Is a chiropractor always right?

One of the things about education is that you have to make corrections when people are wrong. Education is always important because “give a man a fish, and you feed him for a day. Teach a man to fish, and you feed him for a lifetime”. Right?

In my work as a chiropractor, I teach my clients how to fish for their own freedom from pain. It may sound easy and straightforward but this is often not the case. People come with their own preconceived ideas of what their pain is and what causes their often. Unfortunately, they do not have the subject matter expertise to get these right.

So when a chiropractor and a client disagrees, how do we ascertain who is correct? Is the teacher always correct? This is a question I often ask myself.

Experts are more likely to be correct than novices

All things constant, research shows that experts are more likely than novices to be correct. We see that across multiple domains from business to chess to radiology. I personally don’t think there can be any instance where a novice is more likely to be right than experts! That would fundamentally challenged what it means to be expert, no?

If you are working with a chiropractor, I think you should always listen to your chiropractor. Sure, some chiropractors are true quacks and practise very far out of current clinical guidelines. These are the chiropractors you should avoid like a plague. Otherwise, listen to your chiropractor.

Why?

Because you chiropractor, with subject matter expertise, is more likely to be right. You can argue that it is your own body and you should know better. If that is the case, why do you need to seek professional help? Most people seek professional help because they acknowledged a knowledge and/or expertise gap at some point.

You explicitly or implicitly recognised that you are not good enough to help yourself get to the goals you want. If that is not the case, why would you pay money to get help right? So, the knowledge and expertise gap is not in question here.

This is why you should listen to your chiropractor.

Can chiropractors be wrong?

Not only are experts more likely to be right. Experts are also better at realising when they are wrong. Again, barring quacks whom I think are always wrong, experts should recognise their own mistakes way before you.

Somethings things can go really wrong. There is the case of Joanna Kowalczyk who died of stroke after seeing a chiropractor. There is also chiropractor Charles Loo Boon Ann who was jailed eight months for cheating Manulife Singapore.

This is why it’s important to choose a chiropractor with good values. A chiropractor with good values will be able to acknowledge their limitations and shortcomings, and take action to mitigate the effects. For example, about a month ago, an incident with a client made me realised that we are not suited to be working together. For this client, I refunded all the money she had paid – including all the sessions that she had already attended.

I think the best chiropractors do put their money where their mouth is. If I think we are not a good fit, it makes sense for us to part ways. I also want us to part ways in a way that is also not unfair to you. So, I refunded all their previous session.

Did I have to? No.

Could I have made up for all the lost time and opportunity cost they may have suffered? Also, no.

This is not about who is wrong or who is right. This is also not about righting a wrong, or who deserved what. It is about values. A chiropractor with clear values and put their client first will always try to do the best thing for their client, within resource constraints of course.

Beginners are more likely to (wrongly) believe they are right

Beginners are more likely to believe that they are right, even when they are wrong. This is the cognitive bias know as the Dunning-Kruger effect. Despite having minimal knowledge, novices often feel surprisingly confident about their abilities. It is probably one of the biggest paradoxes!

This overconfidence isn’t malicious or deliberate. It is a natural byproduct of inexperience. The very knowledge gap that creates poor judgment also prevents recognition of that poor judgment.

There is also the issue of metacognition. Novices are more likely to struggle with thinking about their own thinking. Without this self-awareness, they can’t recognise the gaps in their cognitive processes. This lead them to false conclusions due to their incomplete picture of what is going on.

It’s like being blind to your own blindness. Without sufficient expertise to understand the complexity of a domain, beginners operate with a false sense of certainty that can actually hinder their learning and progress.

Chiropractors are imperfect

I will be very quick to admit that I am extremely impatient. If a fast paced and direct-to-the-point working style is not your cup of tea, we will probably not be the best fit.

You know what’s the upside of working with someone who is impatience? Results. We deliver fast results.

Why?

I can’t speak for others but I can speak for myself. I can’t stand incompetence. I can’t stand it when people are slow to get better. It irritates me when people come back with the same complaints that don’t see improvements. Effectively, I don’t like it when my clients don’t get better.

Thankfully, all my clients want to get better. Fast. By fast I don’t mean a quick fix. By fast I mean finding a sustainable long-term strategy so they can fish for their own pain relief. By fast I mean they learn fast. They are quick at implementing lifestyle changes. They see progress like they have never seen before.

My clients want meaningful fast results. I love delivering fast results. We are all on the same page. For this big win, they are willing to look past my impatience.

Being strong and direct is sometimes necessary

I am also super direct. If what you subscribe to is wrong and unhelpful for your recovery, I will point it out. Directly. I will drill it out of your system. One erroneous narrative among older adults is that they are getting older so their body is falling apart.

