Canadians visit chiropractors about thirty million times a year, and surveys show that patients are generally satisfied with them. But Paul Benedetti and Wayne MacPhail have another opinion. Their hard-hitting CANOE.CA web site called Spin Doctors I & II were instrumental in educating the public about the excesses of some chiropractors. This book took years to write, and it is a must read for anyone who plans to go for chiropractic treatment, or who pays for insurance that covers it.

The Naked Chiropractor
Insider's Guide
to Combating Quackery
and Winning the War
Against Pain

Dr. Preston H. Long

Dr. Preston H. Long is THE expert. Consumers trust Andrew Weil for reliable information about alternative medicine, Dr. Bernie Siegel for inspiring words about mind-body connection, and Dr. Dean Ornish, for practical ways to keep their hearts healthy, but who the recognized authority on back care and the limits of chiropractic medicine?

Special to ChiroWatch

Contact me if you have comments that can help: uk-stroke@chirowatch.com

PRESS RELEASE

ARE U.K. CHIROPRACTORS OPERATING SAFELY?

These are the facts relating to a recent treatment after which I nearly lost my life.
Please consider this as a news story as I am very concerned about other patients having a similar experience - or indeed, losing their lives. I am available for interview at the address and telephone number listed below:

On March 20, 1998 (aged 28) an episode began which featured a near death experience for me and which, after a long process of rehabilitation, has left me with a substantially reduced quality of life and my career as an insurance underwriter curtailed.

On this date I visited a Registered Chiropractor operating in the UK and received neck manipulation to relieve neck pain from a sporting injury. After collapse I was urgently hospitalised with a "classic" vertebral artery dissection resulting in a post manipulative brainstem stroke.

I suffered total paralysis and underwent emergency brain surgery to relieve swelling by draining and a removal of dead cerebral tissue. I was subsequently in intensive care for three days on life support, before being transferred to a high dependency unit. I spent a total of 2 months in hospital.

After leaving hospital I embarked on an extensive and arduous programme of rehabilitation, which included physiotherapy and speech and occupational therapy as an outpatient.

I have had to relearn so many aspects of normal everyday living - even breathing and swallowing. I have had to learn to walk and talk again and have had to deal with the results of such invasive procedures as tracheotomy and PEG (gastric feeding tube inserted in the abdomen). I was blind and unable to speak and slowly regained my sight and speech over several nerve-racking weeks.

My rehabilitation programme is now complete but I am left with a permanent weakness in my right arm and leg. I am unable to write or perform precision tasks with my right hand, or to carry my small son upstairs or run after him. I have great difficulty in performing multitasks, tire easily, have poor balance and difficulties with speech, exacerbated particularly when under stress, and know that my thought processes are less effective. I was an active sports person but now know that this is beyond me, and I will never work full time for the rest of my life.

Of course, my situation is a great deal better than it could have been and I am grateful for this, others in the past may not have been as fortunate. Others in the future may also suffer more than myself. Some may lose their lives.

It appears that, though the risks from the form of upper cervical spine manipulation that I underwent are recognised in the USA & Canada as is the need for informed consent, here in the UK it is not so. At no time before or during my treatment was I made aware of, or warned against the risks associated with this manipulation though the profession, even in the UK, will agree that there are risks.

Please help me to publicise the situation so that some form of professional regulation in the UK, similar to that in the USA, will result, thereby ensuring that fewer patients in the future will suffer as I have.

I have substantial research material collected over 2 years, expert opinions, reports, website links info available (subject to release on legal advice).

Mrs Frances Denoon
Megan Corner Bungalow
Westerleigh Rd, Westerleigh, South Glos BS37 8QP 
Tel: 01454 324687 (email Richard.denoon@bideem.co.uk)

- Back to ChiroWatch - Cervical Strokes

VICTIM: Frances Denoon cuddles her year-old son Fraser

How a neck massage put me in a coma BY ALUN REES A YOUNG mother was plunged into a two-year medical nightmare in which she had part of her brain removed after being treated by a chiropractor for a stiff neck. Frances Denoon, a 30-year-old insurance underwriter, went to see the registered chiropractor when she suffered stiffness following a gym workout.

After emergency surgery she faced a long struggle to regain her life, re-learning how to breathe, swallow, walk and talk.

Now Frances is planning legal redress for the damage she says she suffered - including temporary blindness and paralysis - at the hands of the Bristol chiropractor.

She said: "I put my life in the hands of someone else without being told about the risks involved and things have got to change before someone dies." Frances and her husband Richard, 36, of Westerleigh, Glos., had been married for four years when she made an appointment to see the chiropractor in March 1998.

The former fitness fanatic said: "My neck had been a bit stiff for about a week. I probably just did it circuit training, but decided to see my GP."

He recommended she saw a chiropractor. As Frances lay on the couch during her second visit an artery at the base of her skull was ruptured during upper neck manipulation.

She said: "I felt dizzy and my eyesight became impaired and then I started vomiting.

"I was very scared, but couldn't speak to tell him how bad it was. He went to get a doctor and an ambulance was called."

Frances was rushed to the neurological unit at Frenchay Hospital, Bristol, where it was realised she had suffered a post-manipulative brainstem stroke. She slipped into a coma and had three hours of emergency surgery, during which surgeons relieved brain swelling and removed a piece of brain tissue which had died due to a lack of blood flow caused by a clot.

After surgery her family were told her chances of survival were only 50-50. For three days, she lay in a coma.

Chartered surveyor Richard said: "She went to see someone about a stiff neck - the sort of thing everyone gets - and ended up fighting for her life."

Regaining consciousness was just the beginning of Frances's problems. She had been left paralysed on her right side, blind, dumb, unable to swallow and needing help to breathe.

She spent eight more weeks in hospital. Frances's remarkable recovery is as complete as it will ever be and yesterday she and Richard celebrated the first birthday of their son, Fraser.The Reading-based British Chiropractic Association's executive director Sue Wakefield declined to comment due to the impending court action.

Express Newspapers, September 4, 2000 - A9