Josie & Kelton 5: I just see babies having baby showers!

[kmachete14]

Wow I guess I never even considered my chiropractor to be part of any "woo." 

It looks like a regular doctor's office, has a physical therapy room, you get x-rays, and the Chiro sees you. 

There are no essential oils or any other "woo" products.

My insurance covers 9 sessions (with a copay). 

The only thing they do is treat sports injuries, muscle & joint pain. They actually refer people to other doctors if they suspect you need an MRI or something appears on the xray. They treat migraines as well. 

My family always saw it as an "in addition" to the regular doctor, and for the purpose of physical therapy. 

A chiropractor fixed my winged shoulder, lower back pain, and got rid of the scar tissue build up on my achilles. 

I don't think bringing a baby to a chiropractor is necessary given the context I just explained. And I certainly hope it wouldn't be in place of seeing a pediatrician. 

 

 

[OyToTheVey]

I have scoliosis. I go to a chiropractor because it's really the only thing that helps when the nerves get really bad. I can feel when I start walking funny. My whole alignment gets off balance and I get tripped up over my own legs. The one I go to now is a real doctors office and he looked at x-rays before hand. I also get acupuncture occasionally. I do believe in vitamins like C and Zinc and all that stuff. But I never considered Eastern Medicine to be woo science. The difference between Asian and Western pharmacies are night and day. I couldn't even find Tylenol in Japan. They just don't have crazy huge pharmacies there. But their herbs are amazing. 

[scoutsadie]

12 hours ago, Belugaloo said:

I personally really like that more people on FJ are feeling comfortable sharing their views that were traditionally NOT ALLOWED on FJ. I remember when I first started reading here if you had a certain opinion (maybe like "I go to a chiropractor") you'd get a swarm of responses.

For the record, "get[ting] a swarm of responses" isn't the same thing as being "NOT ALLOWED"...

For instance, speculating about the sexuality of a minor is not allowed on FJ; sharing an unpopular opinion on something like chiropraxis may (still) not be well received, but that's different from it violating the rules and therefore being forbidden.

[byzant]

The difference is no matter how sciency the office looks all chiropractor practice idbased on 19th century scam science _ non scientific beliefs sublaxations(  made up nonsense)_ they might claim to be based in science but it is like a massage therapist claiming the reason a massage helps is because it deals with the devils footprints in your back_ a fairy tale .

And a dangerous one given that there are physiotherapists , massage  therapists and doctors who can provide evidence and science based support for back pain  without believing fairy tales or harming babys as a result.  the difference between poor outcomes from evidence based medical treatment and harm done by chiropractors is with doctors they are treating real illness based on evidence_ harm done by chiropractors is against no evidence of illness or that what they where doing could ever possibly address a reall issue.  They are harming with no possible benefit which is awful  

 

I find the idea of alternative medicine stupid_if something works it is tested and becomes part of medicine if it doesn't then its woo.  And the idea that scientific medicine is western vs eastern is nonsense given the role of the Arab world and China in developing the scientific method and basis for science based medicine. Tradition Chinese medicine was  popularised by mao during the cultural revolution as it was cheap even if ineffective and not  based  on any actual history. Why would the health service not want cheap solutions??? 

While I'm apparently being controversial  I do think willow is a unfortunate looking child( tho often ugly children grow into very beautiful adults) 

Edited September 24, 2019 by byzant
Spelling

[Kelsey]

If all chiropractic Care is woo- why is it covered by health insurance?

As far as I know before a treatment is covered by insurance it must be proven safe and effective. 

 

 

[nausicaa]

1 hour ago, byzant said:

And a dangerous one given that there are physiotherapists , massage  therapists and doctors who can provide evidence and science based support for back pain  without believing fairy tales or harming babys as a result. 

The other thing chiropractor supporters need to ask themselves, if chiropractors are 100% legitimate, why is there such a distaste for them among doctors, medical researchers, and science-based people in general around the world? What do those groups have to gain from this? 

Massage therapists are non-invasive and can be a bit hippy-dippy, but there's not a large group of researchers and professionals pushing to have them stripped of their certifications and discouraging adults from going to them. 

[nausicaa]

Just now, Kelsey said:

If all chiropractic Care is woo- why is it covered by health insurance?

As far as I know before a treatment is covered by insurance it must be proven safe and effective. 

Money? Medical groups have lobbying organizations as well. I mean, Scientology bullied its way into being declared a non-profit in the U.S. so I'm not sure this is the strongest argument. 

