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  • #61
    Originally posted by mehera View Post
    Unfortunately until the personal attacks stop our access to professionals through this site will be limited.
    Dr. McIntire is a professional and he has never been personally attacked.

    Now why do you think that might be?
    Sharon, mother of identical twin girls with scoliosis

    No island of sanity.

    Question: What do you call alternative medicine that works?
    Answer: Medicine


    "We are all African."

    Comment


    • #62
      Pooka1,

      I was actually thanking you if you missed that in my post. I really do appreciate those on here who are able to think critically and ask the tough questions that those more desperate for a solution might overlook. But I really don't see why some of the criticism has to get so personal. As far as I can tell, all it does is make people run away. Which is unfortunate because some of us would like to hear what they have to say, even if we don't agree with it. There are lots of things on this forum that I don't agree with, but I don't feel the need to personally attack the people who post them.

      As for BigBlueFrog, well it seemed liked some support was in order, after all that is part of the purpose of this forum, no? They had a somewhat positive exam and were looking to share that. How would it have helped to say that the exam was really inconclusive and they won't know anything for sure for a long time? I wasn't looking for a logic award.
      1993, Age 13, 53* Right T Curve w/ Left L compensatory
      2010, Age 30, 63* or 68* (depending on the doc) Right T Curve w/ Left L compensatory

      http://livingtwisted.wordpress.com/

      Comment


      • #63
        Originally posted by dovoranydoc View Post
        Interesting post coming from someone who has had VBS done at the same hospital in PA and most likely the same orthopedic surgeon whom I mentioned we have been meeting with.
        I am well aware that a CLEAR practitioner (Dr. Stitzel, I believe) has met on at least one occasion with my son's doctor. In fact, I facilitated that meeting. If you like, I can produce the e-mail string leading up to the meeting.

        I can assure you (and I'll get clarification in writing if you like) that this meeting in NO WAY was or is an endorsement of CLEAR. Rather, it was an attempt to see if there was any merit to CLEAR's claims, of which my son's doctor was very skeptical, but was keeping an open mind. To my knowledge, he has not been swayed.

        I will be in Philly tomorrow and will try to learn more, but to my knowledge there was one meeting which I'm told did not reveal much about CLEAR but was more of an 'introduction'.

        I must also say that as someone who has a busy practice, you find a lot of time to come on here and dispute the things that some of us have to say. You are of course entitled to do that - but I honestly cannot in a million years imagine my son's doctor having the time, or the inclination, to do that.

        It also raises some questions, fairly or unfairly, about those who need to 'advertise' or go out and solicit patients on these sites. Most reputable orthos have more patients than they can handle, often by referral from other patients.

        I'm just saying....
        Last edited by mariaf; 12-21-2010, 03:23 PM.
        mariaf305@yahoo.com
        Mom to David, age 17, braced June 2000 to March 2004
        Vertebral Body Stapling 3/10/04 for 40 degree curve (currently mid 20's)

        https://www.facebook.com/groups/ScoliosisTethering/

        http://pediatricspinefoundation.org/

        Comment


        • #64
          Originally posted by dovoranydoc View Post
          because CLEAR performed in my office certainly does not expose kids to excessive radiation and in most cases is very effective
          Where is the DOCUMENTED proof that it is effective?

          I'm sorry, but we need more than your word.
          mariaf305@yahoo.com
          Mom to David, age 17, braced June 2000 to March 2004
          Vertebral Body Stapling 3/10/04 for 40 degree curve (currently mid 20's)

          https://www.facebook.com/groups/ScoliosisTethering/

          http://pediatricspinefoundation.org/

          Comment


          • #65
            Originally posted by hdugger
            I'm actually rather surprised that regular orthopedic surgeons *can't* find the time to visit a forum like this occasionally. While I didn't appreciate the one surgeon who posted ads but answered no questions, I would definitely appreciate a surgeon who could put aside a little time to answer a few questions, as is happening in this discussion.
            I totally appreciate any/all who take the time to post on forums whether it be to relay their own experiences or whether it be professionals answering questions. I read and think about everyone's comments.
            Son 14 y/o diagnosed January 20th. 2011 with 110* Curve
            Halo Traction & 1st. surgery on March 22nd. 2011
            Spinal Fusion on April 19th. 2011

