why do doctors (physicians) hate chiropractors?

Question

my dads a physician- the other day i ask about chiropractor doctor...and he calls them quackopractors and says that they masquerade as actual doctors when in fact there quacks

and it seems with all the doctors ive interned with this semester at a hospital, they hold that same opinion

Answer 1

If you study the skeletal structure everything in the body is dependent on the alignment of the spine. Sufferer of headaches neck maybe out of place. legs numb hip or lower back out of place.

I had a gallbladder issue went to conventional doctors did test after test and nothing the bladder wasn't bad after test were done. SO I went to the chiro and he put my back in line and immediately it was better.

Pain is the bodies way of telling you there is something wrong. Pills will make you better but not fix it.

Once a month adjustment keeps you in line. Think of a car if it is out of line does it drive well or run down the road well or have even wear and tear on the tires. NO. same with the body.

Answer 2

I think that first you need to remember that a chiropractor is a chiropractor not a doctor. It may serve it's purpose for some, but it is a completely different approach to healing, and cannot heal everything. Many people are under the misconception that they can replace their doctor with a chiropractor, but if something were to go wrong, who do they go to?? I'll tell you, they go to their Doctor. I think doctors lose respect for the profession because they blame the chiropractors for this misconception. I won't pretend to know the politics behind this relationship or the overall relationship with the pharmaceutical companies, but as a clinical microbiologist, I can tell you that popping your bones will not prevent or heal infection. Everyone serves their own purpose and not all healing methods come with due respect whether they seem to be successful or not. Alternative medicine, in any form is competition to medical doctors. A good Doctor should know enough about these other methods to steer their patients in the right direction when necessary without feeling threatened. His confidence in discussing alternatives with his patients could be what keeps them entrusting their health care to him.

Answer 3

Although educational standards have improved in recent decades, in earlier times you could enter a chiropractic school with little or no college training, then call yourself a doctor. Chiropractic is based on the premise that every gland, organ and cell of the body needs a nerve supply to function properly. Therefore it would seem logical that malfunctions in these areas would also respond to chiropractic adjustments. This is pseudoscience.

Many chiropractors advise people against getting standard immunizations that have reduced morbidity and mortality from certain diseases for the last century. Do you think adjustments of the spine will prevent polio, whooping cough, diphtheria, etc.?

Chiropractic has a limited role to play in the relief of pain and the treatment of certain conditions.

Answer 4

Actually there are a lot of insurance plans that provide chiropractic coverage. You mainly find them with a PPO plan. As far as stroke goes, there have been approx 367 strokes since 1895, the year chiropractic was discovered, and there are approx 250 million+ chiro visits every year. So there is a very small chance of stroke especially when compared to the approx 400 strokes EVERY YEAR that are attributed to birth control pills alone. And another 16,000 die from taking aspirin. You probably have the same chance of having a stroke by turning your head to look for traffic that you do by going to a chiropractor. I do find it ironic how people won't go to one based on the off chance that they may have a stroke, but people are dying by the tens of thousands every year from taking meds that are wrongly prescribed. go figure

Answer 5

I think saying that physicians hate chiropractors is a little strong, but a lot of them are quacks. There are some chiropractors that are very good at what they do, which is in essence a brand of massage that helps treat musculoskeletal problems. The thing that gets under our skin has been demonstrated quite nicely by the answerer "sewcrafty". There is absolutely no rational explanation to support the notion that a malalignment of the spine would cause gall bladder disease, but this idea is rooted in the very creation of the "science" of chiropractic.

