Q & A: Questions & answers
This section is intended to give you quick and simple answers for the most commonly asked questions about chiropractic. As time goes on, we will add more questions asked by our clients to this page—so check back, one of yours may be featured soon!
What is chiropractic? Isn’t it nonsense, voodoo, or parlor tricks?
Chiropractic is primarily the art and science of detecting where nerve pressure exists, as the result of the malposition of bones and removing it by hand. This is the essence of chiropractic; however there are a great variety of treatment types and philosophies within the profession.
A chiropractor’s education is equal to or greater than a medical doctors’ in almost all respects, with the exceptions of pharmaceuticals, surgery and adjusting. We study drugs and surgery because we need to understand how to manage a person on drugs or after a surgery (but not what to prescribe or how to operate). We are the only doctors who study adjusting, and we also have more hours of xray study than MDs or radiologists. In all other subjects we have equivalent hours of education, and we use medical textbooks for our pathology, virology, parasitology, microbiology, anatomy, physiology and biochemistry classes. The science we use to explain and justify chiropractic is, today, the science and research of the medical profession.
Chiropractic’s reputation suffers from many things: a hundred-year assault from the medical profession which spread misinformation; the lasting professional insecurity of many chiropractors as a result of this assault; lack of similarity from one doctor to the next and a different Scope of Practice in each of the 50 states; misinformation about the risks and injuries associated with chiropractic; and the greed and lack of integrity of a few in our profession who have perpetuated a bad reputation.
Perhaps the single greatest challenge to the understanding and use of chiropractic is a lack of research. There is very little that is technically understood about the effect of an adjustment on the nervous system, in part because the nervous system is poorly understood. Furthermore, research is funded primarily by the pharmaceutical industry—and there is no benefit for them in showing the power and effectiveness of a $30 adjustment given by a profession that chooses not to prescribe any medications. There has been much research done on chiropractic in England, Australia and Canada where the health care system is public and so are the health records, which makes it easier for these studies to be conducted. Without exception these studies show that chiropractic is safer, more effective and would save billions of dollars annually if integrated (summaries of these studies are posted in About chiropractic).
We are seeing this integration happen, though slowly, in America now—many of the 17 chiropractic colleges and universities have integrated care programs in place that allow our interns to work at local hospitals, seeing and treating patients there and working hand in hand with MDs and physical therapists. At the USC school of medicine, all medical interns are now required to do a chiropractic rotation so they better understand the practice and when to refer. The day will come when chiropractic is properly understood and the survival instincts of the medical establishment give way to the ideal of the fastest, most effective care for all. In the meantime, experience chiropractic for yourself and make up your own mind.
Will it hurt?
There is a possibility that you will experience some discomfort or pain when you are adjusted; however this is uncommon and the relief you experience afterward will last much, much longer than any pinches during the adjustment.
In some cases, a joint has been out of place for a long time, and that joint is either dried out or over-filled with the fluids from swelling. In either case, a slightly more focused and intense adjustment may be necessary to realign the joint and allow the healing process to begin.
Please know that in every case, Dr. Matthew’s focus is on providing the most effective and comfortable experience for you; but your recovery and health are ultimately a greater priority than your comfort.
What are you really doing to me when you adjust me?
It is challenging to answer this question without getting a little technical. While chiropractors may sometimes adjust an elbow or an ankle, or use a machine to help reduce swelling or rebuild weak muscles, Dr. Matthew’s primary focus is on helping your body fix any bad joints in your spine. When a bone in your spine slips out of place, it slips backward and squeezes all the body parts in between it and the bones above or below it. We call this a subluxation (and as you can imagine it is much more technical than this). Well, one of the most important things coming out from between these spine bones are your spinal nerves. These nerves come out of your brain and eventually branch out to become every other nerve in your body—they are incredibly important, because they are the communication system for every part of you! If one of these nerves gets pinched by a bone out of place, that means that your heart (for example) can’t get the messages from your brain, messages like “We’re exercising, and need more oxygen in the muscles, so beat faster!” It also means that your body parts can’t communicate to your brain, messages from your running feet like “Hey, we really need more oxygen down here if we’re going to keep exercising!” There are somewhere between 40 trillion and 40 quadrillion cells in your body, and each one communicates with your brain over 200 times each second—that is a lot of information to lose! What we do as chiropractors is reduce these subluxations with what is called an adjustment—a very specific, low-force, high-speed push on the bone to put it back exactly where it is supposed to be. A series of these adjustments allows the things that hold the bone in place (ligaments) to heal enough to hold the bone where it is supposed to be. This ends the nerve pressure, and then your body can take care of itself while avoiding any disease that might be caused by this pressure. This is one of the most awesome things about chiropractic—your body’s natural intelligence knows how to keep you healthy! You are the doctor!
