Years ago, with severe neck pain, I resorted to a chiropractor. It did no good. The pain cleared up two weeks after I changed jobs, however; it turned out that my boss was literally a pain in the neck.

More recently, however, one of our dogs developed severe weakness in her back legs. A few visits from a veterinary chiropractor corrected a significant percentage of the problem. In this process, I was an impartial observer, with no vested interest in the outcome, yet by all objective standards it worked.

Clearly, then, this is not a simple question with a "one size fits all" answer. Makes me wonder what other bogus studies The Lancet may have inflicted on an unsuspecting public (ahem).

As usual it depends on who is running the study.

For example there have been many studies on the benefits of using a CAT/MRI scan to detect colon cancer polyps. Invariably the studies run by the radiologists always find it effective, and the studies run by the internists never do.

Chiropractors have never helped with my lower back pain, but can instantly fix my upper back problem. Luckily I've found a masseuse that fixes it cheaper and without the hard sell pressure to get me back in the door 3 times a week for the next 6 weeks.

Our chiropractors are joined at the hip with the ambulance-chasers. Together, sometimes in conjunction with auto-body shops, they operate a cynical, totally corrupt scheme of fraud and deceit.

Maybe one reason chiropracters want to put us all on "maintanance schedules" is that people simply refuse to maintain themselves. My chiropracter (a REALLY good sports medicine guy) fixed everything I've ever asked to have fixed.

Of course, nothing works if you keep doing the same crap that hurt your back in the first place. Diets work fine if you keep with them, chiropracters work if you change the things that hurt your back.

The only reason studies like this exist is to ausuage the people who want to find an excuse for their failures to improve their lives.
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Cheap trick - if you drive a lot, and have lots of lower back pain, put a roll of paper towels behind your lower back. Do the same with your office chair.

It's lots cheaper than 10 or 12 visits.

With astonishingly few exceptions, health care boils down to alleviating the symptoms until the condition is cured by tincture of time.

First of all, give the orthopaedic community its due. Surgical procedures for spinal problems have become much more effective over the last generation as has nearly every other form of medical procedure.

During my career as an attorney, I have represented as many as sixty of the eighty or so Chicagoland hospitals together with a number of others nationally including the Cleveland Clinic. My work involves getting the hospital paid for its services by health insurers, liability insurers (auto accidents slip & falls, etc...), workers compensation insurers, ERISA plans, HMOs, PPOs, etc...

At one point beginning in 1988 through the mid-1990s I built up to a group of twenty people working on PI and workers comp claims and in consequence I reviewed literally thousands and thousands of PI and workers comp settlements many of which included back and neck injuries. The surgical procedures used during that period weren't very effective at the beginning but had progressed to a reasonable alternative by the end. The docs went from being a last alternative to producing a very tolerable relatively pain free result by the end of that interval.

In my own recent experience over the last two years I've had a degenerative C5-C6 condition that has caused me excruciating pain on four occassions. Each time I've gone to a chiro and reduced the pain by having spinal decomprssion done. The first time I toughed it out and the pain lasted two weeks before beginning therapy. Once I'd started it took four consecutive days of decomprssion and the pain was at about ten percent of what it had been.

The last three incidents were much abbreviated by seeking chiro treatment earlier.

In my experience the chiros do some things that are clearly beneficial. Seperating the vertebrae permits a pinched nerve the mechanical relief necessary to eliminate the pressure that causes the pain. Massage helps relax the muscle tension in the surrounding area that a pinched nerve kicks off.

I think that the orthopaedics community would prefer that back and neck injured patients would regard medical therapy as the sole valid means of pain relief in order to protect their own food bowl. My own preference is to treat the condition as conservatively as possible and continue to work out with weights and a trainer while maintaining some ongoing maintanence visits for decomprssion on a monthly basis.

What I have is a degenerative condition that can be maintained at its current level if I work at it by rolling a foam tube down the length of my spine on a daily basis to open up the distance between the vertebae and by working with a trainer to build up the muscles in the surrounding area. Losing weight, which I struggle with, is the real key here too.

A lot of the "physical therapists" that work with orthopaedic patients after discharge have adopted many of the chiropractors techniques and in my estimate have at least partially validated the chiropractic model in doing so.

Like so many things in life it's a mixed bag. If you need surgery because pain is persistent let's all thank God and the medical community for their recent advances in theraputic technique. If your pain is more intermittent, chiros do some real good but require discipline and persistence.

Chiros also tell a lot of their (ofter overweight like me) patients that dietary considerations are the ultimate cure. If your skeletal frame carries a 50% to 100% overload you really need to do some systematic excercise and lose weight.

I also had excruciating pain in the lower back due to compression. Chiropractors were out. It took almost year to undue what a couple of sessions had done.

Finally I was sent to rehab. After the first session (massage, stretching and traction), I walked out the door I could barely crawl into an hour before. I went for a series of sessions and can report almost a year later, I'm still walking around. Not totally pain free, but with pain that's tolerable without medication.

