Question
Dear Dr.Botnick,

If as you said, you were mislead by a chiropractor into undergoing worthless treatment for asthma, why did you decide to go on and become a chiroprator yourself?

You seem to be rather well educated. It must have been quite apparent to you in your investigation of chiropactic as a career that this profession takes a different approach to health and healing than conventional medicine.

Chiropractic, along with its alternative perspectives must have seemed like a good idea to you at some point. What happened?

Answer
>If as you said, you were mislead by a chiropractor into undergoing worthless treatment for asthma, why did you decide to go on and become a chiroprator yourself?

First, since you are interested in my experiences I recommend that you read a summary I wrote that is posted at http://www.chirobase.org/03Edu/botnick.html  The article goes into more detail on this.

At that time I didn't fully realize that the treatment was worthless because of the way that the chiropractor reframed my observations to support her rational.  For example, when the temporary muscle relaxation effect from her manipulations wore off and my neck and shoulder muscles became painful again, she said that I just required more treatment.  Another confusing observation for me was here statment that she was "turning on the power" aka improving my nervous system.  Sometimes I would feel tingling in my wrists immediately following a neck adjustment.  Because of what she said I assumed that this indicated that I was healthier, it was very convincing.  What was actually going on was that my spinal cord was being jarred by the manipulation, which defintely isn't healthy.

>You seem to be rather well educated. It must have been quite apparent to you in your investigation of chiropactic as a career that this profession takes a different approach to health and healing than conventional medicine.

I had a BA in Biology and my knowledge of medicine was very limited.  Yes I realized that the approach was different however I didn't realize that the admissions materials being put out by colleges contained statements that were false and/or unsupported by research.  Accreditation gives it an undeserved appearance of legimacy.

>Chiropractic, along with its alternative perspectives must have seemed like a good idea to you at some point. What happened?  

Reality contradicted the teachings of the program.  I had to reconcile negative patient responses with the inaccurate teachings of the college.  This caused me to study medicine and talk to medical professionals and to realize that chiropractic colleges aren't honest with their students.  This article goes into more detail on this subject http://www.chirobase.org/03Edu/webclaims.html .

ajb