In the Air Out There…

Sunday, June 8th – Sometimes I get so involved with my own life, and — especially where this blog is concerned — with my own personal experiences of chiropractic, that I completely forget there’s a whole world of opinions, pro and con, floating around in the air out there.

I belong to an e-mail listserve of freelance medical writers who are members of the American Medical Writers Assocation (AMWA). Mostly I’m a “lurker”: I just read what everyone else is saying about whatever. Once in a great while I stick in my two cents’ worth; but since I am doing very little medical writing right now, I don’t think what I have to say is terribly pertinent. However, imagine my surprise, and interest, a couple of days ago to discover that a thread was forming on Alternative Medicine. It all started with someone posting a link to an article called “Word Use and Semantics in Alternative Medicine: A Survey of Editors of Medical and Related Journals.” (The article is available on Medscape, in case you happen to be into semantics: here’s the link — http://www.medscape.com/viewarticle/572553?src=mp&spon=17&uac=117226CY.)

I was amazed, as the responses started coming in thick and fast, that a lot of the comments had to do with chiropractic. They were not all positive. Those of you who have been reading this blog for a while will remember that I originally carried around my MD father’s prejudice against chiropractic as “a bunch of hooey.” I was startled to discover that some folks still feel that way. Hey, isn’t this the 21st century? Aren’t we all supposed to be open-minded and interested in discovering new knowledge in many fields? Isn’t the Internet supposed to be educating all of us in ways we never even imagined earlier?

Some of the more moderate comments of my medical-writer colleagues leaned toward the view that chiropractic doesn’t really work at all, and those who think they benefit from chiropractic adjustments are experiencing the “placebo effect.” (By the way, acupuncture came in for the same sort of criticism, for what it’s worth.) I was even moved to hop in and briefly tell my tale of conversion and success with chiropractic, heaven help me! Then the chiropractors and former chiropractors started popping out of the woodwork, standing up for what they do and their profession in general. It got very interesting, for me, at least.

It actually got rather hot. The anti-faction was throwing out accusations of all the dreadful conditions that could be caused by chiropractic adjustments. Finally, one guy, who is Senior Director of the Center for Teaching and Learning at Palmer College of Chiropractic, offered a number of recent references showing that studies indicate there is NO such connection, any more than there is with ordinary primary care allopathic medicine. I followed up on those, and found the abstracts pretty reasonable.

For example: from the abstract of an article in the February 15, 2008 issue of SPINE, by J. David Cassidy et al., titled “Risk of Vertebrobasilar Stroke and Chiropractic Care: Results of a Population-Based Case-Control and Case-Crossover Study” — just a few lines:

“Study Design. Population-based, case-control and case-crossover study.

“Objective. To investigate associations between chiropractic visits and vertebrobasilar artery (VBA) stroke and to contrast this with primary care physician (PCP) visits and VBA stroke.

“We found no evidence of excess risk of VBA stroke associated (with) chiropractic care compared to primary care.”

Someone among the freelancers eventually suggested that we’d gone as far as we could with this thread, and it was beginning to turn into one of those things where nobody is convincing anybody of anything. (Like many political discussions to which I have lately been privy…) I found myself a bit offended by the viewpoint that the reason acupuncture and chiropractic have such a success rate is the BELIEF FACTOR. I take that to be another way to describe the PLACEBO EFFECT, and it really annoys me.  I, if you will recall, started out with no belief at all in chiropractic, just a willingness to take a chance and try something that sounded plausible and interesting. The results I’ve seen in three months have convinced me that it’s worth continuing, since I wasn’t getting anywhere with conventional medicine except on the road to more joint replacement surgeries.

So I just thought I’d share this with anybody who’s reading the blog. I guess the air out there isn’t as clear as I was hoping it was. Okay, I’m not out to convince anyone else; I’ll just keep on keeping on, and reporting what happens with this particular 70-year-old body.  Thanks for reading — Betsy