this post was submitted on 22 Aug 2024
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From World Bird Sanctuary

Chiropractic care for birds? We're trying something new for some of our patients with torticollis, a condition where the head is twisted partially or fully upside down! Torticollis can be the result of a number of injuries including head trauma, lead toxicity, and infections. Physical therapy has long been a part of our treatment for torticollis, but isn't always effective. We'd like to thank Heather Seaver for her donation of her chiropractic services to give some of these patients another care option to help them recover. So far, chiropractic seems to be very relaxing to the patients receiving it.

Shown is Barred Owl 24-519 during a chiropractic session. The chiropractic seems to help relax him and there was notable improvement to his muscle tension after his session. 519 is suffering from lead poisoning, some older ocular trauma, and torticollis. When he was found, he kept making it up into a tree but was then not able to fly straight and kept falling back to the ground. This could be from the torticollis, or from the lead poisoning which is causing him to clench his feet and legs abnormally some of the time.

I was a bit surprised to see this. I know there tends to be some debate on if chiropractics is a good thing or not. I'd be very nervous with those hollow bones!

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[–] [email protected] 41 points 3 months ago (4 children)

Yikes! Chiropractic is very much a pseudoscience. The reason people like it is because when the chiropractor cracks your back, it makes your body freak out and release adrenaline, which makes you feel less pain. But as soon as the shock of having had your body yanked wears off, the pain comes back. Plus chiropractors often cause their patients all kinds of spinal injuries.

[–] makyo 15 points 3 months ago (1 children)

Which is also not to mention all the other even crazier pseudoscience BS (NET, essential oils, healing touch) that often comes along with it.

[–] [email protected] 15 points 3 months ago (1 children)

Yeah, IIRC the guy who invented chiropractic said that it was taught to him by a ghost

[–] [email protected] 7 points 3 months ago (1 children)

Okay, but in his defense, that ghost was a doctor. A real one. Not a chiropractor.

[–] anon6789 8 points 3 months ago (1 children)

I thought this was a joke, but it seems not!

D. D. Palmer founded chiropractic in the 1890s, after saying he received it from "the other world"; Palmer maintained that the tenets of chiropractic were passed along to him by a doctor who had died 50 years previously.

From Wikipedia

Daniel David Palmer, the “father” of chiropractic who performed the first chiropractic adjustment in 1895, was an avid spiritualist. He maintained that the notion and basic principles of chiropractic treatment were passed along to him during a seance by a long-dead doctor.

“The knowledge and philosophy given me by Dr. Jim Atkinson, an intelligent spiritual being ... appealed to my reason,” Palmer wrote in his memoir “The Chiropractor,” which was published in 1914 after his death in Los Angeles. Atkinson had died 50 years prior to Palmer’s epiphany.

From LA Times

[–] [email protected] 3 points 3 months ago

Well, them, it's gotta be true!

[–] [email protected] 11 points 3 months ago

“Hmm…” pokes owl’s back “I can tell you haven’t been substituting the brown mice for the unhealthier white mice like we discussed last week. And…you’ve clearly been eating processed cougar.”

[–] usefulthings 2 points 3 months ago (1 children)

Could you provide a source on the adrenaline thing?

[–] anon6789 5 points 3 months ago* (last edited 3 months ago) (1 children)

I'm not who you were asking, but I got curious too. I found this commentary in the NIH database recommending interested parties do further studies into such things, so this is not proof of such things, just describing how it is believed to work, is what I took away, though this one has a lot of big words to me.

The organisation of the stress response, and its relevance to chiropractors: a commentary - 2006

The chiropractic profession for many years has alluded to chronic change of neurophysiological pathways as a potential explanation of visceral disorders, but the profession has typically described these in terms of somatovisceral or viscerosomatic reflex activity. Change in supraspinal neurophysiological efferent activity is increasingly being used to explain "stress" related disease. The chiropractic profession should consider investigating such stress responses by conducting spinal manipulative therapy trials that evaluate supraspinal effects of manipulation. Such research may help elucidate key mechanisms associated with the change of visceral disorders noted by some chiropractors following manipulative therapy.

These responses are often referred to as 'stress responses' and include the activation of the hypothalamic-pituitary-adrenal axis and sympatho-adrenal system, resulting in the consequential secretion of multiple hormones including corticotrophin releasing hormone, adrenocorticotropin hormone, cortisol, norepinephrine and epinephrine.

During an antecedent event, activation of the SAS system (locus coerulus/norepinephrine/sympathetic nervous system) evokes the release of noradrenaline and neuropeptide-Y from postganglionic nerve terminals, while preganglionic innervation of the adrenal medulla results in an increased secretion of adrenaline and dihydroxyphenylaline (DOPA).

Sufficient evidence exists to consider stress and its mechanism, in the generation of diseases often seen by chiropractors. To date little investigation of this potential mechanism of disease and treatment has been conducted by the chiropractic profession. In a time when peak chiropractic organizations are calling for a mind-body approach to the management of chronic musculoskeletal and non – musculoskeletal disease, due consideration of the body of neurobiological evidence that supports the broadening of the operating paradigm within chiropractic seems warranted. Despite the call for a broadening of approaches and the embrace of such approaches by groups within chiropractic, it appears the threat to the dominant paradigm appears too great for most to adapt. The profession should consider more closely the emerging areas of study such as psychoneuroimmunology and how the development of that literature actually supports a broadening of the dominant mechanistic paradigm to reflect recent advances in science.

