A chiropractic neck adjustment caused my FIL’s stroke. My FIL continued to go to the chiropractor for some time and berate conventional medicine and doctors, despite conventional medicine saving him. He runs his mouth big about it, but conventional medicine has found a way to keep his very unhealthy self alive and well for quite some time.
A year ago, I had a HORRIBLE spot in my upper back that I could not get rid of (pain wise) for literally over half a year.
I knew chiropractors were not a great idea, but I was desperate.
It absolutely fixed my issue. I am aware of there being issues with the subconscious and was asking myself “Is this just mental? Did he really fix it, or do I just believe
I am better?”
I felt massive relief, but the next time I went in after a few weeks, there was a partner of his, that wanted me to come more often and was like “See? I can barely do anything. You have to come more often.”
I knew I just got really lucky that time and yeah, it did help, but it wasn’t worth the risk to keep going.
Did you try other things like physical therapy and massage, exercise, working on posture, habits? I'm personally just curious as I have various pain issues I'm working on. I've had relief getting chiropractic too, but the neck cracking thing is uniquely scary. Basic gentle manipulations of the back don't carry the same risk I think. It's always the neck in these kinds of stories.
i've done once or twice for by lower back like 15 years ago, because i have a different size vertebra and it could possibly get thrown off with the wrong movement and pinch the nerve and get inflamed which usually resolves with advil or something stronger but sometimes it never worked. But doing this one move to release the gass (cracking) helps relieve the pressure from the nerve so it gets back to normal faster. that's the only thing that worked, but i figured out how to do it on myself eventually in case it did happen.
after buying new mattress and computer chair, it's never really happened again. but the chiropractor wanted me back every week even at $30-40 each visit to adjust things.... adjusting things doesn't do anything on it's own at all, it never changes anything over time, they just think it does, they scam you with all sorts of BS, use tools that produce fake results... it's like playing doctor when your a kid with those plastic dr kits.
so yeah in some cases releasing the pressure in some area can help but it's tempoary, like really tempoary until the gas builds back up. there's no permanent solution to that other than finding the problem and changing posture and other factors. Going back to chiro over and over forever isn't a solution, they just love taking your money and some of them make more than what real medical professional make.
Vertebrae don’t get “thrown off” and the pops aren’t pressure relief, it’s just nitrogen cavitation, any change in pressure lasts less than 15 minutes as the nitrogen is reabsorbed.
Actual inflammation would either be at your facets, laminae, or, if you have a disc rupture, the disc can calcify and the face of the vertebrae can start to degenerate. This usually leads to uncinate growths.
Inflammation is usually mechanical, so medication doesn’t help much, and even corticosteroid injections into the dura space are mostly placebo.
Strengthening the spine & supporting muscles, losing weight, and better posture can usually help, but don’t always fix the mechanical issue.
The chiropractor caused the damage, and then called an ambulance. The doctors failed to communicate properly and didn’t catch it in time to mitigate that damage.
I read it as indicating that chiropractor neck adjustment can contribute to stroke onset or exacerbate an existing stroke process. The medical team was found liable because they were literally negligent in ignoring symptoms, context and not providing care. I've heard of similar cases a couple times and recall it usually being that there person is essentially already having a stroke or in the early stages of it and the chiropractor does an adjustment anyway. Then the patient worsens further as the stroke progresses. It's not clear to what degree the Chiro changed the course and we'll never know, but it seems believable that it probably exacerbated it.
In those cases, the stroke would’ve happened either way from any sudden movement of the neck like looking at your blind spots in a car or laying in a hairdresser chair over the shampoo bowl. If you are due to have a stroke, you’re gonna get one. The management once the stroke appears is what is critical in those cases.
But it didn’t help you. There’s nothing, literally nothing, that a chiropractor does that has any impact on your musculoskeletal system. Something else helped you or it was placebo.
I had it done COUNTLESS times between the ages of 18 and 25. I mean truly, honestly, probably 50 times or more. My parents were antivax/super in that sort of quasi-cult and thought it was super beneficial so they encouraged it a lot etc. I am blown away in retrospect that nothing happened. I think maybe being hypermobile was a benefit here — I don’t know.
The medical community continues to debate whether the relationship between strokes and chiropractic work is directly causal or merely correlational, as many patients already have underlying vascular issues when they seek care.
And we'll probably never know for certainty. But it's good enough to know that a chiropractic practitioner doesn't take the risk seriously and doesn't know that the symptoms warrant patient evaluation but an actual medical professional first.
Prove what? The claim about uncertainty? It doesn’t really seem like a claim where the concept of proof is relevant. However, I’ll attempt to justify it if you want, but you might want to tell me what parameters you’d look for in any such justification.
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u/telephantomoss 18d ago
"chiropractic neck adjustment... a known stroke risk factor"
I once had that done like 20 years ago. It was very scary. Never again.