Stinkypup

Soooo. Imagine a fictitious scenario as of course I cant cite true cases ()

A 48 year old woman- severe and worsening headache in the back of her head, attends her chiropractor who treats her for three days with an assortment of presumably manipulations - the symptoms were not improving, in fact getting worse. The chiropractor did not point the patient to their GP/ER.
The following day, the pain had become so severe, the patient attended ER and then subsequently just after initial assessment prior to her getting a CT scan collapsed and deteriorated rapidly becoming unconscious.

The diagnosis was a massive subarachnoid hemorrhage, a bleed into the brain as a result of dissection of the vertebral artery which is the artery entering the back of the skull from the neck. The poor woman was ventilated and in intensive care. The outcome is unclear, she may well not survive.
Now it is always easy with the benefit of hindsight, but had such a patient had the opportunity to be pointed in my direction, anyone with severe occipital/back of the head pain is considered a subarachnoid hemorrhage until proven otherwise. One has to consider that manipulation may have aggravated or indeed precipitated things, obviously, it is difficult to say, but I have to think that these practitioners should be aware of potential red flag symptoms and these patients should be referred on to a registered medical practitioner/ER otherwise patients as in this case may well suffer unnecessarily.

R I C H

You and your crazy new aged logic

Stinkypup

plasticcanuck

To the great dismay of people I know who use chiropractors I call them quackopractors.

Stinkypup

Just a very sad followup on this very unfortunate case. Despite fighting hard and seeming to initially rally, sadly following a seemingly fairly good early recovery she subsequently deteriorated very fast and unfortunately suffered brain death.

It doesn't really matter how long one has been practicing medicine, it still hit me very hard. Obviously when one loses somebody it can be hard but she had 2 children, a 15-year-old and an 18-year-old who are now left without a mum along with a widowed husband. Thankfully, she certainly did an amazing thing by donating her organs so that many people could benefit following her death.

I have since learned that chiropractors get patients to sign some sort of waiver presumably to try and avoid subsequent litigation were the worst is to happen. I think that there is considerable evidence that chiropractic treatment can cause stroke and in this case could well have been directly involved in her death and I have to say this simply reinforces my thoughts with regard to chiropractic treatment especially in such potentially dangerous manipulations. She continued to experience worsening symptoms, symptoms which were certainly to the educated eye, red flag symptoms that should have resulted in her being sent for an emergency assessment and subsequent treatment. Such action possibly may have saved her life, unfortunately however no one could say whether this would have been the case or not.

Tangram

I may be a dumb hick but why would one go to said Chiro if one was suffering headaches ?

Stinkypup

Not a dumb question at all. Any complaint weirdly seems to be fair game for chiropractors, as long as they get paid, however little evidence for benefit... They would justify it as osteoarthritis of the neck can cause headaches especially in the back of the head. Sadly so can intra-cranial bleeds

Shard

Usually a glass of nighttime rainwater infused with cayenne does the trick for intra-cranial bother.

Stinkypup

Also good for that awful vague sense of unease

Shard

Tangram

Definitely a "get in the sack" ..... along with Ronaldo

Dorothy

I'm really sorry about your patient. I think her husband should pursue a complaint with the relevant licensing board in BC.

Stinkypup

Thanks -I bloody hope he does Dorothy..

Oink

Now it seems some of the athletes are using some bonkers idea of "cupping" to help them somehow recover or heal. There was even some bloke on the the tv from the US Olympics coaching staff, that when pressed about the efficacy of the practice said, "there's no scientific evidence but . . . "

BristolUK

I just looked that up.

It sounds remarkably like a device I once saw a friend told me about in a B&D movie.