Understanding Chiropractic: Beyond the Social Media Hype

In this episode of 'Ask The Chiropractor,' Dr. Brant Hulsebus dispels common misconceptions about chiropractic care as portrayed on social media. He explains the importance of specific chiropractic techniques that are backed by accredited institutions and professional associations. Dr. Hulsebus also discusses the educational path and examination process for legitimate chiropractors, the role of x-rays in chiropractic assessments, and the dangers of unqualified practitioners. Tune in to understand the true essence of chiropractic care and avoid being misled by sensationalized online videos.

www.rockforddc.com

Transcript

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Hello, Dr. Brant Hulsebus here and welcome to another edition of Ask the Chiropractor. Ask The Chiropractor is my little podcast that I do when someone has a question about chiropractic or chiropractic care, I try to answer. I'm a chiropractor here in Rockford, Illinois. I'm a proud graduate of Palmer College of Chiropractic, and I'm happy to be the team chiropractor of the Rockford IceHogs. Let's dive into it. hello. So our clinic likes to host students. We have lots of students that come to us, either from the local high schools, from the junior college in town. Other colleges come to see us from the Northern Illinois University, and we've also had Palmer students come down and shadow us and hang out with us. Even had a Cleveland Chiropractic student here recently. And I find with the younger students, especially the high school students. We get asked the same question a lot. They watch these social media videos like on TikTok and YouTube and Instagram, Facebook reels, and they see these chiropractors that do some shock value stuff to make videos in order to give views. And they're always surprised when they come to the office that's not at all what chiropractors do. You see a lot of these videos, you'll see 'em do all kinds of crazy elaborate things. Maybe you'll see 'em. Have somebody in there, a patient who's mostly only wearing a swimsuit or less, and the chiropractor is doing these weird moves and twists and almost inappropriately touching the patient. And that's not at all what we do. We do nothing like that. Maybe you've seen them use different tools or instruments to do chiropractic adjustments. Now some chiropractors do use instrumentation to do adjustments, but we don't use hammers. We don't use straps and ropes. We use specific chiropractic instruments that are designed to go into a specific joint spot and do a light, light chiropractic adjustments. Okay, so when you see these people with straps, strapping people down, putting ropes around them and yanking on them and twisting them and trying to get these huge shock value out of things, I wanna let you know that's not at all what a chiropractor's doing, and most chiropractors frown on this behavior. Some of these new crazy techniques that have taken off because of social media. I want to tell you why I don't consider 'em to be real techniques. I don't consider them to be real techniques 'cause they're not taught in any chiropractic school. I also do not consider them to be real techniques 'cause they're not part of our national boards or our examinations. I also don't find 'em to be real techniques because even though they might be, have a certification that goes with somebody, these weird, crazy techniques, there's no, the National Association that support them. See I'm in the International Chiropractic Associate, the ICA. And we have different techniques that we learn within the ICA that we learn after graduation, but we have counsels and we have other things that approve these techniques. And when you have an endorsement like the ICA behind something you're doing, you're able to testify in a court of law that your technique is legit because the organization supports it. If you just have a made up organization that supports a made up certificate there's no backing or support on that. I sit on the ICA Sports and Fitness Science Council, and we are learning different techniques. We're coming up with new stuff, but our council endorses these things. Our council has put these things to the scrutiny and looked at him. We have one chiropractor in our counsel that's come up with upper cervical technique in order to look at you immediately after possible sub concussion injuries. We have another chiropractor that came up with low force high velocity adjusting. Now both of these two techniques are modified. Other techniques we already know that are certified and part of our education, it's just the application of 'em is being changed or the application of them is being used in a different scenario or setting. So the adjustments themselves that we're talking about in these councils already exist. It's now we're using them and applying the rationale behind using them in a matter that has not been done before. So we have not reinvented the wheel. We are just taking the wheel and using it for a different purpose at a different time in order to correct the subluxation. Now I talk about these techniques. The reason why our council says these are good techniques, these are safe techniques, is because they're