Dude, how do you double blind a chiropractic treatment? It's very very difficult. What is the placebo for this trial? Again, this is a tricky ariiea and most current options are rrelatively poor. I research placebo and the only areas where we have good enough processes to disentangle placebo and real treatment is with pills freaks and injections. Anything else is pretty hit or miss. I'm not saying that chiropracty works, just that we have no good way of seperating the expectation effects from the 'real' effects.

A typical patient has no idea about the precise nature of the manipulations that are to be used - location, intensity, type of manipulation and so on. For chiropractic to be valid they need to be able to prescribe a specific treatment to a specific condition for a patient. If the prescription is valid then if the patient undergoes a different manipulation it shouldn't have the same effect. If it does then the idea that it was that specific manipulation is potentially invalidated.

See: http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/10519559

You could actually even double blind it by having one chiropractor diagnose and prescribe treatment, and then have that treatment randomised so it was either done as prescribed or substituted for a sham treatment. That treatment would then be administered by a second chiropractor who was unaware of the diagnosis and not allowed to speak to the patient about it or modify the treatment.

Even if that was too complex or otherwise flawed a properly constructed single blinded RCT trial is still valid evidence, even if it's not the best of the best.

I would assume he's using them to get a massage, rather than to do something ridiculous, like having them treat a medical condition.

Have you ever used a Chiropractor?

He wasn't saying it didn't work at all--he's saying it didn't work better than an actor make-believing he's a chiropractor.

Here's the deal with Chiropractors. They heal symptoms. It seems to work great. You walk out feeling better without having to put in significant effort. They know your symptoms will keep returning and you'll end up paying them every week or two forever.

But you should figure out what causes the symptom, and fix that. It may take effort. Most times it takes strength training. But it's better for you then going to some guy to push your bones around once a week.

Have you ever used leeches?

No, but I have read the results from a number of reasonable sized peer reviewed trials on it which show that whatever my personal experience might be, the most likely reason for any benefit I might experience (for any condition other than lower back pain for which there is a certain amount of evidence that chiropractic is effective) is the placebo effect.

I also have scoliosis. Chiropractic adjustments correct my alignment and balance; I walk taller, can stand for longer, and feel less pain after an adjustment.

To jump on a bandwagon, I also have scoliosis - 'marked' in my case (can't remember my Cobb Angle.)

As an aside, I'd be interested to know if anyone has ever done research on lifelong computer use (started when I was 6) and the rate of scoliosis.

In my case (obviously YMMV), chiropractic adjustments made me feel better immediately afterwards but gave me no long term improvements. The following other things have helped me incredibly, though, to the extent that I can't remember the last time I had scoliosis-related pain (which was a daily occurrence 5 years ago.)

- Swimming 2-3 times a week, mix of strokes.

- Finding a good sports physio, who really understands anatomy. This took a few false starts and lots of asking around, but eventually I found one who gave me extremely good advice on where to stretch, and where to strengthen, to start resolving the muscular imbalances that exacerbate scoliosis.

- Feldenkrais Method. I know this one will set the "skeptics" off instantly. However, Feldenkrais has helped me learn to pay more attention to my own nervous system and my own muscles. When I first got properly diagnosed (10 years ago, age 18) I used to regularly forget which side my curve was on and where it went. I certainly couldn't feel if I was moving "into" or "out of" my pattern, or notice when a part of me was tensing up or pulling me out of alignment.

Working with Feldenkrais was basically about teaching my brain (through repetition, over and over) all the subtle movements that my body was capable of, so I'm better at knowing where my body is at any given point, and at engaging all my core muscles when I move around.

There was a big "aha" moment when we realised that, in my case, my right side iliopsoas muscle can build up an enormous amount of tension (especially when I'm stressed or sitting a lot - hello programming!), and this exacerbates all my symptoms. Learning to release that (I use 'trigger point' methods so I can do it myself) made a massive difference.

- The noteworthy differences between the physio, Feldenkrais, and the chiro, was that the first two were teaching me skills to manage my body myself. I haven't felt the need to go back to see either of them in over a year, they've both given me pages and pages of handwritten notes and exercises, and encouraged me to notice what works and what doesn't and decide for myself what I should be doing.

Your Mileage Will Almost Certainly Vary (maybe completely.) Also, obviously (this scares me quite a bit), things are going to get harder as we get older (I'm only 28 now.) But hopefully some of it may be of use to someone else here with scoliosis, if they want to try and reduce their overall pain and discomfort.

:)

But I bet you need another adjustment sooner than later. That's the deal with Chiropractors. Make you feel good enough they know you'll come back and pay them again.