American Spine Surgeons Are Not Top Notch

[ADR seeker]

It was either here or on another forum I read about a chiropractor who went overseas for an ADR. He saw US surgeons and elected to have his surgery done outside the US. One comment that stuck in my head is that he said he was astounded at how little they knew about the spine. The other comment that stuck in my head was how much he learned about the spine outside the US. He got an ADR and is 90% improved. My own chiropractor said we are 15 years behind the times.

I have tried a lot of things over the years and the thing that helped the most was Atlas Orthogonal chiropractic treatment. Unfortunately the closest one is 2 hours away form where I live now.

I have a buddy who has failed back surgery syndrome (the doctors call it failed back syndrome) They butchered him. I have seen his films and his back is really twisted now in nearly every axis. He's on a very dangerous cocktail of meds now and suffers and suffers. Recently he told me he was feeling better and he credit a pair of Sketchers. I needed a new pair of sneaker so I bought a clone version at Pay Less for $20 and I love them and you know what? My pain is less. How can a pair of sneakers do that?

My spine is in a slightly different position now when I stand and the shoes are shock absorbing. Some of you may not understand this and certainly your MD won't but improved orthogonality is probably why I feel better. In other words my head and hips are closer to where they should be. I am less head forward now.

If there are any carpenters or cabinet makers here you know how a slight measuring error get amplified the longer the board is.

To any auto mechanics. You know what a small alignment problem can to do tires, ball joints and tie rods.

If a fusion is not done precisely or it moves before it heals you won't be right. MDs deny the existence and effect of subluxations (slight dislocations). Arrogance! They also seem to get amnesia when it comes to the neurology of the spine but they sure remember how to use a prescription pad.

We are so in the dark ages that the only thing we have for inhibiting bone growth is bees wax! We put a man on the moon in 1969 and Americans still don't have a flexible spacer to replace a damaged disk. Michael Jackson put it right with the lyrics, All I can say is they don't really care about us.

What's the upside?

Even if you have lower back issues get an upper cervical adjustment from and Atlas Orthogonal chiropractor. Your surgeon will poo poo it but your surgeon is a dork. A monkey with the right training can do back surgery and boy does that monkey get rich doing it!

Many neckies here will tell you that they hurt all over -- even in the lower back. Get some $20 dollar shoes and pay forty bucks for an atlas adjustment. It's safe.

[Maria]

Hello there ADRseeker,
I saw a podiatrist back in 2004 for my feet of course who told me that I needed to wear my orthotics and I said I can't they give me sciatica which I didn't normally have rather "just low back pain and neuropathies" (back then).

Well he said I was FOS and he didn't believe me and that he never had another patient tell him the orthotics caused low back pain. He had checked my rather newly made orthotics and thought they were fine (made by other podiatrist so not trying to bilk me out of any $).

So I thought ..whatta a** and didn't wear the orthotics. My back did get better after many years (I didn't realize L5S1 was autofusing) and I was able to walk more and more .. for hours even.

Made the mistake of not wearing good supportive shoes or inserts and I am very flat footed. Was wearing TEVAs for long long walks. Then a few days wore some terrible sandals that while very pretty had no support and was on my feet all day shopping or some stupid thing. Ignored horrible pain in feet.

Ended up with bilateral posterior tibial tendonitis bilaterally. Saw a podiatrist and an Ortho for feet. Started wearing SOLE inserts with my tennis shoes and thankfully that has helped much.

What I also noticed was how much it helped my back as well. If I walk with non supportive shoes any distance will end up w/backache but with tennies and supportive inserts it's a world of diff and don't really have any back pain to speak of unless have tweaked my low back doing something stupid or screwed it up some other way.

Glad to hear your friend got relief w/sketchers and you're doing better w/the clones. I've heard that from someone else too re sketchers. Amazing!

So the informercials that go on about how good support for the feet really do make sense. RE the atlas adjustment.. I'll check out who does that in my area just in case I need some tweakin'. For right now I'm pretty good re spine stuff (even my neck which was so screwed up these last few 7 years or so after near 30 years of low back hell).

I have to add that every podiatrist I've seen has said to try orthotics and good footwear before having anymore spine surgery at least in my case. In fact many of the non spine physicians I've seen think that once you have spine surgery you're in for more and more or long haul w/drugs (true that for me thus far). They aren't saying this from lack of experience rather because there's a large number of patients that they see regularly with failed spine surgery (they probably don't see much of the ones who've had successful surgeries as those people are out living life vs. hanging out in doctor's offices unless other condition not related to spine).

[ADR seeker]

Our vestibular system is a component in our balance. The head weight about 12 pounds or more. That's like a bowling ball. The vestibular system seeks equalibrium and it uses the muscle in the spine to do it. It's like a computer in a jet fighter. It is making many adjustment per second and it keeps trying to keep us balanced. That is why we get pain and spasms in what looks like on imaging is a structurally sound spine. A brand new car out of alignment will drive like crap and an old junker with worn parts will drive OK.

There are some cutting edge orthopedic people in the US. Here is a link to the NEW orthopedics. http://www.regenexx.com/wp-content/u...s_2_0_v1.1.pdf

Make your doctor read this and if he doesn't understand it I will explain it to him.

[Aaron]

I scanned the article and it is very interesting. I think he takes the right approach in saying that often it takes several different approaches from different disiplines to solve a problem. That is the biggest downfall of chiro, prolo practioners. They will basically tell you that PT does not work only prolo can help you or surgury does not work only chiro can help you. I have done prolo many times and truthfully have not gotten the great results promised, does that mean it does not work, no, it just didn't so far in my case. But the dr. told me I should have gotten the prolo in labrum tear and could have avoided surgury; to me this made no sense, if you have a piece of cartilage impinging on hip movement due to it hanging even if you seal the tear the hanging part is still there. My surgury was a 99.9 % success for hip labrum tear and this was were i disagreeed with the regenerexx theory about laburm tears. But i agree it is a good starting point and if it works great, if it does not surgury may be an option. And that is where the medical field is lacking, instead of being a team to help fix someone they are at odds.

The atlas orth. theory seems valid as does many alt. treatments, but there is a website souly devoted to debunking the theory of chiro; here is the catch; it is written by chiro's who felt dupped once they got into chiro school and it was not what they were led to belive and holes began to show up in the theory. Some of these are practicing chiro's.

This will be a debate until time ends, but for those it helps great and those it does not I think it was worth a shot. But like regenerexx, money ( not taking ins) plays a big role.