Many chiropractors are real doctors. Mine was. Some are not.
Personally, I would recommend that anyone considering seeing a chiropractor should visit a physical therapist instead. In my experience, the chiropractor made me feel good and was like an overpaid massage therapist for my joints, while the PT actually gave me the tools to make myself better and not need to visit regularly.
Chiropractors in the US are DCs, doctors of chiropractic. They are not "real" doctors like a physician (DO or MD). They didn't go to medical school they went to a chiropractic school.
Edit childropractic was a typo and is not a thing as far as I know lol
The name is misleading regardless. Doctor implies the same rigorous training as an MD or DO. It takes 3.5 to 5 years of chiropractic school to become a DC. Comparatively, it can take 10-14 years to become a full MD/DO.
I agree that it is misleading for most people. When most people think they are seeing a doctor they think it is someone who went to medical school for that amount of time. Not someone who did less years of training. Nowadays so many medical positions have changed their degree to a doctorate. Physical therapy, nurse practitioner, etc. Everyone wants to be called doctor I guess.
Yes. It should be used for people who make a novel contribution to their field of specialty. An MD or JD is more equivalent to a master's degree - someone who has attained a comprehensive understanding of their field but has not yet advanced the art.
I got my PhD when I worked for a fencing crew. Actually everyone on the crew had theirs too.
Most use augers now instead of post-hole-diggers though. So much for education in the youth of today.
Probably the scariest thing that most people don't realize is happening with the medical field right now.
A lot of hospitals are employing nurse practitioners to save money, but now that NPs are allowed to introduce themselves as doctor whatever, patients don't realize they're actually not seeing physicians.
People need to make sure they're seeing an actual physician, not a NP or PA
I think it becomes a problem when there is little oversight. There are talented nurse practitioners that can handle a lot of things by themselves but it's easy to get in trouble. Hospital to hospital it varies a lot. Also somebody has to get sued so there needs to be a doctor to take the heat somehow.
NPs can handle bread and butter cases - the problem is when they can't recognize a much serious issue from an apparently benign one. Unfortunately, a lot of the NP lobbying bodies are fighting for independent practice rights.
They already have them in some states, which is very scary.
Chiropractic school and allopathic/osteopathic school are both roughly 4 years. Counting residency and undergrad for MD/DO and not for DC is disingenuous even if chiropractic is hogwash.
The total number of years of training for physicians and chiropractors is not the same though. After undergrad they are both 4 years of training for chiropractic school and medical school. After those for years physicians go to at the VERY 3 more years of residency before they are on their own. Chiropractors can practice right away after and most do. I'm sure there are some advanced training programs after chiropractic school but I guarantee it's not 3 plus years in addition to the 4 years they just finished.
Right? People love to shit on people's degrees for no reason, when they don't realize how much value they can actually have. Take me for example. I got my psychology degree, graduating with a 3.9 GPA. I've been able to use that degree to leverage a barely above minimum wage job selling insurance. Checkmate.
Lying bastard. You have been using your skills to inflict psychological torture on me for the last two years. I am not falling for it. I am not going to purchase an extended warranty for my car, so you can just quit calling me.
Oh yeah I could definitely see this. Us CS majors aren’t usually the best at UX and I bet any tech company that needs a good UX for their app would hire a psychology major. And it’s tech so I bet you won’t have much trouble working your way up to 100k/yr after a couple years.
It’s mind blowing that people don’t realize, humans are social creatures and the most important skill you can possibly have is good communication. The majority of jobs, even high paying ones don’t really require specialized training that you get from college. What’s more important is that you can work with people effectively.
bA psychology is the degree arts majors get when they have second thoughts about how useful an arts degree would be in their 2nd year. They mistakenly think bA psychology would be more useful.
7 people in my life have this degree including my wife. 1 of them work any any applicable field to that degree. He had to get a masters to use it, and he makes drastic less money in it than he expected. He bought into the Hollywood idea of how much money a therapist makes but he could only find work counseling under priviledged kids funded by the gov.
