YSK that chiropractors are not medical doctors and "Systematic reviews... have found no evidence that chiropractic manipulation is effective"

You can save a lot of money by just going to a masseuse instead of a chiropractor. People attribute the positive feeling they get from attention to well being improvements, and pseudoscience practitioners certainly achieve that at a premium price. If it's attention you want, get a massage, otherwise go to a PT and get some real help.

Also I think a massage therapist will tend to be more educated on the muscles and how they work together than a masseuse
- A massage therapist tends not to provide the "extras" that you can get from a strip mall masseuse.
  
  I come for the extras.
  
  Just make sure they're not a cop first.
  
  That would not be a happy ending to the story.
  
  Depends on for whom. A good bust makes nearly everybody happy.
  
  Busting makes me feel good
  
  I don’t care, I’ll come on a cop.
  
  In some places and depending on the specific details, the punishment for that offense wouldn't include jail time. Instead of a crime, it's just a penile code violation.
  
  🤨
  
  I swear, your honor, he just bent down and kissed my bottom!
  
  Here is an alternative Piped link(s):
  I swear, your honor, he just bent down and kissed my bottom!
  Piped is a privacy-respecting open-source alternative frontend to YouTube.
  I'm open-source; check me out at GitHub.
  
  Or after the extras.
  
  That's what they're for
  
  My wife, bless her innocent heart, still doesn't get this. She's been to every strip mall, Groupon massage studio in the area and is constantly like "wow, I can't figure out why these $75/hr massages are so hit or miss."
  I have tried explaining to her that it's because she doesn't have a penis, but she still doesn't get it.
  
  How prevalent are these? I’ve always wanted to try but can never tell which is a safe place to approach
  
  I can't believe I know this, but RubMaps used to (might still be?) a thing. If you looked at the outside of them on Google Maps you could very quickly start to pick up on the patterns among the listed locations.
  
  do you want happy ending?
  yes, heck you know what, lets have a happy middle too.. and a happy beginning.. ok make the whole thing happy please!
- As a massage therapist that used to work in education (director of education at a massage school and taught anatomy/pathology) results will vary wildly across the States. The majority of states only started licensing in the last 10-15 years, and of course requirements for licensing and supervision varies. Some schools teach enough anatomy to get their students to pass the tests, then focus their time teaching spa type massage (aromatherapy, wraps, hot stones, etc.) or energy work. Not saying there's anything wrong with that, but it serves a different purpose.
  There are definitely schools that exist that focus more on therapeutic/rehabilitative work, but even then the challenge is finding a therapist with an up to date approach who doesn't buy the old school "no pain no gain" who kicks the shit out of you. Massage shouldn't hurt. But if your find the right therapist for you, they're worth their weight in gold.
  
  Massages should hurt if your body is full of deep tissue knots like mine is. My rhomboids and forearms are basically just knots most of the time.
  But that's largely on me for not stretching.
- Yup. At my first massage appointment, before I even got on the table, she told me where I hurt and why I was hurting that way. And she was 100% correct.
Just FYI, the generally preferred term these days is "massage therapist." Last I heard "masseuse" and "masseur" (the masculine version) have an implicit sexual connotation that "massage therapist" does not. Unless that's what you were recommending instead of chiropractic, in which case carry on!
- Also it has a more professional connotation. RMTs go to school and work hard to be qualified and capable of their jobs.
- As my sister who is a MT always said: "A massage therapist gives you a massage, a masseuse gives you a happy ending."
This. I'm seriously considering finding the money for an at home sauna. Get my muscles nice and warm and relaxed and then stretch the shit out of them.
- then stretch the shit out of them.
  Just be careful. There is such a thing as over stretching. I fucked up my knees stretching after a hot yoga session and could barely walk for a couple of years.
  Everything in moderation.
  
  One of the worst overstretches I did was in a pool. With my body weight canceled out I could get into deeper stretches, like by putting my leg up on the edge of the pool. Afterwards I realized I'd overdone it. lol
  
  That must have sucked/hurt 🤕 ... But it sounded like a real funny story for some reason...
  Mi bad...
  
  You don't have to tell me anything, seriously. I have fucked up my back no less than 3 times. The last time I fucked my back up was about a year ago and I busted my shoulder at the same time. My back is still tight and off in a few places and while my shoulder isn't at 100% I have like 90% of rom back and more to come as I keep working on it. I have and continue to fix myself all without the help of a pt.
  I had hoped that a line like that wouldn't be taken at face but I guess the Amelia Bedelias are making there way from reddit.

