Low Speed Impacts – Trauma or no trauma ?

There is a lot of argument in the Med-Legal community as per the effects of “Low Speed Impact” and its potential for producing soft tissue injury. The debate is amongst the people who suffer from the resulting pain and their advocates, and the insurance companies who feel a distinct dislike of paying for the resulting care. I think this exists in part due to the fact you can’t SEE soft tissue trauma though there are ways to measure its effects.

Which side of the argument a person falls upon usually depends on whether you are plaintiff or defendant oriented in your thinking. The medical literature is actually very supportive of the fact that a patients level of injury relates very little to the vehicle speed at the time of impact or the dollar amount of damage to the care and more to a series of other conditions.

True story, I recently had an insurance adjuster state “You can’t believe a comprehensive exam is justified for a soft tissue injury?” Well yes I do as a matter of fact. This is representative of how jaded the insurance adjusters have become. I am more amazed that they would chastise a Doctor for being thorough in the execution of his duty to his patient.

You need to find a practitioner and an advocate who understand these principles and will fight for your rights.

The following is only one article on the subject that I’d like people to be aware of. It appeared in the Journal of Manipulative Physio Therapy 1998 (Nov): 21 (1): 629-639 the following are excerpts from the article:

Background: There is a controversy regarding likelihood of injuries sustained when one car strikes another at a relatively low speed with little or no vehicle damage. Plaintiffs often claim injuries while defendants counterclaim that injuries could not have occurred with such a relatively minor impact.

Objective: To review the dynamics of low speed rear-end collisions resulting in little or no visible damage and to see if occupant injury can occur; also, to discuss diagnostic and treatment that may be helpful to the clinical practitioner.

Data Selection: A medline search of low speed rear-end was conducted. Other articles and studies were reviewed that discuss low speed rear-end collisions and factors impacting the neuromusculoskeletal system relevant to clinical practitioners. Articles included were: human low speed rear-end tests, lab tests on cadavers, automotive engineering papers, and peer reviewed journal articles on whiplash. A few live animal and simulation studies were considered for the background of possible injury mechanism and vehicular deformation. Excluded were non rear-end and single case reports as these were not a part of the sturdy group.

Data synthesis: The data was studied to find a relationship between the resultant vehicle dynamics with occupant movement, biologic mechanisms of injury and the neurological mechanisms causing complaints. Data was also studied to investigate objective findings supporting subjective complaints.

Conclusion: In low impact collisions, there are usually no skid marks, minor or no visible damage to the vehicle. There is a lack of relationship between occupant injury vehicle speed and/or damage. There does not appear to be an absolute speed or damage to a vehicle for a person to experience injury. Crash tests indicate a change of vehicle velocity of 4km/h (2.5 mph) may produce occupant symptoms. Vehicle damage may not occur until 14-15km/h (8.7 mph). Occupant soft tissue and joint injuries resulting from low speed vehicle collisions respond positively to afferent stimulation of mechanoreceptors. The diagnosis of the occupant injuries is reliant upon standard orthopedic neurological testing, the autonomic concomitant signs and qualitative sensory testing.

Some of the factors that are apparently involved with the event of injury from these types of cases are head forward posture, military (Straight) neck and whether the victim of the accident was aware or not aware of the impending collision.

And there you have it folks from a peer reviewed article. Suffice it to say if you have suffered from “Whiplash” which we now prefer to call Cervical Acceleration Deceleration injury, Don’t believe your carrier if they tell you there is no compensation available to you based on the speed of your impact. I hear this argument all the time from patients of mine who are being pressed to settle by the carriers. If you are hurt in an auto accident get yourself an attorney to protect your interests and don’t be tempted to deal with the carriers directly. You have to remember their interests are not your own and they have a lot of practice dealing with people who don’t understand the laws, the literature, or in fact the mechanism of your injury and its Potential future complications.

Get Smart, and not the Don Adams kind. How ? Sleep !

Many people have that idea that eight hours sleep is needed to get completely rested. In fact Americans are one of the most sleep deprived nations in the world.

Current research shows that a minimum of six hours sleep is needed to retain information learned that day. So if you are studying or taking up a new skill, be sure you get at least six hours sleep on the days you are performing new tasks or learning new information.

It’s when we are sleeping that the brain processes the days information. That’s when we analyze the information absorbed during the day and separate what we’ve learned that needs to be stored and what to let go.

If you don’t get a decent nights sleep, you won’t have the recall that your counterparts who are Sleeping well will develop. It takes hundreds of thousands of neural connections to create memories and its during sleep that the brain reactivates/repeats the neural activity performed each day reinforcing our memories.

