Chiropractic Neck Pain Treatment
Chiropractors have been relieving neck pain for over a hundred years, safely and cost-effectively.
Safety of chiropractic neck adjustments
Let’s be frank. Some people (maybe even your medical physician) say that chiropractic adjustments can cause you great harm and not to let a chiropractor touch your neck. Well let’s look at the facts. Insurance actuarial tables and medical research has found that serious harm (stroke, fracture, dislocation, etc) caused by chiropractic neck adjustments occurs once in 3-6 million adjustments depending on the study you cite. Most chiropractors will not deliver one million adjustments in their career. Chiropractors are trained not just to adjust the neck, but also to know when NOT to adjust a neck. A chiropractor using due care in an exam will know when it is safe and when it is not. And only a chiropractor trained in this manner can make that call. Your medical doctor knows many things, but he or she knows absolutely nothing about chiropractic. No medical school trains their doctors in chiropractic theory or application of manipulation.
For a serious adverse reaction to occur, you must have a pre-existing or pre-disposing condition such as severe atherosclerosis, a weak artery in your neck, a malformation of a neck artery or other condition that makes your neck arteries more easily injured. Simple physical tests by the chiropractor will often show if these conditions are present. Your history and symptoms will also shed light on your suitability for manipulation.
So how does this myth get started and why is it sill around today?
Unfortunately, there are many people who each year suffer an adverse reaction such as a stroke related to their necks BUT these events have been documented to have occurred NOT in chiropractic offices, but at the hands of medical doctors and physical therapists trying their hands at manipulation with little to no training. The injuries are said to have been caused by chiropractic adjustments, but in reality you cannot call it a chiropractic problem if it’s not done by a chiropractor. Imagine your chiropractor performing surgery; that would be ridiculous because chiropractors are not trained in surgical procedures.
Believe it or not, other cases where someone suffered a stroke or other serious problem is questioned and it is learned that they visited a chiropractor a month or more ago and lawyers, ever ready to pounce on a malpractice case, make the claim that an adjustment 2 months ago caused the problem. Ludicrous, but all the attorney is after is deep pockets and a chiropractors liability policy is ripe for the picking.
You might also be shocked to learn that many people suffer severe problems like stroke from beauty salons! That’s right, people with predisposed neck problems have severe problems just from leaning their heads back to have their hair washed. It occurs many times each year.
Chiropractic is even far safer than popping a simple pill. Over the counter (OTC) Tylenol is reported by the CDC and the manufacturer to cause 20,000 deaths each year in the U.S. And shocking reports show how many prescription drug addicts are created each year taking the most mild pain relief medications.
The bottom line is, neck adjustments performed by a well trained chiropractor are very safe—safer than other commonly used therapies.
Chiropractic neck treatment is cost-effective
Treatments by your doctor of chiropractic to relieve neck pain are more cost effective than other approaches. Let’s look at the medical model of treatment. First you see your primary care doctor, who with very little training in actual diagnosis of spinal problems, does a cursory exam and provides you with a prescription for medication and maybe a pamphlet on neck stretches and neck care. After a period of time you return and say you are not better, he or she then refers you out for x-rays. You often go to a separate facility for x-rays and another doctor reads the x-rays because your primary care has almost no hours of training in reading radiographs. You return in 2 weeks for the results of your x-rays, all the while continuing to suffer from neck pain. Your primary then refers you to a physical therapist. The therapist evaluates you and sets you up with therapy 3 times a week where you do exercises and sometimes, the PT will actually touch your neck and stretch it or move it, but usually it’s mostly just exercises under their supervision. Increasingly, PT’s do not perform “physiotherapy modalities” such as heat, electrical stimulation, etc in favor of exercises only. If you find relief, great, but look at how many visits and how many providers were involved. And if you weren’t relieved yet, you’d be sent to an orthopedic specialist and/or a neurologist.
Let’s look at typical chiropractic management of neck pain. You go see a chiropractor where he or she does an exam that surpasses your primary care doctor’s exam and is on par with an orthopedist or neurologist. Your chiropractor then performs x-rays right there in their own office. Your chiropractor then reads the films because he or she is trained to interpret their own x-rays as well. The chiropractor will then provide “physiotherapy modalities” and chiropractic manipulation on the same day you were examined and had x-rays. Everything that took many providers over a course of weeks is done in one office in one day. Treatments might last a few days to a couple of months. By the time you are done though, you will have been to only one provider and spent much less time driving and making appointments and suffered less neck pain because chiropractic has been shown to relieve neck pain faster than medication or physical therapy alone or in combination.
Chiropractic is clearly the safe and cost effective way to relieve neck pain.
Suffering from neck pain in Orange County, California? Call Dr Barry Marks Chiropractor today at (714) 938-0575 for an evaluation of your neck problem and see if he can help relieve your pain.
Dr Barry Marks Chiropractor
1745 W Orangewood Ave #114
Orange, CA 92868
(714) 938-0575
http://drbarrymarks.com/chiropractic-neck-pain-treatment/
Low back pain? See Chiropractic Treatment of Low Back Pain Here
Headaches? See Chiropractic Treatment of Headaches Here