Is there any legitimacy to accupuncture?

[Aroura]

Chairopraty varies.  Since they are actually moving things around, it can relieve pinched nerves and things like that, but some of it is also just placebo.

There is now a lot of evidence showing that more than half of all patients suffer mild to moderate adverse effects after seeing a chiropractor. These are mostly local and referred pains that usually last for two to three days. Chiropractors often claim that these are necessary steps on the road to getting better. On a good day, we might even believe them.

But unfortunately there is more, much more. Several hundred cases have been documented in which patients were seriously and often permanently damaged after chiropractic manipulations. The latest to hit the headlines was that of a 32-year-old woman from Jakarta who died after being treated by an American chiropractor. What usually happens in these tragic instances is that, upon manipulation of the upper spine, an artery supplying the brain is over-stretched and simply breaks up, leading to a stroke which can prove fatal.

Chiropractors do not like to hear any of this, and either claim that these are extremely rare events, or deny any connection with their manipulations. Regrettably, the hard evidence is not as solid as one would wish. In conventional medicine we have effective systems to monitor adverse effects of all interventions — not so in alternative medicine. Therefore, the true frequency of such tragedies is anyone’s guess. About 30 deaths after chiropractic have been documented in medical literature, but they are probably just the tip of a much bigger iceberg. We have shown, for instance, that in the UK the under-reporting of such instances is very close to 100 per cent.

All clinicians, alternative or conventional, must obtain informed consent from patients before starting a therapy. This ethical imperative means chiropractors must tell their patients firstly about the very limited evidence that spinal manipulations are effective; secondly, about the possibility of causing serious harm; and thirdly about other treatments which might be better. But who would give their consent, knowing all this? The way many chiropractors solve this dilemma is simple: they ignore the ethical imperative by treating patients without informed consent. There is evidence to suggest that ‘only 23 per cent [of UK chiropractors] report always discussing serious risk’.

The evidence shows that chiropractors do more harm than good
In several hundred cases patients have been seriously and often permanently damaged

Yikes!

Good to know, and also not really surprising I guess. That's terrible though! I used to see one in my 20's, and it's a violent process.  And it never really helped me either. I was simply desperate.  I stopped going after my chiropractor shamed me for taking anxiety medication for my debilitating anxiety attacks.