A bit of history - I shattered my right knee 14 years ago - ripped the condiles off my tibia and tore open the knee joint. The last two years I have had a really bad pain come and go in that knee and it has kept me from extended backpacking. Last november I went to my doctor and he x-ray'd it and said there seemed to be extra bumps and things and wanted to do an MRI but it was too expensive. Last week I went to a new chiropractor with a PhD in bio-chemistry, a chiropractic license, and he studied some kind of energy healing in China and has adapted many kinds of wierd tools and electromagetic healing things and a cold lazer that sends certain pulsed energy into your muscles. I had a disc out of place. He used a tool on the disc through my stomach and put me on enzymes. The pain is largely gone now.

However while I was there he was checking out the pain down my right side, shot some lazers into my thigh and performed some other electromagnetic things and then went to my knee and worked on it. He said "Did you know that your Tibia is dislocated?" So he relocated it and now I can hike and hike with no knee pain. I guess if modern MDs can't heal you with a lap top yer in trouble.
Jim
Disclaimer;
The opinions expressed here are purely my own. This is just one story out of a billion, your mileage may vary and your MD may in fact actually know hoow to recognise a dislocated bone. This is neither a condemnation of MD nor specific suggestion that chiropractors are more informed.

I've said before and will no doubt continue saying it for a long time, few doctors are gifted at diagnosis, and diagnostic skills are not well-taught at med schools these days. Lab testing has taken the place of actually listening carefully, asking probing questions, and laying hands on the place that hurts to see exactly HOW it hurts.

Not that modern medicine doesn't beat the pants off the generality of medicine a century ago, but in the process some very simple, useful skills have been tossed out with the bathwater.

Disclaimer: I have been working in healthcare for the last 5 years and am currently in school to become a radiographer...

Jim...
The biggest problem with healthcare today is that we have too high of expectations of the knowledge of our medical providers. You would expect a physician to be able to read a radiograph, but the truth is, most physicians suck at it unless they are a radiologist. I worked very closely with a number of Emergency Physicians, and I can tell you that some were pretty good at reading radiology results, but most of them were not really that great, especially when it came to bordeline pathology. If your physician was an ortho specialist then he should have been able to make a reasonably accurate reading, but a GP isn't likely to make an accurate read on something that could be very subtle.

That said, there also is very little understanding by Western Medical practitioners (i.e. MD's) about the relationship between the skeletal and muscular system and how the rest of the body functions. If you tell your MD that your knee hurts, they are going to look at your knee. If they can't find anything wrong, they might recommend surgery or physical therapy. If you go to a DO (Doctor of Osteopathy, a common alternative paradigm that still is accepted in the Western medical philosophy) then they may connect distant muscles or spinal alignment to your pain, but that isn't a guarantee. It all depends on the personal philosophy and beliefs of the physician.

I can tell you from personal experience, however, that a problem in the lower back absolutely can be expressed as pain and even malfunction in the knee. Last winter, out of nowhere, my right knee started clicking loudly and "bumping" every time I went up stairs. I hadn't injured my knee, it just started happening one day. About a week into this I noticed a muscle knot deep in my sacroilliac region so I massaged it as best I could over the course of the next several days (I lost my masseuse when I got divorced ) and when the knot was gone, my knee problem was gone. Now, I know for a fact that I'm not the only person this happens to. Working in the ER it wasn't at all uncommon to have people complain of sudden knee pain with no history of injury. They would come in, get pictures taken, and be discharged without much of a diagnosis because most docs just don't recognize the connection. But it you ever take a moment to stop and look at the musculature of the lower body it's almost a no-brainer... you injure a muscle enough to cause a spasm, it is going to shorten, and when it shortens it pulls against it's insertion point - which is very often the knee!! Of course you're going to pull things out of alignment! The problem is, we put so much faith in our medical system that we literally abjugate our responsibility for our own health. The best doctor I ever had once told me flat out that he couldn't possibly know everything there was to know about a certain issue I was having, and so if I ran across anything on the Internet or in my reading that I thought might be related, to let him know and he'd look into it. Smart man, only physician I've ever known who was willing to admit that to a patient.

