Scientology , chiropractor connection

ScumLord

Are Chiropractors the ones that have that big torture bench that they do adjustments on?

I've been to one of them with a bad back and the results were beneficial I'd say from my lay man's opinion. It wasn't an instant cure but it did improve things.

My mother is big into all these alternative medicines and is in fact a qualified aromatherapist. It's all mostly nonsense bar maybe the use of tea tree oil as a mild antiseptic.

MingulayJohnny

Nolanger wrote: »

Is this in Herbert Street?

No , it was North Dublin city.

MingulayJohnny

By that logic then, there is no possibility of any effects whatsoever and therefore there's no point in trying it out since it does nothing. A treatment cannot be said to either cure you or do nothing. If it can cure you, then it can also potentially damage you. That's the complexity of biochemistry for you.

I'm not trained in any scientific discipline but I don't understand why something which has the potential to cure should also have the potential to cause damage. I wouldn't simply believe that homeopathy works just on blind faith. I tried it for myself and it worked and it wasn't just subtle changes it was a vast improvement. Would you be willing to accept that maybe at some stage in the future science will verify that homeopathy does in fact work?.

seamus

MingulayJohnny wrote: »

I'm not trained in any scientific discipline but I don't understand why something which has the potential to cure should also have the potential to cause damage.

All lifeforms are a fairly well-balanced chemical machine. Anything which can demonstrably cure an illness by its very nature must involve the introduction of an extra *something* into the body, which has the potential to harm as well as the potential to cure.

You can die from water poisoning, which I think is fairly conclusive proof that there is no substance on this planet which does not have the potential to harm you. In most cases, doses can be tested and known so that the dose given is unlikely to cause harm and more likely to do good, but people are individual and a harmless dose in one person can be a fatal dose in another. It's all a numbers game.

If homeopathic solutions had medicinal merit, then they would also have the potential to cause harm in the wrong doses. So it's not correct to say, "They'll either help or do nothing", if they have medicinal merit.

And that in fact, is something I would be willing to test - where a homeopath claims that you need 5ml or whatever of a particular solution, I will happily drink a litre of it without ill-effect, thus proving that it's nothing but water.

Would you be willing to accept that maybe at some stage in the future science will verify that homeopathy does in fact work?.

I am willing to accept that at some point in the future, we will better understand the nature of the placebo effect and that we can manipulate the likes of homeopathy and other similar things in order to induce the placebo effect in people and therefore cure them. That doesn't mean that homeopathy "works" any more than a rain dance "works".

But evidence thus far has shown that homeopathy does not work (or at least does not work any better than simply doing nothing), and so I would not be willing to bank on it being likely that homeopathy will be verified as a legitimate form of medicine in the future.

If homeopathy can be scientifically shown to work outside of the placebo effect, then of course I would accept that it works. But thus far, all evidence points to the contrary, so I don't think it merits further consideration.

Rockn

Captain Darling wrote: »

I hate to admit i'm not a pheasant plucker, but a pheasant pluckers son.

And I'm only fúcking peasants... damn I can never get it right.

sink

MingulayJohnny wrote: »

Make what you will of it. I know it works for me and has improved my health far too much to be a placebo effect.

I wouldn't underestimate the power of the placebo effect. The connection between mental state and physical state is in humans is both incredibly powerful and poorly understood.

While a homeopathic treatment might have a neutral pharmacological effect, the strength of the placebo effect can more that make up for it in certain cases.

Medical doctors often prescribe placebos to patients whose symptoms they believe are at least in part psychological. They would not do that if they believed that placebos had no effect.

The difference between a Medical doctor administering a placebo and a homeopath administering a placebo is that the MD is aware that he is administering a placebo and he is doing on a specific case by case basis. A homeopath is under the impression that they are administering a real pharmacological substance with real healing properties and in cases where the patients suffering is caused by physical factors rather psychological factors the homeopathic treatment is guaranteed to fail to the detriment of the patients health.

revz

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HMGIbOGu8q0

Dave!

ScumLord wrote: »

Are Chiropractors the ones that have that big torture bench that they do adjustments on?

I've been to one of them with a bad back and the results were beneficial I'd say from my lay man's opinion. It wasn't an instant cure but it did improve things.

My mother is big into all these alternative medicines and is in fact a qualified aromatherapist. It's all mostly nonsense bar maybe the use of tea tree oil as a mild antiseptic.

Manipulating the back can of course sometimes have beneficial effects, so if chiropractors stuck to treating back problems then they'd have more legitimacy. I'm pretty sure the jury is still out to some degree, though, even on that. It's when they start using magical thinking and claiming that they can treat other ailments by manipulating the back, then you should question how plausible it is.