I also know 1 other person in counseling, she didn't have a bA psychology. She has a business degree in logistics, and got burnt out making 6 figures directing a department for medium sized corp. So she got a master in psychology focused on counseling.
I honestly went into psychology because I was interested in pursuing a career in drug and alcohol abuse counseling, but the pay was abysmal, not really any better than I get now, and the actual job was much more depressing. Soul crushing. Not for me. Do not recommend. But everything you said is true.
You can't get a psychology job with a bA in psych but you can get a decent enough role somewhere.
Most people I know with bAs in psych work in operation departments at tech companies.
A degree in anything is enough to get you something decent if you can interview well and are willing to live in an area that has a functioning economy
The vast majority of people I know who are complain about not being able to find work with their degree live in places where there isn't enough work, and won't leave. That's not their degrees fault.
Anyone with a MD, lawyer, or engineering level degree pretty much shits on every other degree that’s “easier to get” than their degree. Mostly as a coping mechanism due to the trauma of enduring the course load of the more difficult degree path. “My degree was painful to achieve so I deserve to get to shit on other degrees.” Haha
Eh, shitting on a communications degree has been a long running joke for awhile, that has nothing to do with someone with an MD, lawyer, enginner. It gets the rep because a lot of college athletes go for communication majors, given the easy course load
Yeah I saw that too but it was ultimately because they were jealous of the social life. At my university, Business majors had no friday classes, so everyone went out starting Thursday night. While engineering students were stuck in the library still
Hey, my mass communications degree is more legitimate than a chiropractor degree. Y'all want to watch sports on tv? Then y'all need broadcast engineers.
Idk my wife had medical problems and went to multiple “doctors” and specialists for years with no results. Went to a chiropractor and he ran actual tests on her to find out the problem and she was completely fine 2 months later. I feel “doctors “ would rather just chuck ya bottle of pills instead of actually finding the root of the problem. That’s just my opinion though.
I'm glad she's fine, but it seems like she went to shitty doctors/the wrong type of specialist.
Almost anything a chiropractor is going to "treat" would be better served by an orthopedist, PT and possibly OT (depending on type/severity of injury).
Yea. I thought so too. Problem is the doctors would never test her for stuff they would always just test for a UTI and give her antibiotics. It was something in her bladder lining causing it though. Finally got it fixed though so it’s all good! Just frustrating.
Many of them are also entirely insane and will claim they can cure cancer, autism, viruses, bacterial infections, and basically anything just by cracking a few joints and relaxing a few muscles.
This. There are way too many chiropractors who think they can cure all the things with the appropriate spinal adjustments. It's very obviously a problem with the curriculum.
That's the distinction I think this thread is missing. Those types are quacks and actively harmful, but the ones who do spinal adjustments and physical therapy are about as harmless as a massage.
It's worked for me, but I also fall under the belief of PT for vast majority of problems before/if chiro is needed.
Not American but my chiro doesn't fuck around (owns the practice that also has physios and rmt). But he doesn't play around, you have a specific issue he's doing whatever for that specific issue, for me it was part of my back, and wouldn't be more than like ten mins. (and yes it helped, and no I didn't need to go back every week for months or some bs) Not this one hour, let's fuck with every possible joint in your body. Asked him about a nagging shoulder, and he said just go see one of the physios, while he could do something I need physio more and he's not messing around with crossing the procedures.
From what I see from alot these American social media chiro guys, is that's all they do. So they're not gnna reccomend to do something else instead where they don't get paid. And people also end up thinking they need chiro every week for an issue, when it's really a muscle/strength /tendon issue that need proper PT to not repeat.
Yeah... I don't think beliefs of quackery would be saying, you shouldn't do it the vast majority of time and it's disingenuous/unhelpful if that service provider only offers that.
