CHIROPRACTIC: How much healing? How much Flim-Flam?

GA:

Most often the people who "swear by" chiropractors are those with anecdotal symptoms. It is commonly recognized, even by medical professionals, that most illnesses will eventually heal themselves (with or without treatment) hence when this occurs it is natural for the chiro to "suggest" (often in very influential and convincing terms) that you were healed by chiropractic when in fact nothing could be further from the truth. The truth is you just got better, like getting over a cold. Multiple Sclerosis and Cancer are two common diseases that quite often "go into remission" from time to time. Real doctors know this, but again chiropractors will "seize" on this as "evidence" that chiropractic works and try to convince the patient to keep coming in for those all-important adjustments.

The "Placebo effect" is also a widely known phenomenon that is understood by medical professionals, which is exactly why scientific studies are "double-blind" where neither the patient nor the doctor know whether the patient is receiving the real deal or not. It has to be that way, else the test result is anecdotal and not scientific.

It is also a known fact that many patients respond (get better or think they are better) just from the power of suggestion, hence going to the doctor, ANY DOCTOR, even their veterinarian, or God forbid, a Chiropractor, may have the patient believing they are better. This is another method by which chiropractors are able to "win over" patients and have them swearing by chiropractic. Was the ailment "all in their head"? Who knows. Of course the chiropractor does nothing to dissuade this line of thinking. You have to understand the power of the human mind to play tricks on you and upon the training or the slick talking chiropractor to not only manipulate your spine but manipulate your thoughts as well. In these occasional instances of "spontaneous cure" you could have gone to a gypsy seance or a Jehovah's Witness prayer meeting and obtained the same benefit, provided you had belief in that method.

In all fairness, sometimes a chiropractic adjustment of the spine has been acknowledged as effective in relieving back pain or in helping the patient with the back ailment to feel better sooner. However, there is no scientific evidence to suggest that a chiropractic spinal adjustment is any more beneficial than a whirlpool bath and professional massage from a licensed massage therapist.

Where the chiropractor gets in trouble (and the patient's health is endangered) is when the chiro adjusts the cervical spine (the neck) or exposes the patient to full spinal X-rays or begins spouting chiropractic gobbledegook about chiropractic's alleged ability to cure disease.

There is nothing at all scientific about chiropractic. It has been demonstrated time and time again that a "test" patient can go to 5 different chiropractors and get 5 different diagnoses. Chiropractic is bulls***, period, please note the period.