Researchers are discovering that our brains are NOT inactive during the sleep cycle but in fact doing the work needed to learn and remember new activities.

Other than humans, there is NO animal on the planet that tries to push the envelope as per denying ourselves sleep to “Get things done.” Humans have something to learn from other species.

Bottom line….. as Dave Atell says, “Get some sleep !”

Did you know that your diet can raise or lower your Blood Pressure ?

Many Americans are on a high sugar, high grain and low fat diet this can actually be devastating for your health.

A study published in the Journal of Diabetes published in 1998 reported that two thirds of their test subjects who were insulin resistant (IR) had high blood pressure. This was directly attributed to a high sugar high grain diet and INSUFFICIENT AMOUNTS OF EXERCISE.

The implication of this is, if you have hypertension (High blood pressure) you probably have poorly controlled blood sugar. As insulin elevates, so does your blood pressure.

Another issue here is, insulin stores magnesium, and if your insulin receptors are insufficient, and your cells become insulin resistant, you can’t store magnesium in your cells so it passes through you and is lost in your urination. Magnesium stored in cells relaxes muscles.

This starts a series of circular problems….

Lack of magnesium causes blood vessels to constrict rather than relax raising blood pressure and decreasing energy levels.

Insulin affects blood pressure by causing sodium retention which raises blood pressure.

Therefore, if your hypertension is due to poorly controlled blood sugar levels, normalizing your blood sugars will bring your blood pressure back down to a more healthy level.

Chronic Knee Pain, yes there is help.

If you have been suffering from chronic knee pain you’ve probably seen multiple specialists from Rheumatologist’s to Orthopedist’s perhaps Physical Therapists and sometimes more than one of each. What often happens is the treatment is aimed at symptoms rather than the underlying biomechanical problems that of course take some time and understanding to cure.

There are many causes that can be attributed to chronic knee pain such as Osteochrondtiris Dessecans, a Torn Meniscus or joint effusion, Rheumatoid Arthritis, Lupis and more. Clearly these serious conditions should be ruled out however, faulty biomechanics MUST also be a part of the differential diagnosis and many practitioners just don’t pay attention to their patients biomechanics, this is often overlooked.

We develop faulty Biomechanics through our daily activities of living mostlly due to bad habits. Many of us slouch, sit for hours with our legs crossed or stand on one leg while chatting to our friends. These things can attack our core musculature, alignment of the pelvis and low back, the hips and the knees. There is something called Serial Distortion that is often a factor. Serial Distortion is caused when any joint is not doing its job. The joints above and below become affected and don’t perform as within their design parameters.

When we use improper mechanics, our bodies start to compensate or in other words, adapt to these stresses we are placing on ourselves. As a result, muscles, ligaments and tendons start to wear out at an accelerated rate and it is this wear and tear that patients experience as pain. If you are one of these people the pain will not go away until the Biomechanical stresses are corrected. Meaning you need to work on your biomechanics to attempt to get them closer to original design parameters.

When you have issues of posture and improper biomechanics, it takes time to correct and you have to know what it is you are trying to do to assist yourself and these practices need to be consistent daily alterations in your routine. Things that can help knees in particular are: Standing on both your legs evenly as opposed to standing on one leg. Engaging your core musculature both when standing and sitting. Thinking about stretching your body vertically as if there was a rod running through the top of your head into the earth. Trying to “Align” your back, hips, knees and feet in a straight line as much as possible when standing and walking.

There are a series of exercises meant to stabilize the knees which are also helpful that may be the source of a future article. There are both gym oriented ones and also ones you can do at home with the rubber band. You can also get this information from competent personal trainers or physical therapists and these may also be available online.

The first step in correcting these issues is understanding that they exist. Then practicing these changes in mechanics on a daily basis. If you do there is a VERY good chance you’ll reduce or eliminate your chronic knee pain.

Dr. Camp can be reached at his San Francisco office at 415 922 2225.

7 Foods You Should Never Eat

We are all aware that certain foods are exposed to various chemicals or toxins in the way they are prepared or processed some, with results that should make us think twice before consuming them.

In a recent article that appeared in Prevention Magasine in December of 2011, seven foods were highlighted as things NOT to consume in our diets. These appear below with their recommended alternatives. Some of this may shock and amaze but here you go.