And how much of their work is covered by insurance is up for debate. From the following   https://www.chirobase.org/01General/controversy.html  (He is good at providing links if you want to follow his citations in the link provided to see the numbers.)

 

Spoiler

In the mid-1960s, an official delegation of chiropractic representatives, including a radiologist of their own choosing, failed to identify a single subluxation on a series of 20 x-ray films that had been submitted for insurance reimbursement to the National Association of Letter Carriers [14]. In 1972, the Medicare law was amended to include chiropractic care for "subluxations demonstrated by x-rays to exist." A 1986 report by the Inspector General of the Department of Health and Human Services revealed that many payments for chiropractors do not meet this legal requirement [17]. 

For auto insurance, any use of a chiropractor is a fraud indicator in any claim. (As it should be, since the incidence rate of fraud is nine times greater than among medical doctors.)

I am genuinely surprised that such a presumably science-based site has so many chiropractic defenders. The info is out there and freely available. Tons of medical studies as well as information on D.D. Palmer. Much like a religious movement, there is one guy behind the creation and development of chiropractics, and he is bat shit insane and demonstrably just made shit up. 

[formergothardite]

3 minutes ago, nausicaa said:

Tons of medical studies as well as information on D.D. Palmer. Much like a religious movement, there is one guy behind the creation and development of chiropractics, and he is bat shit insane and demonstrably just made shit up. 

I did not know the history of chiropractics. The more I look into it the more it sounds like this entire industry might just be woo that made it mainstream. 

 

 

[closetcagebaby]

I would highly recommend listening to this podcast interview with a former naturopath who went to basically the “harvard of naturopathy”...it’s very interesting. (This podcast in general I think a lot of FJers would be into!)

Podcast here

[scoutsadie]

53 minutes ago, closetcagebaby said:

I would highly recommend listening to this podcast interview with a former naturopath who went to basically the “harvard of naturopathy”...it’s very interesting. (This podcast in general I think a lot of FJers would be into!)

Podcast here

Yes! Oh No, Ross and Carrie is one of my favorite podcasts! (Thanks, @closetcagebaby - I haven't heard this episode!)

For those who aren't familiar with their show, they are a pair of former fundy Christians who are now firm skeptics (and, I think, atheists - or at least, agnostics) who check out various paranormal/woo/fringe spirituality movements and report on their experiences. My intro to them was via their nine-part series on Scientology.

 

[DundeeUnFundie]

I sprained my neck when I was little and the doctor we went to recommended we continue with a chiropractor as it healed. Never had an issue, never had an issue with my chiropractor.

I won't claim to know much about the history, but when you still need to study all the same basic sciences that other medical professions do, I don't think it can just be based on 'woo' anymore.

[lumpentheologie]

I don't think it's really fair to judge chiropractic practice on how it was founded over a hundred years ago.  Lots of useful things have pretty disreputable origins. I mean, chemistry originally started as some weirdos trying to turn shit into gold and find eternal life.

[BlessaYourHeart]

45 minutes ago, lumpentheologie said:

I don't think it's really fair to judge chiropractic practice on how it was founded over a hundred years ago.  Lots of useful things have pretty disreputable origins. I mean, chemistry originally started as some weirdos trying to turn shit into gold and find eternal life.

And penicillin came about because Alexander Fleming was disgusting and didn’t clean his lab before he left for a few weeks 

[byzant]

Of course other things have disreputable beginnings. The difference is to be a chiropractor today  you must believe you are treating subluxation which do not exist. By definition a chiropractor is woo because no matter what the do they are doing it due to their belief in imaginary/ probably false things. 

Medicine had humeral theories, tested those ,found them to be disprovable based on the current technology and moved on and now we have germs. Chiropractor s didn't they still hold that any treatment the provide is based on imaginary subluxations but that Disproven theory remains the foundation and  corner stone for there actions. 

Edited September 25, 2019 by byzant
So

[nausicaa]

4 hours ago, DundeeUnFundie said:

I won't claim to know much about the history, but when you still need to study all the same basic sciences that other medical professions do, I don't think it can just be based on 'woo' anymore.

Except this is not the case. You do not need a bachelor's to attend chiropractic school, and it is not the same as medical school in either subject matter or intensity. The final exams have questions at the same level of difficulty as MCATsor even undergrad exams.

The AMA does not accredit chiropractic schools, unlike medical schools.