            Dr. Krajbich @ Shriners Childrens Hospital, Portland Oregon



            http://tinyurl.com/Elias-Before
            http://tinyurl.com/Elias-After

            Comment


            • #66
              Originally posted by dovoranydoc View Post
              having personally met with Dr Ken Ward and Dr Ogilvie(past president of the SRS and well respected othopedic surgeon) out in Salt Lake state that our program is the most innovative rehabilitation program he has come across and would recommend it over bracing and before surgery,
              Wow. Almost missed this statement. Pretty powerful one coming from Ogilvie who also stated that the future of scoliosis treatment (in his opinion) should shift its focus to the non surgical (with rare exception). Thanks for your perserverence in posting Dr. D. Some of us really are interested in what you have to say.

              As for Dr. Smith. I'd like to think she is innocent until proven guilty, and I'm not sure either can be proven beyond a shadow of doubt. Her daughter has a medical condition that everyone missed - one that she possibly thought others might have some experience with relative to her posture question. Maybe she thought identifying herself up front would have just opened the door to another onslaught of anti-clear rhetoric. Then there was a post to an adolescent, encouraging her to investigate CLEAR. I kind of think that was innocent as she didn't ask the poster to contact her. I don't know. And either does anyone else - not really, and truly. But a lot of assumptions have been made. I understand that most want to protect people from charlatans. But being new and different shouldn't automatically make someone new, and different, a target, so to speak.

              Anyway - your postings have been very informative. Thanks!

              Comment


              • #67
                Originally posted by mariaf View Post
                .

                I can assure you (and I'll get clarification in writing if you like) that this meeting in NO WAY was or is an endorsement of CLEAR. Rather, it was an attempt to see if there was any merit to CLEAR's claims, of which my son's doctor was very skeptical, but was keeping an open mind. To my knowledge, he has not been swayed.

                I must also say that as someone who has a busy practice, you find a lot of time to come on here and dispute the things that some of us have to say. You are of course entitled to do that - but I honestly cannot in a million years imagine my son's doctor having the time, or the inclination, to do that.

                It also raises some questions, fairly or unfairly, about those who need to 'advertise' or go out and solicit patients on these sites. Most reputable orthos have more patients than they can handle, often by referral from other patients.

                I'm just saying....
                Dr Betz and his staff have met with Dr Stitzel on an introductory meeting, Dr Stitzel was asked by Betz to come back and do a powerpoint presentation to the surgical staff including Betz explaining our approach.

                Dr Betz has not endorsed CLEAR but has not ruled it out as an effective treatment option for scoliosis.

                As far as posting on here, it is very difficult, time consuming and emotionally draining and I do not enjoy it. orthopedic specialists are on the golf course or in surgery not on public forums , agreed. All doctors including surgeons have down time, what they choose to do with it is their business

                I certainly don't think anything I have said on this forum is self promotion I am only answering direct questions posed by your public. As far as my time spent here it will be short lived I assure you and certainly not have any affect on how busy my practice is.

                Comment


                • #68
                  i just noticed that dr dorovany is a chiro...that explains a lot...i had somehow missed that...the name being "doc" and all...

                  i wonder if that is why his posts sound a little bit defensive...and not very nice...

                  i don't see anything wrong with anything anyone on forum has said in this thread...
                  without hard proof, this "treatment" cannot prove it changes anything for any child for anything more than 5 minutes...

                  but that is just my opinion on it...if that is allowed, according to the chiropractor's creed

                  jess
                  Last edited by jrnyc; 12-21-2010, 07:06 PM.

                  Comment


                  • #69
                    Originally posted by dovoranydoc View Post
                    As far as posting on here, it is very difficult, time consuming and emotionally draining and I do not enjoy it.
                    I understand why you feel that way. If CLEAR had come out of a PT and not a chiro background, you would have less ground to make up let's say just to get to the starting gate. CHiro has a certain negative reputation for a reason.... it didn't come out of the blue as you know.

                    The thing I have come to learn is CLEAR appears to be quite divorced from traditional chiro and that is really the thing you have to lead with if you want to be taken seriously. Traditional chiro is not evidence-based and you are carrying that burden until you pony up objective findings of long-term evidence of efficacy.