Patients have often asked me why was it our grandparents could smoke three packs a day, drink alcohol with every meal, eat bacon and eggs for breakfast every day and still live into their nineties. Its always been my contention that they ate things that were more pure than we do. The water they drank, the air they were breathing had far less contaminants than we are currently exposed to. Long and short of it, in my opinion we need to clean up our act for the best chance at a healthy life and here are some tips that made sense to me.

I’m not suggesting you never eat any of these foods, but be aware of the repercussions and the potential alternatives that may be better for you.

The problem foods:

Number one, Canned Tomatoes. The tomatoes them selves are not the problem. The resin lining in the tin can contains Bisphenol-A which is a synthetic estrogen that’s been linked to reproductive problems, heart disease, diabetes and obesity.  The acid in the tomatoes causes this to leach into your food.

The solution:  Don’t buy tomatoes in cans. Yes they are available in bottles which don’t have the offending resin lining. Boxed tomatoes such as Pomi or Trader Joes are also a safe alternative to the canned variety.

Number two, Corn fed beef. The funny thing is I have a distinct memory of corn fed beef being a selling point as if this was preferable. The problem is cows evolved to eat grass not grains. The reason they feed corn to cows is they fatten up faster so make more money for the cattle farmers. Grass fed beef is higher in beta carotene, vitamin E, and omega-3’s, calcium, magnesium and potassium. They are also lower in Inflammatory Omega-6’s and lower in saturated fats.

The solution: Buy grass fed beef which may be more expensive, but, there’s a reason. You can find it at Whole Foods. It may be available elsewhere so ask your butcher whether they carry it.

Number three, microwave popcorn. Yeah… I know… who’d have thought. Again its not the food but the packaging that causes the problem. The lining of the bags contain Perfluorooctanoic acid which has been linked to liver, testicular and pancreatic cancer. Micro-waving caused the chemicals to vaporize and saturate the popcorn. These toxins stay in the body for years and researchers state the levels in many humans cause cancer in laboratory animals. Manufacturers promise to voluntarily phase out PFOA by 2015 but there will be a LOT of popcorn sold before then.

The solution: Pop your popcorn the old fashioned way in a pot. Not only is this more healthy for you, its SO much less expensive its amazing people have forgotten the joys of popping corn.

Number four, potatoes! Yes, I said potatoes, OUCH. The issue here is that root vegetables absorb herbicides, pesticides and fungicides that end up in the soil. Sadly the most popular vegetable is treated with fungicide during the growing season, herbicides to kill off the vines before harvesting and they are treated again to avoid sprouting.

The solution: Eat only organic potatoes. Yes they may cost a little more but only one to two dollars a pound. Sadly washing the normally available non-organic potatoes just isn’t enough as the chemicals have been absorbed into the flesh of the potato itself.

Number five, farmed Salmon. While at first pass this may seem like a good environmentally sound policy to farm Salmon. Sadly what they feed farmed Salmon is soy, poultry litter, and hydrolyzed chicken feathers. Due to this poor diet and the overcrowding of the Salmon pens, these fish when harvested are lower in vitamin D, and higher in contaminants such as PCB’s, pesticides such as dioxin and DDT. The worst offenders are northern European fisheries.

The solution is obvious, eat only wild caught Alaska salmon. If the package says fresh Atlantic, its probably farmed. BTW, Canned Salmon is almost exclusively from wild catch.

Number six, Milk produced with artificial hormones. The problem here is that dairy cattle treated with recombinant bovine growth hormone (rBGH) produce more milk. Its just that simple hence why its so widespread. Sadly (rBGH) also increases udder infections which causes puss in the milk. It may also cause higher levels of an insulin like growth factor in milk which may contribute to breast, prostate and colon cancer. There is not 100% proof that this happens but (rBGH) is banned in most industrialized countries.

The solution: Do your homework and check labels for rBGH free milk. “Organic milk” or milk with the phrase “Produced without artificial hormones” should not contain rBGH

The seventh problem food, conventional apples. Apples don’t develop resistance to pests like many other fruits. This is do to the fact that they are all in essence descended from an individual tree. This is how individual varieties maintain their distinctive flavors. As a result apples are the most dosed fruit available. While industry leaders state that these residues are not harmful, an increasing number of studies are starting to link a higher body burden of pesticides from all sources.

The solution: Buy organic apples and cut out the pests should they have any.

While nobody lives forever lets not hasten our departure from this plane by making bad food choices.

Yours in health, Dr. Camp

Chronic pain… what do I do ?

Sometimes my patients tell me things. Often I have to scratch my head as per who’s helping whom in these situations.

