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Chiropractors may be no use in treating back pain, study says
www.guardian.co.uk/science ^ | 11/09/2007 | Alok Jha

Posted on 11/09/2007 12:21:14 PM PST by Red Badger

Going to a chiropractor to treat back pain could be a waste of time, according to a new study which found that having your spine manipulated does nothing to speed up recovery. Current treatment guidelines for acute back pain recommend that, in the first instance, GPs advise patients to remain active and avoid bed rest and take paracetamol for the pain. If that does not work, patients are referred for spinal manipulative therapy and given non-steroidal anti-inflammatory (NSAID) drugs such as ibuprofen and diclofenac to treat the pain. Mark Hancock, of the back pain research group at the University of Sydney, studied 240 patients with short-term lower back pain who had already been given both advice and paracetamol. The patients were randomly allocated to four groups and given different treatments: NSAIDs with placebo manipulative therapy; manipulative therapy with placebo drugs; drugs with therapy; or double placebo. "Neither diclofenac nor spinal manipulative therapy gave clinically useful effects on the primary outcome of time to recovery," the researchers wrote in the Lancet today. "If patients have high rates of recovery with baseline care, and no clinically worthwhile benefit from the addition of diclofenac or spinal manipulative therapy, then GPs can manage patients confidently without exposing them to increased risks and costs associated with NSAIDs or spinal manipulative therapy." In an accompanying article in the Lancet, Bart Koes of Erasmus University medical centre in Rotterdam wrote: "The limited or absent beneficial effect of diclofenac for acute lower back pain after adequate first-line treatment may have wide implications. NSAIDs are widely prescribed for a range of acute musculoskeletal disorders. The important message is that the management of acute low back pain in primary care (advice and prescription of paracetamol) is sufficient for most patients."

(Excerpt) Read more at guardian.co.uk ...


TOPICS: Health/Medicine
KEYWORDS: bonecracker; chiropractor; notadoctor; pain; quack
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To: editor-surveyor
FR is loaded with shills that are here to prevent people from trusting the kind of knowledge that will free them from patronizing establishment quacks. Their agenda is so obvious that it glows in the dark.

Oh now come on!

81 posted on 11/09/2007 2:25:04 PM PST by The Ghost of FReepers Past (Woe unto them that call evil good, and good evil; that put darkness for light..... Isaiah 5:20)
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To: 3AngelaD
I've had three chiros and two have been excellent. The first got rid of a headache I'd had for 3 months due to a problem with my neck after the m.d. I was seeing told me to "double up on the tylenol", the second was pretty ineffective, the third has given me some exercises to do so that I don't have to see him so often. I haven't been back in two years.

My husband is seeing a different one now and has really been helped.

82 posted on 11/09/2007 2:25:22 PM PST by Tuscaloosa Goldfinch (If MY people who are called by MY name -- the ball's in our court, folks.)
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To: Red Badger
It sounds to me as if your wife got the dirty end of the deal. I can walk today because of two years of spinal adjustments by a ‘bonecracker’ here in Sparks, Nevada. A local neurosurgeon told me that my back was too messed up to ever consider surgery as the primary option and recommended the ‘bonecracker’.
83 posted on 11/09/2007 2:27:48 PM PST by B4Ranch (( "Freedom is not free, but don't worry the U.S. Marine Corps will pay most of your share." ))
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To: Seaplaner
I don’t think an osteopath is any better than a chiropractor. My dad spent 2 months in an osteopathic hospital while his broken spine got worse.

“Just a few more whirlpool baths and you will be good as new sir.”

84 posted on 11/09/2007 2:29:12 PM PST by Ditter
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To: Red Badger

a chiropractor caused a friend to have a stroke....I will pass......


85 posted on 11/09/2007 2:31:10 PM PST by tioga (Winter is coming tonight.)
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To: Mojohemi

I did not say they are not required to have a license from the DEA. I didn’t mention the DEA. But I agree with you that the government is in control. The DEA licenses are their permit to write prescriptions for drugs. I can see the usefulness in that.