Just wanted to highlight that last bit myself. The author seems to me to be implying there may very well be some scientific basis to the claims, but practitioners are hesitant to follow the scientific method, and the results may also disprove things critical to their existence.

I wasn't sure if I regretted bringing this post to light after the first few comments, but nobody has gotten mean, and we generated some conversation. This is not sign of me moving to more "provocative" posting, fear not, but it has been enlightening to me as your content provider some empirical evidence that controversial or antagonizing content or headlines really does promote engagement, for better or worse. I don't regret doing it, but I want people to be happy coming here, not provoked, but sometimes the need to highlight less pleasant thing is also part of being educated about all things. We dealt with it like adults, so that is enough for a while. We'll be back to fun stuff tomorrow. I still got that Flammy to post, so we can have Flammy Friday. 🔥

[–] [email protected] 1 points 3 months ago

Sheesh! Thanks, but I'm not sure if I'm any wiser ;)

[–] [email protected] 15 points 3 months ago

Pseudoscience is for the birds

[–] anon6789 11 points 3 months ago

I think I will do a writeup on torticollis in birds, as this seems like something that could be interesting. I think my girlfriend's nephew actually had this same condition. He was obviously able to get professional help for it, but wild animals typically don't.

Here is another Barred Owl with the condition in an advanced stage.

I'm not going to agree or disagree with anyone's take on chiropractics here, though I will say for how it is marketed to people, I agree with all you guys are saying. With animals, I don't know the extent of our knowledge of orthopedics compared to that of humans, so I'm not sure what other options are available. Animals of course cannot be swayed by any type of hype for something questionable, but I do trust the rehabbers to see if treatments are having positive or negative effects.

I too have heard many horror stories of what have happened to people visiting chiropractors, and I also know a number of people who do feel it helps them. Same with reiki and oils and crystals and all that. I do have sympathy though for cases where other traditional methods have been ineffectual, and if nothing else has helped this owl, but this seems to do something, even if it can't be scientifically explained, I'm not going to immediately crap on it. I'm skeptical of course, and I'm sure these caregivers are as well and are carefully monitoring what is going on.

This post is not in any way promoting or supporting the practice. I just was very surprised to see it being done, and have never seen it before. They do not seem to be being charged for it either, which I think helps me remain neutral on this. I'm not even asking anyone here to keep an open mind on the matter, it's merely here as a curiosity. I don't think this is abuse, again, as it is under supervision of people that have to meet many strict requirements of care. If anyone disagrees with that, I trust everyone that comments here to be respectful in their stances, and I don't think that will be an issue. The comments so far have been very fair and honest. I'm just going to step back in this comment section and let you guys do your thing after seeing how this is starting off.

[–] ChronosTriggerWarning 7 points 3 months ago (1 children)

The Owl Chiropractor? Man, Marvel is really scraping the bottom of the barrel lately, aren't they?

[–] anon6789 5 points 3 months ago

The Reeeeally Extended Universe!

[–] anon6789 6 points 3 months ago
[–] pjwestin 3 points 3 months ago (1 children)

"Alright, now I'm just going to adjust your neck by giving it a quick 360° rotation."

[–] anon6789 4 points 3 months ago (2 children)

I actually have a previous post about this you may find interesting!

What a Twist! : New study says owls may actually be able to turn their heads a full 360 degrees

It goes into owl neck anatomy and how they can do those crazy things with their heads.

[–] [email protected] 3 points 3 months ago* (last edited 3 months ago) (1 children)

I enjoy that your entire comm is about owls. Why did you name it Superbowl?

Edit. Lol I get it, superb owl. A lot of people are going to hate this in the fall. I think that's great

[–] anon6789 4 points 3 months ago

The name was brought over from Reddit's r/Superbowl. From what I could find over there:

So the basic history was that the NFL doesn't like people using 'Superbowl' (as in Super Bowl) without permission, I guess they don't like free advertising.

From my earliest recall, Stephen Colbert made a joke of this and discovered the pun of Superbowl (Superb Owl). Whether this sub Reddit was here earlier is beyond me. But there has always been Superbowls before the Superbowl.

They have over 440,000 users, so it was likely copied over here to catch the attention of people migrating over. It's a pretty big community on Reddit and here, so there's no shortage of people who love owls.

The biggest downside though, is some people that hate sports will block this group before they see we're about the birds.

[–] pjwestin 2 points 3 months ago (1 children)

Huh. I honestly didn't give it much thought when I made the comment. Just kinda thought anything other than 180° and 360° might not be clear, and 180° seemed too low.

[–] anon6789 2 points 3 months ago

The "normal" amount is considered 270 degrees, 135 degrees to either side. The anatomy is pretty amazing though. We'd sufficate ourselves, break our necks, or cut off bloodflow, but the owls are designed with all of those things in mind. It's amazing how fancy something like a neck can get!

[–] sramder 3 points 3 months ago

"Alright, turn your head and hoot.”

[–] Wild_Mastic 1 points 3 months ago