Chiropractic patients have fewer strokes than the rest of the population
CHIROPRACTIC PATIENTS HAVE FEWER STROKES THAN THE REST OF THE POPULATION
Hello practice members of Calgary! This is Dr. Greg once again with the privilege to bring you our newsletter!
On March 29, Tuesday next week we are once again having our fabulous “Dinner with the Doc” at the Four Points Sheraton by Canada Olympic Park. It’s one of my favorite patient events! There is great food, great fun, and a super-brief, awe-inspiring (if I do say so myself) 20 – 30-minute talk about the incredible benefits of chiropractic care. And it doesn’t cost you anything! It’s an amazing opportunity to bring your friends and loved ones out for a free evening on us and pass on first-rate info that transforms lives and health outcomes.
One of the issues we often run into when educating the general population is in regards to the safety of chiropractic care. People have often heard stories generated from a lack of knowledge or outright mis-truths regarding the safety of chiropractic care. (Or they’ve watched one too many Bruce Lee movies…) J
So I wanted to write a brief note for you to pass on to others. It’s really important and people in pain often make choices that actually put them at far greater risk (sometimes hundreds of times worse!) than going to see a chiropractor…all in a misguided effort to be SAFER.
In a letter to the editor of JMPT, L. Myler posed an interesting question: “I was curious how the risk of fatal stroke after cervical manipulation, placed at 0.00025% compared with the risk of (fatal) stroke in the general population of the Canada.” – According to data obtained from the National Center for Health Statistics, the mortality rate from stroke was calculated to be 0.00057% so if Myler’s data is accurate, the risk of death from stroke after cervical manipulation is less than half the risk of fatal stroke in the general population! Myler L: Letter to the editor. JMPT 1996;19:357 …Well, that’s pretty interesting isn’t it?
Different studies have shown chiropractic care to be so safe that it’s hard to draw a safety comparison. One study covered a period of 28 years, another involved reviewing about 110 million chiropractic visits and the results of these studies showed conclusively that the risk of stroke from a chiropractic adjustment is so small as to be statistically insignificant. As in one out of every 8.5 million adjustments results in an adverse event.
In fact, some medical researchers have admitted that chiropractic care carries far less of a stroke risk than medical treatment. “Indeed, most interventions by allopathic physicians have a higher complication rate than chiropractic interventions,” said Philip Lee, MD, a co-investigator of a research survey presented at the Canadian Heart Association’s 19th International Joint Conference on Stroke and Cerebral Circulation.
So…I could bash away at this with all kinds of positive chiropractic research but what I really want patients to understand is that the choices our loved ones are making trying to avoid the “risk” of chiropractic is actually putting them more in harm’s way and usually never comes close to addressing the CAUSE of the issue.
Over-the-counter medications (also known as NSAIDS: non-steroidal anti-inflammatory drugs) are most people’s prescription of choice to deal with their everyday aches and pains. A statement from a July 1998 issue of The Canadian Journal of Medicine states the following:
“Conservative calculations estimate that approximately 107,000 patients are hospitalized annually for nonsteroidal anti-inflammatory drug (NSAID)-related gastrointestinal (GI) complications and at least 16,500 NSAID-related deaths occur each year among arthritis patients alone. The figures of all NSAID users would be overwhelming, yet the scope of this problem is generally under-appreciated.”
THIS IS MASSIVE! This is really important information. Not only are you remarkably safe visiting your chiropractor but you are doing yourself and the one’s you care about a remarkable SERVICE with your chiropractic care! The vast majority of the time you actually get healthier, you reduce risks associated with medication use as you reduce or eliminate medication use (by up to 85%, 5/07 issue of the Journal of Manipulative and Physiological Therapeutics), reduced risk associated with surgeries for the exact same reason (more than 62%), with fewer hospitalizations (by up to 65%).
How great is that? The risk/reward benefit of chiropractic care is off the charts plus you innately start to feel so much better as your body heals the way it was designed! The vast majority of our patients can attest to this.
So, sign up at our front desk, call or e-mail, and let us buy you and your guests dinner next Tuesday at the Sheraton!
Yours in fabulous health,
Dr. Greg