86 posted on 11/09/2007 2:47:00 PM PST by 3AngelaD (They screwed up their own countries so bad they had to leave, and now they're here screwing up ours)
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To: AppyPappy

Tell ya what, if it had not been for a great local chiropracter the surgeons would have bankrupted me, long ago!
All I ever asked for was to keep my Redneck Butt running, until the kid got raised, I did!


87 posted on 11/09/2007 3:14:32 PM PST by SWAMPSNIPER (THE SECOND AMENDMENT, A MATTER OF FACT, NOT A MATTER OF OPINION)
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To: 3AngelaD

The big scam is that since chiros aren’t allowed to write prescriptions, they try to sell you all kinds of vitamins and nutritional supplements.


88 posted on 11/09/2007 3:47:59 PM PST by toothfairy86
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To: Red Badger

Going to a chiropractor could be a waste of time? No! Tell me it ain’t so! LOL


89 posted on 11/09/2007 3:56:53 PM PST by Continental Soldier
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To: LaineyDee

Chiropractors rarely kill anyone but estimates range from 85,000 to over 400,000 people each year are killed by bad doctors.


90 posted on 11/09/2007 5:14:00 PM PST by CodeToad
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To: editor-surveyor
Succeptibility to infections of most types is due to digestive problems.

This, I don't agree with. It's possible that it might cover some troubles, but 'digestive problems' might already be a cover name for a current chronic infection.

Recent research about gliding bacteria show that they can produce a chemical called capnine that can shut down the immune system, which then lets in more aggressive bugs than the gliding bacteria themselves.

Since the gliding bacteria were found when testing artifical joints that had been replaced, the 'digestive problems' are likely at most one of several paths for likely infection. If adding stomach acid helps, then maybe the original problem was an infection that tended to reduce stomach acid levels.

91 posted on 11/09/2007 8:41:23 PM PST by slowhandluke (It's hard work to be cynical enough in this age)
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To: toothfairy86
The big scam is that since chiros aren’t allowed to write prescriptions, they try to sell you all kinds of vitamins and nutritional supplements.

The unfortunate part of the things like chiropractic is that they do work for some, but it's unclear why they work or which patients are likely to benefit or which to get hurt. And they tend to be a little less critical of other alternative treatments.

The same lack of clarity goes for nutrional supplements. Recent studies show that adding folic acid to the food supply isn't a good thing for the entire population.

It might be good for pregnant women, but woefully bad for other folks.

Even if chiropractors and other alternative docs tend to be a bit too uncritical of possible remedies, the mainline medicos can also push things without appropriate study. Pushing Folic Acid looks to be a rather large mistake. Pushing Vitamin D is going to be shown to be an even larger mistake.

see www.bacteriality.com for a newer view into the problem of chronic disease and an infectious cause.

92 posted on 11/09/2007 9:00:23 PM PST by slowhandluke (It's hard work to be cynical enough in this age)
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To: CodeToad
Chiropractors rarely kill anyone but estimates range from 85,000 to over 400,000 people each year are killed by bad doctors.

There are bad chiros just like there are bad MD's. It never ceases to amaze me how people will casually turn their life and body over to someone else......without checking them out first.

93 posted on 11/10/2007 3:14:39 AM PST by LaineyDee (Don't mess with Texas wimmen!)
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To: slowhandluke
If adding stomach acid helps, then maybe the original problem was an infection that tended to reduce stomach acid levels.

Or.....maybe the problem is some docs tend to over-prescribe things like Pepcid AC, Zantac and other "antacids". We've got a whole generation of people who have been sold on remedies to mask symptoms.... instead of being encouraged to find underlying causes.

