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Health & Fitness

Those Chiropractors and Their Full-Page Newspaper Ads

Some chiropractors are stretching the limits of what they claim to treat -- and they've begun to employ overly familiar, sensational newspaper ads sometimes written by outside marketing firms.

If you read the Vacaville Reporter newspaper you’ve probably seen the full-page ads from Vacaville chiropractors Robert Ehlers and Alex Tam. The cloying ads troll for business, advertising possible relief, among other things, from the symptoms of neuropathy, diabetes, and high blood pressure. In addition, Folsom chiropractor Don Palmer ran a full-page ad in the Sacramento Bee about his fat-reduction technique using lasers.

If you’ll notice, I haven’t referred to these gentlemen by the term of doctor, even though they themselves do: “Doctor Palmer announces …” and “My name is Doctor Alex Tam …” and a photo caption, “Shirley R. and Dr. Ehlers.” To do so implies that they are M.D.s, or medical doctors, a violation of state law. Yes, at the end of each of their ads they finally do call themselves doctors of chiropractic, or D.C.

I don’t want to cast a negative net over all chiropractors. I’ve never had the need for one, but I figure that if Kaiser Permanente offers such services for its members, reputable chiropractors have demonstrated certain medical benefits. I wonder what our local chiropractors think about these nearby big-ad competitors. Believe me, there is competition in this field.

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The ads rub me wrong. Here these gents are claiming to be doctors and yet their ads in some ways resemble so-called snake-oil ads from the 1800s, when potions were advertised in the newspapers that were cure-alls for everything from cancer to lumbago. It’s hard to take these chiropractors seriously as medical professionals when their ads try to make them sound like gods.

If you read the ads closely, you’ll notice that these chiropractors don’t make any explicit promises to cure anything. (In fact, these ads are often written by professional chiropractic marketing professionals, and used by chiropractors all over the U.S., with gaps to fill in with local testimonials). What these three chiropractors do, ingeniously, is use testimonials from their customers that indirectly make claims for improvements and cures. The testimonials are written with such correct grammar and punctuation that they hint of being edited by the chiropractors.

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One of these full-page ads in The Reporter costs over $2,000. Seems like wildly excessive self-promotion to me. And the money’s coming from customers.    

A complaint others have had about some chiropractors is that, in bold efforts to increase their profits, they’ve expanded what they propose to treat way beyond their original concept of spinal and joint adjustments. I’ve even heard of some chiropractors making adjustments on babies and even adjusting the position of near-term babies within pregnant moms!

A couple local chiropractic ads I’ve seen offer to help those with peripheral neuropathy, a condition that I’ve had for years, in a limited way. A lot of people have it (many much worse than me), and perhaps that’s why some chiropractors have tried to make these people their customers. The condition is caused by a loss of nerve conduction, typically to the feet and hands. It’s often associated with diabetes. The symptoms of the condition are numbness, lack of sensitivity, the feeling that pins are being stuck into your feet, and so on. I was once part of a peripheral neuropathy support group some years ago where some of the sufferers were taking drugs to reduce the pain sensations, but I have heard of nothing that restores the original levels of nerve transmission, which is the basic problem. 

Alex Tam, doctor of chiropractic, advises in his ad, “Why not get help by those trained to correct the major cause of peripheral neuropathy?” without saying where he received his training. He qualifies this a little later by saying, “Often, neuropathy is caused by a degenerating spine pressing on the nerve roots.” I wasn’t aware that chiropractors were capable of regenerating spines. This is followed by the glowing headline, “The Single Most Important Solution To Your Neuropathy.”

In the same ad, Tam offers some studies lauding improvements in nerve problems by the use of chiropractic manipulation that don’t even the mention peripheral neuropathy!

Robert Ehlers, doctor of chiropractic, ran a recent ad with a testimonial in which “Sue” says that chiropractic adjustments have reduced her blood sugar levels (she’s diabetic) and her use of insulin medication. Ehlers cagily says, “Is this a new treatment for diabetes? I’m not sure.”

Later on in his ad, he says he and his associates can help with carpal tunnel and chronic fatigue.   

I’ve seen ads elsewhere, not necessarily from these chiropractors, which slam traditional medical treatments and medicines, urging people to come to them for spinal adjustments so that “the body responds by healing itself.”

Other chiropractors have claimed to treat fibromyalgia. In 2009, the California Board of Chiropractic Examiners closed down chiropractor Paul Whitcomb’s Fibromyalgia Relief Center in South Lake Tahoe and took away his license to practice. He claimed he had found the cause of this disease, claimed he had a 95 percent success rate in treating it and used a public relations person to help tell his story via various media outlets. Patients responding to his Internet ads and publicity would be sold between 60 and 143 visits for as much as $10,000. The treatment would only temporarily relieve symptoms. 

Going back to Don Palmer, doctor of chiropractic, and his ads in the Sacramento Bee promising to help people reduce body fat with “Lipo-Laser” treatment. Why is a chiropractor even allowed to go so far afield in what he or she treats? What next, chiropractors doing laser eye surgery, laser tattoo removal, or laser treatment of fungus-infected toenails (the province of a podiatrist)? 

I would feel a lot more confident about the chiropractic industry if the Ehlers, Palmers and Tams of the world stopped running their overly sensational and familiar ads that hint at miraculous recoveries. If they’re good at what they do, the word gets around. 

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