BTW, "qualified" aromatherapist

Reminds me of Family Guy:

"I've got a degree in homeopathic medicine!"
"You've got a degree in boloney."

(too lazy to look on YouTube)

Son Of A Vidic

The levels of ignorance displayed by some in here is truly amazing. Coming from a medical background I should be more sceptical than most. I had a troubling back injury years ago, caused by rugby and heavy weightlifting. I used all the conventional medical routes, which was futile. Fortunately a gym buddy gave me the details of a German Chiropractor and I never looked back. The conventional approach wanted medication, medication and mediation only (throwing in the option of radical unnecessary surgery) My Chiropractor had me sorted after about 6 visits. Some 'delusional' mentioned they get certification over a weekend, actually it takes 7 years to qualify. Since then, a lot of cowboys have popped up from the woodwork, motivated by money but that's to be expected. You need to know the schools of training, accreditation bodies and registration boards relevant to the practitioner. But a lot of idiots walk in, see a shiny cert get bad treatment from someone not qualified or regulated and then they smear the profession.

AntiMatter

sink wrote: »

I wouldn't underestimate the power of the placebo effect. The connection between mental state and physical state is in humans is both incredibly powerful and poorly understood.

While a homeopathic treatment might have a neutral pharmacological effect, the strength of the placebo effect can more that make up for it in certain cases.

Medical doctors often prescribe placebos to patients whose symptoms they believe are at least in part psychological. They would not do that if they believed that placebos had no effect.

The difference between a Medical doctor administering a placebo and a homeopath administering a placebo is that the MD is aware that he is administering a placebo and he is doing on a specific case by case basis. A homeopath is under the impression that they are administering a real pharmacological substance with real healing properties and in cases where the patients suffering is caused by physical factors rather psychological factors the homeopathic treatment is guaranteed to fail to the detriment of the patients health.

Homeopathy has been shown to have a better success rate than the placebo effect has, in clinical tests, though.

I've never tried it myself, but I just finished the chapter on homeopathy in the book '13 things that don't make sense', and, experiments, some undertaken by homepathic sceptics, have proven there's more to it than meets the eye, apparently.

Chiropracty I have tried, for various martial arts injuries, when I was living in Spain, and I left cured every time.

Nevermind_

AntiMatter wrote: »

Homeopathy has been shown to have a better success rate than the placebo effect has, in clinical tests, though.

Source? Link?
Was it a double blind test?
There are lots of "clinical tests" carried out in relation to homeopathy that claim to prove it works most of which are debunked quite easily, and are not carried out with the full rigours of a proper scientific analysis.

When a reputable professor/doctor/university has carried out an independently verifiable double blind test, the results are always the same.
Homeopathy = Placebo

but in fairness at least homeopathy has such small traces of anything except water it cant do any harm, and may help induce the placebo effect.

AntiMatter

Nevermind_ wrote: »

Source? Link?
Was it a double blind test?
There are lots of "clinical tests" carried out in relation to homeopathy that claim to prove it works most of which are debunked quite easily, and are not carried out with the full rigours of a proper scientific analysis.

When a reputable professor/doctor/university has carried out an independently verifiable double blind test, the results are always the same.
Homeopathy = Placebo

but in fairness at least homeopathy has such small traces of anything except water it cant do any harm, and may help induce the placebo effect.

My source is the chapter on homepathy, in the recently published book I cited above, '13 things that don't make sense'.

Edit; it would appear to be hard to find a link to support that claim, which is surprising as the author himself is sceptical of homeopathy.

Nevermind_

AntiMatter wrote: »

My source is the chapter on homepathy, in the recently published book I cited above, '13 things that don't make sense'.

Not exactly the new england journal of medicine now is it?
Paper never refused ink, and anyone can say anything they like in a book without it having to be scientifically appraised.
However a published academic paper in a journal is reviewed by peers and experts before a journal will agree to publish it.

I suggest to counterbalance the authors view you read a few reviews of his book such as

http://scienceblogs.com/principles/2009/01/13_things_that_dont_make_sense.php

One thing that always struck me about homeopathy is that it relies on the theory that water has some sort of memory, which is fine but if thats the case why doesnt water remember the millions of tonnes of faeces and germs pumped into it everyday by us humans?

AtomicHorror

Putting aside efficacy, the general chiropractic response to public criticism is litigation. See Simon Singh's case for example. Chiropractors make a claim that chiropractic can treat allergy and asthma, he calls BS and rather than pony up with the evidence, they try to sue him. That's pretty much your classic woo woo warning sign.

