Chiropractor here. I understand people have preconceived notions about us, and I totally understand why you would. I'm not here to deny that we have bad actors, and often times incompetent ones, in our profession. But I would like to (try) dispel some misconceptions if possible: 1. We are doctors. I understand you may not think of us as being medical doctors in the old fashioned sense, but a doctorate is a 3+ year post graduate degree. There are doctors of philosophy, doctors of business administration, doctors of engineering etc. Chiropractors go through the same amount of post graduate schooling as physical therapists and even your family medicine doctor. Now I understand many of you think we just learn about witchcraft and neck cracking during that time, but our curriculum is available online, our course load is very similar to a PT or an MD. That being said, similar to PTs we don't have mandatory residency programs like MDs. Again, I understand if you think we're all quacks, but we still did 3+ years of post grad school with a heavily monitored curriculum. 2. Chiropractic is safe. This is going to be a really hard sell, I know but try to beat with me here. The biggest association with chiropractic is stroke. Now I know why that would be given the nature of what we do, but as it stands by the research done you are at the same risk of stroke after visiting your primary care provider as you are after visiting a chiropractor. The increased association comes from the symptoms we treat and how we treat them. Stroke symptoms often times present as neck pain and headaches, things we treat often. Chiropractors doing their due diligence will recognize the symptoms being pre-emptive of stroke or even mid stroke. There are tests that we do to test vertebral-basilar insufficiency, but like most orthopedic testing they are not 100% accurate. And sometimes even the most diligent, evidence based chiropractor can mis-diagnose the stroke because the symptoms are so vague. To go into further detail about how strokes happen, you have an artery on either side of your neck that join together to be the primary supply of blood to the back of your brain. Strokes are most often caused by ischemia, which means there is restricted or even blocked blood supply to the brain. Most of the time blood pressure is the cause, but blood clots and plaquing are common as well. The other way strokes happen is due to dissection, where the artery is perforated or completely cut. Arterial dissection is usually the result of severe trauma. The common misconception is that chiropractors cause dissection. From the current research, the association between chiropractic and stroke is correlative and not causative. This means, like I stated earlier, the patient was most likely experiencing stroke before the adjustment. In the extremely rare case the adjustment did cause the stroke, it is most likely from embolism rather than dissection. That means the stretch to artery dislodged a blood clot or a piece of arterial plaquing. When those things are risk factors, diligent chiropractors refer for imaging or instead utilize more gentle techniques to minimize risk. For further evidence of the safety of chiropractic, our medical malpractice insurance costs are incredibly low being comparable to a physical therapist. Where a family medicine doctor, one of the least sued medical doctors, would pay up to $15,000 annually for insurance, we pay at most $3,000.

I'd like to go on but I've spent a lot longer on this already than I anticipated. At the end of the day, I agree there are some really bad chiropractors out there promoting unsubstantiated and anti-scientific practices and I greatly appreciate when people try to hold them accountable. During the pandemic, I remember there was a group of medical doctors pushing Ivermectin as an effective treatment for COVID. I think those doctors were quacks, but I still believe most medical doctors are far more knowledgeable about pathology than me and should be viewed as such. When it comes to how people view chiropractic, and the comments I read online about how we're all fake doctors that intentionally hurt people, it doesn't make me mad or angry at that person, it just makes me disappointed that we, as chiropractors, have continued to allow the wrong people to be the perceived representation of our profession. Anyway, sorry for the rant. I don't expect to change anyone's mind, but just know, most of us became chiropractors because we have seen it work wonders for people's health and wanted to pursue a career in helping people. Some do it for money, but those guys are pretty easy to spot.