specific. They're looking for exact vertebrae. Matter of fact, half of 'em, we usually approve a new technique. It has to do with how you detected the spot that you're gonna do the chiropractic care too. Meaning that, how do you know this vertebrae and not that vertebrae? Why are you doing it this one and not that one? Chiropractic is very specific about where we're trying to adjust you at. We have different ways we analyze you. The first wave, of course, is always an x-ray. We take an x-ray of your spine, and this lets us see your spine in a standing upright position. It. Now, this is not the end all be all to determine whether or not you need care, but this is a great way for us to get a head start at what we're looking at. So we see the x-ray, we see spots that are misaligned. Now if you go to a chiropractor that puts a strap around your neck and pulls and twists and yanks on you any shape or form, and you haven't had an x-ray, I think that could be very scary and very detrimental to your health. So if you insist on going to somebody that puts a strapper on your neck and yanks on you, there's no way I would do it unless a chiropractor's already cleared me by a, an examination with an x-ray to make sure that I'm safe. So typically you have a chiropractor, you've had your x-rays. The next thing we do is we will do an exam on you. Now, a lot of chiropractors do orthopedic tests because that's what the world wants us to do. However, we have our own chiropractic tests that actually help us detect where we should adjust you. We might have you turn to your head to the left or the right, and that'll shows us what's going on a little bit in the invertebrae of your neck. Now, with that test and your x-ray, it makes it a lot easier for us to detect the problem, the x-ray alone, the test alone, our boot tools, but together they really give us a clear picture. We might have to bend your knees. We might have to bend your knees all the way. We might ask you to lift one leg without bending the knee, lift the other leg without bending the knee while you're laying in the face down a prone position. That tells us a lot about what's going on with your pelvic rotation. Again, it's not the be all, end all of what's going on in your pelvic rotation, but that combined with an x-ray gives us a really clear picture of what we expect We're finding. The other problem with chiropractors that just go up and down the spine hitting every vertebrae with tools for shock value, is they're not also not looking at the, maybe the primary, we call the primary subluxation, the one that came first and the rest that compensate for it. If you miss the primary, the main one, and you get the other ones, you don't get the same results. So you gotta make sure you hit the primary one first and then try to find the other ones. A lot of times the other ones can self clear out. I have patients here at my clinic that we take their x-rays, we do our chiropractic exam, we do the first two adjustments. We bring them up and we maybe look at a different area of the spine and we bring 'em back down again and recheck everything. And I'll tell 'em, when we first started, your right leg was shorter. Now your right leg even, and I never even touched your hip joints, it was able to self-correct. Once we got rid of the other areas. See the spine's, a very dynamic joints all combined. I. And there's definitely some areas in the spine that most chiropractors always check. I know most chiropractors always check the top bone, your neck called your C one. And we learned different ways of taking care of that. Where I went to school, Palmer College of Chiropractic, we learn, we call a toggle recoil. We learn a whole bunch of other ones. So one of 'em done laying on your side or sitting in a chair with a thing against the wall. Or none of one's done. When you're laying on your back, a couple of 'em are done when you're sitting down and they're standing behind you and a couple of 'em are done when you're actually laying on your stomach and they have you turn your head. So we learned lots of different ways of doing this one. Now, as far as that loud popping noise that you hear that they try to do on those videos and the social media videos, that's not really that loud. You're not gonna hear from across the room most of the time. Those were obviously added on afterwards for dramatic effect. Now when you do have your neck adjusted, it can be really loud to you because you have a tube that drains your ear into your, to your throat. It's called the eustachian tube. When you get an adjustment up that area, those bones are right next to that tube, and you can have an echo effect. So to you, it's really loud to the chiropractor. It's not so loud or to other people in the room. That noise is not ligament snapping, your tendons popping, that is fluid releasing inside your joints. So when you crack your knuckles, you're not really snapping ligaments or tendons, you're just moving the joint around the relieve Some of the pressure that's build up in the fluid in your joints when your spine is subluxated, that's where chiropractors adjust it. It's usually hasn't been moving very long, and pressure's build up. And when you do the chiropractic adjustment, the noise is there