                    Comments about impressing Ogilvie, Betz, etc. are premature until you have long-term evidence of efficacy. It is simply not believable that any surgeon would recommend CLEAR absent evidence. I can see where they would say bracing and PT is still unproven and so it doesn't matter if a kid does bracing or PT or CLEAR. But I can't see a surgeon ever going beyond that at this point. These guys are firmly entrenched in the science and medicine and evidence camp.

                    I certainly don't think anything I have said on this forum is self promotion I am only answering direct questions posed by your public.
                    Totally agree. That's what separates you from Smith.

                    As far as my time spent here it will be short lived I assure you and certainly not have any affect on how busy my practice is.
                    Totally agree. I think you can fill your clinic on the fear of surgery alone. What do you think? That is not meant as an insult to CLEAR but is meant as a sad commentary on the state of affairs among the bunnies. Take the thread by Still Hoping. That is beyond sad in my opinion. She sounds tortured. Life is too short for that in my opinion.
                    Sharon, mother of identical twin girls with scoliosis

                    No island of sanity.

                    Question: What do you call alternative medicine that works?
                    Answer: Medicine


                    "We are all African."

                    Comment


                    • #70
                      Originally posted by dovoranydoc View Post
                      I agree with this statement 100% and have been trying to move away from surgery bashing. I don't think CLEAR can move forward by trying to criticize other treatment methods but rather by proving how our method can play a role within the scoliosis treatment arena. I must say I am very discouraged with bracing results and will most likely continue to encourage parents to move away from bracing it has had enough time treating kids to give us a very good measure of its performance where as CLEAR is just too new to get a substantial enough database together currently to measure long term outcomes which as we all know are where the true test of legitimacy lies with scoliosis care.
                      I really do appreciate you saying this, MrD. It's refreshing to have a CLEAR practitioner who acknowledges the appalling surgery-bashing that has gone on, and I hope to see you move forward away from all that. I'm sure you will understand that people will be mistrustful based on what has gone on before, and you will be asked hard questions, but I hope you will stick around and answer them so we can all learn more.

                      Comment


                      • #71
                        Originally posted by tonibunny View Post
                        I really do appreciate you saying this, MrD. It's refreshing to have a CLEAR practitioner who acknowledges the appalling surgery-bashing that has gone on, and I hope to see you move forward away from all that. I'm sure you will understand that people will be mistrustful based on what has gone on before, and you will be asked hard questions, but I hope you will stick around and answer them so we can all learn more.
                        I agree.

                        The tactic of attacking someone else's (evidence-based) approach is the hallmark of not having evidence for one's own position. It is the only mode of discourse of evolution deniers for example because evolution is a fact and the earth is in fact ~4.55 billion years old. Evolution deniers can't present evdence for their position because they don't have it because they can't because their position has been shown to be wrong.

                        CLEAR has to pony up evidence of efficacy. No amount of misguided and naively ignorant attacks on surgery (for example citing that old European study on disability rates of surgical patient) is ever going to substitute for positive evidence for CLEAR. Never. It will only serve to show how chiros are not trained in surgery or research.
                        Last edited by Pooka1; 12-22-2010, 06:04 AM.
                        Sharon, mother of identical twin girls with scoliosis

                        No island of sanity.

                        Question: What do you call alternative medicine that works?
                        Answer: Medicine


                        "We are all African."

                        Comment


                        • #72
                          Originally posted by Pooka1 View Post
                          Comments about impressing Ogilvie, Betz, etc. are premature until you have long-term evidence of efficacy. It is simply not believable that any surgeon would recommend CLEAR absent evidence. I can see where they would say bracing and PT is still unproven and so it doesn't matter if a kid does bracing or PT or CLEAR. But I can't see a surgeon ever going beyond that at this point. These guys are firmly entrenched in the science and medicine and evidence camp.



                          .
                          That's a great point and I don't think they were necessarily impressed by CLEAR's program as much as they were that we were chiropractors and actually could hold a meaningful intelligent conversation regarding scoliosis treatment, that we did do our homework, and are very much using a principled and logical approach.