AntiMatter wrote: »

Homeopathy has been shown to have a better success rate than the placebo effect has, in clinical tests, though.

My guess would be that this happens when you tell your patients when they're getting a homoeopathic remedy. In other words, a non-blinded trial. The result would be that the placebo would lose it's placebo effect, due to unblinding, and the 'remedy' would gain one.

AntiMatter wrote: »

Chiropracty I have tried, for various martial arts injuries, when I was living in Spain, and I left cured every time.

Trouble is, there isn't another you who didn't go to the chiropractor to compare yourself against. Which means that all you actually know is that you went to the chiropractor, and then you felt better. How many other things did you do before you got better?

Corvus Maximus wrote: »

The levels of ignorance displayed by some in here is truly amazing. Coming from a medical background I should be more sceptical than most. I had a troubling back injury years ago, caused by rugby and heavy weightlifting. I used all the conventional medical routes, which was futile. Fortunately a gym buddy gave me the details of a German Chiropractor and I never looked back. The conventional approach wanted medication, medication and mediation only (throwing in the option of radical unnecessary surgery) My Chiropractor had me sorted after about 6 visits. Some 'delusional' mentioned they get certification over a weekend, actually it takes 7 years to qualify. Since then, a lot of cowboys have popped up from the woodwork, motivated by money but that's to be expected. You need to know the schools of training, accreditation bodies and registration boards relevant to the practitioner. But a lot of idiots walk in, see a shiny cert get bad treatment from someone not qualified or regulated and then they smear the profession.

So, why won't they show the scientific community it works by submitting to large scale randomized clinical trials? If you come from a medical background, you ought to know that lots of stuff can appear to work by temporal association, regression to the mean, placebo effect and so forth. Our minds play tricks with us when it comes to causality. That's why we need trials. Yet the studies chiropractors get involved in tend to be small and poorly designed. So, as a person with a medical background, putting aside your anecdote, how do you know chiropractic works?

Coriolanus

One thing that always struck me about homeopathy is that it relies on the theory that water has some sort of memory, which is fine but if thats the case why doesnt water remember the millions of tonnes of faeces and germs pumped into it everyday by us humans?

You have to bang it off a leather pad seven times or something according to the progenitor.

Ciaran500

Corvus Maximus wrote: »

The levels of ignorance displayed by some in here is truly amazing. Coming from a medical background I should be more sceptical than most. I had a troubling back injury years ago, caused by rugby and heavy weightlifting. I used all the conventional medical routes, which was futile. Fortunately a gym buddy gave me the details of a German Chiropractor and I never looked back. The conventional approach wanted medication, medication and mediation only (throwing in the option of radical unnecessary surgery) My Chiropractor had me sorted after about 6 visits. Some 'delusional' mentioned they get certification over a weekend, actually it takes 7 years to qualify. Since then, a lot of cowboys have popped up from the woodwork, motivated by money but that's to be expected. You need to know the schools of training, accreditation bodies and registration boards relevant to the practitioner. But a lot of idiots walk in, see a shiny cert get bad treatment from someone not qualified or regulated and then they smear the profession.

TBH, I find it hard to believe that a good physio just wanted to push tablets down your throat, or did you go to a physiotherapist?

AtomicHorror

Nevore wrote: »

You have to bang it off a leather pad seven times or something according to the progenitor.

Ok so, you have water, which has had all sorts dissolved in it. Random salts, poo, urine, the hair off my inexplicable shoulders, copious amounts of dead fish, billions of used condoms, coffee grounds, forensic evidence and so forth. And then we dissolve a statically negligible amount of say, Oscillococcinum in that water, bang it on a leather pad, and it 'remembers' the the one thing we want it to remember?

Coriolanus

AtomicHorror wrote: »

Ok so, you have water, which has had all sorts dissolved in it. Random salts, poo, urine, the hair off my inexplicable shoulders, copious amounts of dead fish, billions of used condoms, coffee grounds, forensic evidence and so forth. And then we dissolve a statically negligible amount of say, Oscillococcinum in that water, bang it on a leather pad, and it 'remembers' the the one thing we want it to remember?

something like that. Makes perfect sense, no?

AtomicHorror

Nevore wrote: »

something like that. Makes perfect sense, no?

I'm buying it, yes.

Son Of A Vidic

Ciaran500 wrote: »

TBH, I find it hard to believe that a good physio just wanted to push tablets down your throat, or did you go to a physiotherapist?

