We see a large number of people in our Redondo Beach office, and Dr. Vinick has helped countless people manage a wide array of health problems. Even so, the primary worry that seems to prevent a lot of women and men from pursuing care is whether or not chiropractic care is safe. Luckily, according to three different studies (out of many on the subject), the answer to this question is a clear: "Yes! Chiropractic is safe!"
The first study(1) was published in Spine and involved 183 adults between the ages of 20 and 85. Each participant reported suffering from spine-related pain, and half of the individuals received actual chiropractic care visits whereas the remaining patients were given two fake chiropractic treatment sessions. Information was gathered after each real or fake adjustment to see if any undesirable reactions occurred as a result of the real chiropractic adjustments.
The authors reported that no participants reported any serious undesirable adverse reactions whatsoever after getting one or two sessions of chiropractic. Some people did state that they got a headache (just 9% of people) or muscle stiffness (about 1 out of 3) after treatment, but the results were not of a serious nature.
The second article(2), also released in the influential publication, Spine, was conducted in an attempt to determine the safety of chiropractic. The test group was much larger as it involved just under 20,000 patients. Each participant received chiropractic adjustments of the neck, with over 50,000 total adjustments for all study participants.
Again, the experts discovered no serious negative side effects. The experts calculated the risk of total side effects to be about 6 out of every 10,000 consultations or every 100,000 treatment sessions. Plus, just as with the previous study, some volunteers did report non-serious, milder, unwanted effects such as dizziness (about 1.6%) or a headache (4%), and this caused the authors to conclude that "the risk of a serious adverse event, immediately or up to 7 days after treatment, was low to very low."
The third research paper(3) is unique from the first two reports, as it concentrates on the safety of chiropractic care for children. In this case, the researchers analyzed results reported by both chiropractors and parents involving 816 children who participated in 7,173 chiropractic adjustments.
Out of 5,438 chiropractic visits made for the kids, chiropractors responding to the survey documented only three cases where there were adverse side effects. When parents were questioned, they indicated only two adverse side effects out of 1,735 visits. Additionally, both chiropractors and parents reported "a high rate of improvement with respect to the children's presenting complaints."
Based on these three studies (and many more!), chiropractic has been deemed safe and effective for everyone. To find out what chiropractic care can do for you, call our Redondo Beach office and make an appointment today at (310) 375-4325.
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