I'm a self-confessed skeptic and I take a real evidence-based approach to everything. One of the things I love about H.L Mencken is that he doesn't sound like he was one to be fooled into believing anything lightly. Take this short piece about chiropractors from the Baltimore Sun in December 1924. I've upset people over on Facebook before by posting this, and it is true that chiropractors have a place in managing certain conditions of the spine, however when they start saying they can cure you of cancer or the flu by aligning your spine then I have a massive problem with them. Here is Mencken's take on them.
“This preposterous quackery flourishes lushly in the back reaches of the Republic, and begins to conquer the less civilized folk of the big cities. As the oldtime family doctor dies out in the country towns, with no competent successor willing to take over his dismal business, he is followed by some hearty blacksmith or ice-wagon driver, turned into a chiropractor in six months, often by correspondence. In Los Angeles the Damned there are probably more chiropractors than actual physicians, and they are far more generally esteemed. Proceeding from the Ambassador Hotel to the heart of the town, along Wilshire boulevard, one passes scores of their gaudy signs; there are even many chiropractic "hospitals." The morons who pour in from the prairies and deserts, most of them ailing, patronize these "hospitals" copiously, and give to the chiropractic pathology the same high respect that they accord to the theology of the town sorcerers. That pathology is grounded upon the doctrine that all human ills are caused by the pressure of misplaced vertebra upon the nerves which come out of the spinal cord—in other words, that every disease is the result of a pinch. This, plainly enough, is buncombe. The chiropractic therapeutics rest upon the doctrine that the way to get rid of such pinches is to climb upon a table and submit to a heroic pummeling by a retired piano-mover. This, obviously, is buncombe doubly damned."
Definitely not one to mince his words.
I Fucking Love H.L Mencken
Well here's my story: about a year ago I did something to my back. I live in the Texas outback so it could have been anything. For a week or two I suffered and then decided I should at least know what I hurt. I went to online videos from chiropractors, just to look at one of those skeleton things and some muscles. and there it was an exact explanation of what was causing my pain. It was my piraformis, whatever that is, I did the little simple stretchy moves and voila, pain (which was mind-numbingly excruciating) gone in a few days. So I still have never been to a chiropractor and have no idea what they can or can't do, but I'm grateful to Dr. Youtube! This is not medical advice, but they'd probably given me oxy for pain, I'd have gotten hooked and would be living in van by the river...