1 hour ago, lumpentheologie said:

I don't think it's really fair to judge chiropractic practice on how it was founded over a hundred years ago.  Lots of useful things have pretty disreputable origins. I mean, chemistry originally started as some weirdos trying to turn shit into gold and find eternal life.

Except chemistry evolved and became evidence-based and its core beliefs changed. If there were still chemists believing we could turn random things into gold, then I would critique the field of chemistry. But there aren't. 

However, there are still chiropractors denying genetics and germ theory and nearly all still use the term "subluxation," which Palmer made up, and the field cannot even agree what the term means or be able to consistently recognize it in x-rays. Chiropractic care is simply not evidence-based, and if it were, the field would just fold into physical therapy.

There is the same amount of evidence that a vertebral subluxation improves general health as there is of Young Earth Creationism. 

[church_of_dog]

My chiropractor has some beliefs I would call woo, mostly in the arena of nutrition.  I filter her advice in that category before deciding whether to follow it.

But her actual chiropractic assessments and adjustments are anatomically based.  I don't think I've ever heard her say the word 'subluxation' although plenty of chiropractors I've seen in the past have done so.  My current chiropractor focuses on trigger point therapy, in layman's terms it's about releasing muscles that have contracted more than is healthy (or when a muscle on one side contracts more than the matching muscle on the other side, and then you walk around on this imbalance for weeks, causing other misalignments to occur in your frame).

When she mentions specific muscles/ligaments etc that I have recurring issues with (ilio-tibial band, anyone?) I can google them and see nothing that conflicts with her assessments.

14 hours ago, nausicaa said:

The other thing chiropractor supporters need to ask themselves, if chiropractors are 100% legitimate, why is there such a distaste for them among doctors, medical researchers, and science-based people in general around the world? What do those groups have to gain from this? 

Massage therapists are non-invasive and can be a bit hippy-dippy, but there's not a large group of researchers and professionals pushing to have them stripped of their certifications and discouraging adults from going to them. 

I think this is because, as I somewhat described above, there are people out there doing a wide range of treatments under the label "chiropractic".  Some of which are no doubt woo.  Others not so much.  I have seen seven different chiropractors in the course of my life (I moved locations a lot for a while there) and they were all different in their approach.  

Current chiropractor doesn't even do Palmer-style adjustments in her normal practice.  She rarely does anything in the neck area.  I've never heard of her treating babies or even children for that matter.

She has encouraged me to build muscle strength and finally, in my 50s, I am consistently doing ab exercises and developing some strength.  She also encourages patients to do specific exercises at home to help release the over-contracted muscles that cause them problems.

Just one data point, of course.

ETA:  And now I really want there to be a rock group called the Ilio-Tibial Band...

Edited September 25, 2019 by church_of_dog
clarified that IT band is a ligament, not a muscle

[Kailash]

I’m comfortable with my view of chiropractic care. I’m not trying to change anyone’s mind by sharing my opinion. My chiropractor was able to diagnose my problem area without an xray or mri. (I later had both, which confirmed a bulging disc between L4 and  L5.)  For me, and everyone I know personally, chiropractors used in addition to a medical doctor improve our quality of life. Bottom line. 

[Kelsey]

16 hours ago, nausicaa said:

Money? Medical groups have lobbying organizations as well. I mean, Scientology bullied its way into being declared a non-profit in the U.S. so I'm not sure this is the strongest argument. 

And how much of their work is covered by insurance is up for debate. From the following   https://www.chirobase.org/01General/controversy.html  (He is good at providing links if you want to follow his citations in the link provided to see the numbers.)

 

  Reveal hidden contents

In the mid-1960s, an official delegation of chiropractic representatives, including a radiologist of their own choosing, failed to identify a single subluxation on a series of 20 x-ray films that had been submitted for insurance reimbursement to the National Association of Letter Carriers [14]. In 1972, the Medicare law was amended to include chiropractic care for "subluxations demonstrated by x-rays to exist." A 1986 report by the Inspector General of the Department of Health and Human Services revealed that many payments for chiropractors do not meet this legal requirement [17]. 

For auto insurance, any use of a chiropractor is a fraud indicator in any claim. (As it should be, since the incidence rate of fraud is nine times greater than among medical doctors.)

I am genuinely surprised that such a presumably science-based site has so many chiropractic defenders. The info is out there and freely available. Tons of medical studies as well as information on D.D. Palmer. Much like a religious movement, there is one guy behind the creation and development of chiropractics, and he is bat shit insane and demonstrably just made shit up. 

