Chiropractic: Safe for Everyone

We see a large number of patients in our Yakima office, and Dr. Covington has helped countless people overcome a wide array of health issues. However, the primary worry that seems to stop a lot of men and women from pursuing treatment is whether or not chiropractic adjustments are safe. Well, according to three separate studies (out of quite a few on the issue), the answer to this question is a resounding: "Yes! Chiropractic is safe!"

Australian Study: Chiropractic is Safe

The first study(1) was published in Spine and included 183 adults. Each participant reported suffering from some kind of back pain, and half of the individuals received real chiropractic adjustments while the other half received two fake chiropractic adjustments. Information was gathered after each real or fake adjustment to determine whether or not any undesirable reactions were caused by the actual chiropractic treatments.

The authors reported that nobody documented any serious adverse adverse reactions whatsoever after receiving one or two sessions of chiropractic care. Some people did report that they had a headache (9% of patients) or muscle stiffness (37 percent) after treatment, but the results were not serious.

Nationwide Survey Finds that Chiropractic Care is Safe

The second article(2), also published in the influential publication, Spine, was performed in an effort to establish the safety of chiropractic care. The study group was much larger as it involved just under 20,000 people. Each participant received chiropractic adjustments of the cervical spine, with over 50,000 total adjustments for all study participants.

Again, the investigators discovered no serious negative side effects. The authors computed the risk of total adverse reactions to be about six out of every 10,000 consultations or every 100,000 treatment sessions. And, just as with the first study, some volunteers did report non-serious, milder, side 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."

Chiropractic Adjustments are Safe for Children

The third research paper(3) is different from the first two pieces of research, as it focuses on the safety of chiropractic care for children. In this article, researchers investigated results reported by both chiropractors and parents involving 816 children who participated in 7,173 chiropractic adjustments.

Out of 5,438 chiropractic appointments made for the young children, chiropractors responding to the survey documented only three cases where there were adverse effects. When parents were surveyed, 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 studies like these, chiropractic care has been found to be safe and effective for everyone. To find out what chiropractic care can do for you, call our Yakima clinic and make an appointment today at (509) 895-7535.

References

1. Walker BF, Hebert JJ, Stomski NJ, Clarke BR, Bowden RS, Losco B, French SD. Outcomes of usual chiropractic. The OUCH randomized controlled trial of adverse events. Spine 2013;38(20):1723-9.
2. Thiel HW1, Bolton JE, Docherty S, Portlock JC. Safety of chiropractic manipulation of the cervical spine: a prospective national survey. Spine 2007;32(21):2375-8.
3. Alcantara J, Ohm J, Kunz D. The safety and effectiveness of pediatric chiropractic: a survey of chiropractors and parents in a practice-based research network. Explore NY 2009;5(5): 290-5.