I would also point out that any pro quackocracker post you see here is the one time they might have helped someone just out of random chance, those people are loud and tell everyone how great their quackocracker is. Its simple confirmation bias, they have a sample size of one, themselves, this is not how data works.

I go to a sports physiotherapy group. Much better results when the goal is to help me recover so I don't need to come to them.

You can also search out a GP that is a DO Instead of an MD in the US.

They still learn osteopathic manipulation, which is a broader form of manipulation not limited to the spine that helps with stretching-type exercises. But they are certified (often with the same board exams even) and licensed on par with MDs. Many clinics have DOs among their providers.

Important caveat of "in the US". In most countries, osteopaths are basically the same as chiropractors. In the US, DO licensing is the same as MD licensing, so they do have to learn real science and medicine in addition to the fake science and medicine of osteopathy. Personally, I wouldn't aim for a DO as my Dr., but if I already had one that I liked, I wouldn't worry about it too much. Osteopathic schools are easier to get into than medical schools, cause we have more people that want to get their MD than we have schools to teach them, so plenty of those people become DO's.
- This is incorrect. You are likely confused due to the fact that the names of the fields are similar.
  Osteopathy /=/ osteopathic
  I'll discuss the fields as the are in the US, as I am not aware of how they are in other countries.
  Chiropractors go through their own degree programs through their own colleges.
  Osteopaths are homeopathic practitioners (not doctors, and they refer to their customers as clients, they are legally not allowed to refer to them as patients) and are alternative medicine practicioners.
  MDs receive a medical degree and are doctors.
  DOs receive a medical degree (an MD) as well as an additional 300+ hours of osteopathic study through their medical school to receive a second medical degree certification - this is NOT the same as the homeopathic study, this is the study of the bones, joints, nerves, and how they all work together as a whole.
  
  The AOA only recently (2010) decided to recommend that DO's no longer be called osteopaths. As they still practice and teach osteopathic manipulation, it's not inaccurate to still refer to them as osteopaths. When they abandon that pseudoscience and turn completely to evidence based medicine, I'll refer to them as DO's. Right now, all DO's are osteopaths, but not all osteopaths are DO's.
  
  It doesn't have to do with homeopathy. Osteopathy is it's own pseudoscience alternative medicine and it is what they're trained as a side to their medical training. They do act like this training somehow makes them more holistic than MDs, but that's been proven to be largely false and they generally do not use that osteopathic manipulation in their practice.
  Some non-doctor osteopaths might use homeopathy, but the basic theory of what osteopathy is remains pseudoscience even when it's done by DOs.
  Osteopathy = Osteopathic.
  
  Thank you, I didn't realize that homeopathy was not general term - I thought it was a generalized term for alternative medicine that wasn't eastern medicine, but I was wrong.
  Anyway, I do still have some things to clear up for you.
  You still seem to think that DOs are spending their 300+ additional hours after the MD learning the pseudoscience, which isn't the case. Those hours are spent with neurologists, orthopedics, physical therapists, and other fellowships and residencies only provided by the MEDICAL SCHOOL - which would absolutely not allow any pseudoscience within their walls. Yes, they might do very minor manipulation in their practices, but it's what's learned through neurologists, physical therapists, or orthopedists, etc. (in addition to their MD residenciea just like the MDs in family practice, OB, surgery, dermatology, oncology, etc). The goal of a DO is to treat a patient as the sum of their parts rather than symptomatically.
  Patient-first rather than symptom-first. (DO vs MD)
  Osteopathic rather than allopathic. (DO vs MD)
  If I go to an MD with an earache, I'll have my ear checked out and maybe find nothing wrong but walk out with Prednisone to see if it helps. Prednisone does nothing but make me gain water weight.
  If I go to a DO with an earache, I'll have my ear checked out and maybe find nothing wrong, but he might think since there was nothing obvious that maybe there's a nerve pinched near the top of my neck so he'll have me stand to look at my posture and notice that I'm standing awkwardly with my hips not level, checks out my ankles and realizes I've started to lean in on one of my ankles and writes an Rx for a custom insole and exercises to strengthen my ankle. The issue with the ankle was causing my hips to lean, which caused my back to curve the other way to compensate, which pinched a nerve in my neck, which caused an earache. Wear the insole while strengthening the ankle, earache goes away.
  (This is a true story of something that happened to me, not an example of every experience with a MD or a DO)
  There is nothing precluding and MD from also searching for the underlying cause, but allopathic medicine looks to treat symptoms.
  Osteopathy is 100% the movement of muscles and bones and not taught in medical school.
  Osteopathy /=/ osteopathic
  
