Another Life Saved

David just called me to let me know how his day was going, and told me about a patient he saw today. He saw this person within the last month, and one of the local docs sent her over to the ER because she was acting so strangely, she couldn't even speak. David sent the patient to a neurological doc, and a couple hours later he called David back. Apparently this patient had a vertebral artery dissection. That's a tear in one of the arteries that goes through the vertebra on the way to the brain. A clot had formed and traveled to this patient's brain, causing a stroke.

The sad part about this case, and the reason I'm even mentioning it is because of the reason she got the tear in the first place. It was from a chiropractic adjustment 2 days prior. David and I had just seen a segment on Scientific American Frontiers a couple of months ago talking about this very thing. Chiropractors turn the neck in ways it wasn't meant to be turned when they do their adjustments, and it can cause tears by putting too much strain on the artery.

I know that I'll probably ruffle a few feathers by saying that chiropractic adjustments cause harm, but if it's going to save someone's life, then I'm going to go ahead and ruffle. I'm including an excerpt from the show, and I'll leave the website address for this episode in case anyone wants to read the transcript or watch it. They take a scientific approach to alternative healing, and it's very interesting...and besides, it has Alan Alda. He's always entertaining. The website is http://www.pbs.org/saf/1210/index.html

Invented by Daniel Palmer in 1895, chiropractic aims to correct blocked nerves - what Palmer claimed were the cause of all disease - by re-aligning the spine. But as former chiropractor John Badanes tells Alan, chiropractic has no basis in anatomy. Conducting a typical examination, Badanes explains how patients and chiropractors alike can misinterpret the popping sound that accompanies spinal adjustments. In fact it's dissolved gas being released in the joint fluid (the same thing that happens when you crack your knuckles) and not a sign that vertebrae are changing position - an anatomical impossibility.

This device, called an "activator," is used by chiropractors as one of many ways to adjust the spine.

Like Badanes, physician Robert Baratz, executive director of the National Council Against Health Fraud, takes issue with chiropractic. Baratz is concerned about the risk of injury during neck manipulation, which can place severe strain on a vertebral artery, leading to blood clotting and stroke. Although chiropractors maintain this type of injury is very rare, a recent Canadian study estimated that 20 percent of all strokes caused by artery damage could be a result of neck manipulation. That figure translates into more than 1,300 strokes a year in the United States.