Woman left permanently disabled after neck adjustment at chiropractor
A woman who suffered three strokes after a visit to her chiropractor has been left permanently disabled.
Although visits to the chiropractor can often be beneficial and even life-changing if they can solve the source of pain, there are also a lot of dangers associated with them, especially when things go wrong.
A US man was left with locked-in syndrome after visiting the chiropractor in his 20s, with a stroke the source of his woes, and California mum Jaycie Conley suffered the same fate when she visited her chiropractor back in December 2021.
She was struggling with sleep deprivation following the birth of her son and put her persistent headache down to the stress that comes with having a six-month-old baby.
Advert
Conley said: “I remember thinking I slept wrong, like I kinked my neck or something, so I let it go for a couple of days but the pain was getting worse so I contacted a [chiropractor] that I'd worked with before."
However, things would get almost immediately worse after her visit as she suffered from nausea and her eyes going 'cross-eyed' within just a few hours of her visit.
After complaining about her symptoms, she was invited back in for another adjustment but was simply told that she was having a 'weird reaction'.
“She said if it keeps happening go to the doctor. She said that several times. It was alarming the way she wasn't alarmed,” the stay-at-home mom recalled. "She never said it was urgent so I didn't know any better, and trusted her at the time."
Eventually, as Conley's symptoms showed no signs of improvement, she went to the hospital and it was there that she learned that she had suffered bilateral vertebral artery dissection.
This rare condition occurs when there is a tear in the artery that runs along the spine, supplying blood to the brain, which can lead to strokes in some cases.
She had suffered two mini-strokes and at the hospital, a more severe one would follow, which led to her being stuck in the ICU for five days.
Doctors allegedly informed her that the VAD had likely been caused by the 'velocity' of the chiropractor's neck adjustment.
She added: “I was completely shocked that going to a chiropractor had contributed to this. I thought ‘I'm 33, how could this happen?' To be 33 and basically be an elderly person in the ICU, not able to use my hands, not able to stand up and walk, not able to use the bathroom on my own, that really did a number on my psyche for a while.
“I was terrified my child might not have had a mom. I couldn't lift my son and I had a hard time being a stay-at-home parent. That put a lot of stress on our family.”
Conley has now been left permanently disabled as a result of her experience, with weakness on the right hand side of her body and slurred speech, and now the 38-year-old is hoping to raise awareness about the dangers of chiropractor visits.
“[Chiropractors] are trained to look for and learn about strokes. They even make you sign a waiver that that is a risk but no one pays attention to it. I signed a waiver not knowing what I was signing. That's not education, that's not fully informed consent.
“I feel angry and disappointed. I just hope somebody learns what I didn't learn prior to. If you have a headache and you're postpartum, go to the hospital. If there's any part of this I can promote, it's to be aware of what it is and the severity.”
Topics: Health
James Moorhouse