Is chiropractic a bad idea?

[Odin2]

I've never seen a chiropractor B4 so I went in to see this guy and took x-rays of my entire spinal chord. It was interesting
to see the pictures. It was obvious there were some abnormal degenerative curves [which wasn't surprising as I have had a bad posture habit for most of my life].

Ofcourse, I told him about my pudendal situation [2 PNE surgeries, yrs. of pain, etc.] and he sounded like he was very knowlegable about the PN
and gave me a pretty good 'spiel' about nerve and spinal chord health and that it was important for nerves to get the spinal chord
adjusted so that they are not compressed and irrataded [BTW-I'm not very good when it comes to the medical lingo like so many of you].

He told me he could probably get my PN pain down by 70 percent. Ofcourse, I'm buying into this optimism. The first visit went ok. The second visit he was very aggressive, pushing and stretching down on the sacral area and even lying across my back and applying a full thrust which caused a big "Crack!"

It was totally unexpected. Most of my PN and sacral pain is about the same as before these two visits, but I'm just not sure if I should go this rout (even if I do have some spinal abnormaties). "Subluxation degeneration" ..this is called now that I'm holding his info. packet.

What should I do? Give this guy the benefit of the doubt or am I risking worsening of symptoms??

Thanks everyone.

Odin

[nyt]

I found that overtly aggressive treatments by chiropractors made me worse. I found a very gentle chiropractor about 1 year ago and I have made slow but steady progress seeing her 1-2/week. Always go by what your gut tells you, if this chiropractor is making you nervous because your questioning how aggressive he is being then look for another or express your concerns to him and see if he is willing to be less aggressive so you don't have to worry about him making something worse.

[Violet M]

Odin, I can understand why you would be nervous about a chiro who is that aggressive especially if you have not seen any improvement. I allowed a chiro to do something I was not completely comfortable with once and ever since then I wake up in the night sometimes with burning pain in my lower back. My dad got compression fractures in his spine from an overly aggressive chiro treatment. I can't say what you should do in your case -- just giving you info on results I've seen.

Take care,

Violet

[Faith]

Most of my PN symtoms came after having high velocity/overly aggressive PT manipulations. I am just not a fan of that kind of therapy personally. I know a lot of people get good results with chiropractors, but I think you have to be very careful in the back/sacral region. There are a lot of nerves that come off your sacrum.

[Odin2]

Thanks a bunch for your advice guys. I'll ask him if he can simmer it down a little and I might go to my 3rd treatment. If he has some protocol he has to go with which requires aggressive 'crunching'...then I'll just stop seeing him.
Thanks again,

Odin

[HerMajesty]

Hey, here are some facts for you:
1. x-rays are generally useless for pinpointing patterns of movement dysfunction. They are still pictures taken in a neutral position, so they do not show what your body is doing when it moves, or when it is at end-range positions. So if the guy is working off x-rays, he is really working blind. He has much less than a 70% chance of helping you with his adjustments, because they are done based on a formula, not on a true assessment of your unique situation. Hence his treatments may be in a dysfunctional direction, and be the opposite of helpful.

2. The rough, quick adjustments (high velocity) work against the proven properties of connective tissue, which will sense trauma, tense up, and resist change. So the rough adjustments might, at best, make a joint feel "looser" temporarily if it is knocked out of a dysfunctional position. It has not, however, been put back into a functional position: hence in a few days you will be back where you started. Hence the chiro wants to see you 1 - 2 times per week forever. He fixes nothing even when he treats you in a direction that will bring temporary relief. Worst case, you will be injured by high velocity manipulation.

3. Gentle manipulation which is low load / long duration puts more total force through a body structure than brief, high velocity manipulation. It does not cause connective tissue resistance and can therefor cause permanent change. An example of low load / long duration is pushing or pulling with 20 pounds of force for 2 - 5 minutes. This is only useful if it is purposeful: that is, you have to know what you are trying to move where and why. This requires proper assessment, back to problem #1 with the x-rays.

conclusion: you are wasting your time and money.

[Odin2]

Thank you for taking the time for the valueable advice.

I had my 2nd treatment couple days ago and I am in horrible pain!

Cancelling all appointments with this jerk.

Well....live & learn, as they say. I gave it a whirl and regretting it!

But hopefully the nerve will bounce back if I take it easy for awhile.

All the best everyone

Odin

[Violet M]

Hope you get over this flare-up soon Odin. The problem is we don't know until we try things, right?

[Odin2]

Thank you Violet!

Man I'm really in bad shape now. I wish I could turn back the clock and 'skipped'
the chiropractor idea. Darn it! Please someone tell me it won't always be like this.

I can live my life on a pain scale of a 4...but a pain scale of 9 is bad news.
Dr. Antolak has not yet returned my call. Quite frankly, I think he's probably tired of me...hehe.
Well, feeling sorry for myself, better sign off.

Encouraging words very very welcome.

All the best
Odin

[Violet M]

Hey Odin, don't beat up on yourself too badly -- you didn't know, right? So think ahead about what to do next. Maybe with some rest and alternating ice and heat you can at least get back to where you were and then go from there.