I find it hard to believe that you've posted a reply to something that was never in my post, truly amazing! First of all learn to read posts properly - I made no mention of the word Physio or Physiotherapist in my post. So read this carefully - I come from a medical background, so I'll explain to you what the term 'conventional' medical approach means. It's generally refers to a standard treatment/diagnostic/care pathway that it instigated by your initial visit to a G.P. for example = G.P. + Physiotherapist + Orthopaedic referral ect. This route failed me, is that clearer now?

Secondly, A Physiotherapist is not a prescriber of medication nor are they qualified to make such recommendations. So again, what are you on about?

Caoimhín

MingulayJohnny wrote: »

If you consider yourself a scientific person then you should try it out as an experiment.

I mentioned this to my Neurosurgeon once and he nearly started crying. He told me that he treats dozens of people every year who went to one of those Snake oil salesmen and ended up with debilitating and lifelong injuries.

I am always bemused at people who would chose to go to a chiropractor rather than a physiotherapist.

sarsfield06

Corvus Maximus wrote: »

The levels of ignorance displayed by some in here is truly amazing. Coming from a medical background I should be more sceptical than most. I had a troubling back injury years ago, caused by rugby and heavy weightlifting. I used all the conventional medical routes, which was futile. Fortunately a gym buddy gave me the details of a German Chiropractor and I never looked back. The conventional approach wanted medication, medication and mediation only (throwing in the option of radical unnecessary surgery) My Chiropractor had me sorted after about 6 visits. Some 'delusional' mentioned they get certification over a weekend, actually it takes 7 years to qualify. Since then, a lot of cowboys have popped up from the woodwork, motivated by money but that's to be expected. You need to know the schools of training, accreditation bodies and registration boards relevant to the practitioner. But a lot of idiots walk in, see a shiny cert get bad treatment from someone not qualified or regulated and then they smear the profession.

Regarding chiropractor qualifications check are they members of the Chiropractic Association of Ireland, where only Degrees from certain colleges are recognised. The Health Insurers will only honour treatment from CAI members. I wouldn't worry too much about the ignorant ones on this thread, someone has to take the drugs.

r3nu4l

Corvus Maximus wrote: »

I find it hard to believe that you've posted a reply to something that was never in my post, truly amazing! First of all learn to read posts properly - I made no mention of the word Physio or Physiotherapist in my post. So read this carefully - I come from a medical background, so I'll explain to you what the term 'conventional' medical approach means. It's generally refers to a standard treatment/diagnostic/care pathway that it instigated by your initial visit to a G.P. for example = G.P. + Physiotherapist + Orthopaedic referral ect. This route failed me, is that clearer now?

Secondly, A Physiotherapist is not a prescriber of medication nor are they qualified to make such recommendations. So again, what are you on about?

I'll make his question simpler for you. Did you try a physio?

TheBigLebowski

Corvus Maximus wrote: »

The levels of ignorance displayed by some in here is truly amazing. Coming from a medical background I should be more sceptical than most. I had a troubling back injury years ago, caused by rugby and heavy weightlifting. I used all the conventional medical routes, which was futile. Fortunately a gym buddy gave me the details of a German Chiropractor and I never looked back. The conventional approach wanted medication, medication and mediation only (throwing in the option of radical unnecessary surgery) My Chiropractor had me sorted after about 6 visits. Some 'delusional' mentioned they get certification over a weekend, actually it takes 7 years to qualify. Since then, a lot of cowboys have popped up from the woodwork, motivated by money but that's to be expected. You need to know the schools of training, accreditation bodies and registration boards relevant to the practitioner. But a lot of idiots walk in, see a shiny cert get bad treatment from someone not qualified or regulated and then they smear the profession.

I find it hard to believe you come from a medical background and you believe that it takes 7 years to become a chiropractor. I can set up an office tomorrow and become a chiropractor. Sure you can go and do a qualification in it if you want, but I'm sure there are qualifications available for all kinds of bullshit.

TheBigLebowski

sarsfield06 wrote: »

Regarding chiropractor qualifications check are they members of the Chiropractic Association of Ireland, where only Degrees from certain colleges are recognised. The Health Insurers will only honour treatment from CAI members. I wouldn't worry too much about the ignorant ones on this thread, someone has to take the drugs.

Quoted from the CAI website "Chiropractic has a tradition of effectiveness and patient satisfaction without the use of drugs or surgery. It has a patient-centered and biopsychosocial approach, emphasizing the mind/body relationship in health, the self-healing powers of the individual, and individual responsibility for health and encouraging patient independence."


What a load of nonsense...

Son Of A Vidic

r3nu4l wrote: »

I'll make his question simpler for you. Did you try a physio?

Christ Jesus not again! It you read my first post you'll see this....

Corvus Maximus wrote: »

....I used all the conventional medical routes, which was futile.

