Dr. Allan Horowitz, published newspaper article, Richmond Hill Liberal, Copyright October 26, 1988

Dear Dr. Horowitz:

I was always one of those people who thought all chiropractors were unscientific, unskilled practitioners. I have been reading your articles for the past several years and I have come to learn that chiropractors do seem to have a place.

I was turned off chiropractors many years ago (probably at least 50) after I went to a chiropractor in downtown Toronto for a pain I was having in my back. I was told a chiropractor could fix it, and because I was working as a farmer at the time I needed my back to do my work. I would try anything so I tried a chiropractor.

Unfortunately, he couldn’t help me and after seeing him three times, he told me I should go to my doctor. My doctor also couldn’t help me, but eventually they found out I had a bad kidney.

I don’t really blame the chiropractor but that incident really made me think that chiropractors were not trained properly and didn’t know what they were doing. I now know differently, and please keep up the informative articles.

Sincerely,

R.H.

Dear R.H.:

            Your comments are appreciated and perhaps partially valid. Chiropractor training 50 years ago was not anything like it is today. You likely went to a chiropractor who was well trained in the mechanics of the spine, but had little formal training when it came to picking out the visceral diseases such as kidney disease.

I should also remind you that your own doctor, likely a medical doctor, also did not find the problem with your kidney. Of course there are now many more tests available to detect these conditions, but there is no question that 50 years ago chiropractors were not trained well enough to detect certain conditions. They definitely are now.

In defence of the chiropractor and even your doctor who also missed finding the source of your pain, some internal “visceral” conditions do present in exactly the same way as a muscular or spinal problem might do so.

It has been shown that if one injects a saline solution into the ligaments between the spine, pain might result that is identical to renal colic, ulcers, angina, gallbladder disease, or appendicitis. In other words, if the spinal ligaments are “irritated”, pain, tenderness and muscle rigidity might result.

These symptoms might be exactly the same as those you would see if the person actually had one of the diseases mentioned. Injection of Novocain (a local anesthetic) into the painful spinal muscles eliminated the pain. This is evidence that a spinal problem can mimic a visceral disease, and vice-versa.

Chiropractors and medical doctors are now better trained to differentiate between the two sources of pain. Spinal pain is treated one way, and chiropractors have good success with that type of pain. Kidney, heart and gastric diseases are treated a different way, and medical doctors are the ones trained to treat these conditions.

A thorough examination must be done first, and only then should the treatment be started. The human body is not always predictable in the way it responds to disease states, so the patient as well as the doctor must understand that there are usually several different conditions that might cause one type of pain.

I’m glad you enjoy my articles and I am glad you were open minded enough to change your way of thinking about chiropractors.