On occasion, patients will come into a chiropractic office with their primary concern being, “is it safe?” There are stories that float out there of injuries, strokes, and even death that inundate the internet. Even at a party not too long ago, I overheard someone, while speaking with a friend, say that “…chiropractic causes strokes. It’s documented. I’m just saying…”
Honestly it’s hard to imagine why that would be such a staggering conversation point. It’s really a conversation for the ignorant, and I mean that in the kindest way possible, defining ignorant as "lacking knowledge or awareness in general; uneducated or unsophisticated.” Even possibly the most pressing research in this area on websites that are in place to slander chiropractic care state that there are roughly 6 neck injuries that might involve stroke out of every 10 million cervical adjustments. That equates to a very small percentage. Even if all that research was increased tenfold it still equates to a percentage tremendously below even 1 percent.
If an educated person wanted to really have a discussion about the safety of chiropractic, they would want to be informed of the other potential causes of having a stroke. A 1995 article in Neurology medical journal regarding chiropractic found that neurological complications from neck adjustments occurred less often than with activities such as canoeing, soccer, football, having your blood drawn, driving a car, taking Tylenol, spinal surgery, appendectomy, total hip replacement, or riding a motorcycle. Actually according to the research, the statistic was 0.3 incidents per one million adjustments. In contrast, the risk of taking something like Tylenol was 400 incidents per one million uses likely to cause a neurological complication. Total hip replacement was on the upwards end of to 15,000 per million. A lot of those comparisons basically state that there is a much greater chance of having a stroke playing sports or even going to a hospital than having your neck adjustment by a chiropractor!
If that wasn’t enough, let’s get completely objective on the subject. Take for instance malpractice insurance companies and what they charge to insure health care providers. Using statistics showing reported injuries from treatments provided, actuaries for malpractice providers create premiums that doctors are required to pay in order to practice. Year after year, chiropractic has hands down had the lowest premiums of any other specialty branch of health care. Your average chiropractor pays $2,000-5,000 per year, whereas some professions in the medical arena are required to pay in the hundreds of thousands of dollars annually in order to practice “safely.”
A little bit of research and objective thinking starts to indicate that your chiropractic care is one of the healthiest and safest options you can have in your aims to live a long and healthy life.
“I’m just saying...”
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