Feb 21, 2008 11:34 pm US/Eastern
Chiropractor Visit Can Cause Rare Strokes
BOSTON (WBZ) ―
Britt Harwe hasn't eaten a meal in 15 years. She survives on nutritional drinks poured directly into her stomach through a tube. "If I try to swallow it goes into my lungs, I aspirate," she explained in a raspy voice. Britt says her vocal cords were damaged and she lost her ability to swallow when she suffered a stroke during a visit to a chiropractor.
Like millions of people Harwe went to see a chiropractor for pain in her back and neck. She says she knew something went terribly wrong as soon as he adjusted her neck. "I felt like the ocean sound inside my head, rushing noise," Harwe said. The chiropractor had to help her sit upright on the table. "I slumped over to the left," she remembered, "And he helped me sit up and I couldn't really focus, I couldn't talk."
More than a week later, doctors discovered Harwe had a crushed artery in her neck and that caused her to have a stroke. She managed to regain her speech and she can walk, but Harwe says it's had a devastating effect on her life. "I wanted to die."
Janet Levy had emergency brain surgery after a similar experience with her chiropractor. "After that I was paralyzed on one side for months," she said.
Levy is lucky, after two years of intense therapy, she has completely recovered.
Chiropractors say what happened to Levy and Harwe is so rare, you'd have a better chance of getting hit by lightning.
"The risk of someone taking an Advil or Tylenol is far greater than any adjustment," said Dr. Scott Darragh, a Melrose Chiropractor and a director of the Massachusetts Association of Chiropractors.
He says patients like Levy and Harwe usually have a pre-existing condition, or they come into a chiropractor's office with their artery already damaged.
"You could have a cerebral vascular accident on route one trying to look for oncoming traffic because you rotated your head," he said.
Dr. Lee Schwamm is a stroke specialist at Massachusetts General Hospital. He agrees it's rare, but he says it can happen.
"I've personally seen many patients who had an episode of treatment of their neck with spinal manipulation and who a day or two later had the sudden onset of stroke-like symptoms."
Levy and Harwe say they were never told of the risk.
"That's what's so frustrating. This did not need to happen. I was a perfectly healthy 26-year-old," said Harwe.
She founded an organization that is using billboards on the Mass Pike to raise awareness. Levy is working to pass a law in her home state of Connecticut requiring chiropractors to tell patients about the risk of stroke.
But Dr. Darragh says many doctors in Massachusetts already do that. Darragh has his patients sign an informed consent that outlines the risk of stroke. But like Connecticut, it's not mandated by law in Massachusetts, so chiropractors don't have to do it.
Harwe says if she had known, things might be different.
"It doesn't matter if it's very rare. What's wrong with telling people it can happen?" she wondered.
Click here to learn more about chiropractic safety.
Click here to read a study that suggests there is no increased risk of stroke with chiropractic treatment.
(© MMIX, CBS Broadcasting Inc. All Rights Reserved.)
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