Here at Eugene Chiropractors we would like you to know:

  • Why Chiropractic is Essential to Your Health
  • The basic concepts of chiropractic
  • Myths and Misconceptions
  • Chiropractic Care is Safe and Cost Effective

Why Chiropractic is Essential to Your Health

Chiropractic is widely recognized as one of the safest, most effective, drug-free, non-invasive therapies available for the treatment of back pain, neck pain, joint pain of the arms or legs, headaches, and many other complaints.

The basic concepts of chiropractic are:

  • Your body has a powerful self-healing ability
  • Your body’s structural function and the body’s health are related
  • The goal of chiropractic therapy is to normalize this relationship

Chiropractic is concerned about the subluxation complex.

A spinal subluxation complex is a vertebra that is either misaligned or not moving on the vertebra next to it.

The subluxation complex creates dis-ease and the chiropractic adjustment restores function and health that leads to wellness.

The subluxation complex causes increased pain signals (nociception) into the spinal cord and brain and decreased information into the spinal cord and brain (proprioception).  These altered signals contribute to a chronic stress response, inflammation, destruction of cells, joint and muscle degeneration, brain changes, imbalance, weakness, and increase in susceptibility to disease and illness.

The chiropractic adjustment restores motion and a more normal alignment, which decreases the subluxation complex and improves the nerve signals, allowing the intelligence of the body to repair itself.

For in depth, peer reviewed literature see “The 14 Foundational Premises” by James Chestnut B.Ed., MSc., D.C.  at the library or go to his web site at: http://www.thewellnesspractice.com/

Excerpts from research studies:

“Patients with chronic low-back pain treated by chiropractors showed greater improvement and satisfaction at one month than patients treated by family physicians. Satisfaction scores were higher for chiropractic patients. A higher proportion of chiropractic patients (56 percent vs. 13 percent) reported that their low-back pain was better or much better, whereas nearly one-third of medical patients reported their low-back pain was worse or much worse.”- Journal of Manipulative and Physiological Therapeutics, Nyiendo et al. (2000),

“In a Randomized controlled trial, 183 patients with neck pain were randomly allocated to manual therapy (spinal mobilization), physiotherapy (mainly exercise) or general practitioner care (counseling, education and drugs) in a 52-week study. The clinical outcomes measures showed that manual therapy resulted in faster recovery than physiotherapy and general practitioner care. Moreover, total costs of the manual therapy-treated patients were about one-third of the costs of physiotherapy or general practitioner care.”  -British Medical Journal, Korthals-de Bos et al. (2003)
-This information from the American Chiropractic Association website

MYTHS AND MISCONCEPTIONS

There are many myths and scare stories concerning chiropractic.  Most people have either heard a story or has a friend who is against going to a chiropractor.  One should wonder why there has been so much emotion in regards to this profession since it is actually one of the safest forms of health care available.  The safety is reflected in the nominal premiums for malpractice insurance paid by doctors of chiropractic in comparison to doctors of medicine.    The answer was revealed a few years ago when five chiropractors filed an antitrust suit against the AMA.  The suit claimed that the defendants had participated for years in an illegal conspiracy to discredit and destroy chiropractic. Most of the horror stories floating around for thirty years were the fictional stories started by the AMA committee that was formed to destroy the profession of chiropractic. The five chiropractors won their suit against the powerful AMA and the lies were ordered to stop. Since then the perception of and attitude toward chiropractic has begun a dramatic change.

The following are excerpts from that judgement, this information is from the http://www.chiro.org/ web site.

“For those who have forgotten, or for those who never knew, organized medicine spent decades and millions of dollars trying to discredit and destroy chiropractic. Today the vestiges of this suppression are still found on fringe web sites that ignore the body of peer-reviewed research supporting chiropractic care. Explore the depths of medical arrogance in this in-depth review of the Wilk case.

In October 1976, Chester Wilk, D.C. and four other chiropractors (one later dropped out) filed suit against the AMA. The Wilk suit also named many of the nation’s other most prominent medical groups as codefendants-groups such as the American Hospital Association, the American College of Surgeons, the American College of Physicians, and the Joint Commission on Accreditation of Hospitals.

The suit claimed that the defendants had participated for years in an illegal conspiracy to destroy chiropractic. On August 24, 1987, after endless wrangling in the courts, U.S. District Court judge Susan Getzendanner ruled that the AMA and its officials were guilty, as charged, of attempting to eliminate the chiropractic profession.

In 1987 (1) , following 11 years of legal action, a federal appellate court judge ruled that the AMA had engaged in a “lengthy, systematic, successful and unlawful boycott” designed to restrict cooperation between MDs and chiropractors in order to eliminate the profession of chiropractic as a competitor in the United States health care system.”

Chiropractic Care is Safe and Cost Effective

Many studies have been done on the effectiveness and the safety of chiropractic treatment.  These studies have repeatedly shown that chiropractic care is the most cost effective and has the highest patient satisfaction when compared to allopathic medicine, or alternative methods of care for conditions of low back pain and other musculoskeletal problems .
The one serious danger that every chiropractor is aware of is the slight chance of vertebrobasilar injury.  The most recent studies indicate that it is not the manipulation that causes the injury.  Read this report for more information.  Depending on the source of information, the chance of this happening is between 1 in 14 million and one in 3.8 million cervical manipulation. Some of the numbers are different because it depends on who does the manipulation.  There is four times the danger in having an unskilled manipulation compared to a chiropractic adjustment.  In comparison to prescription drugs, where 100,000 people die each year from drug reaction and 1.5 million will be hospitalized because of a reaction to prescription medication, the risk of a chiropractic adjustment is minimal.

For information and research on the effectiveness of chiropractic go to:  http://mississaugachiro.com/research/
For information and research on the safety of chiropractic care go to: http://www.chiropracticissafe.org/
http://www.acatoday.com/content_css.cfm?CID=2205

Our Location is 1000 River Road in Eugene Oregon
Contact us at (541) 689-0935