I'm not sure I would consider myself a chiropractic supporter. Like I said, I've been exactly once and at the recommendation of my doctor (a board- certified md). Prior to that experience, I thought that chiropractors were someone you saw if you were trying to scam someone's auto insurance. I never thought I'd go to one. Then life happened and i was experiencing headaches that didn't go away with meds, new glasses, blue light filters, massage, fluids.....nothing. When my dr recommended seeing the chiropractor (and advised against any high velocity neck manipulations) I probably would have agreed to anything to make the pain stop. I went to the chiropractor which was covered by my insurance with a $15 copay. He cracked my back twice and I left. It's been 2 weeks since and I've only had one headache since. Would I recommend it willy-nilly for everything? NO. Infants? NO. FWIW, the chiropractor that I saw doesn't say he treats anything other than back pain and headaches. I had a positive experience but I also only tried it at the suggestion of my doctor- I wouldn't have otherwise. I wouldn't recommend anyone else use it unless their actual dr thinks it might benefit them.

[rightmind01]

I'm jumping to the chiropractor fray.  I've seen both ends of the spectrum as far as chiropractors selling claims of being able to impact your entire life as well as ones that just deal with the issue you came to see them with.  Currently I'm seeing one on the second end of the spectrum for a hip issue that I ignored for about 8 years until it got to the point I couldn't sleep...it's been a few months of treatment (once a week at first and then biweekly, and now monthly), it's made a world of difference in my hip.  There's been no selling me on additional treatments or how to improve my life just adjustments to fix my issue.

Now, a few years ago I was "scolded" by a young, childless chiropractor when I decided to push forward with ear tubes for my infant daughter because of her recurring fluid build up issues.  At my husband's request, we tried treatments with him to "cure" her issue, no help and he kept insisting I had to bring her 3 times a week (never could make it that often because you know...work).  Tubes gave that baby the relief she needed for her problem.

[Marly]

19 hours ago, nausicaa said:

Except this is not the case. You do not need a bachelor's to attend chiropractic school, and it is not the same as medical school in either subject matter or intensity. The final exams have questions at the same level of difficulty as MCATsor even undergrad exams.

The AMA does not accredit chiropractic schools, unlike medical schools.

 

This is not true for all countries though. In the Netherlands it's a university level study that takes 5 years. 

[LillyP]

Getting this thread back on track...how about those hair extensions Josie got today?!?

[Granwych]

On 9/24/2019 at 7:39 PM, Kelsey said:

If all chiropractic Care is woo- why is it covered by health insurance?

As far as I know before a treatment is covered by insurance it must be proven safe and effective. 

 

 

I don't know about the safe and effective bit.  More like effective lobbying by the national chiropractic association for inclusion in insurance coverage did that trick.  

Now I'm curious about that subject.  I'll see what Lady Google finds.

 

[Melissa1977]

9 hours ago, LillyP said:

Getting this thread back on track...how about those hair extensions Josie got today?!?

What I find hilarious is that she thinks wearing extensions will make her life easier. 

Edited September 27, 2019 by Melissa1977
Spelling

[front hugs > duggs]

5 hours ago, Melissa1977 said:

What I find hilarious is that she thinks wearing extensions will make her life easier. 

I have the same hand tied hair extensions. Those things are very expensive to buy and maintain! And a ton of maintenance (in my opinion at least....I'm usually very low-maintenance). Maybe she got a discount of some sort? But I agree- I'm not sure how how it makes life easier! It makes my shower routine so much longer just because I really try and make sure I clean my scalp near where the extensions are extra carefully and thoroughly. My hair takes SO much longer to dry. And I don't have a human baby! But....I do love having the long hair I was never able to grow myself

[freethemall]

On 9/24/2019 at 7:39 PM, Kelsey said:

If all chiropractic Care is woo- why is it covered by health insurance?

As far as I know before a treatment is covered by insurance it must be proven safe and effective. 

 

 

Not all insurance companies cover chiropractors - I looked into it with Kaiser and they wouldn't unless it was after a car accident, otherwise they wanted me to go to a physical therapist.  My doctor said Kaiser doesn't support chiropractors as legitimate medicine.  My friend who is a physical therapist shared the same views,  she said most physical therapists consider chiropractors equivalent to snake oil salesmen with short term solutions that don't fix the root of the problems to ensure you keep coming back. 

With that said,  I still want to go to one gm because I think "woo" has its benefits too.