In my second post I spelt out clearly what the term ‘all’ referred to.
So if you had read my second post you would have read this.....

Corvus Maximus wrote: »

so I'll explain to you what the term 'conventional' medical approach means. It's generally refers to a standard treatment/diagnostic/care pathway that it instigated by your initial visit to a G.P. for example = G.P. + Physiotherapist + Orthopaedic referral ect. This route failed me, is that clearer now?

I have underlined and put my answer in bold, you obviously didn’t see in the first time around. Otherwise you wouldn’t have asked me a question I already answered.
Also the poster who’s cause you are so nobly championing, didn’t actually ask me a question. He cast an aspersion, there a big difference. Read the grammar and tone of the post and you might see it.

ScumLord

Dave! wrote: »

Manipulating the back can of course sometimes have beneficial effects, so if chiropractors stuck to treating back problems then they'd have more legitimacy. I'm pretty sure the jury is still out to some degree, though, even on that. It's when they start using magical thinking and claiming that they can treat other ailments by manipulating the back, then you should question how plausible it is.

She did go on to say that bowel problems could be caused by back problems and it all seemed plausible in the way a trapped nerve can feel like pain in an other place but I did get the overwhelming feeling no matter how many treatments I got I'd never be cured of anything. But I wouldn't say that's restricted to the alternative medicine.

BTW, "qualified" aromatherapist

Hey, she spent 4 long weeks doing that course in the evenings. We had to cook our own dinner, luckily the aromatherapy came in useful in covering up the smell of burning kitchen.

El_Dangeroso

I'm another person who had chronic neck pain completely cured by one visit chiropractor. That was 3 years ago now and no sign of it returning.

A few caveats though.

A lot will always tell you that you need multiple visits. I think if your not seeing significant improvement from visit one, I'd be skeptical whether you'll ever see any improvement after 10 visits.

One person I know visited a chiropractor and the person did not know what they were doing and it made the problem worse. That's the chance you take with a surgical route also.

Ignore any claims that they can do anything other than relieve back pain. I think this is what gets the medical community so riled up, when they start claiming they can cure fibromyalgia etc. they really can't.

Oh that and if they try and recruit you into a dangerous cult, walk out the door.:D

Son Of A Vidic

TheBigLebowski wrote: »

I find it hard to believe you come from a medical background and you believe that it takes 7 years to become a chiropractor. I can set up an office tomorrow and become a chiropractor.

I went to my first Chiropractor in 1992 and was she had 5 years training in the States and a further 2 years in Germany (Which may have been a specialism) it may have taken 5 years to gain initial qualification, but she had spent 7 years in total training. At the time she would have been one of the few Chiropractors in Ireland, before the gravy train arrived.
I went the usually treatment paths which offered nothing and a Chiropractor I went to as a last resort sorted me out. It is what it is, no more, no less. So are you telling me what to believe now? Should I only believe what you believe then? Do you think I grasped the nice figure of 7 years training from my head?

TheBigLebowski wrote: »

Sure you can go and do a qualification in it if you want, but I'm sure there are qualifications available for all kinds of bullshit.

You can also buy your way into Medical School in Ireland as an overseas graduate. Do you know the amount of incompetents staffing surgical teams/medical teams out there? Do you know the difficulty I have had trying to instil standard hygiene practice with some of these twits in a clinical setting? Do you know the amount of bullsh1t artist that are going around wearing white coats? Don't get me started on people with bullsh1t qualifications.

Wibbs

TheBigLebowski wrote: »

Quoted from the CAI website "Chiropractic has a tradition of effectiveness and patient satisfaction without the use of drugs or surgery. It has a patient-centered and biopsychosocial approach, emphasizing the mind/body relationship in health, the self-healing powers of the individual, and individual responsibility for health and encouraging patient independence."


What a load of nonsense...

Dont get me wrong I feel the vast majority of "alternative" health is snakeoil/placebo(inc chiropractors beyond some back trouble but especially homeopaths), but why is that in particular a load of nonsense? Especially the part "emphasizing the mind/body relationship in health, the self-healing powers of the individual, and individual responsibility for health and encouraging patient independence". I would have thought a large number of conventional medical types would agree 100% with that bit. It's pretty clear that the mind does have an effect on the development of illness and its progression. Either directly or indirectly. The individual responsibilty for health is a big one. EG If you're shoving cakes into your face dont be shocked if you end up with type 2 diabetes. And when you do, you can seriously reduce its impact or even reverse it and cure yourself by a change of lifestyle. Course many won't and just ask the doc for the pill for every ill. Patient independence is a given I would have thought?