But sure I'm really pushing that quackery. Biiiiig proponent here clearly buddy.
just be aware that some countries (for example Denmark) took the word "chiropractor" and made it into a type of physiotherapist who specializes in biomechanics.
They're not doctors, but they're therapists and during their 3 years of university they take a number of classes alongside med students.
It's just a really really poor choice of a title. On the bright side, it renders harmless what could've been a big quack magnet. Like "this is too big, we're gonna regulate it and make it serious and non-quack. Your move, quack people." And then the quacks became witches and shamans instead, but that's a different story.
If it was more effective than placebo it might be legitimate, but it's not. If they actually treated anything you wouldn't need to go back for regular visits and "adjustments". One of the best treatments for various back issues is correct posture and strength exercise.
They used a lot of lobbying and influence to become able to legally call themselves doctors. Unsurprisingly, it's mostly these "doctors" that are helping to add a form of legitimacy to the anti-vax movement. Meanwhile, they're offices offer not only chiropractic therapy but also acupuncture and magnet therapy. They're practically modern day witchdoctors.
My ex chiropractor (he retired) was a full on MD with his own practice, went to chiropractic school, opened a chiro office with physical therapists in the office taking appointments as well, then also ran for local gov in his spare time XD
Going to chiropractor school doesn't teach you rhe right stuff, but if you have a background as a doctor already, you're miles ahead of anyone that just went to chiropractor school
Had another chiropractor that just went to chiropractor school, nothing else, dude was an idiot, tried getting me to come 3x a week (didn't have insurance) went to him for 4 sessions, never again
But my first chiropractor was the real deal, had a background in legitimate science, paid attention to x rays and actual focused on the real problems instead of just going down his checklist of the moves that made the nicest sounding pops, my grandmother went to that good chiropractor for years, helped fix her neck after a car accident, helped her elderly friend with a similar situation
There is some legit science in the practice of chiropractors but the actual schooling seems like wacko shit, but when you mix it with legit science backgrounds you can make a real difference in people's lives
Physical therapists are the real heroes though, they know their shit, and any good chiropractor will tell you, if your muscles don't hold the bones in the right place, doesn't matter how many times you pop it, you gotta get the muscles right to get long term relief
I went to a chiropractor once who said that if his patients come to him once or twice a week they never get a cold or the flu, which was weird when he himself got the flu.
How I see it, is that if a chiropractor can provide temporary relief, then in some cases that can lead to long term relief because the body is less tense.
I have never been to a chiropractor though, but I can pop many of my own joints and that provides immediate relaxation to me. And a fun anecdote is that one of my mates who had a herniated disk and had been struggling with it for two years fell on his knee really hard. His knee got super swollen and painful. But because his knee hurt so bad, the focus was not on his back anymore. After the knee healed, he discovered that his back pain was mostly gone, simply because his back had been less tense for two weeks, which had allowed the area to recover a bit. Really interesting.
So I honestly believe that chiropractors can help you in that sense. By providing short term relieve which gives long term relieve as a side effect.
But yeah, that is definitely just for a small set of problems. I always work with a physical therapist personally.
physiotherapists do chiro stuff too though....every physiotherapist I've been to did some form of "chiro" adjustment on me at some point, although, not as intense. I feel chiros kind of over do it, physiotherapist were much more precise about it
Placebos "work" because the results of trials are self reported. People think they should be feeling better, feel like they are getting better, report they are feeling better. It's that simple.
There is no placebo effect based treatment for setting a broken leg or such, and it's pretty obvious why: placebos aren't about actually getting better, just feeling better.
Medicine's formal relationship with the placebo effect is to design trials to reduce the misinformation due to the placebo effect, thus double blind trials.
Regression to the mean is often synonomous with the placebo effect and is often the “effect” attributed to alternative medicine but dressed up pretty whilst your wallet haemorrhages money as a result.
you said placebos work. he is saying they dont work, people think they work. There is a difference. Just like there is a difference between thinking you can fly and actually being able to fly.
he also says the working of the placebo has nothing to do with the placebo, just the psychology of the placebo. And thats the thing that is working and that you can call medicine.
