Certainly, in America, doctors seem happy enough to prescribe painkillers to people who can’t afford actual treatment. I mean, for the medical-industrial-insurance complex, being able to charge people/increase their premiums, year after year, has to be a steady revenue stream. Chiropracty could fulfil the same niche, I guess.
Over here, in the UK, it is apparently very difficult to get Chiropractic treatment on the NHS; so “patients” are generally going to have to pay to get private treatment.
Chiropractic treatment is pretty common in Asia, but (in Japan at least) it’s really for specific kinds of injuries or chronic pain from past injuries, etc.
If you wake up with a crick in your neck, a chiropractor can help with that. It’s as simple as that, and it’s weird how chiropractic treatment has gotten so mixed up with new age BS in the west.
Seems to me it could be that for a lot of folks, the scammery that some chiropractors practice has overshadowed the good that a lot of others do. 
That’s definitely true for me. There have been some times where I’m sure my back is messed up because I was working too hard and just want the skeletal equivalent of a muscular massage…but I’ve heard so much about the woo that’s infested chiropracty that I don’t trust I’d find someone competent. So I end up popping my back over a chair instead of seeing a professional who could do it safely.
The American medical insurance system is totally fine with quackery. Most plans also cover acupuncture and all sorts of other nonsense as well. They are not overly concerned with efficacy. They are concerned with what will attract new premium-payers, and what is cheap to cover on the back end. Quackery is great this way, because it’s generally inexpensive and a lot of people want it.
As for doctors, I’ve never personally heard of an evidence-based medicine doctor referring to a chiropractor unless the chiropractor also does other things that are evidence-based, such as massage therapy. That said, I won’t say it never happens because the other factor here is lobbying. The chiropractic industry has engaged in an aggressive decades-long lobbying campaign to legitimize themselves. They have managed to get laws requiring coverage of their services, they’ve manage to get licensing systems in place, they’ve generated reams of garbage science, etc. It’s one of the oldest and most organized bits of quackery, so they’ve come a long way.
It was born in quackery and has remained there ever since D.D. Palmer made it up in Iowa. The founding principle of the practice is that god sends life energy down through the top of your head into your spine, and all health ailments are caused by “subluxations” interrupting that energy. A subluxation is claimed to be a misaligned vertebrae, but of course if you had that you would be dead.
Nothing chiropractors do is evidence-based. Many of them are also licensed massage therapists or do other evidence-based things, but nothing that is unique to chiropractors has any value whatsoever.
It’s extremely common in North America also. That doesn’t make it effective. People do all kinds of things that they think are making them feel better but are actually doing nothing. It’s not a criticism of the people who use these services. It’s why we need medical regulations to prevent quackery. We can’t all as individuals be expected to suss out every scam and fake medical practice. Lots of alternative medicine seems pretty good if people don’t know all the science or lack thereof.
Chiropractic has no evidence to support what it does, does nothing at best, is mildly dangerous at worst, and shouldn’t exist as a practice.
You’ve obviously been studiously avoiding mine then…
I genuinely thought that massage therapy was an integral part of what chiropractors did.
One thing positive I’ll say about chiropractors is that they spend more time on anatomy in school than medical students do. My parents are both MDs and extremely skeptical of most things chiropractic, but there is one chiropractor they know whose anatomy knowledge blows theirs away, and they’ve gone to him for help with injuries and back pain where a medical physiatrist or physical therapist wasn’t able to help. They still won’t let him go anywhere near their spines, though.
He hardly even knew 'er, right?
That’s a reasonable assumption, since a lot of them do it. That’s been part of how they’ve achieved so much legitimacy- they’ve gradually folded in more and more evidence-based practices over the decades. Massage Therapy is a big one, and some of them do legitimate nutrition counseling or even Physiotherapy as well.
However the core of the business is still the “cracking” thing they do, which is total nonsense. The problem is that the legitimate stuff muddies the waters. You might go in and get legitimate massage therapy for a sore shoulder, but then get sold on “electrical muscle stimulation” or a bunch of herbal supplements. When the legit is mixed with the nonsense, average folk can’t be expected to tell the difference. This is what makes them dangerous. If they simply didn’t exist and all those other legit disciplines remained doing what they do, the world would be a better place.
Honestly, I am of the opinion that chiropractic actually does a better job with chronic back pain than most allopathic docs, although osteopathic docs do a good job of combining the best of both worlds at times. My issues arise when chiropractors claim to cure asthma, allergies, autism and so on. And most especially when they claim that “regular adjustments make vaccines unnecessary.” The problem comes about when you realize that these claims are part and parcel of the whole thing. I don’t know that I have ever had a chiropractor who was not heavily into woo of multiple sorts.
Chiropractic: history and overview of theories and methods - PubMed (nih.gov)
Chiropractic was started by D. D. Palmer, a magnetic healer who formulated the vertebral subluxation theory. The profession was developed by his son, B. J. Palmer. Although the definition of chiropractic as a method of correcting vertebral subluxations to restore and maintain health is questionable, spinal manipulation is of value in the treatment of some types of back pain. The chiropractic profession is still based on the vertebral subluxation theory, and has the confusing image of a back specialty capable of treating a broad scope of health problems.
The woo was baked in at the founding of the scam. I am actually shocked to learn that it has been separated to some degree from it in Japan.
I think that this is my mistake. I assumed that osteopathic and chiropractic were the same thing, so when I said that chiropractic treatment was common in Japan, I was actually referring to osteopathic treatment without understanding that they are two separate things.
In retrospect, I believe that the doctor whom I saw in my teens for scoliosis was also an osteopath. I specifically remember him taking X-rays when I twisted an ankle real bad one time, and that is not the kind of thing that a chiropractor would do, is it?
I never even thought that I might be conflating the two. I just thought that they were two different words for the same thing.
So the difference isnt just the spelling? Eddie Izzard was wrong.
Still, both are powerful scrabble words
One of my dogs gets acupuncture, chiropractic and massage treatments for advanced LS disease (the dog version of spinal stenosis). The treatments are performed by a licensed regular vet who decided to expand their practice with holistic care and went back to school for several more years to learn Eastern Medicine. Our Pet Insurance covers it, it was recommended by their neurologist as a better option than a risky surgery, and the treatment is guided by periodic x-rays, MRIs and other Western Medicine tools.
Most chiropractors are glorified physical therapists that mastered the art of bullshit - but it can be an effective treatment for certain problems. Our holistic vet’s treatment has dramatically slowed – perhaps even stopped – the calcification of my dog’s spine, and mobility that was lost for several years has been regained. Their quality of life has improved tenfold, and my dog has many wonderful years left.
You should find a new vet if they are recommending chiropractic and acupuncture. You can no longer trust anything they say or do.
Oh hell, chiropractors get spine xrays all the bloody time! The amount of radiation their patients are exposed to must be ridiculous. Then they “read” them through the lens of chiropractic to “prove” how your subluxation is causing your ear infections or whatever. Osteopaths are a whole different kettle of fish. Some of the finest primary care providers I know are osteopaths. And the additional training they get in musculoskeletal body work can be very useful for some kinds of care.
Thank you, random internet person. I am certainly going to trust your opinion over the expert advice given to me by three board certified veterinary surgeons from the nation’s best animal hospitals and med schools.
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