                          It would be very hard to impress these two and their take for the most part is that when it gets to 50 call me end of story. If you can stop it great, if you can't, we can. Until they stop seeing patients in front of them with big curves it's hard to argue that position. bracing has been trying for ages and has failed. Ogilvies study basically says if the genetics are strong enough nothing will work and until you can show me a high score and it not progressing to surgical levels then and only then will the orthopedics listen.

                          Comment


                          • #73
                            Originally posted by Pooka1 View Post
                            The thing I have come to learn is CLEAR appears to be quite divorced from traditional chiro and that is really the thing you have to lead with if you want to be taken seriously. Traditional chiro is not evidence-based and you are carrying that burden until you pony up objective findings of long-term evidence of efficacy.

                            .
                            agreed.

                            I have written articles exposing the non scientific subluxation BS that so many chiros talk about and teach patients which is nonsense. Until my profession embraces it's flawed dogma it will forever unfortunately create a negative first impression.

                            CLEAR clinicians are taught proper spinal biomechanical theory and application, as well as advanced education in physics, engineering, and neuroscience with special interest in sensory integration mechanisms, the foundation for understanding the scoliosis patient.

                            Comment


                            • #74
                              Originally posted by dovoranydoc View Post
                              Until they stop seeing patients in front of them with big curves it's hard to argue that position. bracing has been trying for ages and has failed. Ogilvies study basically says if the genetics are strong enough nothing will work and until you can show me a high score and it not progressing to surgical levels then and only then will the orthopedics listen.
                              May I point anyone with an open mind to the following thread? It includes a link to a video of the lecture presented at the latest 2010 POSNA meeting by John A. Herring, MD Chief of Staff of Texas Scottish Rite Hospital for Children:

                              http://www.scoliosis.org/forum/showt...sis-(The-Proof)

                              It is very, very easy for any person, especially those assuming an authority figure role in the treatment of scoliosis, to convince a kid that bracing is terrible and something akin to torture and should be avoided at all costs. I would suggest that those providers who have poor results with bracing are conveying their own personal dislike of that treatment to the child. Scoliosis patients and their families need support for bracing to help them through the treatment, not nonsense. Bracing has helped thousands upon thousands of children stop the progression of their scoliosis and it would be nice if people stopped knocking it.

                              I suspect my own daughter would have a high scoliscore if tested and she managed to stop the progression of a 35 degree, Risser 0, pre-menarchal, progressive curve utilizing night-time bracing and daily ballet class. Perhaps success is as easy as including torso rotation or sideshift exercises to the brace wearing routine to enable a much greater bracing success, but nobody seems very interested in the much less costly therapies.

                              I also question the effectiveness of Dr. Ogilvie's Scoliscore test when it only shows the odds of not progressing to a surgical level i.e. 40 or 45 degrees. That will cause a lot of kids to progress from small, almost unnoticeable curves to a large deformity which he will consider to be a success just because they weren't operated on initially. That's not what I'd call a success in my book. When he's able to refine the Scoliscore test to determine who won't progress at all, then I'd re-evaluate my position on his test.

                              Comment


                              • #75
                                my curves were very small as a teen...they didn't start to bother me til i was diagnosed at age 31...i went to see a doctor then due to pain...
                                even then, i did really well...work, grad school, then worked 2 jobs, gym several times a week....til i herniated discs...it was downhill ever since...in terms of pain, degree of curves, degenerative disc disease, etc etc...

                                how can anyone be called a "success" unless followed....for years...?
                                where will some of those kids be in 10 years...20...30...?
                                if they need surgery at age 30, 40 or 50, are they still a "success"?
                                i think you are right, BalletMom...exactly when is someone declared a "success" ?
                                is not needing surgery before age 21 a "success"? or age 30?
                                maybe a "temporary (for now) success" is a better expression...

                                i do not believe bracing is the answer...but i was never braced, as my scoli wasn't found early...i also avoided doctors like the plague for many years in my late teens and early twenties..
                                no one wants a child to suffer needlessly, least of all their parents! i think a better option for young kids with scoli is still out there, waiting to be discovered...

                                i am one of the ones who had curves progress later in life...don't know if anyone would have predicted it would happen...
                                and the ballet i studied when i was young didnt make a difference...

                                jess
                                Last edited by jrnyc; 12-22-2010, 03:43 PM.

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