We tend to a large number of patients in our Boardman, OH office, and Dr. Denise Carradine has helped many people overcome a range of health problems. Even so, the primary worry that seems to prevent a lot of women and men from seeking treatment is whether or not chiropractic care is safe. Fortunately, according to three separate studies (out of countless on the subject), the answer to this question is a resounding: "Yes! Chiropractic is safe!"
The first study(1) was published in Spine and included 183 adults between the ages of 20 and 85. Each participant was affected by some kind of back pain, and half of the patients received real chiropractic care whereas the other half received two fake chiropractic treatments. Information was gathered after each real or fake adjustment to discover if any unfavorable reactions were caused by the real chiropractic treatments.
The authors found that nobody reported any serious adverse side effects at all after receiving one or two sessions of chiropractic. Some people did report that they had a headache (9% of patients) or muscle stiffness (37 percent) after treatment, but the effects were not serious.
A second research study(2), also released in the influential journal, Spine, was conducted in an effort to ascertain the safety of chiropractic. The study group was much larger -- 20,000 patients. Each participant received chiropractic adjustments of the neck, with over 50,000 total adjustments for all patients.
Again, the investigators found no serious adverse side effects. The authors computed the risk of total negative effects to be approximately six out of every 10,000 consultations or every 100,000 treatment sessions. And, just as with the first study, some individuals did report non-serious, milder, unwanted effects such as dizziness (about 1.6%) or a headache (4 out of every 100), and this prompted the researchers to determine that "the risk of a serious adverse event, immediately or up to 7 days after treatment, was low to very low."
This third study(3) is unique from the previous two pieces of research, as it concentrates on the safety of chiropractic care for kids. In this article, the researchers analyzed data 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 young children, chiropractors answering the survey documented only three cases where there were negative 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 found to be safe and effective for everyone. To discover what chiropractic can do for you, call our Boardman, OH clinic and make an appointment today at (330) 758-4446.
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