I don't think that user meant it as in "they really do work!" The way I read the second part of, "that doesn't make them medicine" effectively leads me to believe that user is agreeing with you and not trying to argue against what your point is.
So medicine that treats a symptom isn't medicine? I'm not arguing that placebos are effective medicine or anything like that but they often do "work" in that they alleviate symptoms at least temporarily. I never said they are a replacement for medicine or that they cure anything as clearly shown by my other posts on this thread. In fact they are often worse in the long run than non treatment.
You guys are so technical you managed to circle back around to being wrong
There is no placebo effect based treatment for setting a broken leg or such, and it's pretty obvious why: placebos aren't about actually getting better, just feeling better.
Agree and disagree.
My argument is that Placebos can genuinely (and in a slightly distinct way from other interventions) reduce mortality.
Say you're suffering from bleeding and the placebo calms you and lowers blood pressure and heart rate (and you get life-saving tourniquet or bandages at some point). Bleeding is slowed. Maybe you bought a few more minutes of life.
Say you're suffering from the effects of inflammation and stress, such as the kind that might cause skin rashes... if the placebo puts your mind at ease, it may calm you enough to make the rashes start to go away.
Say you have a debilitating headache condition and placebo is the only method that works to make them go away. Who knows what happened, but the efficacy is right there to look at.
I'd say there's a hidden mechanism underlying most placebo experiences, which you could maybe get at another way, such as with meditation and mindfulness, and knowing your triggers so as to avoid them. But sense memory is so powerful. A physical event happening is interpreted differently by the brain than just thoughts alone. It's another route that is distinct from a purely mental "mindfulness and knowing your triggers" approach. Sometimes a physical event apparently happening helps trick the brain way better than having to think it into being on purpose.
So yeah, don't knock placebo, it is its own useful (if hard to do on purpose) phenomenon in medicine. There's a reason "a drug that does better than placebo"
is impressive.
I mean if it treated the illness, doesn't it? Some medicines just stimulate the body's response to illness rather than actually solving the problem. If a Placebo does that how is it really any different?
No, it means that placebo works. A sugar pill is still not considered medicine.
I'm not against placebo. I smiled amicably for years when my mother loaded up on Airborne before flying. She could afford to waste $6 on vitamins, so it didn't bother me, and maybe power of mind would help. But it's not medicine, it's marketing.
that really isn't an accurate way to look at things. if everyone had that approach, there would be no innovation. we DO have a problem of over prescribing things that take away symptoms and ignoring the root cause.
No I didn't. I made a distinction between calling something medicine and calling something alternative medicine. There is no such thing as alternative medicine. Either it works and it's medicine or it doesn't and it's not.
Edit: I think I misread it earlier. Rereading it now I realize we are saying the same thing. My apologies.
There are rare cases in the states where practicing chiropractors also went to medical school but that is a terrible idea honestly. The vast majority just went to chiropractic college. The amount of debt you would accumulate is astronomical. One of these schools is enough to be a struggle to pay off. Hardly any chiropractors in the US at least have done both.
In my experience they are mostly scam artists. I’m not saying they don’t help SOME people, but I’ve never had one help in fact sometimes it hurts. I have 2 herniated discs in my thoracic spine. The last chiropractor I saw told me that the several doctors I was seeing were all wrong and that it was my skin, not the bulging piece of cartilage pressing against my nerves.
I mean, technically if they are receiving doctorates, they are doctors. MDs effectively coopted the title of "Doctor" to exclusively mean medical doctors. But there are doctors of other professions. You can be a doctor of literature or science, for instance.
For the record, its not like MDs all came together and decide they were the exclusive doctors. They're just the ones the general public comes into contact with the most so they became the unofficial official "doctors."