94 posted on 11/10/2007 3:28:28 AM PST by LaineyDee (Don't mess with Texas wimmen!)
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To: The Ghost of FReepers Past

LOL, yeah, you’re right, if I’d read a review of “repressed” emotions, I’d have passed on it too. There are some examples of something like that in the book, but that’s a totally different topic and the book does not eliminate those issues for those people, they have other issues to be dealt with by professionals. I was having a problem with pinched nerves and sciatic. Understanding the mind-body connection solved it. Don’t be mislead, the book is based in logic, not some fringe, touchy, feely, holistic crap. It’s a small book and I just read the first half of it. That’s the important part...the rest? I didn’t even read it...didn’t need it, it didn’t apply. Anyway, good luck on whatever you decide.


95 posted on 11/10/2007 6:13:11 AM PST by Paco
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To: Paco
I guess it is a question of what sort of 'back pain' and whether the cause is acute or otherwise. In both instances I greatly benefited from chiropractic (about 10 year apart), I was injured, things were pretty obviously out of place, and the sciatia intense.

After a few weeks of therapy in the second and by far worst instance, I was pretty much back to normal, and a few years later (when the need arose) moving engine blocks around by myself.

Neither of the chiropractors I saw reccommended much treatment past what was needed to get me back on my feet, and both pretty much left that up to me to decide.

By contrast, my father worked with MDs for a couple of years before he finally went to a chiropractor and got relief.

If the treatment is not working, there is no improvement, the patient should seek alternate opinions, no matter who they went to first. Both camps have their capable practitioners and their miserably inept representatives as well.

96 posted on 11/10/2007 6:34:27 AM PST by Smokin' Joe (How often God must weep at humans' folly.)
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To: AppyPappy

I go to a great chiropractor who never schedules me for future visits: he knows I’ll call when I need him. He will do chiropractic treatment (with a clicky thing), the neurostimulator pads, laser, or acupuncture, depending on what I need for that visit. He also spends time going over my diet and suggests exercises for better positioning at the office when I’m on my computer. It is the ONLY relief I get, and I’ve been to “real” doctors and surgeons, who just want to push drugs or surgery on me.


97 posted on 11/10/2007 8:12:35 AM PST by alwaysconservative (Hill and Bill: Putting the "ick" back into Democratick politicks.)
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To: slowhandluke

The problem is in many cases, that various injuries can interrupt the function of the nervous system, and in particular, the sensation in the stomach that “turns on” the flow of acid. When this happens, any and all types of bacteria have an open door to the blood through the intestines, and can bring on problems like arthritus, bronchial congestion, type II diabetes, cognitive disorders caused by infection of the substantia negra, or other parts of the concavity of the brain, or of the basal ganglia, which can cause massive neurological disfunction anywhere in the body.

Digestion is the gateway of the immune system.


98 posted on 11/10/2007 9:46:45 AM PST by editor-surveyor (Turning the general election into a second Democrat primary is not a winning strategy.)
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To: FReepapalooza

I have had all kinds of twinges and minor spasms for years and I tried one because a friend raved about it.

That started me down the road to feeling a lot better. I have been going to one regularly for over 10 years. Chiro has helped a lot with the severe headaches I get. Popping pills never came close in terms of relief.


99 posted on 11/10/2007 10:50:13 AM PST by wally_bert (Tactical Is Still Missing A Chair!)
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To: editor-surveyor
Maybe, but I had diabetes, along with sarcoid. The diabetes is gone, and the sarcoid mostly so, and all with antibiotics. There was no need to postulate any injury, as the folks who've tried the same cure before me got and pretty much stayed cured without the need for dietary supplements.

The only 'original injury' the infection hypothesis needs is an infection by some bug that simply turns off the immune system. There's proof that gliding bacteria can do this with capnine, and that gliding bacteria are wide spread. Once the immune system is off, you are prey to the common infections such as Borrelia, Babesia, Bartonella, as well as whatever is being coughed up the folks around you.

The term 'various injuries' would have to be more well defined for me to judge whether or not these injuries are common enough to cause anything like the diabetes epidemic we are seeing.

And, in any case, the betaine hcl is preventative, not curative, once an infection has settled in.

100 posted on 11/10/2007 5:58:30 PM PST by slowhandluke (It's hard work to be cynical enough in this age)
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