Are there any side effects to Chiropractic care?
As with any treatment, there are possible side effects to Chiropractic care. Mild or moderate adverse effects (known as benign adverse events) are relatively common after chiropractic care, affecting 30-50% of patients. You can usually expect to experience similar side effects to having seen a physiotherapist or massage therapist. Examples of common side effects are:
Pain
Stiffness
Headache
Dizziness
Tiredness
Feeling lightheaded
The types of side effects vary from patient to patient - for example I find that people often tend to feel sleepy after their first ever neck treatment (most patients like this side affect as they can finally get a good nights sleep!). I also tend to find that those with nerve pain are more likely to feel sore after a treatment than those with joint pain.
Sometimes pain after treatment can be a good sign. For example someone with sciatica might find that as the leg pain gets better, the back pain gets worse, this is a good sign usually tells us that the nerve is becoming less irritated.
There are rare reported cases of serious spinal or neurological problems, for example strokes, following chiropractic care. Because of their rarity, it is unclear what the level of risk is, but it has been estimated at between 1 in tens of thousands and 1 in millions of treatments. The risk of having a stroke following visiting a Chiropractor appears to be the same as when seeing a medical practitioner. This suggests the treatment may not be related to the stroke, but that the early symptoms of stroke (e.g. neck pain), led the patient to visit the practitioner.
Since serious adverse events may result from pre-existing underlying conditions, screening for potential risk factors, signs or symptoms is a routine element of a visit to a chiropractor. This is why I often check things that you may think seem unrelated to your pain such as blood pressure, coordination, the nerves that control your eyes, and more.
If there is anything you are worried about, I am happy to answer your questions. If there is an aspect of treatment that you are uncomfortable with, I can usually use alternative methods or point you in the direction of a clinician more suited to you. While it is hard to predict who will suffer from which side affects I will do my best to tell you what you can expect and how to best cope with these. And don’t forget, many people don’t feel any side effects at all!