Thanks everyone for your comments and the
sharing of your experiences.
Doctors were not able to help my husband's
spinal problems - except on the one occasion
when his pain was so intense that he went to
his GP in desperation. The GP gave him an
injection which lasted for about a day or so.
It did help him during that crisis period -
but the chiro helped more in the long-term.

My wife went to a chiropractor who I admit seemed to help her. However, his statements caused me to doubt him.

When I came there with Marie he said, "You should come to me, too." That is one mark of a quack - assuming that whatever they do will benefit you even though you have said nothing about any symptoms or complaints. He told my wife she had luxuriant beautiful hair. Although I think she is a beautiful woman her hair is sparse and stringy, her least attractive feature. He told us he learned about the Eskimos in chiropractic school. According to him they stay in their igloos all winter not even leaving to eliminate wastes. When spring comes they leave the igloo and have a grand bowel movement in which the stored contents of a winter's food intake are eliminated at one time. What a blast! He actually seemed to believe that.

I do not believe all chiropractors are that bad or that gullible, but he apparently believed what he told us. He was a member in good standing of the chiropractic association according to the documents on the wall.

Dear David,

I guess all this proves is that sweeping generalisations
don't allow for individual differences.
We can only speak from our own experiences.

I used to see a chiropractor for persistent headaches and the adjustments seemed to work. However, as with david f's wife's Chiro, he would occasionally make statements and claims that made me suspicious, and this was before I became a methodological sceptic.

Chiropractic seems to work for minor back pain and frequent headaches, but the problem with it is that many Chiropractors (probably most of them) make a lot of pseudoscientific claims (http://skepdic.com/chiro.html) and try to convince their clientele that they can never stop coming if they want to remain healthy. Mine certainly made sure I never forgot that.

Treatments need to be evidence-based to receive government funding, and the problem with Chiropractic is that it hasn’t yet been proven to work. Most of the “evidence” for it consists of testimonials; even homeopathy has them, and that’s the most easily and thoroughly debunked natural therapy there is. There is some published evidence *suggesting* that it works, but not to a greater extent than any other treatment.

Some of you may be familiar with Tim Minchin’s song, ‘Storm’ (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HhGuXCuDb1U), where he points out that natural (or alternative) remedies have either not been proven to work, or proven not to work, Chiropractic falls in the former category. Natural medicine that has been proven to work is call “medicine”, just as natural therapies that have been proven to work are just called “therapies”.

One of the biggest problems with the entire philosophy behind natural therapies and remedies is that they commit the naturalistic fallacy.

Please forgive me. My remarks about osteopathy really referred to homeopathy.

Aussieboy,
Chaplains in schools do not equate to teaching religion in schools. In fact they are not to talk about religion unless the child requests the subject. The chaplains I know are parents of boys and have good relationships with school principals [which includes agnostics] as problem children are referred to them. They spend time with the child assisting them to gain a better self image and how to deal with problems at home. Almost one boy in every three does not have a live at home father, so a caring father figure assists the child adapt to the school environment where most primary teachers are female.