Our Creator has granted mankind insight into the workings of the human body and has even outlined the many ways in which we are to honor our "temples". He has given man all the intelligence and medical knowledge required for a long and healthy life. But there are some medical practitioners in this world who, rather than to use their God-given knowledge to heal their patients, focus instead on using their patients' misery to make themselves rich.

Such is the case of many chiropractors.

I wholeheartedly believe in chiropractic, but, after thirty-some years as a chiropractic patient with a neck and back that's only gotten worse over the years, I'm living proof that chiropractic is NOT the "be-all, end-all" remedy proposed by those vitamin-pushing quacks who insist you come for adjustments twice a week for three months, and thereafter for "maintenance treatments" for the rest of your natural life.

This is exactly what my last (and final) chiropractor was guilty of. In just one month I dropped nearly $500 for my twice-a-week adjustments plus electrode treatments (which totaled $70 per visit), plus a full-body X-ray and thermal scan (which were part of the initial visit), which revealed the sad shape my skeleton was in - As if I didn't know....

The reason I became a patient of this particular chiropractor was partly because I was mesmerized by her contemporary ideas and seemingly thorough knowledge presented in a modern office setting that consisted of the latest fancy gadgets and "bells and whistles." Bottom line: I found out the hard way that she didn't know what she was doing when I ended up flat on my back in bed with excruciating neck and back aches resulting in extreme dizziness and sleeplessness after an "activator" adjustment where she had set the instrument too high for my fused, delicate, overly-adjusted neck.

How did I end up in this silly predicament? Well, because 30 years ago I discovered that chiropractic was an instant pain reliever. And God only knows how much pain I was in because, during my lifetime I have twice fallen down entire flights of stairs; was once thrown from a horse onto my head and shoulders; got "whiplash" at a county fair on a ride ironically called "The Whip"; and let's not forget that just before I turned 14, my pedophile father literally kicked and bounced me off the walls from one end of our ranch-style house to the other because I threatened to tell on him. In my mid-twenties, during an Army physical training test, I lost my balance and fell into a ditch during the "run-dodge-and jump" exercise with a force so hard that it broke my tailbone off. The grand finale for my poor neck and back was a high-speed freeway accident in Houston back in 1990 where I crashed headlong into the side of some woman who was attempting to cross four lanes of freeway without first bothering to check the traffic....

Needless to say, I have legitimate reasons for neck and back pain - and chiropractic seemed to be the perfect remedy. It would have been, had most of the chiropractors simply "adjusted" me and then left me alone once my problem was resolved. But no, I was normally manipulated into coming at least twice a week for three months because I needed to "retrain" my bones (yes, "retrain")....In other words, my condition was abused by money-hungry chiropractors who saw dollar signs the moment they realized the extent of my problems.

To be fair, not all chiropractors are quacks; there were some who have helped alleviate my immediate pain by allowing me to visit whenever I felt I needed an adjustment. After all, who knows my body better than I do? But, as former military I moved around quite a bit and had to find new chiropractors wherever I went; and, of course, they all had their own ideas about how to "cure" me. More often than not, I ended up with one of those pushy, insistent "come in twice-a-week-for-three months" types who have done more damage than good, simply because they adjusted me when I didn't really need it - which kept my ligaments stretched, which caused my vertebrae to become unstable, which put me on a perpetual motion machine of endless need for chiropractic, which ultimately resulted in neck fusion surgery due to the "continuous blunt force trauma of constant chiropractic."

Permanently hooked!

I got "hooked" on chiropractic during the early Eighties while stationed in the Washington, D.C. area with the US Army. It happened when a chiropractor took X-rays that revealed I had a "military neck" which, I was told, would need extensive adjusting in order to get the "curve back in." He nonchalantly and very convincingly told me I would need to be seen twice a week for three months or more - and of course, I should, at the same time, consider getting "colonic irrigations" and also begin purchasing his special high-priced vitamins....

