Are You Out Of Alignment?

20/11/2020

I treat a lot of people that have:

back pain,
neck pain,
pelvis pain,
hip pain.

Very commonly they’ll tell me something is “out of alignment”. Either that’s what it feels like, or they’ve had treatment from a therapist that has told them that, or they’ve talked to a friend who has said “maybe your ‘X’ is out?” and that makes perfect sense to them.

The concept of something being “out of alignment” is not a paradigm I’ve ever been taught or taught to patients. My understanding of it as an idea is that it comes from an osteopathic and chiropractic model where pain and illness are meant to originate from vertebral “subluxations”. A vertebra is “out of place”. The subluxation model is now being discouraged by chiropractic associations worldwide as not being valid, but it has definitely seeped into public consciousness. A lot of people when they have back pain will try and describe how it feels and come up with the explanation that they’ve “put their back out”. Patients grab hold of a simple idea that seems to makes sense.

When a patient uses this sort of terminology I used to play along with it because I understood what they were saying and I found I upset a lot of patients if I tried to correct them. They had paid good money to see a chiropractor who’s told them their pelvis was out of alignment, they’ve agreed that’s what it felt like so they’ve bought into the idea. When I question the concept directly it can be upsetting. If someone to whom you’ve paid money tells you something, and they’re a nice enough person, and they seem like they care about you and know what they’re talking about, you believe them. To then be the second therapist offering an opinion and say something different can be tricky and I usually word it incorrectly and put the patient right off side.

Anyway, I used to let it slide because it’s easier for everyone, I can get on with treatment using my own paradigm, and I didn’t think any harm was done.

But I’ve now changed my mind on staying quiet.

I saw a lady today who’s been seeing an osteopath twice a week for a year - thousands of dollars - for a radiculopathy from her lumbar spine which has now progressed to a foot drop. Every session her “pelvis was out”. She doesn’t know how it keeps happening. Her only solution was to pay this “expert” for a “re-alignment”. It’s a very common story. I got so upset today. This lady was in tears - she felt so helpless.

I think this sort of treatment is criminal. It makes someone a helpless victim by diagnosing them with something that they have absolutely no control of themselves - the pelvis just keeps going out mysteriously. And sell a solution: “I can put it back for you. Come in twice a week”. Nothing you can do to help yourself.

The language is dangerous and damaging and takes advantage of a patient that trusts you are a professional providing an honest service.

When a therapist talks about something being out of alignment I hope they are using the terminology as a euphemism rather than believing something is actually out of place. Because we know it’s not.

So the therapist is either:

unknowingly perpetuating an idea that is harmful because they are ignorant,
or deliberately deceiving patients for financial gain.

So I’m no longer tolerating the language of something being out of place or out of alignment.

It’s not, and it’s harmful to talk like that.

I used to think physios were better than that and the language of alignment was just for other professions. I used to be OK with it because it was Chiro’s and Osteo’s, not physios. But more often these days the language of something being “out” is creeping into physiotherapy. Muscle Energy Technique (MET) is a type of treatment physios are using to treat the hips, sacrum, pelvis, and back pain. “Rotations”, “counter-rotations”, “up-slips”, and “down-slips”. The way they teach it seems like they actually believe it’s a physical/mechanical movement rather than a conceptualised euphemistic explanation. I don’t think it’s a path the physio profession should go down.

I understand how it happens. An “expert” is in town selling a course. You pay money for the course, you’ve bought the product and are invested in it working, you give it a go with patients and get good results. It’s the same cascade that makes the patient buy in.

Next minute it seems like everyone’s pelvis is twisted. It’s an epidemic.

How can different professions, and even two therapists in the one profession, come up with completely different explanations for what’s going on? I think that speaks to the size of the problem of back pain and there not being a single treatment option that helps everyone. (Well actually there is and that’s exercise - but it’s harder for people to make money from selling exercise.)

This is a bit of a rant and I’m almost nervous to write it down because there are some well respected therapists across a number of professions who are a lot smarter, have better jobs, and earn a lot more money than me, who speak about things being out of alignment.

Not me. Don’t worry. Your back is strong. Your back is stable. Your back is resilient. It’s sore now, but that is largely unrelated to structure and mechanics. There’s definitely nothing broken, out of place, or alignment.