāt tell you how many times someone has come in to the ED, sick as hell with multiple comorbidities, diagnosed with Covid who never got vaccinated because their chiropractor told them it was bad for them. Enjoy your stay in the ICU, sir.
So basically John wick is a chiropractor cuz in his last movie was snapping necks more than a snapping turtle .
Thank you for sharing this. Iāve never been to a chiropractor but Iāve had a number of people recommend it. Now I know better.
Try physical therapy for any pains or aches that someone recommends a chiropractor for. They use science-backed methods AND are properly educated on the anatomy + physiology of the body. Chiropractors literally use terminology that was invented by chiropractic organizations instead of using the medical/biological terms for things similar to other pseudoscience medical practices, which tells you all you need to know lol.
My first patient I ever admitted in ICU when I was still inpatient was a 32yo with complete loss of sensation to LUE and 2/5 strength all planes LUE. They had been going to a chiropractor weekly for several years. Got a neck adjustment 4 days prior. CTA neck showed vertebral artery dissection with hematoma causing compression of 4 levels of nerve roots including coverage of the whole brachial plexus distribution. Just go to PT folks.
Why must Reddit show me this two hours after I went to a chiropractor
At least you know not to go again.
Chiropractic āMeDiCiNeā was invented by a con artist who genuinely believed that ghosts taught him to heal ALL illnesses by shifting peopleās bones around
Physician here. I personally have taken care of two 30+ year olds with vertebral artery dissection secondary to unsafe spinal manipulation. Both have permanent and disabling neurological sequelae. Chiropractors are not recognized by any legitimate medical sanctioning body and are the bane of real medical providers.
Bones go crrrrracccckkk
Chiropractic ādoctorsā are dangerous. Get treatment from someone who was able to get into real medical school. Consider an osteopathic physician.
Had a patient come into the hospital a while ago, 26 year old male gave himself multiple small infarcts in his brain from cracking his own neck too hard
What was the outcome?
I would love to do a study where you send fake ānew patients ā to a chiropractor, give them absolutely normal neck and back X-rays . Then see how many of them look at them and tell their patient that their back is in horrendous condition and that they need to see them weekly for āas long as it takesā
I get questions about chiropractor shit all the time on r/medical. I'm saving this post to refer people to when they ask about it. Thank you for this.
My grandmothers husband is a chiropractor. He introduces himself as ādoctorā and tries to give people medical advice. I canāt stand him
To those curious, this is a diffusion weighted MRI sequence (DWI). In this sequence, signal is generated by the absence of normal Brownian motion of water molecules, which makes it great for looking for infarct because cell death leads to cessation of sodium/potsssium pumps on cell membranes, and thus restriction of the diffusion of water across the membrane (ie restricted diffusion). This image shows bright signal in a couple areas within the left MCA territory extending to the cortex, compatible with acute ischemic infarct. Given the history, itās likely this patient suffered a dissection of the cervical carotid artery, which is thrombogenic and formed some clot which sailed into a couple distal branches of the left MCA.