In some cases we do a few additional things, like retraining weak muscles or trying to remove the swelling that comes with a subluxation. In these cases, we are working to speed the healing process—these are all things your body would do in time on it’s own, we are just trying to speed up the process.
There is more detailed and technical information available on the Medical professionals page if you are interested.
Do I have to keep coming forever? My friend went to see a chiropractor and her appointments went on forever!
I cannot say, of course, why your friend had to go to the doctor so much. Chiropractic is like any other profession—some doctors are better than others, and help get people well faster. Also, there are some who are greedier than others and have people come in more often than necessary. Sometimes, the person does need to be treated that often, but the doctor has done a lousy job of explaining why—for instance, if the person has another condition like diabetes which causes the body to take longer to heal—so it just seems like the doctor is trying to make money.
Chiropractic has a reputation for many treatments. However, if you compare this to other health processes, you will realize that what may seem like a lot is not a lot at all. Compare it to your teenager with braces, for instance: those braces are meant to change the structure and position of teeth in your mouth, and to alter the surrounding structures, just like chiropractic—and they are on there working 24 hours a day, 7 days a week, sometimes for years! Or think about pharmaceuticals, which also are working in your body 24 hours a day, and which you take several times a day. By comparison you are seeing your doctor of chiropractic a lot less. When you come in, we are trying to move your bones and then get all the structures that hold them in place to change, too. So in the beginning, you might be coming in several times a week for a week or two, and once your body starts to heal, you will need to come in less and less—I just hope that you choose to come in once and awhile for a check-up (yes, just like the dentist) so that you won’t get back to that place of pain!
You do not have to come forever. Some patients care more about their health than others, and choose to come in once a month or every other month to get a check up, to keep their body well so they don’t end up in awful pain at some point. Others will choose not to do this, and so when they do get injured, it will take them longer to get well again.
What is that cracking sound?
The name for that sound is a cavitation, and the funny thing is that it is the exact same sound you hear when you open a can of soda. There are tiny little bubbles of gas in your joint capsules, and the crack you hear is the sound of those bubbles being forced together and then released, just like when you pop open a pop!
My “real” doctor says that chiropractic is dangerous. What kinds of risks are there?
There are risks with anything you do in life—driving to the grocery store, playing a sport, or carrying your grandchild on your hip. The truth is that chiropractic is one of the safest and most effective forms of health care. There is much research to support this statement, any of which can be requested in our office.
There are risks of discomfort or injury with chiropractic. Dr. Matthew takes your care and safety as his number one priority, and is constantly educating himself to better understand his craft and to be a better caregiver.
The simplest information to offer about your safety under chiropractic care is this: the average chiropractor’s malpractice insurance is about $4,000 a year, whereas the average medical doctor’s malpractice insurance is about $90,000 a year. If the dangers were significant with chiropractic, you can bet the insurance industry would be making a lot more from us, and we’d be sued much more often (also leading to higher insurance rates). The sad fact is that medicine is the number two killer in our country—as reported by the New England journal of Medicine! This number, of course, reflects misdiagnosis, accidents in surgery, giving the wrong medication or an incorrect dose: a lot of different factors are included. By comparison, you will not find a more effective, safe and powerful treatment than chiropractic: all we do is support your body in doing its own healing—and I guarantee you, your body is the best doctor and pharmacist for you in the world!
Why would my other doctors say it’s dangerous if it isn’t?
The simplest and most obvious answer to this is that most medical doctors have no exposure to, or experience with, chiropractors or with any of the research around chiropractic: most of them have learned about it the same way you probably have, through word of mouth, rumor and inaccurate reporting.
Up until the late 1980s (and beyond), there was a focused effort on the part of the AMA (the American Medical Association) to attack and discredit chiropractors, as we were seen as competition for patients’ business. After all, who would choose to have an $80,000 surgery when a series of $30 adjustments might work? Part of this attack by the AMA’s “Committee on Quackery” was to teach medical students that there was no basis for our work and that chiropractors were a danger to the public; so there are generations of MDs who were misled by their profession. In 1987 a Federal judge found the AMA guilty of antitrust practices with regard to chiropractic and ordered them to stop their focused attack (Wilks vs. AMA). Since then there has been less (or no) misinformation given to medical students about chiropractic; however now they are not taught anything about us, including what we do, how safe chiropractic is, or when to refer people to us.
