Chiropracter

5stey

Are chiropracters available on the NHS. My daughter 11 has LGMD and her spine is beginning to curve . I want to avoid surgery at all cost. It is very invasive and includes inserting rods:( Please does anyone have any info???

silkkat50

Im pretty sure its not available on the NHS as several doctors and chiropractors have told me this is the case.. It helps me with my chronic fatigue syndrome so i can fully appreciate yours and others need for it to be on the NHS as its so expensive. I wonder why they put acupuncture on the NHS and not chiropracty though.. Strange that!!

spaceraiders

5stey wrote: »

Are chiropracters available on the NHS. My daughter 11 has LGMD and her spine is beginning to curve . I want to avoid surgery at all cost. It is very invasive and includes inserting rods:( Please does anyone have any info???

The reason chiropractors are not offered on the NHS is that they have been proven to be ineffective except making back pain feel a bit better. Please, talk to your doctor about what can be done to help your doctor and do not waste your time on so-called alternative treatments like chiropractors that do not work. Chiropractors are not qualified doctors and make many medical claims they cannot back up. Maybe surgery is the best option, maybe there are other things you can try. Just make sure there is evidence that it works. Talk to your doctor and avoid website and forums for health information as following misleading claims could lead to health problems.

Also, ignore all the inevitable replies my message will get that say things like "well I tried it and it worked!"; the reason we spend millions on large scale medical studies is that it is very hard to know what works and what doesn't. You need to rely on good evidence and looking at uncontrolled cases in isolation is simply terrible, awful and misleading evidence (e.g. things get better by themselves sometimes, something else you were doing at the same time actually fixed it, you didn't have the problem you thought you had in the first place, it was just placebo and you only feel better etc.).

mumoftwins

Chiropractic treatment is available on the NHS but you normally have to be referred by something like a Muscular and Skeletal Dept at your local hospital.

Also, Chiropractors are qualified Doctors, they do several years general medical training and then specialise in the skeletal area of the body for their last couple of years.

I would definately recommend Chiropractic treatment as it has prolonged my back health tremendously and also, with regular treatment from the Chiropractor I was able to carry twins to 36.5 weeks - something which the NHS said I would never do!

Oldernotwiser

mumoftwins wrote: »

Also, Chiropractors are qualified Doctors, they do several years general medical training and then specialise in the skeletal area of the body for their last couple of years.

!

There may be some exceptions but normally neither chiropractors or osteopaths are qualified doctors. They qualify by doing a degree in chiropractic but this is not the same training as that undertaken by doctors.

You shouldn't give people erroneous information!

star1_2

Just saw this posting, just to clarify / clear some things up (I know this first-hand, my OH is a Chiropractor).

- Chiropractors are not doctors, but have to under-go years (3-5 depending on the intensity of the course/training), of rigorous training (this use not to be the case), anyone who calls themselves a Chiropractor MUST be registered with the GCC (General Chiropractic Council), they each have a registration number - which you can look up. Chiropractors must have insurance and undergo regular professional development/training to remain registered with the GCC.

- Chiropractic, comes in various forms, ranging from gentle manipulation that works on re-aligning the body, through to more forceful treatments, some can include x-rays etc.

- The effectiveness of Chiropractic is deeply debated throughout the world (I won't go into it here), but for many - its core aim is to relieve/alleviate muscoleatal pain by correcting the posture of the body. Obviously (like conventional medicine/techniques) it can help and other occasions it can't.

- As others have mentioned the NHS doesn't widely fund Chiropractic treatment, I’d suggest discussing this with your doctor/practice. If you have private health care insurance, it's far easier to find a Chiropractor who is registered with the private insurers and then get a referral from your doctor.

Good Luck.

daska

star1 wrote: »

Just saw this posting, just to clarify / clear some things up (I know this first-hand, my OH is a Chiropractor).

- Chiropractors are not doctors, but have to under-go years (3-5 depending on the intensity of the course/training), of rigorous training (this use not to be the case), anyone who calls themselves a Chiropractor MUST be registered with the GCC (General Chiropractic Council), they each have a registration number - which you can look up. Chiropractors must have insurance and undergo regular professional development/training to remain registered with the GCC.

- Chiropractic, comes in various forms, ranging from gentle manipulation that works on re-aligning the body, through to more forceful treatments, some can include x-rays etc.

- The effectiveness of Chiropractic is deeply debated throughout the world (I won't go into it here), but for many - its core aim is to relieve/alleviate muscoleatal pain by correcting the posture of the body. Obviously (like conventional medicine/techniques) it can help and other occasions it can't.