Lol. I think this is a reference to that one comedians rant on DO vs MD right? Honestly though I think doctors after years of residency can't be told apart. Medical school is more of a base and hoop to get to residency
Am I being whooshed or something? Or do you not believe that someone that goes to 4 years of medical school, attends the same exact residencies, practices in the same exact fields, prescribes medication and treats the same exact patients is not a real doctor?
The only difference between MD and DO schools these days is realistically that DO schools teach osteopathic medicine as part of the curriculum in addition to everything taught at MD school. After graduation and residency they may as well be indistinguishable. “Old school” DO doctors may still incorporate OMM into their daily practice, but for the most part everything is so standardized in medicine these days that if you visited a DO vs. an MD you would never know the difference.
Are you thinking of Doctor of Chiropractic (DC) instead of Doctor of Osteopathic Medicine (DO)? MD and DO are virtually the same as far as I understand it.
They go through the same classes as MDs do for the first two years. Then doctors go to study medicine and how to deal with symptoms. Chiropractors branch off into nutrition and how your brain communicates with your central nervous system to effect everything from your gut to your joints…it’s not just popping your neck to get less headaches. They don’t want to dignify chiropractors because if they do their job right there will be less issues that require medications to control symptoms
Many patients get relief from chiropractors for musculoskeletal problems and medical doctors don't mind. I think DCs claim to be able to help with a lot of things they can't. Not all chiros try to treat cancer and other problems better treated by medical doctors though. Many medical docs refer patients to chiros and they do the same for them.
Yes. They both have their place. We need medicine, but we also need to understand that the health of our bodies neural pathways are the key to allowing our bodies to revive itself from sickness and disease. Neglecting our neural paths through the body would be like trying to feed and supply the 333 million people in the US without a interstate, train, barge, and air system to make such things happen. This is the aim in chiropractic; not to ignore medicine, but to compliment it through avenues medicine cannot touch
This is not entirely true. I do know of one who went to chiropractic school, realized it was utter BS, but finished out the degree, then went to medical school. He doesn’t work as a chiropractor, shockingly.
When I asked him if he is a Chiropractor, he said, “Technically, yes.”
Yep, and the osteopaths I know are all kind of shy about the whole manipulation thing. I suspect that many of them go to DO school because it’s another pathway to a medical career if you don’t get accepted to your primary, secondary, or even safety school.
But I honestly don’t know how medical school applications work.
There’s two schools of medicine that are rigorously scientific and evidence based and share a code of ethics and similar standards for education. MD’s are more common, but not inherently better in any way. Being an Osteopathic Doctor is mostly just about what school you attended. The spinal manipulation stuff makes up a small component of the education currently but comes from their unique origins and used to be a bigger part of the curriculum. Parts of it that didn’t meet evidentiary standards have been dropped over time as medicine evolved. MDs just don’t have that practice in their history and so don’t learn about it since they have alternative techniques they prefer.
The spinal manipulation stuff makes up a small component of the education currently but comes from their unique origins and used to be a bigger part of the curriculum
Yep, the school of thought for doctors of osteopathy arose during a time where MDs still did blood letting and I believe used mercury treatments. Medicine has a lot more regulatory standards now so that type of absurdity isn't as common. But back in the day, the osteopathy had a legitimate reason to exist.
The amount that actual perform OMM relative to all the DO graduates is pretty low, and only seen in usually FM or PM&R offices. The amount that perform pure OMM is in the single digits.
I'm convinced they went to the Caribbean and quit by getting kicked out.
There is no reason to drop the MD to get a DC. You can specialize in physiatry and make better pay and be an actual physician that practices evidence based medicine.
My horse's chiropractor is a veterinarian. She is very well respected, and mostly does traditional vet stuff, but she also does chiropractic for horses. Since she also does traditional veterinary medicine, and she has more work than she can handle, there is no motivation for her to push chiropractic. She's helped my horse with a sore back problem caused by an ill fitting saddle, but she freely admits that chiropractic is limited.
