When you mention the word “chiropractic” or “chiropractor” to someone, chances are the first thing they will think of is cracking and popping and pain. Why not? Many chiropractors are more concerned about the noise their manipulations make than any real value behind an adjustment.
If you look to the right, you will see a new ad in the sidebar. It is an ad for a patient education poster featuring a baby and the words “Eggs get cracked. I get adjusted. There’s a BIG difference.” Sadly, for many chiropractors, this is not true.
Recently, I was listening to Dr. Reggie Gold on CD. At one point, Dr. Gold was talking about how we should “Treat every patient like they are a 93-year-old with osteoporosis.” I am in complete agreement.
I believe most people don’t want to be popped and cracked. I believe most people want a little more specificity and gentleness in their chiropractic care than the old meric system/Flying Seven/gross spinal manipulation approach provides. Yet this is what the Council on Chiropractic Education, National Board of Chiropractic Examiners, and the various state boards want us learning.
Just the other night, my wife January was chatting with a friend on Facebook who was recently in a bad car accident. She has been going to a chiropractor (ironically a Parker graduate) who has been doing the general manipulation/traction/rehab thing on her. She has been going twice a week for a while, shelling out $600 of her own money, and experiencing more pain than when she first went to him. In fact, she said that many times she experiences bruises from his adjustments. My first reaction was “What the..?!?” I told her she should suggest he go to a few adjusting technique seminars.
Needless to say, we looked hard for an Upper Cervical Chiropractor near her. We found a NUCCA chiropractor 45 miles away and referred her there.
I recently came across a website called A Chiropractic Warning. It is the story of a man named Jim Morris. He went to a chiropractor and received general gross manipulations at the area of chief complaint (low back). He also had some unnecessary deep tissue massage in his low back prior to the adjustments that caused him severe pain in his buttock and down his leg.
The reason? He had a severely herniated disc and the chiropractor had no clue. The chiropractor suspected Jim’s pain was muscular in origin. The chiropractor was guessing!
Jim Morris went to his orthopedic surgeon to get an emergency micro-discectomy at L5-S1. His surgeon told him that it was the largest herniated disc he had ever seen and that he had to remove 75% of it.
How do you explain to someone like this that popping and cracking are good things? Especially when his chiropractor utilized no imaging and had no definitive proof, yet simply guessed that Jim’s problem was purely muscular! The chiropractor continued to maintain that line of thinking even after MRIs proved the disc herniation!
(Update – After being privy to the chiropractor’s side of the story regarding Jim Morris, all I can say is the whole truth was not told from the patient’s end. Having known people who have been through similar experiences, I was quick to jump to conclusions when I shouldn’t have. Thanks to Dr. Travis Robertson for investigating.)
Upper Cervical Chiropractic is very much about specificity, gentleness, and KNOWING. Popping and cracking is not common in an upper cervical office. Neither is pain or bruises. Specific x-rays to determine exact position of C1 and C2 are taken, leg checks and thermography are utilized to determine if an adjustment is needed, and rest is required following an adjustment, if necessary.
(Update – I wrote this post after hearing and reading things that frustrated me within chiropractic. I would and have referred people to good full spine chiropractors. I also understand that there are Upper Cervical Chiropractors that aren’t doing a very good gob themselves. No matter the case, we all have a responsibility to be more specific and more responsible. Medicine and Big Pharma may get a free pass, but we don’t.)
If you need help finding an Upper Cervical Chiropractor, shoot me an email at atlasoflife@gmail.com and I will help you find one in your area.
{ 10 comments… read them below or add one }
Thank you for addressing this issue. And I love that you used the Scrubs video. They usually mock the medical profession. But I was SUPER bummed to see they used the *janitor* as a weekend-learned Chiropractor. And of course, he was nearly decapitating people, or so it looked.
Specific upper cervical care is NOTHING like this. And, again, I am glad you put the word out there!
Come on, doc. It’s perfectly safe to adjust a herniated disc. Just make sure that you aren’t adjusting a sequestered disc with a fragment hanging off the edge. You act like what we regular chiropractors do is unsafe. This is simply untrue. I respect the power of a good upper cervical adjustment, but you don’t need to deride those of us who choose to adjust the whole body. What is this, BJ Palmer in the 1920s? Let’s move on!