- As others have mentioned the NHS doesn't widely fund Chiropractic treatment, I’d suggest discussing this with your doctor/practice. If you have private health care insurance, it's far easier to find a Chiropractor who is registered with the private insurers and then get a referral from your doctor.

Good Luck.

It's pretty much the same with osteopaths, there are some on the NHS, they train professionally for many years and have to be registered - if they're not then don't use them. Both Chiropractors and Ostepaths have different 'schools' which means that their techniques vary.

As for the treatment working or not working, I have encountered some truly awful chiropractors and osteopaths, I have also been lucky enough to find some wonderful ones. If you want a recommendations ask people who have used more than one!!!!!

daska

I suppose the other point to make is that unlike GPs who, as their title implies are General Practitioners (i.e. they have to know a little about a lot of things: headlice, athletes foot, diabetes, etc.) Osteopaths and Chiropractors are specialists.

I think a couple of examples might help: 1. My eldest son suffered a traumatic birth which meant he couldn't feed from me, the NHS answer was to give him formula from a bottle, a cranial osteopath fixed his neck and had him feeding from me within a few hours. The NHS answer treated the symptom, the osteopath treated the cause and cured the problem. 2. I had SPD during both my pregnancies: the NHS gave me a support belt to make it more comfortable, the osteopath realigned me so that I didn't need the belt. Again, the NHS treated the symptom, the osteopath treated the cause and cured the problem.

Zziggi

As far as i know, you can't get chiropractic help on the NHS.

As for whether chiropractic methods have been proven/not proven to be effective... my personal experience is that it has helped me A LOT. Call it mind of a matter if you like, but i am gladly paying for something that is helping me.

kitschkitty

Can you get your daughter referred to a physiotherapist, does/will it help?

When we had health insurance my OH used to see his chiropractor for his bad back, and it really helped him. But unfortunately we just can't afford it these days. When I manage to find a job, we'll have no hesitation in him going back to the chiropractor again, because at the moment he just suffers in pain, and the doctors, don't seem to care to do anything about it.

spaceraiders

I feel you've fallen for all the marketing and general ideas about chiropractors without really thinking about the bigger picture and reading into it. I encourage everyone here to read a general overview/history of chiropractors from somewhere fairly neutral like here (read the peer reviewed links at the bottom if you're going to tell me wiki is inaccurate because it's generally very good):
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chiropractic

- Chiropractors are not doctors, but have to under-go years (3-5 depending on the intensity of the course/training), of rigorous training (this use not to be the case), anyone who calls themselves a Chiropractor MUST be registered with the GCC (General Chiropractic Council), they each have a registration number - which you can look up. Chiropractors must have insurance and undergo regular professional development/training to remain registered with the GCC.

Yes, chiropractors form their own organisations, offer training, certificates etc. just as people who do astrology, dowsing, Chinese herbal medicine etc. do. This does not mean they are qualified at giving the best medical help available.

- Chiropractic, comes in various forms, ranging from gentle manipulation that works on re-aligning the body, through to more forceful treatments, some can include x-rays etc.

The "realigning the body" part is the core of their pseudo-science claims. Since the 1900, the claim has been "that vertebral joint misalignments, which he termed vertebral subluxations, interfered with the body's function and its inborn (innate) ability to heal itself". This is based on no physical evidence and is just a magical idea about how the body works. It's pseudo-science nonense. This is why the idea of them training as chiropractors and regular medicine (why is chiropractor medicine not "regular" medicine by the way; think about why someone has invented these terms) is just so funny and unnerving; they are being taught evidence based medicine we know that works alone with silly unproven 100 year old notions of how the body works that are usually directly contradictory.

As for "can include x-rays", do you really want to be subjected to x-rays when you don't need them? We actually have evidence that x-rays are harmful if you care about evidence.

- The effectiveness of Chiropractic is deeply debated throughout the world (I won't go into it here), but for many - its core aim is to relieve/alleviate muscoleatal pain by correcting the posture of the body. Obviously (like conventional medicine/techniques) it can help and other occasions it can't.

It's great they want to help people, but the reason it is "deeply debated" is that there is no evidence it works and people continue to promote it. The medical profession works on evidence. When you provide evidence, professionals will make use of treatments. Evidence is the key. Professionals don't sit around debating how they feel about a treatment, what their mates said about it etc. It's all about evidence. Chiropractic medicine is a sham and does not work.

Are you familiar with the spinal problem mentioned in the first post? Do you really want to be recommending a treatment that you have no evidence that it works for something serious like this? This isn't just a bit of back pain.