What’s Safe in Health Care?

In a conversation with a practice member yesterday we were discussing some concerns she had about certain symptoms she was experiencing. She said she understands that as her chiropractor it is my role to locate and correct spinal subluxations to allow her body to function properly. She recited, almost as if her words came out of my own mouth that, “good nerve supply is essential for me to heal this.” Then explained that she just wanted me to be aware of what she was going through. So while her symptoms can’t show us if, or what needs to be adjusted, she wanted me to check her spine to be sure she was doing everything possible to heal naturally and effectively.
When the conversation turned to what she was doing to try to feel better she revealed a surprising concern. A close friend had told her to see her physician to get something that might bring relief. The two of them argued about it, but she so dreaded going through another medical run-around that she decided to avoid it at all costs. I asked her what she meant and she launched into quite a harangue about her last experience, being referred from one specialist to another, being made worse and worse by each “procedure” and getting more drugs to counteract the effects of the medication they gave her to treat the original problem. A year of worsened suffering and many thousands of wasted dollars later, the only way she finally got well was to quit seeing them altogether! She confided in me that, “I wouldn’t want my doctor to hear me say it, but I just don’t feel safe under medical care.” Sounds terrible, but it’s the kind of thing I seem to hear more and more these days.
With that conversation still fresh in my mind I opened an E-mail today to see a message from a colleague who was very upset by a silly statement made in an article appearing in the latest Redbook magazine. The article, written by a neurologist about things people can do to prevent stroke, had some useful information and some harmful misinformation. In between some otherwise informative content the physician slid some silly non-sense against chiropractic. Although the magazines editors should have caught and removed the dribble, somehow they let it slip by them. In my colleague’s anger and disgust, he wrote a number of things to defend chiropractic and show how much more dangerous it is to see a physician than to see a chiropractor. Even I was surprised at some of the information he found. One article he cited by Anthony Rosner, PhD (http://www.dynamicchiropractic.com/mpacms/dc/article.php?id=15480) showed the safety of chiropractic compared to the risk of medical care:
o two times greater risk of dying from transfusing one unit of blood;
o 100 times greater risk of dying from general anesthesia;
o 160-400 times greater risk of dying from use of NSAIDs;
o 700 times greater risk of dying from lumbar spinal surgery;
o 1000-10,000 times greater risk of dying from traditional gall bladder surgery;
o 10,000 times greater risk of serious harm from medical mistakes in hospitals.
Of course pointing out the risk of medical care isn’t what makes chiropractic great. It’s the results in people lives that prove the safety and effectiveness of chiropractic.
Nevertheless, anything done in health care has certain risks with it. Let’s keep in mind that if something can help, then done at the wrong time or in the wrong way, it can harm. But amongst all the health care professions, chiropractic is one of the safest, most effective things a person can do to assure that their children have the best opportunity to grow into healthy, happy adults. For more information on the safety of chiropractic care, research, expert opinion and chiropractic during pregnancy click here: (https://www.youneedchiro.com/blog/?s=safe).