A couple months later, I ended up in traction at Walter Reed where the doctor suggested I stay away from chiropractic. But did that stop me? No, not at all - I thought my chiropractor walked on water and ignorantly took his word over that of the medical doctor! As a matter of fact, when my chiropractor told me I now needed chiropractic more than ever, I was right back in his office as soon as my "soft collar" came off. Luckily, about a year later, the Army put an end to that particular relationship by sending me and my "military neck" (which, by the way, has never been "fixed" by chiropractic) overseas.

Fast-forward to late 1996 when I moved to Colorado. My back was worse than ever - in part, I suspected, because I had basically been living in chiropractors' offices over the years, hoping to get not just relief but that ever-elusive CURE that chiropractic was supposed to provide. The first thing I did in Colorado, as I had done everywhere else, was to find a "good chiropractor." When I thought I'd found one, I stayed loyal for the next six years, even though "something" told me he didn't have my best interests at heart, especially since I ended up seeing him more and more, without any visible signs of the promised healing. (It never dawned on me that chiropractic was making me worse; I just thought I had a bad skeleton.) When I eventually moved from two adjustments to three and sometimes four times a week by 2002, I asked him whether I should I see a regular orthopedist to have my neck checked. His sage advice? "Forget it, Carmen. No self-respecting orthopedist would touch your neck!"

Needless to say, that weird comment opened my eyes, and so I found an orthopedist who ended up doing more than just "touching my neck"....After fusing C4-6, he told me he should have fused my entire neck because the "blunt force trauma of constant chiropractic" had, among other things, loosened all my ligaments and caused all my vertabrae to become unstable.

Did I learn my lesson? No. I was "hooked," remember? In my mind I kept hearing the mantra: "True health is only possible with an optimally functioning nervous system. If you're subluxated, you run the risk of cancer, joint instability, blah, blah, blah...." Within two months after my surgery, feeling in dire need of an adjustment because "something felt 'out'," I found a chiropractor who was doing the "better, easier, more precise method of chiropractic" via the "activator." It didn't seem to help much; but I ended up visiting that guy at least twice a week because my bones kept "going out." (I never bothered to ask myself where the bones were supposedly going, because on every X-ray I've ever seen of my skeleton, they were always right there, exactly where they were supposed to be! But, after many years of being told I suffered from "subluxations" I was under the impression that I needed chiropractic, and so I kept going....)

At some point someone told me about "soft-touch chiropractic" whereby the doctor gently pushes on the bones and supposedly aligns them by constantly checking leg length, as opposed to thrusting and twisting. And so, for the next three months, twice a week at $55 per visit, I was being treated by someone who promised me that HIS method would surely help. Well, it did nothing whatsoever (except drain my bank account), and so I went back to conventional chiropractic...Until October of 2007 when that self-assured, competent-sounding female chiropractor, after just one month, caused me to become temporarily bed-ridden, which awakened me to the fact that God was probably warning me for the last time to stay away from chiropractic....

A true wake-up call

And so I perused the Internet and discovered some unsettling truths. Among the many articles I found was one by Ralph Lee Smith called, At Your Own Risk: The Case Against Chiropractic. Following is an excerpt from that article:

"In addition to the dangers of chiropractic x-ray, chiropractic treatment itself can pose direct threats to health and life. A small but inexorable number of people are directly killed by chiropractic adjustments. Another, and larger, group is either directly injured by adjustments, or is suffering from a condition that is aggravated and harmed by chiropractic treatment."

Obviously, I fall into the latter category. After thirty-some years of receiving chiropractic "care" I can attest to the fact that, while chiropractic has its place and is helpful to a certain degree, it is NOT a "be-all-end-all" remedy to your overall health that many chiropractors would have you believe. Chiropractors make the following claims:

• "By removing nerve interference with gentle adjustments, chiropractic allows you to enjoy optimal health without using drugs or surgery!"
  
  
• "By coming to our office for regular chiropractic care, you'll help your body stay healthy for years to come."
  
  
• "Regular spinal adjustments can become your body's line of defense against illness, disease, and pain."

