We tend to a large number of people in our Charlotte, NC office, and ChiroWerx has helped many people manage a range of health problems. Even so, the primary issue that seems to prevent a lot of people from pursuing treatment is whether or not chiropractic adjustments are safe. Fortunately, according to three different studies (out of countless on the subject), the answer to this question is a resounding: "Yes! Chiropractic is safe!"
The first research paper(1) was published in Spine and included 183 women and men. Each person was affected by spine-related pain, and half of the people received actual chiropractic care visits while the other half were given two fake chiropractic adjustments. Data was gathered after each real or fake adjustment to determine whether or not any unfavorable reactions were caused by the genuine chiropractic treatments.
Researchers found that nobody documented any serious negative side effects in any way after receiving one or two sessions of chiropractic care. Some participants did state that they had a headache (just 9% of people) or muscle stiffness (37 percent) after treatment, but the results were not of a serious nature.
A second article(2), also released in the influential journal, Spine, was conducted in an attempt to ascertain the safety of chiropractic. The test group was much larger -- 20,000 individuals. Each participant received chiropractic adjustments of the cervical spine, with over 50,000 total adjustments for all study participants.
Again, the experts discovered no serious adverse side effects. The experts 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 participants did report non-serious, milder, side effects such as dizziness (about 1.6%) or a headache (4 out of every 100), 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."
The third research paper(3) is unique from the previous two reports, as it focuses on the safety of chiropractic care for kids. In this case, researchers analyzed data reported by both chiropractors and parents involving 816 children who participated in 7,173 chiropractic treatment sessions.
Out of 5,438 chiropractic visits made for the young children, chiropractors responding to the survey documented 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 these three studies (and many more!), chiropractic care has been deemed safe and effective for everyone. To learn what chiropractic care can do for you, call our Charlotte, NC office and schedule an appointment today at (980) 201-9484 with Dr. Dunning.
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Dr. Kyle’s desire is to leave a legacy with his undying passion for helping others. He seeks only to improve his patients’ overall health and wellness and he hopes for more opportunities to teach about nutrition and the body.