That’s almost certainly never true. You are seeing deterioration in your physical body because you are too sedentary. You are seeing deterioration in your physical body because you are over-exercising. Exercising too much, especially in the longer term, can cause chronic pain. For example, repetitive stress injuries. They can result from over-exercising. They can also result from doing inappropriate exercises.

Chronic pain and deterioration of the musculoskeletal system is always never due to age alone. You can be older and fitter. Yes, you may be predisposed to disease such as sarcopenia and osteoporosis or even low back pain. The big “but” here is that they are also preventable with the right health habits.

Sometimes we have to vehemently disagree so a client has a chance to get better. Otherwise, they’ll just be here for longer than necessary or even forever, because their core beliefs do not allow them to find freedom from pain.

Disagreements with your chiropractor are inevitable

I do agree that you are your own sentient being. You are also intelligent and capable of your own thoughts and beliefs. Indeed, they are also your prerogative and you absolutely have a right to bring them up.

That doesn’t mean, um, you are right. As mentioned before, there is a higher chance that your chiropractor is correct. Therefore, during disagreements, you should – to the best of your ability – assume that they are correct.

If you disagree with your chiropractor, you should definitely bring it up. You don’t want to let your disagreements fester. I do agree that it’s your chiropractor’s responsibility to provide a safe space for you to be able to share your thoughts and feelings.

I also do agree that it is your chiropractor’s responsibility to help you understand what they are saying. However, sometimes the knowledge gap makes it difficult for us to communicate certain information to you in layman terms. Sometimes, it is also difficult for you as a layman to understand what we are trying to communicate. This is, in my opinion, normal.

What is most important is that we try.

Your beliefs can hold you back

Just earlier today, I had a client who insisted that circumstances cannot see what I am trying to saying. The context was that we were doing lunges on the reformer instead of the typical free weights, because of the certain changes in their circumstances. He insisted that reformer lunges is something that he had not done before. True. But therefore, it’s reasonable that he cannot do them well. Well, untrue.

I do agree that the reformer lunge has its challenges. It is definitely an exertional exercise (i.e., there is a kick to it). But to assume you will be terrible at an exercise because you haven’t done it before is honestly a stretch.

I spent a lot of time convincing him that he can definitely do it. At the resistance and variation we were going for, it is definitely a regression of the weighted lunges he used to do. He did not believe me despite all my explanations to why that may be the case.

Faith does not mean no  (hard) work

Eventually, he did manage to do them to the standard that I wanted. Full range at the pre-decided number of springs. It did take a lot of cueing! We had to work on his breathwork, which in turn contributed to his trunk stability. We had to work on his focus so he can hold an exertion through the range rather than giving up halfway. There is also the matter of his knee movement pattern. We didn’t want a valgus movement (i.e., collapsed knee).

After working on all of these, he managed to do good quality reps. Was it challenging? Of course. Was it impossible? No!

I think if we kept fighting on that it is impossible and there was any less trust between us, he would not have been able to do it.

Here’s the kicker: It would have been easier for me to just agree with him, tell him he’s not ready, and say we would work on it next week.

Being the best version of myself as a chiropractor almost always mean less income

In my previous blog post, I wrote about how I gave advice to a friend’s referral over WhatsApp and ended up working for free. It was 2.5 hours of my time. Why? Because I wanted to be the best version of myself. For that instance, it meant prioritising a stranger’s well-being over my own.

I also acknowledged the privileges I have to be able to do so. I understand that not all chiropractors have the liberty to do so because commercial rentals are crazy. Remember the $52k/month rental for a GP clinic in Tampines?

To a large extent, I see everything I have as gifts and that I am steward. I understand that not every practitioners is in the same shoes as I am. But at least with whatever I have, and within my current constraints, I do want to share.

Doing better is more work (and less money)

Similarly for the client this afternoon, I chose to push a little because we worked together enough for me to know he can. I took a risk at pushing them. They took a risk at letting me push them. We got there in the end.

You know what’s the downside of pushing your client? Bad Google reviews. Mistrust. Being misunderstood as someone who doesn’t listen.

It also takes emotional and mental energy to disagree with someone you know. It takes patience, which I don’t have much of, to attempt to explain to a person why their false beliefs are wrong. It takes a lot of mental energy to try to breakdown something that is so obvious to me to simpler ideas so they can understand a bit.

That’s not all. It also means less money. If I were to agree with the client that it’s too much for them, I could push this exercise to the next session. This means delayed recovery. This is more money.

Ironically, it also builds better rapport. I come across as a chiropractor who listens and who is empathetic.

Win-win?

Listen to your chiropractor

This is why I think you should always choose a chiropractor based on their values. A chiropractor with good values will do the best thing by you. It is also a chiropractor whom you can trust, hence listen to.

If your current chiropractor is not someone you trust enough to listen to, change your chiropractor. Remember the client whom I stopped working with? If it doesn’t work out, it doesn’t work out. It’s better for you to move on to someone else who can help you.