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Thank you for visiting our website on chiropractic stroke awareness. As you will note in the Our Stories section, at 39 years old, I suffered a stroke from a vertebral dissection just after having a chiropractic upper neck manipulation. I was a patient of chiropractic care for approximately 20 years, believing it was good for health maintenance and could relieve minor aches and pains. I found the relief from adjustments to be temporary, but still believed it was an overall good thing to do for my body (I viewed it as similar to massage therapy, except my insurance would reimburse for it...and the very fact that my insurance company paid for it gave me a false sense of safety. I believed the chiropractic community and/or my government would inform me of any risks.) At no point was I ever told about ANY potential health risks from chiropractic.
Needless to say, when I suffered my stroke and found out that this is a known risk of upper cervical manipulation (for many years now), both within the chiropractic and neurological communities, I was dumbfounded. Because I never knew of this dangerous health risk...because I believed chiropractic to be completely safe...because I walked through that chiropractor's door and trusted him completely to provide safe treatment...my life is forever changed (a while back, I would have written 'ruined', but I am desperately trying to become more positive about what has happened to me...the cognitive and emotional trauma have been extremely difficult to endure).
One of the primary purposes of this website is to provide information and awareness on chiropractic induced strokes. It is my hope that I will spare someone else from my experience. It is my hope that, through raising awareness, chiropractic will exclude upper neck manipulations as a treatment, and, at the very least, appropriately inform patients of the risk.
The truth is we do not know how often this occurs, but, for those of us who have suffered strokes (and I have met many, as well as the families of those who did not survive), we believe it should not happen at all.
We hope that you will join us in our mission. Since there is no standardized, mandatory chiropractic informed consent, this may have happened to you, or to your mother, sister, husband, wife, etc. If it has, we are here to help in any way we can. If it has not, help us to help others. Thank you again for visiting our website.