because the pressure's been relieved, and that's the same sound. Think about ordering, opening up a can of soda pop. When you open it up, you hear a popping sound. That's fluid under pressure. Same concept, same idea, same rule of physics. So when you go on social media and you watch this stuff and you get an idea that you think you know what chiropractors are doing, I would assure you that you do not know what chiropractors are doing based on those videos. The social media and actual chiropractor can be very different and look nothing. The same thing again, a lot of the stuff I see on social media, people like to send them to me and have me look at 'em. I have no idea what I'm. Looking at no more than you do.'cause this is just somebody that's made some kind of crazy video trying to get lots of views and likes and build themselves up. But I call it chiropractic majority of the time. I don't, and like I said, simple rules, one, if she's half undressed, probably not chiropractic. Two, if it's not a specific vertebrae looking for a specific spot, they're just doing a gross manipulation to the whole area, either by their hands, by their knee, by a tool, by a strap, or anything else. In my opinion, it's not real chiropractic as chiropractic is specific, we're looking for a specific vertebrae. And a lot of these videos aren't done by anybody who is a chiropractor. Unfortunately, as part of the International Chiropractic Association, we know there's a lot of people who maybe take a weekend course and then they throw themselves chiropractors. I'm actually ashamed to say there's a group in United States, down in Texas doing this, the exact same thing. You go down and you do a weekend course, you go back to Japan, you call yourself a chiropractor doing it. I think it's not right. I think it's matter of public safety. Unfortunately these people are going back to Japan where we can't force the laws here in America. Hopefully in America, we can stop getting these people to teach this class and end this thing. I think it's embarrassing. I think it's embarrassing for our profession and embarrassing and it's, it matters that public safety for the people who unsuspectingly go to one of these people who take this weekend course and then they can do what we do. Me, I went. To University of Massachusetts at Northern Illinois University for undergrad. Then I went to chiropractic school afterwards. So you had the Bachelor's of Science and the Doctrine of Chiropractic. There's no way you can learn all that in one weekend. It's impossible and it's wrong. So they shouldn't be doing that. So if you're looking for a chiropractor or accredited chiropractor, you want to make sure that they're not doing these things. You wanna make sure they went to a chiropractic college. Now there's chiropractic colleges all over the world, however, the ones United States and Canada, Australia. And are the ones that most people respect and look at. And also you can go to chiropractic.org. That's the International Chiropractic Association. So if you're watching this in another country and you're curious what they're doing here, is that what you're talking about in America? You can look up the rules and things there chiropractic.org and learn more about it. So if I'm gonna go to a chiropractor somewhere after watching some TikTok videos and they claim to do the same thing in the TikTok videos, I'm probably not gonna stay. I would expect a chiropractor I go to take my x-rays and do a chiropractic exam on me. They can do an orthopedic test too. It's all funny games, but they need to do a chiropractic exam on me and maybe be able to tell me whether they see the primary subluxation and some of the compensation subluxations and how they plan to take care of me. And I'd also want to care plan before I start. I think I would give a schedule and when I be reexamination and to see how my, I'm progressing and I have expect to have some type of tests or screen done every time I come in to know whether or not I actually need to be adjusted that day. That's what real chiropractic looks like. Remember if you have a question about chiropractic or chiropractic care, feel free to leave a common admission below. The only person qualified to answer a question about chiropractic care is a chiropractor. This happened again today or this week. I had a patient come in who went to a surgeon, and the surgeon said, no chiropractic care for at least eight weeks. They had knee surgery. We don't grab their knee. They were perfectly fine to get adjusted. This is a patient with horrible migraine headaches. Luckily, the patient ignored them and listened to my podcast and they came in two weeks. Now I was able to give them a surgical adjustment and get rid of their headaches. There's no way it affect knee surgery, so don't ever take anyone's word than a chiropractor about whether or not you can get chiropractic care. Just don't take anyone's word other than a dentist, which happened to your teeth. I would never ask my podiatrist about my tooth. I'd only ask a dentist. They're the only ones qualified to answer those kind of questions. Thanks for tuning in. Leave a question or comment below if you have one, and maybe next week you'll be the topic of the week. Thank you.