A webpage called Chiropractic: What You Should Know says: "A healthy back does not require treatment to stay healthy....For most conditions that chiropractic care can help, significant improvement should occur within a few visits." This website also says to avoid Chiropractors who are:

• advertising about "danger signals indicating the need for chiropractic care
  
  
• making claims about curing diseases
  
  
• trying to get patients to sign contracts for lengthy treatment, promote regular "preventive" adjustments
  
  
• using scare tactics
  
  
• disparaging scientific medical treatment or preventive measures such as immunization or fluoridation
  
  
• who claim to diagnose or treat "subluxations," or who have literature promoting "nerve interference" as an underlying cause of disease
  
  
• who suggest that chiropractic might help nearly every type of health problem
  
  
• routinely performing or ordering x-ray examinations of all patients, particularly full spine X rays.
  
  
• Avoid chiropractors who "prescribe" dietary supplements, homeopathic products, or herbal products for the treatment of disease or who sell any of these products in their offices. For dietary advice, the best sources are physicians and registered dietitians.
  
  
• who offer any of the listed "Useless (for the patient) gadgets and tests". In addition other dubious tests and/ or procedures include:
  
  
  • body fat analysis
    
    
  • computerized "nutrient deficiency" testing
    
    
  • computerized range-of-motion analysis
    
    
  • cytotoxic testing, electrodermal testing
    
    
  • Functional Intracellular Analysis (FIA)
    
    
  • herbal crystallization analysis
    
    
  • blood cell analysis (also called nutritional blood analysis or Hemaview)
    
    
  • testing with a Nervo-Scope
    
    
  • Nutrabalance, NUTRI-SPEC
    
    
  • pendulum divination
    
    
  • reflexology
    
    
  • saliva testing

Many medical doctors insist that chiropractic care should not involve repeated preventative manipulations or other treatments nor the "prescribing" of medicinal supplements. They say, if you have not experienced significant relief within three weeks, discontinue SMT (spinal manipulation therapy). Do not submit to long-term care!

Dr. Samuel Homola at Quackwatch wrote the following:

Dr. William T. Jarvis, Ph.D. in his essay, "Why Chiropractic Is Controversial (1990)" provided the following advice: Remember that the main value of SMT lies in the rapidity of the relief it provides. If you have not experienced significant relief within three weeks, discontinue SMT. Do not submit to long-term care. Do not sign a contract. And do not accept the idea of preventive chiropractic care. Education about how to prevent back problems by safe lifting techniques, proper exercise, and ergogenics (analyzing and redesigning the workplace to avoid injuries) is valuable.

Dr. Jarvis warns that we should avoid practitioners who:

• Appear overconfident or cultist in their zeal for chiropractic care
  
  
• Disparage regular medicine as jealously antichiropractic
  
  
• Criticize prescription drugs or surgery in an ideological manner
  
  
• Attack immunization, fluoridation, pasteurization, or other public health practices
  
  
• X-ray all of their patients, or routinely use full-spine x-rays.
  
  
• Use scare tactics such as claiming that the failure to undergo chiropractic care could lead to serious problems in the future
  
  
• Sell herbs or dietary supplements
  
  
• Perform colonic irrigations. These have no medical value and can be dangerous.
  
  
• Claim that subluxations exist and that their correction is important.

As an aside, in an article entitled, Does Chiropractic 'Add Years to Life'? Lon Morgan, DC, wrote the following:

I know this is a long article and I thank you for staying with me! The thing is, the word MUST be spread! I pray that my "horror story" will serve as a warning to anyone who is thinking of seeking chiropractic care - and especially to those who are already "hooked!"

So, how am I doing since my decision to go "cold turkey?" GREAT! I've finally discovered, thanks to my physical therapist who is helping me to rebuild lost muscle tone, that "pops and cracks" are perfectly normal. My neck and lowback are curiously fine without chiropractic - imagine that! Yes, I have occasional aches and pains, but after thirty years of being abused by chiropractors, what else could I expect? I'm just thankful I FINALLY got out of the chiropractic habit before anything really bad happened! From now on, I plan on taking the advice of my medical doctors and those who have thoroughly researched the validity of chiropractic claims.

If you have a chiropractic horror story, please write to me and let's compare notes! Let's get VERY VOCAL about chiropractic abuse - all the way to Congress, if need be!

Carmen, a former chiropractic patient