Chiropractic was literally made up by one man, D.D. Palmer, who had no particular training that would qualify him to create a field of medical therapy. You can read an excerpt from a book he wrote describing the creation of chiropractic at the link below. The prime event he lists is the correction of deafness by manipulating the spine. This is completely ludicrous. There are no nerves that have anything to do with hearing anywhere in the spine. But, from that experience, Palmer decided that all disorders can be explained by the impingement of nerves as they enter/exit the spinal canal. The anatomy of the spinal cord and the nervous system is pretty well understood and there is no demonstrable evidence to support his theory. Chiropractors use the word subluxation to describe this concept and this is what sewcrafty is describing with regard to a spinal manipulation "curing" her gall bladder pain. However, no study has ever been done that supports this concept. In fact, I'd be willing to bet that the nerves supplying sewcrafty's gall bladder are not impinged in any way. A chiropractor would probably suggest that the responsible nerves are in the lower thoracic or upper lumbar regions of the spine (about the level of the gall bladder). These are regions that are very rarely invovled with nerve impingement. This is something that can be assessed definitively with an MRI of the spine, and I would be very surprised if an MRI of sewcrafty's spine would show evidence of nerve impingement at these sites.

The best part of all of that, though, is that the primary innervation of the gall bladder is the vagus nerve. The vagus nerve never travels in the spine at all, and therefore, cannot be affected by problems with spinal alignment, real or imagined. The vagus nerves (right and left) leave the brainstem at the level of the medulla and leave the skull through the jugular foramen. They then travel down the neck in the carotid sheath along with the carotid artery and jugular vein to form a plexus on either side of the esophagus. They pass through the diaphragm on the surface of the esophagus and fan out to the organs of the GI tract.

So, chiropractic at its core is based in pseudoscience and is used to convince people like sewcrafty that they need continuing therapy to maintain their spinal alignment, even though no one has ever been able to demonstrate that spinal alignment has anything to do with gall bladder pain. What happened to her pain, you might ask? There are several possibilities. She may never have had gall bladder pain at all. Other things such as constipation can cause similar symptoms and might naturally go away on their own. She may have had pain due to an acute inflammation of her gall bladder that resolved on its own, which happens all the time. There is also something to be said for the placebo effect, especially when treating pain. If she truly believes that she's receiving beneficial therapy, that can have healing power in and of itself. These principles are all things that have been demonstrated through studies that adhere to the scientific method, in contrast to the claims of chiropractic.

That being said, there are a number of modern chiropractors who focus on musculoskeletal complaints, for which their manipulations may actually have some benefit. These chiropractors are likely legitimate. But, there are still many who adhere to the teachings of D.D. Palmer that no scientific study has ever validated. And, they use these claims to trap people into ongoing treatments.

Answer 6

I have no problem with people going to a chiropractor for a couple of weeks to treat low back pain. Since backs seem to get well when they want to, the treatments that seem to make people feel better are fine with me.
Other than that, there's no scientific evidence that chiropractic works, it's based on false premises, and it sometimes delays time to treatment when people go to the D.C. instead of seeking real medical care.
And then there's the large number of illnesses that have no effective treatment. I really don't care how people want to waste their money treating the untreatable. I spend about half my usual day doing that, and if they went to a chiropractor instead it would suit me fine.

Answer 7

Its ALL about the money besides the common cold ~Back pain is the number 2 reason you will see a doctor. Its a billion dollar industry. We all graduate with 100k in debt and we all want the dream life for ourselves and our family belong to the country club drive a beemer. Its like mcdonald's and burger king they both want your business and what do they do?They try to dicredit the other. (we only use white meat chicken they don't~ etc). The Medical doctor's in the past had a strangle hold on the industry but that has changed in the last two decades.

Answer 8

Do you need to be a doctor to crack your knuckles? That's all chiropractors do. If chiropractic makes you feel good, go for it, but they're not real doctors

Answer 9

The chiropractors have a job to do and they hate dealing with injections and drugs unless necessary, whereas, physicians treat totally different using drugs and surgery. They should respect the position of each other and treat the patient to the best of their ability.


Good Luck,

Answer 10

i have worked for both.
chiropractors believe that all the nerves circle the spine and in some way or another anything that is bothering you has something to do w/ a nerve being out of wack.and they dont believe in medications. they are good to go to every once in awhile.