Recently the concept of communication came up and it was opined that I ought to go into my website and change a large percentage of my message as apparently many people don’t comprehend what I’m talking about so here goes an attempt to clear up some confusion.

I often talk about postural correction and have been told lately people don’t understand what that is or the why one would do it. It was suggested I talk about “Chronic Pain” instead. Yes that’s the crux of this biscuit all right.

An enormous percentage of my patients present with pain syndromes that have been constant for more than three to six months or… in many cases off and on for a few years duration. Often they have tried drugs or other types of typical intervention to no avail. In fact many times they come in as a treatment of last resort and I often think to myself they could have saved time, aggravation and pain had they started with me.

These conditions are often accompanied by the comment “I carry my stress in my shoulders,”  “I have migraines often times daily or weekly,” and “I rarely have more than a few months without low back pain.”

These comments are also accompanied by statements like “I slept funny and woke up with this pain with no apparent cause” and or “I bent over to pick up a feather and… .”

Could these chronic headaches or pains be caused by the nocturnal gymnastics while unconscious or the adverse mechanical stresses placed on the body by that feather. No not likely.  More often than not it’s the adverse mechanical stresses of poor posture affecting both the muscles and nervous system.

There is an MD of note by the name of Alf Brieg. He’s a Nobel Prize winner and neurosurgeon located in Sweden. The sort of lazy slouch you’d expect to virtually disappear in the medical literature.

His pet issue was posture and how it stretches nerves beyond their normal capacity to do what they need to do. He dare I say it…. Recommends postural correction and is credited with the following statements.

“Pressing on a nerve stretches the nerve; stretching the nerve reduces its ability to carry nerve impulses (conductivity); and if the nerve is not damaged, taking the stretch off the nerve will relieve the symptoms and restore normal nerve function.”

“What presses on these nerves is usually a spinal column that does not have proper structure and posture.”

“Eighty percent of the people studied with chronic pain syndromes, have a postural component that has to be corrected for them to fully recover.”

What this premise begs you to ask yourself is, do you have the proper spinal posture?  If you suffer chronic headaches, store your stress in your shoulders or have intermittent recurring low back pain of more than a years duration, chances are that the answer is no! This can be very unhealthy. Most people don’t even know how to go about implementing positive changes in their posture.

There are two reasons posture changes: The first is plastic deformation of tissue, the I got in an accident, fell down the stairs, or engage in sports with repetitive falls such as skiing, snowboarding and windsurfing. Yeah…  that sounds like many of us doesn’t it?

The second method of change is visco-elastic deformation of tissue. Viscosity is the relative thickness of a fluid. The human body is 70% water. Yes we are fluid creatures and flow into the positions we hold ourselves in for hours at a time.

Think of the using of a laptop for hours at a stretch or perhaps reading for hours like people who study or prepare reports do as the culprits of visco-elastic deformation of tissue. Sound like anyone you know?

Suffice it to say most of us fit one or all of the above and therefore the alteration of posture is rampant in modern society and needs to be addressed to truly relieve many of these chronic pain syndromes.

Here are some choices available to you, and in combination, they are much more effective than doing any one alone.

(1) Chiropractic care – Helps to improve posture, balance, and function of the nervous system and the entire body. Chiropractic is very successful in managing posture, particularly when traction is applied to correct the alteration, which sadly is absent in most Chiropractic approaches.  Yes it’s somewhat medieval but it really works.

(2) Preventative lifestyle – Helps to insure that you will lead a healthier and more productive life as you enter into your later years. This includes raising your computer monitors, taking care to avoid falls and other injuries and proper diet.

(3) Muscular strengthening and stretching – This will allow proper function and balance in the musculoskeletal system, as well as affecting spinal posture in a positive way.

I hope this explains a little better how CHRONIC PAIN SYNDROMES can be affected by posture.

As always, thanks for reading and feel free to contact me in my office at 415 922-2225 if you have any questions or concerns about your posture.

Yours in Health, Dr. Camp

Got symptoms ? Patch or fix its your decision.

People who go to Chiropractors, walk in the door with what’s known as a “Chief Complaint”. This is what most of the doc’s out there work on and they do a great job relieving symptoms. Truth be told if they didn’t the profession would cease to exist.

More often than not these same Doctors ignore the primary problem and treat the “Concomitant or Secondary condition” not the underlying cause of their patients issues. The problem that this presents is that the concomitant/secondary Conditions never totally resolve due to the fact that the Primary Condition was never addressed.