  What you're describing is a pseudoscience. It's a pseudoscience that IS allowed in osteopathic medical schools because, you guessed it, they're osteopathic. It is not evidence based medicine. I understand that DOs proclaim thatt they are more holistic than other practitioners. As I said, studies have shown that is not the case.
  https://www.degruyter.com/document/doi/10.7556/jaoa.2014.166/html
  https://www.acpjournals.org/doi/10.7326/M22-3723
  Edit: To be clear, I'm an RN, and we're taught a whole hell of a lot more pseudoscience than DO's are.
  
  I have to ask: what do you think "holistic" means? You've said twice (once in each comment I've know replied to) that DOs "think they are more holistic than others"
  Do you think it relates to holy?
  It doesn't. It means that's parts of something are interconnected and can only be considered in reference to the whole of itself.
  Which is the key difference between osteopathic and allopathic medicine, so of course they believe they are more holistic.
  I'm not sure what you were trying to prove with those links. The first explains that while evidence based medicine uses statistics, it is a specific way of using data to determine clinical care - that it can determine the best route of care for the largest group of people that works most of the time, which is great for most people most of the time...but what about when you fall outside that group (my addition - yes, they could try the second choice when the first doesn't work or the third next, but that takes time and suffering). Whereas DOs consider the the first choice option as well as the outside options by evaluating everything. Consider the story above of my earache. That's what the link was describing. I'm not sure what you got from it, or what that has to do with being holistic (though considering outside treatment options that might involve other parts of the body would be considered holistic). The thing is, statistics are great to describe how a population reacts to treatments, not an individual. Appendectomies have a 95% success rate, but that doesn't mean that you have a 95% chance of surviving one. But evidence based treatments are based on the success rates, not the individual - that's where the patient-first idea come into play, DOs consider the patient as a whole rather than only the statistics when the statistics don't line up with the patient.
  The second link says that healthcare costs between MDs and DOs are similar. Neither is more expensive, neither is less expensive. I'm not sure what that has to do with being holistic (either the actual definition or whatever you may think it means).
  You're making the claim that what I described previously is pseudoscience because a DO saw that my ankle has turned inward and offered ankle strengthening exercises. Ankle strengthening exercises aren't pseudoscience, there is data behind it - the idea that it could cause ear pain due to the other issues it causes certainly would not be common, but it is explainable. Pseudoscience is something that uses no explanatory reasoning and avoids peer review. DOs routinely publish their findings.
  
  I understand exactly what holistic means, and I provided that outcome based study (and I promise you, if you look in the literature there are many more), to prove that MDs (allopathic medicine) are treating the whole body as well. I provided that horses mouth osteopath description of why they can't quite match up to evidenced based medicine because it is as hollow as it sounds.
  Patronizing me like I don't know what the words I use mean is incredibly tiresome. I said I was a nurse. One of the key claims of the nursing profession is that we provide holistic care over more medicine focused disciplines. It is horseshit when we say it and it's horseshit when the osteopaths say it.
  
  I understand that's what you wanted to show with that article, but that's not the information that the article provided. That article did not provide any information about either MDs or DOs being holistic or not. It was about the use of statistics in their respective practices. Which is why I questioned knowledge of the definition.
  But damn, I hope I never get you as a nurse. I used to teach in one of the top nursing graduate universities in the country, and your attitude is definitely not what we would aim for. Yes, we encouraged away from the pseudoscience and focused on research based approaches, but damn. Osteopathic is different than allopathic, but neither is exclusive to evidence based, nor is either inclusive to it.
- That’s why I specifically said in the US. You have to be careful, though, some DO schools are easier to get into than some MD schools but there are also DO schools that are harder to get into than some MD schools (MD schools in the Caribbean for example) so unless you are being hyper vigilant about which school your GP went to, you’re still just relying on the fact that they all passed the same or equivalent boards anyway.
- Actually, outside the US, the DO training is 7 years, same as a medical doctor. I chose a DO for my primary care doctor because they have papatory skills (i.e. they actually touch someone) that regular doctors refer out.
  
