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A Chiropractic Story With a Happy Ending
TA story appeared in the December Newsday newspaper
telling of an asthmatic woman named Vanessa. On September 15,
Vanessa had a severe asthma attack which caused her to stop
breathing, suffer cardiac arrest, and slip into a coma. It was
estimated that her heart had stopped for as much as 10 minutes
before paramedics could restart it. At the hospital, her family
was not given much hope. If she did pull through, they were
told, the chances for severe brain damage were great.
Vanessa had been battling asthma all of her life. But this
attack almost cost the young women her life. Vanessa's coma was
severe. Although her eyes were opened, nobody saw any indication
that she could see. Doctors speculated that the part of her
brain most likely to have been damaged by oxygen deprivation
probably would render her blind. For her loved ones and family
who stayed with her the coma was torturous and disturbing to
observe. Vanessa clenched her fists. Her legs moved constantly,
almost as if she were riding a bicycle.
Two of Vanessa's relatives were patients of a chiropractor, Dr.
Andy Forelli. They told Dr. Forelli of the heartbreaking story
of Vanessa. Being moved, Dr. Forelli offered to drive to see
Vanessa, being unaware that Vanessa was in a hospital two and a
half hours away. The family accepted Dr. Forelli's offer so he
made the trip.
Dr. Forelli arrived to Vanessa's room on the evening of Sept.
30. There the family told him that the doctors had been talking
that day about putting Vanessa in a nursing home. Vanessa's
mother Siobhan, recalls what happened next, "He put his hands on
Vanessa's face and spoke to her," Siobhan said, "and she looked
right at him and furrowed her brow, as if to say, 'Who the hell
are you?' At that moment, we knew that she could see. He
adjusted her neck. She winced, and then she smiled. He went
around to the other side of the bed, and she furrowed her brow
again, and he adjusted her neck from that side, and she smiled,
closed her eyes, and went to sleep. He and I then spoke for
maybe 15 minutes, and he got in the car and drove back to New
York."
"That night, I called every two hours, and the nurses said she
was really quiet, almost still," Siobhan said. "The next
morning, October 1st, she was sleeping, no agitated movements,
no clenched fists. At 11 o'clock, the nurse came into bathe her.
The nurse said to me, 'I think she's trying to talk to us.' She
said to Vanessa, 'Do you know who that is? That's your Mom.'"
Vanessa spent five more days in the hospital and 16 days in a
Rehabilitation Center. Dr. Forelli saw her one more time, with
again, remarkable results. Vanessa now has resumed her old life
and is a regular patient of a local chiropractor closer to where
she lives. Siobhan summed up the situation at the end of the
story by saying, "Her whole health system has done a complete
turnaround. She used to always carry a hand-held asthma
medication called Preventil. She doesn't even carry it any
more."
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Arthritis Patients
Turn to Chiropractic
The Annals of Internal Medicine (of all places) published the results of
a survey of 232 people who had arthritis and were under a
rheumatologists care. Of those 63% responded to the survey by
saying they were using some form of "complementary care" as
named by the study. Of those people 31% were using chiropractic.
These number may themselves be grossly under reported as only
45% of the patients told their doctor about using the other
forms of care.
These reported numbers translate to over 19% of the public who
is seeing a rheumatologists is also seeing a chiropractor. And
if less than half of the patients are telling their doctor about
it the actual number may be twice as high.
Possibly the most impressive statistic was that 73% of those
trying chiropractic found it helpful. The reasons given why
people said they tried the non-medical care was to control pain,
because they heard it helps, because it is safe, because it
helped someone they know, and because their prescription
medication wasn't working.
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