The most common primary condition I find in my practice, is head forward posture. This is where your head acts as a twelve pound weight, using your neck as a six inch lever arm, to transmit stress into the rest of your body such that you end up with a myriad of complaints that can manifest in ways that at first pass, you don’t understand.(Check out the postural correction and ergonomic pages on my website www.EdCampChiropractic.com for more information.)

Why are most of the Chiropractors out there not addressing these issues ? The fact is there is a corrective procedure for this, but it takes time to find this problem, then more time to explain it effectively to the patient and lastly its not something a lot of patients want to do but, I at least like to give them the choice. The path of least resistance for the Chiropractor who doesn’t spend the time… See ya next week at your usual visit. Oh, and you will feel better so it’s not as hard a sell as corrective care.

Patch care as opposed to corrective care,  think of it like a pot hole.  The city regularly  patches them up and in a few weeks or months the pothole reappears and is usually worse than it was before the patch.  If you like the “patch” type care, I’m happy to work with you but I don’t think I’m using my skills to their highest and or best use.

Corrective care however is a commitment of time and resources the goal of which is to better your body and some people have little enough of both.  I do respect my patients decisions one way or the other I just like open and honest communication about what is available to you, and what each patient wants and needs.

Again I want people to know there is an alternative to the see ya next week approach.

The types of repetitive conditions that seem to resolve with corrective care include:

• Posture improves making you look healthier
• Chronic (Repetitive episodes of.) neck pain
• Chronic upper Back Pain
• Chronic low Back pain
• Migraine headaches
• Carpal tunnel Syndrome
• Numbness/Tingling (Arms/Hands)
• Strength-Related Issues for instance, decreased grip strength
• Decreased range of motion
• Digestive Conditions
• Dizziness
• Fatigue
• Muscle Spasm
• Nerve Impingement Syndrome, which manifests as burning, numbness or electric shock sensations in the extremities

If you’ve had any of these symptoms more than a few times, perhaps its time to get evaluated by a Chiropractor who is worried about your long term well being as opposed to getting you in and out in the quickest possible manner.

As usual, thanks for reading and feel free to contact me at my office in San Francisco. The number should you have any questions, 415 922 2225.

And now….. Dr. Camp writes off into the sunset…..

Why your current Chiropractor might WANT you under the care of a structural specialist.

One of the most common things I treat is something called anterior head translation. This takes place when the ligaments of the posterior aspect of the neck become stretched. That happens to people through two mechanisms, the first “Plastic Deformation of Tissue” the second “Visco-Elastic Deformation of tissue.” Plastic deformation is the slip and fall, car accident, years of contact sports or sports where you fall a lot. Visco-Elastic is where you sit staring at a computer all day or reading for hours at a stretch with your head looking down or forward. These two actions can cause a structural shift that no amount of traditional Chiropractic can deal with.

Before we talk about “Deformation of Tissue” we should define what normal is. The spine is supposed to have four curves on the coronal plane. (Looking at the body from one side through the shoulder coming out the other side shoulder.) When we look at the body on the sagital plane (Front to back) there should be NO curves though its common for some people to have lateral deviation known as scoliosis to varying degrees. The picture to the right represents the “Normal” spine,

If your spine doesn’t have these dimensions, you have a primary structural problem that leads to, which you probably already guessed – secondary conditions or symptoms.

The most common structural shift which I deal with almost every day is Anterior Head Syndrome or A.H.S. for short.  The picture below represents A.H.S.  Normal alignment is when the skull is over the thorax or in simpler terms.. Your head needs to be balanced over your shoulders.

Simple physics demonstrate that for every half inch of anterior translation there is ten times the stress on the muscles that hold the head up in gravity. When you look at the picture above think of it this way, the head is a twelve pound weight, the neck is a six inch lever arm that is exerting stresses into the rest of the system. The more forward the translation, the more stress it is causing on the bones and muscles mandatory for support of the skull.

If your friends or family are telling you…. “Dude… your head is sticking out” or, “Cheese, you’re starting to look like the hunchback of Notre Dame”, you probably have Head Forward Posture.

Other things that may tip you off to the fact  that you are a candidate for Corrective Care are:

1)     I store my stress in my shoulders. (Muscle tension and or spasm in the traps or between the shoulder blades.

2)      The formation of what’s known as “Dowagers Hump” Though this can also be caused by a genetic disposition of fat right at the top of the shoulders.

3)      Numbness and tingling in a hand or hands.

4)      Alteration of grip strength.

5)      Degeneration of the spinal vertebra (Though this takes time to develop.)

6)      Degeneration of the vertebral disc’s.