Anyway, this is a long way to getting around to what I really wanted to say. Western medicine has it's place in identifying and treating conditions that can lead to known morbidity and mortality. That coveres maybe 5% of what we experience throughout our lives. If there isn't a definitive test or objective sign, then there isn't a heckuva lot they are willing to do for us. It really does fall back on us to figure out whats wrong. I diagnosed my own Celiac disease after a Gastroenterologist told me I had nothing wrong! Of course I had nothing wrong, he did the tests wrong!!! I went to a neurologist for my migraines - he put me on a drug that made me lose association with time within the first 2 days I was on it. For 10 years I suffered debilitating migrains that literally kept me homebound, and nobody could figure out why. It never occurred to ANYONE to connect my GUT to the migraines. As soon as I went of a gluten-free diet I got my life back, and I mean that in all seriousness. I lost a decade of my life, and to say I was disappointed in Western Medicine would be an understatement, although Eastern Medicine didn't help me either. I had to take control of my own health and do the research to figure out what was wrong.

So, lesson learned: when a physician says "there's nothing wrong with you" all they really mean is that whatever is wrong with you probably isn't going to kill you. However, it doesn't mean there's nothing wrong.

Meanwhile, I'm really looking forward to becoming a radiographer. There are still many good things you can do in medicine that really help people have better lives.

MNS

That is perfectly put.

I've tried to tell people that for decades now, that and that they must take some personal responsibility to research health problems themselves, the causes and treatments, and the remedies offered, their effectiveness, including drugs and surgeries.

It's not that hard to tell an MD "No, I will not take that drug for this problem". Or to ask them to evaluate your condition again for a cause you may have read about. Or to prescribe a drug you know to work better than what they offered.

And I'm a believer in chiropractic therapies myself. I've only visited one, a little over 20 years ago. I was in a lot of pain back then, so I listened to him. My alternative was prescription drugs or surgery and I knew that neither was a cure. I had researched it.

More than anything, the chiropractor I saw gave me great advice on how to heal myself, and to prevent the sciatic nerve problem I had from returning. I still follow his advice and have never had a problem since.

I'm really glad you found a good healer Jim. As MS said, that's getting to be a rare thing.

And MS, that is a great post and a great story about the doctor who asked you for feedback on what you might learn, that and the lesson on your knee are perfect examples of why we need to take responsibility for our health.

Great post MNS.

My greatest healer is my wife (RN,MSN).
I'd trust her judgment over a doc's any day. She knows what she knows and knows how to research.
She listens to what I tell her. Of course, we've been together so long she knows me better than I do.

I am truly blessed.

My daughter and her husband are both MD's. My younger daughter is a teacher and every child expects her to remember them! Similarly, every patient of my older daughter expects her to be a specialist in the their specific problem! We have to realize that any given symptom could have hundreds of causes. And another huge problem, is that doctors get paid for proceedures" not "clinic" (diagnosis). They are really pushed to quickly diagonse (no reimbursment) and treat (reimbursed). It is a really messed up system. The doctors do not like it any more then we do! Most people do not realize that doctors are small buisenessmen - they want to do the right thing but they also do not want to go broke. Consumers (mostly insurance companies) have really stacked the deck against diagnosis in favor of treatment whether the problem is correclty diagnosed or not.

Great post Jim. I am one of those people that leans towards natural remedies and letting the body heal itself. That being said, I believe that traditional medicine and natural remedies have a meeting point.

As I see it there are a few things that are wrong with medicine, and with our perception of it in general.

1.) People expect to go to the doctor, and get a pill that will instantly cure whatever their problem is. No matter that they eat a crap diet, don't exercise, don't nourish their body.

2.) People will just do whatever a doctor says without questioning it. I don't have a medical degree, and I respect that the doctor does. However there is just far too much to know in the medical world to expect that the doctor has it all memorized.

3.) In following #2, make sure you question your doctor about treatment. Ask them why they prescribed what they did, why they want that treatment plan. You should know exactly what benefits and potential problems you will face with a treatment plan.



Your doctor may remember you, but that doesn't mean they remember everything about you.

4.) Many health professionals forget that they are in a service based industry. You should feel confident and happy with your doctor. If you don't, find another doctor. There is more to a doctor / patient relationship than just the diagnosis.

To sum it all up, you should be completely informed about your medical situation. Information is key. You should have a good enough relationship with your doctor that you feel comfortable saying no to them. And they should respect you enough that if you have an informed reason for saying no, they can accept it. They don't have to like it, just accept it.