The truth is that MDs have as little access to research, information or understanding as most of the general public does, so it is no surprise that unless your medical doctor is a chiropractic patient themselves (and many are), they have no idea about what we do! There are summaries about the statistical safety of chiropractic on the About Chiropractic page.
What about strokes? I have seen shows on chiropractic and strokes.
While there has been a lot of focus on strokes in chiropractic, it is a misplaced focus. Statistically there is a greater chance of having a stroke in the shampoo chair at the hair salon than there is of having a stroke at the chiropractor’s office, especially if your doctor of chiropractic minimizes rotation in the neck during adjustments, which Dr. Matthew does.
The most critical studies run by “anti-chiropractic” researchers show the chances as less than 1 in 1 million adjustments, and the averaged statistic of all the studies is in the neighborhood of 1 in 5 million. Again, the way you are adjusted in our office also decreases the risk, and remember that the average chiropractor’s malpractice insurance is about $4,000 a year, whereas the average medical doctor’s malpractice insurance is about $90,000 a year. That fact by itself should tell you something about the safety of an adjustment.
Be aware that some things do increase your risk, like smoking and birth control pills. It is essential that you let any and all of your doctors know about behaviors like these.
How do I know when I’m getting better?
Hopefully you come in for “Wellness” or “Maintenance” care, and you were not in pain to start with! In the event that you came in due to pain, one sign that you’re getting better is that the pain will decrease: it will be less intense, less frequent, and you will be able to do more, longer, without having the pain return.
One of the biggest challenges to complete healing is that as a culture we tend to base everything on symptoms—in other words, “If there is no pain, I must be healthy.” The truth is that just as with a weakened radiator hose before it has blown or a frayed electrical wire in the wall that hasn’t burned your house down yet, just because you’re not in terrible pain does not mean there is not a problem. Just because you have no symptoms doesn’t mean you are well—with all health conditions there is a symptom-free period where disease is still progressing. It is very, very important to complete your treatment plan, no matter the doctor, his or her specialty, or the treatment.
Who is chiropractic for? Is my daughter too young, and why would she need it anyway? What about my grandmother?
Chiropractic is safe for everyone, and like any other health care modality, there are different ways of working with people in different age ranges. It would not make sense to adjust an 80 year-old retiree with the same adjustment as a 24-year old truck driver or a 2-year old. The techniques chiropractors use are as specific and adapted to you as any surgery, drug, or physical therapy would be—and arguably much more so. In fact, two of the most popular diplomate programs in chiropractic (special 3 to 4 year specialty programs we do after med school) are pediatric programs, aimed at mastering the work possible with pregnant women, newborns, and kids up to 18 years old. The reason a child might benefit from chiropractic is that our first trauma in life comes during the birthing process, whether it’s a natural birth or one involving vacuums, forceps or a caeserian procedure—the sooner these traumas can be addressed, the better! There has been substantial research done on asthma and chiropractic with very positive results.
Dr. Matthew completed the first half of the ICPA pediatric diplomate program while still in school through the ICPA, and will soon return to complete this program.
What is Gonstead Chiropractic?
Please read about Gonstead on the About Chiropractic page.
What is Spiritual Psychology?
Spiritual psychology is a way of approaching life and healing that is based on the premise that we are all spiritual beings having a human experience, and insists that we all have all the internal resources we need to effective handle any situation that we run across.
Spiritual psychology is taught at the University of Santa Monica. It is a once a month weekend program which people fly from around the world to attend. In the first year of the program, students are introduced to a wide variety of communication, life mastery and excellence tools which we work practically with whenever we are in the classroom. In the second year, a series of rigorous and exciting projects are undertaken for the whole year which require implementation and integration of these skills.
Dr. Matthew attended this program for his own health and success, and yet there is a tremendous benefit to you as a patient. This program allowed Dr. Matthew to practice and master a powerful way of being with people, of listening, and of communicating which benefits every interaction he has and will surely help to support and speed your recovery. For more information on USM, please ask Dr. Matthew about his experience, or visit www.gousm.edu.
