We care for a large number of people in our North County, St. Louis, MO office, and Dr. Mark Holland has helped countless people eliminate a range of health challenges. Even so, the primary issue that seems to stop a lot of women and men from getting care is whether or not chiropractic adjustments are safe. Luckily, according to three separate studies (out of quite a few on the topic), the answer to this concern is a clear: "Yes! Chiropractic is safe!"
The first article(1) was published in Spine and involved 183 men and women. Each test subject reported suffering from some kind of back pain, and half of the individuals received real chiropractic adjustments whereas the other half received two fake chiropractic treatment sessions. Information was gathered after each real or fake adjustment to determine if any unfavorable side effects occurred as a result of the genuine chiropractic treatments.
The authors reported that nobody reported any serious negative adverse reactions whatsoever after getting one or two sessions of chiropractic care. Some participants did report that they experienced a headache (just 9% of people) or muscle stiffness (about 1 out of 3) post-treatment, but the results were not serious.
The next study(2), also published in the important journal, Spine, was done in an attempt to ascertain 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 patients.
Again, the experts discovered no serious negative side effects. The authors computed the risk of total adverse reactions to be approximately 6 out of every 10,000 consultations or every 100,000 treatment sessions. Plus, just as with the previous study, some people did report non-serious, milder, unwanted effects such as dizziness (16 out of every 1,000 treatment consultations and 15 out of every 1,000 treatment sessions) or a headache (4%), and this prompted the authors 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 research paper(3) is different from the first two reports, as it focuses on the safety of chiropractic care for children. In this case, the authors investigated data reported by both chiropractors and parents involving 816 children who participated in 7,173 chiropractic treatment sessions.
Out of 5,438 chiropractic appointments made for the young children, chiropractors responding to the survey reported only three cases where there were adverse reactions. 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 has been judged safe and effective for everyone. To discover what chiropractic care can do for you, call our North County, St. Louis, MO office and schedule an appointment today at (314) 867-8888.
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We have a long-standing track record or helping people get out of pain with chiropractic care. Whether you were injured last week, or have been suffering from chronic pain for years - It might only take one visit to our office in Downtown Saint Louis, MO to get you back on the path to everyday health.
