Adventures in Chiropractic

Ah the glorious world of paid health benefits! Apparently the Occasional Teacher's Union has coverage if you've been on a long-term occasional job for so many months. This was all Mike needed to hear to finally do something about the back pain he's been suffering.

As you probably know, I'm not a big believer in "alternative medicine". However, you probably also know that I have been to 5 different chiropractors throughout my lifetime. I don't know if I necessarily needed any of it, save for the one I saw for my car accident injuries, but it is certainly less wishy-washy than much of the holistic healing that is out there. Physiology I get. Mechanics I get. Physics I get. Something is out of place? Put it back to where it was designed to go and everything goes back to working normally. Who doesn't want to be a well-oiled machine?

So with paid health benefits in hand, we went to the closest chiropractor. Every chiropractor likes to consider his/her practice different from all the rest, but really they are all the same... except for this one (let's call him Dr. S). His fee structure is done "per family". This means that under Mike's coverage, he gets treatment... and through Dr. S's family plan, I get treated for free. Dr. S also likes to pride himself on using a gentler technique than other chiropractors - something he picked up in school in California (aka the land of avacado eating hippies).

I feel kind of funny cheating on the last chiro I went to (Dr. K, whom I really liked) especially since I stopped the maintenance portion of my treatment last fall because my insurance coverage ran out. But again, like I've said before, who am I to turn down free stuff? So anyway, after Mike had a few adjustments, I decided what the hey and got set up to be treated too. Dr. S took some x-rays, made some measurements, yada yada... all very professional and scientific. This brings us to last night where we attended a "healthy living" seminar that Dr. S requires all of his patients to attend at least once, and then we discussed the results of my x-rays and I got a treatment too.

Here's where I start to rant.

I don't even know where to begin about how misleading and outright wrong a lot of the seminar was. Heart disease and cancer are not 100% preventable. Claiming that, with the right kind of living, you can avoid cancer boggles my mind. I know too much about genetics to be a good conversationalist about these things... I want to be open-minded but I just can't. He also touched upon diet and how we should avoid low-fat and fat-free products because they use bad fillers... and went on to say that these products have been shown to cause the reverse... weight gain! Holy take studies out of context, why don't you? Then came the kicker - he said that if we could give him our blood types, he would provide us all with a list of foods we should and shouldn't be eating. Gah! The other family attending the seminar was eating this all up (no pun intended). Yes, there is a reason why the Blood Type Diet helps you lose weight and feel better, but it has little to nothing to do with your blood type. It bothers me to no end when people spread scientific falsities.

As an aside: There was an email forward just the other day saying that you shouldn't loosen your belt after dinner because it will cause your intestines to become twisted and blocked. WTF?

My adjustment after the seminar was certainly gentle. So gentle that I don't think he did anything at all. He used less force than a massage would have exacted in the same spots. So does this mean my spine gets "adjusted" every time I get a massage? I don't think so. I'm not sure anymore if I can continue being treated by Dr. S... even for free. I guess if Mike keeps going and he is somehow feeling better, then I will be visiting the office too and I might as well get poked and prodded rather than sit in the boring waiting room. Dr. S is a very nice man... it's just that after all this, I'm reluctant to call him a doctor. I guess the title of "doctor" is thrown around a lot these days. *sigh*