Beware this business. My wife has had some issues, so she decided to give this chiropractor a try. I'll give a tl;dr before my longer story: even if you believe that chiropractic can heal all ailments under the sun, you'd be better off finding someone who doesn't charge you $45 only to try to hook you into a rigid $3,000 contract, but rather works with you as needed. And beware of excess ionizing radiation.
I'm skeptical of chiropractic, and it seemed like this particular one peddled a lot of "woo" (such as the idea that things like allergies and ADHD can be cured by adjusting the spine). But we were willing to give it a try, because her problems (back and neck problems) are some of the things that chiropractic can actually help. What a mistake that was.
The first appointment is a thorough exam, including x-rays, for $45. After that, they make the patient and spouse attend an information session that they say will be around 60 minutes. Typically they don't do adjustments before this, but due to scheduling, my wife got two for $55 each. I'm disappointed that we didn't shop around first; there's one place in town that offers an exam, consultation, and adjustment for $30, and another that offers free exams and consultations. But that's on us. The information session, however . . . we had no idea what we were in for.
The second part of the meeting was going over x-rays in an individualized way. The first part of the meeting was done in a group--supposedly to save time for us, but I think it was more because the first part wasn't so much a meeting or a consultation as it was a sales pitch. Seriously. One of the chiropractors gave a sales pitch with all the zeal of a sermon--for an hour. He talked about how he got to be where he is: not only did he walk away from pharmacy school when he realized how wrong the entire medical community was, but he also came to realize how wrong other chiropractors were; you see, he's the only one who really cares about patients. Already red flags were being raised, but we were a captive audience, and wouldn't see x-rays until the end. He went on and on, jumping from anecdote to anecdote to pseudoscience to anecdote.
I tried to keep track of the logical fallacies, but there were so, so many. I noticed anecdotal fallacy, loaded questions, fallacy of the single cause, appeal to emotion, false dichotomy, non sequitur, appeal to fear, argument from repetition, begging the question, and more! There was even an evangelistic aspect to it: we were supposed to write down numbers of people we were supposed to call to tell them about this amazing service! He also warned against thinking it over at home, because then we might decide against it (huge red flag)--just like the one woman who thought it over, decided against his service, and whaddaya know! She was back worse than ever nine months later. I could go on about what this pitch contained, but the review is already pretty long as it is.
The x-ray portion, when everyone finally split up . . . oh my. We spoke to the chiropractor himself for all of three minutes at most. Then his assistant came in to discuss payment. The chiropractor had mentioned that they would work hard to find something that could work for us without breaking the bank. Apparently, a $3,000 treatment plan is what he meant by that. He doesn't do individual adjustments; you have to pay for an entire course of treatment that's eight months long and rigid, starting with three adjustments per week for a month. In all, the meeting took 100 minutes. It was not only a waste of time, but it was a bigger waste of time than we had been told--by a considerable margin. If he does this kind of thing often (and he does), why would we get an inaccurate guess on how long it takes?
Suffice it to say, we didn't sign the papers. We won't be going back. I think she's going to try physical therapy, but it's a shame to have lost nearly $150--not to mention over an hour and a half of our time--on this service. I highly recommend staying away. If you're looking for a chiropractor, look elsewhere; there are plenty in town who won't try to hook you in to a ridiculous contract.
EDIT: One more thing. The chiropractor also pushed nutrition advice; the book he wanted us to peruse talked about how there are "toxins" in so many things--even tap water. It said something to the effect of "chlorine kills smaller organisms, so how can it be safe for humans to drink?" AND YET, this guy not only x-rays you when you come in, but requires frequent follow-up x-rays. That's a lot of exposure to ionizing radiation, which is much more harmful than most tap water. read more
