We revisit chiropractic and the problem of chiros manipulating necks.
In the neck there are critical blood vessels, the carotids and the vertebrals, that provide blood to the brain.
Like any blood vessel, these blood vessels are susceptable to clots and tears.
Need i say more–you must recall that Chiros have a relatively limited play book on therapy, focused on malalignments that interfere.
http://acsh.org/2014/01/techniques-used-chiropractors-safe-effective/Need i say more?
Just so you’ll get the picture, if you stop circulation of a major vessel to the brain you may cause stroke, or death.
A good choke hold will make the victim uncounscious in less than 30 seconds. Important stuff.
There was a time when this site was dedicated to rooting out this style of alarmist headline supported by faulty or inconclusive research. Here are a couple of pull quotes from the article.
“Among those individuals who had strokes following neck manipulation, the majority had demonstrated symptoms of stroke prior to the procedure”
“The epidemiology of these injuries is almost impossible to ascertain”
None of that matters, though, because an ex chiropractor has spilled the dark secret and you can read all about it in the new book he’s marketing.
If I were the type to fall for shoddy statistics I would note that If it’s true that there have been “26 published cases of deaths after spinal manipulation”, and “20 million Americans see a chiropractor” every year, that would mean chiro’s have a lower kill rate than MDs. Even if I take the numbers offered at face value, “between 1 in 100,000 and 1 in 6,000,000” is lower risk than a lifetime of prescription pain medication. It’s certainly less risky than most surgeries. Risk alone is meaningless, though. The risk/benefit ratio is what matters. MDs also have to discuss possible risks and take the individuals specifics into consideration while planning a course of action. If you’re asserting that no chiropractor does that, than you are simply wrong. You don’t seem to believe that there’s any benefit to manipulation so any risk seems prohibitive to you. I know that there can be incredible, life-changing benefits. Your belief seems to be based on inconclusive and inconsistent studies whereas mine are based on empirical observation, not faith, not belief, not best guesses, and certainly not placebo effect, but real world, first-hand experience.
Take a look at the anatomy of the vertebrals, they pass to the brain protected in a canal in the vertebrae, so manipulation can disrupt those vessels for sure.
as for the carotids, manipulation could disrupt a carotid plaque. execessive manipulation might injure carotids of older patients with brittle vessels that have some degeneration of the wall.
It may be rare, but it happens, and it surely is not AMA propaganda.
Manipulating old folks is potentially more risky and should be approached carefully, manipulating the neck is more risk prone than manipulating the lumbar area because of anatomic considerations and fragility factors.
AMA propaganda 🙂