  Really depends on the country, though. Many countries don't have "DO" as a profession cause they only need one type of evidence based medical degree, so anyone who does osteopathy is basically equivalent to a chiropractor or other type of witch doctor.
  I can definitely respect the perception that they interact with you more, and I'm glad you have a doctor that works well for you.

This is a great point. My MiL is a chiropractor (a non-quacky one), and she incorporated a lot of PT into her practice. Additionally, I read a couple years ago that PTs are beginning to incorporate the good things from chiro (whatever they are. I'm not a doctor) into their own practice.

A roundabout way of saying that we learned some things from chiro, but PT was always the future.

In my corner of the world, most CPs are also PTs. Or rather the other way around: they use chiropractic as one of many therapeutic means in their portfolio. I have to say, I very much appreciate this approach, as it relives the initial pain/discomfort but also addresses the underlying problem.

I see my chiropractor once ever couple of years, I do most my own chiropractic stuff myself so I only visit her when I can't deal with it. She knows I'm not gonna come back for a mother year or 3 so she doesn't even tell me to book.

A chiropractor will just tell you to come to them more often,

If you are going to one that does, you are going to the wrong one. There are a lot of quacks in professions and some of them are AMA licensed doctors too.
I was very skeptical of them until a friend recommended one he personally knew for my painful shoulder - he even offered to pay for the visit if it didn't help. I was amazed when I walked out of the office completely pain free.
Many professional sports athletes seek out massage and chiro with good results because they cannot afford miss events and can't test positive for the drugs that many conventional doctors would push.
There is a place for all avenues of remedies depending on the problem. Incompetents can be found in all professions. That said, is far too easy for a poser to set themselves up as a chiropractor.

Incompetents can be found in all professions
seems like thats the crackocracker industry problem, they simply dont have any standards. I'll grant you there may be some crackocrackers who actually have some skills... maybe, but if a patient has to go to 20 of them to find "that one good one", then that industry is garbage

A lot of it can be done at home without a pt. Foam rollers and yoga mats are your friend. Even better if you can get a second pair of hands that know how to pop a back properly.

Physical therapists have definitely taught me reparative exercises that I would never in a million years have thought of on my own. PT is a god damned miracle drug.
- I'm not saying that they aren't and can't be helpful. What I'm saying is that thanks to the internet and tons of books on the subject you can do a lot of stuff yourself without spending the money or the time going to a therapist.
  If you need it, you need it, but some of us can learn most of this stuff elsewhere and/or go to a pt for a few lessons and then handle the rest at home.
  Also I'm talking about what a chiropractor would do, not what a pt would do. To put both on the same level is an insult to everyone who isn't a chiropractor.

That's not exactly the truth.

Yes, there are plenty of medical practitioners that poorly represent their profession. I'm sure you could easily apply the same logic here to PT, NP, DO, MD, etc.

What should be emphasized is that Chiropractic has heavily evolved, like any other healthcare field and there is a high degree of overlap between PT and DC methodologies. So much so, PT has lobbied for adoption of joint manipulation.

A good DC won't limit themselves to 5 minutes visits for a quick adjustment. A good DC is evidence-based, incorporates rehab and education, and provides care to the body and systems.

A chiropractor is way cheaper than PT. Money is such a limiting factor for so many people that, while your advice is true, it has a similar vibe to telling a broke person with car trouble to just pay a mechanic to fix it. It's the best option but I don't blame them for trying something less expensive.

Paying money to get nothing and still have the original problem is not the inexpensive option though. These con artists are just stealing from people who can't afford to be stolen from.
- But maybe you get a bonus, worse, problem from the chiro? Got to look on the bright side : D
  
  I stopped reading at bonus, where do I sign??
- Paying money to get nothing and still have the original problem is not the inexpensive option though.
  But a person can indeed fix their car effectively, and sometimes a chiropractor can help.
  My mom had an issue in her shoulder that caused her to literally sob in pain and went to various regular doctors for about a year (it was a while ago so unsure of the exact timeframes). Those doctors gave her steroids which helped the pain but ultimately exacerbated the problem. She went to PT with limited success and was about to have surgery when she decided to try a chiropractor. Note that throughout this, affordability was not a concern. The first treatment helped significantly and several more treatments essentially resolved the issue whatever it was.
  The foundations of chiropractic are indeed BS, but that doesn't imply that any action taken by a chiropractor is inherently unsound. Regular medicine has a history of being wrong, it's unlikely that in 2023 we figured it all out 100% and anything of any use is part of standard medicine.
  