The quackery I like is real medicine.

I think a similar study of MD's would be equally as devastating to that profession. My experience with severe back pain leaves me with two observations: MD's give drugs and wait, and wait, and wait, while I spend every day in agony. I finally went to my wife's chiropractor, whom I had ridiculed for six years as a quack. Three sessions with the chiro and I was 90% pain-free. Another three sessions, and I was 100% pain-free. I'll never forget the orthopedic MD's last words before I resorted to the chiro: "We need to wait THREE MONTHS. If there is no relief, we will do surgery."

And with all due respect Orrin, docs are protecting their jurisdiction in much the same way that lawyers do with "paralegals" who prepare wills and contracts. I have a high pain tolerance and I can assure you that the chiros (plural) that I've used have aleviated pain levels that were incapcitating with some pretty conservative therapy.

I also know that when you go to most docs, including especially surgeons, and look as though you are a valid though perhaps marginal candidate for a surgical procedure that procedure is going to get done whether it represents the most effective alternative or not. That is the activist mentality and the financial dynamic that most surgeons demonstrate. I get paid for doing this and I'm a decisive kind of guy or gal, gimme the scalpel and step back, I'm going to work some magic here.

Again, my wife also has C4-C5 neck problems and our GP sent her to neuro in Crystal Lake, IL which is in the outermost ring of Chicago suburbs. That neuro recomended immediate surgery. I brought her to another neuro who was a full professor at one of Chicago's teaching hospitals for a second opinion and instead of voicing an opinion he threw two xrays on a screen including my wife's and a patient scheduled for surgery the following day. He pointed to my wife's barely visible hairline fracture and then to the xray of the next day's patient with an easily visible crack about four times as wide as the one my wife showed.

The surgeon pointed at his next day's surgery and said, "That's one that will benefit from surgical treatment and that one (pointing to my wife's xray) won't." I should add that the surgeon in question was a second cousin and already had so much work that he couldn't schedule another procedure.

I believe that there are a number of cases that benefit from conservative therapy including my own. It's likely that at some point my C5-C6 degenerates enough to warrent a laminectomy but why rush a serious surgery when a conservative therapy that is much less expensive eliminates my pain and restores mobility.

Chiro therapy is objectively effective in relieving chronic pain and restoring normal mobility. It's really a rush to a superficial judgment to condemn it on the basis of a less than credible report from its direct competitor.

And take it from someone who has suffered recurring back pain, to ascribe the relief that a chiro gives to a placebo effect is ridiculous.

And with all due respect Orrin, docs are protecting their jurisdiction in much the same way that lawyers do with "paralegals" who prepare wills and contracts. I have a high pain tolerance and I can assure you that the chiros (plural) that I've used have aleviated pain levels that were incapcitating with some pretty conservative therapy.

I also know that when you go to most docs, including especially surgeons, and look as though you are a valid though perhaps marginal candidate for a surgical procedure that procedure is going to get done whether it represents the most effective alternative or not. That is the activist mentality and the financial dynamic that most surgeons demonstrate. I get paid for doing this and I'm a decisive kind of guy or gal, gimme the scalpel and step back, I'm going to work some magic here.

Again, my wife also has C4-C5 neck problems and our GP sent her to neuro in Crystal Lake, IL which is in the outermost ring of Chicago suburbs. That neuro recomended immediate surgery. I brought her to another neuro who was a full professor at one of Chicago's teaching hospitals for a second opinion and instead of voicing an opinion he threw two xrays on a screen including my wife's and a patient scheduled for surgery the following day. He pointed to my wife's barely visible hairline fracture and then to the xray of the next day's patient with an easily visible crack about four times as wide as the one my wife showed.

The surgeon pointed at his next day's surgery and said, "That's one that will benefit from surgical treatment and that one (pointing to my wife's xray) won't." I should add that the surgeon in question was a second cousin and already had so much work that he couldn't schedule another procedure.

I believe that there are a number of cases that benefit from conservative therapy including my own. It's likely that at some point my C5-C6 degenerates enough to warrant a laminectomy but why rush a serious surgery when a conservative therapy that is much less expensive eliminates my pain and restores mobility.

Chiro therapy is objectively effective in relieving chronic pain and restoring normal mobility. It's really a rush to a superficial judgment to condemn it on the basis of a less than credible report from its direct competitor.

And take it from someone who has suffered recurring back pain, to ascribe the relief that a chiro gives to a placebo effect is ridiculous.

Sorry about the double double post post.

There is no such thing as subluxation. That's the basis for chiropratic medicine.

When I was having back spasms that put me out of commission for days at a time, here were the differences I noticed between the chiropractor I saw and the orthopedic specialist I was referred to:

1.) The orthopedic specialist expected me to wait six weeks for an appointment. The chiropractor agreed to see me the day that I called.

2.) The chiropractor gave me good advice and threw in a free massage.

OJ, I don't like to wait six weeks for my quackery.

No one goes to the real doctors, they're too crowded.