I’m criticizing the doc’s ignorance in acknowledging the herniated disc. If you click the link and read the whole thing, you’ll see that the chiropractor continued to maintain that is was a muscular problem. He had no clue, and even after the MRI, he continued to maintain it was muscular.
Maybe I wasn’t specific enough, but what I am frustrated with is chiropactors who don’t really know what is going on and hurt people. I graduated with a guy who went to chiropractic school because he was hurt by a chiro and had to get a laminectomy. Whether he actually needed the surgery I don’t know, but he still was hurt by an irresponsible chiro. Our profession has too many irresponsible chiropractors out there. If calling them out to do better offends you as well, I’m sorry. That’s not my intention.
However, with this being an upper cervical blog and me being an Upper Cervical Chiropractor, I just think it is safer and gentler than diversified. That’s just a fact. You can’t break a rib with a toggle recoil adjustment, but you can with diversified.
I think it’s important to not make too many generalities. The impression readers get from this is that upper cervical = specific = good and that full-spine technique = non-specific = bad. The reality is that people claim all kinds of things but the proof is in what they’re actually doing.
There is a “Blair practitioner” here in Kansas City who doesn’t take x-rays and adjusts the atlas on both sides, every visit. Now, is that really Blair? Of course not. You can be an Upper Cervical hack every bit as easily as you can be a full-spine hack.
As far as the 93-year old comment, I agree, but an artfully performed manual adjustment is every bit as safe as a well-done upper cervical adjustment which is every bit as safe as a well-done instrument adjustment, etc. The key is to be GOOD AT WHAT YOU DO. Clarence Gonstead wasn’t picking up an Activator instrument for every elderly patient he saw, or doing a NUCCA adjustment, etc. Neither was Clay Thompson. Or the Harrisons. Or pretty much the majority of other chiropractors.
Also, as far as the guy with the story about the herniated disc… He can pretty much say whatever he wants about that situation and no one but he and his DC know what really happened, so I would tend to take that with a grain of salt.
Good points Steve.
I happen to be a NUCCA practitioner and feel the same way about non specific adjustments. On the other hand, I do feel that attacking our own profession (even if you feel something is being done wrong) is classless and unprofessional. Despite what you believe, it reflects poorly on us all and more specifically you. It makes us look publicly unorganized (which we are) and creates rivalry amongst peers. As a patient considering chiropractic, wouldn’t you be a negatively swayed if you read an article like this which painted a picture of a profession that talks down on one another? I practice NUCCA…It is a technique…It is not the “cure all technique.” Respect each other and eventually we will rebuild the chiropractic image.
Thanks for commenting Dr. Cripe. I can appreciate what you are saying. However professional unity within chiropractic will never happen. There’s the faction that wants to turn us into a medical subset i.e. New Mexico, and those of us who believe in chiropractic. If we just sit around and not speak out, chiropractic will become osteopathy 2.0. If opposing that makes me classless and unprofessional in the eyes of many, I am prepared for that criticism.
I think evidence based can help here but it is important for everyone to know what I mean by that. I do not mean what is most effective for treating pain or symptoms but instead what is most effective at accomplishing the chiropratic objective. Until we can agree on what the chiropractic objective is and, how, based on the current evidence, best to objectively measure the extent to which we achieved it we will have a very difficult time reaching unity within the profession.
I think the skeletons in our closet should be out there in the public eye if we want to be totally truthful. I believe it to be more deceptive to hide these things. I also feel that if we were more public about it perhaps there would be a greater incentive to correct the problem. BJ said, “Conflicts clarify.” This may create a conflict of sorts but would possibly do well to clarify the professions purpose, focus, and objective.
Remember when in Chiropractic school there were the different clubs, Gonstead, UC, Diversified, etc… Everyone thought that their technique was the best and you would always get into big philosophical debates?
There is good and bad in everything. Good restraunts, movies, hair stylists, teachers, plumbers, etc…
I dont think talking about what happened on a Chiropractic Warning website is going to do anything positive for the profession.
Yes, we should be specific, but at the end of the day we need to treat people with love
“The Love Concept”