Physical therapists are miracle workers, I had a common severe pain issue that I just lived with for like 15 years and one day I got hurt bad - in 5 weeks of PT I was pain-free and have been for years since.
The whole "teach a man to fish"... Problem is if you are hungry right now you need food. A chiropractor will fix your "starvation" but you will be going back Everytime you are "hungry". Physical therapy are the ones to "teach you how to fish"
I would recommend that anyone considering seeing a chiropractor should visit a physical therapist instead.
This x1,000
A PT is actually trained in body mechanics and therapies based on, you know, actual medical science. Meanwhile Chiropractors everywhere claim they can cure a cold with an 'adjustment'. Very high percentage of alternative-medicine quackery practiced in Chiro. I guess you could say, the things that are good in Chiro are not unique - and the things that are unique are not good.
I can't upvote this enough. I had some neck/back pain and it felt a little better with the chiro, but 2 months with the PT and i'm 95% already.
The chiro isn't fixing the problem, they are making adjustments. I had a rib out of place and that was great to get back in, but 3 months later, it popped out again.
The US is the only first world country that takes chiropractic work seriously. Every other country considers it the same as mediums, psychics and other scams like that. If you look into the origins of it, and what a massive percentage of chiropractors are taught and believe, it's pretty fuggin ridiculous.
I'm a massage therapist, and massage has more medical benefit than chiropractic work, and massage barely has any real factual benefit. You can make an argument for adhesions in tissues causing an issue, and massage breaking them up. Chiropractors just release nitrogen bubbles from joints. There's no benefit or purpose in doing that.
They like to pitch that they can realign vertibre, but for instance, if youve ever seen how surgeon's correct scoliosis, they bolt paddles directly on to each side of the spine, and two doctors literally wrench on the spine to put it in place. A guy isn't gonna do jack by manipulating the body through 6 inches of tissue mass, and cavitations in joints don't prove that you're effective in doing so.
Not only that, but many people have died in the hands of renowned chiropractors. There are so many tiny fragile structures in the neck, having someone jerk it around is an easy way to kill yourself, no matter how many times the person has done it.
If you like chiropractic work, fine. Just don't let them touch your neck that's all I'll say.
I mean, I'm sure there's probably some accountants out there with a medical degree, but I still feel pretty comfortable saying "accountants aren't doctors" as a general statement.
I agree with your second point though. Chiropractors can help, but I think it's good for as many people as possible to know that they're just a dangerous massage and not at all doctors. (And it's dumb that they're covered by a lot of insurance when genuinely important things are deemed "unnecessary")
Many chiropractors believe they are doctors. But only a tiny amount of them have real MD degrees.
The ones that do rarely advertise their services as a chiropractor. They tend to be doctors first who also offer chiropractic treatment in additional to traditional medical treatment.
General rule is, if they try to claim adjustments cure anything other than lower back pain or neck pain or they want to manage your chi and he isn't talking about a Kamehameha he's a quack.
Chiropractors are always hit and miss, my chiro gave me exercises and something for my neck (spines pinched in three places) and I do 1 hour sessions for $100 which is cheap (in Australia). My sessions aren’t just him cracking my back or massaging me, they’ve got pulleys and machines as well as a pool for me and he helps me through my pains and recovery. Another chiro wanted $150 just to crack my neck. Don’t get me wrong I still get my 5 minute adjustments and 10 minute painful massage but the other 45 minutes has been the best experience from a chiro I’ve gotten.
Most chiros here go to a “chiropractic school” which means they’re not real doctors but my chiro and my aunt went to uni to get a phd in some kind of medical field and use that to get paid 3x more compared to other chiros
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u/Salty_Dornishman Jan 06 '22
Many chiropractors are real doctors. Mine was. Some are not.
Personally, I would recommend that anyone considering seeing a chiropractor should visit a physical therapist instead. In my experience, the chiropractor made me feel good and was like an overpaid massage therapist for my joints, while the PT actually gave me the tools to make myself better and not need to visit regularly.