Is Chiropractic Safe?

Yes. Chiropractic is incredibly safe. Chiropractic works by releasing the healing capacity of the body. It is not a treatment designed to oppose any function of your body. This is why it is free of side effects.

The major concern often cited is stroke. However, it is important to understand that stroke occurs every day - in fact in Australia there are some 205 strokes every day! That is about 1 stroke per 100,000 people. Now if there are some 2500 chiropractors in Australia seeing on average 40 patients a day, that means chiropractors give a total of 100,000 adjustments a day. That means that one of those people planning to see a chiropractor today is due to have a stroke - whether they went to see the chiropractor or not. (References here)

In fact there are a total of 107 cases of stroke reported in the literature following a visit to the chiropractor in the 100 years of chiropractic from 1895 - 1995. In that time some 1.3 billion adjustments have been delivered. That makes the rate of stroke after and adjustment about 0.008 per 100,000 or 120 times less than that in the general population. It would seem that chiropractic care is protective against stroke!

It is also valuable to note that there is not one single case recorded in the literature of a child experiencing misadventure following a visit to the chiropractor.

You may like to compare this safety record with the safety record of medicine (the main finger pointers).

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