If you have any of these symptoms, you may want to seek out a corrective course of Chiropractic care rather than the band-aid symptomatic relief approach. I’ve had an amazing amount of success with this process and it helps people who have had chronic pain more than you can possibly imagine.

If this makes sense to you feel free to call me at my office (415) 922 2225 for a complimentary consultation to see if this approach may be right for you.

As always thanks for reading, yours in Health,  Dr. Camp

Chronic Migraines Helped by Chiropractic

A study published in the February 2000 issue of the Journal of Manipulative and Physiological Therapeutics, (JMPT), showed that people suffering with migraine headaches were helped with chiropractic care. The study was conducted in Australia at the Chiropractic Research Center of Macquarie University. In this research 177 volunteers were studied who had migraine headaches for over 18 years on average. Many of the participants also suffered from neck pain. Read More

Auto Accidents: “Who you gonna call?”

Clearly not Ghost Busters.

I recently came across an article in a Personal Injury Blog that I found so offensive I had to respond to it. No… I’m not going to tell you which personal injury blog as that might give it some sort of credibility. It did however raise a few interesting points I’d like to discuss.

The article written by an attorney makes the statement, “Juries don’t like Chiropractors so you’d better get a Medical Doctor on board even if you choose to use a Chiropractor. Having a Medical Doctor referral to a Chiropractor will add some credibility to your case and, you should continue to see this Medical Doctor as the Primary so that he can monitor your progress.” What this action adds from my perspective is cost. Juries in my experience don’t like additional and or inflated costs when they look at these sorts of claims.

Most of this commentary was based on his estimation on the gross disparity in the DC versus MD education. Allow me to point out the flaw in this argument.

Chiropractors go through an immense amount of schooling to receive their DC (Doctor of Chiropractic) degree. We are considered “Portal of entry” or “Primary Care Physicians” in all fifty states in this our great land. The core curriculum of a Chiropractor is essentially the core curriculum in Medical Schools and the comparison is represented on the chart below.

Chiropractic Student Hours    Class Description   Medical Student Hours

520                                Anatomy                      508

420                               Physiology                     326

271                               Pathology                      335

300                               Chemistry                      325

114                             Bacteriology                     130

370                               Diagnosis                       374

217                              Radiography                    148

65                                Psychiatry                      144

65                                 OB/Gyn                        198

225                              Orthopedics                     156

2887                              Total Hours                   2756

1598                         Specialty Courses                1492

4485                        Entire Total Hours                4284

As you can see from the above, there is little disparity in the education of Chiropractors versus Medical Doctors. The split is in the areas of specialty. The Chiropractors chief focus is the ability to diagnose, treat and quantify musculoskeletal conditions. This would be say, the slip and fall, sprain strain, sports injury, overuse injury and…. The Cervical Acceleration Deceleration injury or what used to be known as whiplash.

I am not an attorney and never give legal advice.  However, I am going to use my seventeen years of experience treating the aforementioned conditions and my common sense to make a few points of interest to someone trying to decide which direction to go having suffered an injury of these types.

MD’s, DC’s, PT’s are all people. The range you might find runs from good to excellent in some, others range from mediocre to down right awful. You have to do your own due diligence to decide who in all of these fields, falls where on that continuum.

Chiropractors and Physical Therapists have a certain amount of overlap. PT’s are not at this time considered primary care physicians. Both of these areas of specialty are concerned with soft tissue trauma.

The MD’s come in a variety of flavors again based on specialty. The vast majority have two tools in their arsenal, drugs or surgery. In the absence of breakage or fracture, these are not the most appropriate tools for musculoskeletal complaints.

My Dad often said, “Common sense, so rare it’s often confused with genius” but I’m going to give my readers credit for seeing the point I am making without belaboring it.

As to the statement “Juries don’t like Chiropractors”, I have only appeared once before a Jury and it was I against a battery of insurance MD experts. We prevailed in that case. Juries are people…. they like who they like and if a person makes sense, is presentable and credible, I think the letters after their name are not as important as the work that they did and their capacity to present it clearly and articulately.

Do I think you need an attorney to represent you in these situations? You bet I do, but should that attorney tell you how or with whom to treat your condition, no more so than I should give you legal advise.

Ideally, you want an attorney and health care practitioner who are on the same page and have your best interests at heart. I take umbrage at any practitioner who attempts to undermine the confidence of their patient/client in another practitioner who is serving them well.

Best of luck to you if you have suffered an injury of any sort and please do what makes sense to you regardless of who tells you how to proceed.