  Medicine has a history of being wrong while we learn which things work and which things don't. Supplementary, Complementary and Alternative Medicine has a history of being wrong while its practitioners try to carve out a niche in the dark spots that we haven't figured out yet and then dig in to fight to the death (of their patients) once their foundations are shown to be wrong. Look at homeopathy, for example: proven to be wrong time and time again but still you'll find homeopathic products on shelves in stores across the world, even in areas with regulated markets.
  Just because there are things we haven't fully explained or discovered yet doesn't mean that the first snake oil salesman to stake a claim on the unknown owns it. Being right takes time and new age woo-woo garbage isn't a shortcut worth taking.
  
  Let's see, on one side you have conventional medicine, where doctors where doing lobotomies as recently as the late 1960s, the Sackler family who just recently pretty much literally got millions addicted to opiates and are using corporate law to shield them, while other corporations operating within the realms of conventional medicine are selling them drugs to help them shit (opiates make you constipated). Doctors tell kids they are hyper and need meth because they can't sit still and quietly learn to become a capitalist slave.
  I don't know that conventional medicine is in a place where they can claim the moral high ground. For every BS chiropractor there are 500 BS pharmaceutical reps or paid off doctors/scientists raking in millions. Have you not seen TV lately? Are those drug ads all noble and the chiropractor is the only bad guy?
  There are so many more examples of the fucked up nature of conventional medicine but somebody's gotta smoke that pile of weed next to me.
  I want to be clear - the theoretical foundations for chiropractic are BS, but some of the treatments may indeed be helpful, homeopathy is BS 100%.
I also wouldn't blame someone for trying a cheaper option, but I WOULD blame the "cheaper option" mechanic if he sold you a $100 pair of aura cleansing fuzzy dice to keep your engine from overheating?
- Then blame the healthcare system that charges people thousands of dollars for a routine doctor's appointment.
  
  I already do.
  But I don't see how that disaster justifies selling snake oil.
  
  Jesus fuck, it's like you guys are intentionally misunderstanding what I'm saying. All I've said is that I get why people go see chiropractors instead of doctors. I'm not advocating anything. I'm trying to have a discussion with you people and all you'll do is set up straw men and virtue signal at them. Consider me done with this bullshit
  
  All I've said is that I get why people go see chiropractors instead of doctors.
  If that's all you said, I agreed with that part. Why did you keep arguing with me?
  
  If that's all you said, I agreed with that part. Why did you keep arguing with me?
  I see people doing this so often (on the internet especially) and it honestly baffles me. The best I've ever been able to rationalize it is that people are often far more interested in arguing their own points and saying what they believe than actually listening to and understanding others or having a real debate. That may be overly simplistic but it's how I cope.
When is the last time you went to a hospital and saw a chiropractic department? When was the last time you went to a hospital and saw an orthopedics department? I have never had an MD recommend I see a chiropractor, but I have been sent to an orthopedist who sent me to PT. It worked.
- That's entirely beside the point. The question is, when was the last time you left a doctor's office with a $40 bill? If you don't have money to pay a doctor then you'll never even hear their advice much less be in a position to take it.
  
  Which is completely irrelevant to the legitimacy of chiropractic.

PTs are also broadly not very helpful with very limited knowledge. I don’t think I've ever met somebody who was genuinely helped by PT, though I’m sure some of them out there take their jobs seriously.

Have you met somebody that ACTUALLY does their PT suggested exercises? I do know some people who said that PT isn't working but then again, they don't even follow basic recommendations.
- Yes, several. Including myself for a couple different issues growing up. Eventually I learned enough about the human body to realize how useless the exercises were for the problems I was having exercised properly which finally sorted me out. I just figured I’d gotten unlucky with the two I had, but the more people I meet who’ve spent time in PT the more I realized they might not be as competent as you’d hope they’d be.
Like any profession that is service based it is "your results may vary". My pt has helped me with exercises that have helped me get past tennis elbow and shoulder tendonitis.
Physical therapy changed my life. Not just that, but my PTs actually had knowledge and experience with my rare condition -- more so than any doctor I've ever seen to this day. I'm sorry that hasn't been your experience, but I assure you that there are serious PTs out there.
- There are always unicorns in every profession, though I’m glad it worked out so well for you.
in my country a PT is a personal trainer, so I understand where you’re coming from if that’s what you mean. But I think in this instance PT means physiotherapist
- Oh no I’m referring to physiotherapist