Have you had acupuncture and/or chiropractor? They at minimum can give relief.

Stooge: "Thanks 'Dr' that feels slightly better."

Chiropractor: "Great! Now let's just get you scheduled for three appointments a week for the rest of your life."

Yes, you have to deal with the underlying problems - if there are any that can be dealt with, to get your alignment back in place, etc..

Chiropractic is often very effective for manipulating bones and muscles into a correct alignment.

While there is a part of chiropractic that is, imo, alchemy, don't disregard the rest.

I've actually been to a chiropractor, as a sort of desperate measure once when I had really horrible back pain, could barely stand straight etc—exactly the sort of thing you'd think chiropractic would be perfectly suited for. I was skeptical about chiropractors, given their reputation, but I figured it couldn't hurt to try (er, probably... :).

The chiropractor I went to was in a fairly wealthy neighborhood, had a nice office, and seemed "respectable." However, once he actually started, it very quickly became clear he hadn't the faintest clue what he was doing, didn't care much, and was just going through some very simplistic motions. He not only failed to have any effect on my problem, but he was singularly ineffective in even trying to track down the issue. It was a very different experience from a normal doctor: almost every real doctor, even when completely confused and out of his depth, at least has clear techniques for probing and trying to figure out what's up or at least figure out the next step to take or who to ask—and they will very freely refer you to someone else if that's called for. This chiropractor: nothing. Zero. Nada.

After 30 minutes of painfully obvious hand waving, he then said "ok, well I guess you'd better schedule another appointment." I then went out into his waiting room, and heard another patient chatting with the secretary, and it became clear this patient was a "regular."

It seemed fairly obvious that the whole scam was to get patients on the appointment treadmill, offering promises, but no relief, continually dangling in front of them the hope that "next time" things would get better...

Maybe not every chiropractor is this way, but my experience perfectly matched their generally poor reputation, so I suspect it's more common than not.

[I didn't schedule another appointment... :]

Hunh. I've been to a variety of chiropractors. In general, they have usually yanked my body into position. Usually they have a mechanism of analysis and then cracking the body based on that. There are hokums out there, that is for sure. I hope that next time your back is tweaked you can find a competent one.

There's also a very significant risk of injury involved with chiropractic procedures, especially when spinal injuries are involved.

No, it's not. Reasearch shows chiropratic is, at best, approximately equal to physical therapy for your back but with a much higher risk of injury. Your spine doesn't get out of alignment as they claim.

My mom, a registered nurse, performed acupuncture on my dad for pain relief for a while when I was younger. It seemed to work fine.

Sugar pills can seem to work as well. Hell, dancing around while shaking a bag full of broken glass, pretty rocks, and bottle caps while chanting the names of you ancestors can seem to work fine.

If the placebo effect is stimulated, then its stimulated. Why knock the stimulant?

> dancing around while shaking a bag full of broken glass

Depends what happens next.

do you have any case studies / articles to back this up? i had fairly bad scoliosis when i was younger which was corrected by chiropractic, and i got back every few months for a bit of preventative maintenance. i'd honestly like to see if it's justified or if i'm just waisting my 20 dollars...

You could skip a month and see what happens.