The Owl Chiropractor?!
The Owl Chiropractor?!
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!
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.
“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.”
Could you provide a source on the adrenaline thing?
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. 🔥
It's a pseudoscience for humans, but perhaps it has actual benefits for treating owls.
I feel bad you are being downvoted.
I did a bit more reading as I find it interested so many dislike the chiropractic practice, while an equal number seem to love it.
Animal chiropractic care looks to be its own thing, with its own licensing and requirements separate to what is done to humans. In that it has to be done with supervision from an actual veterinarian, it seems to have somewhat better oversight than when it is done on humans.
It seems the inventor of chiropractic used demonstrations on animals to try to convince people it wasn't made up. The jury is still out on the practice as a whole, and it sounds like many chiropractors also debate whether it is effective on animals. The whole field really seems to be a mess of people from religious whackos and grifters, to some overlap with accepted modern medicine, such as physical therapy, sports therapy, massage, and ice therapy.
If it helps animals is still debated, but there do not seem to be as many studies as have been done on humans. There are cases where injury has resulted, but also large numbers of people who will swear by the practice.
From Wikipedia
There is limited evidence supporting the effectiveness of spinal manipulation or mobilization for equine pain management, and the efficacy of specific equine manual therapy techniques is mostly anecdotal. One study done in 2021 by a practicing veterinary chiropractic on Boxers showed successful signs that veterinary chiropractic treatment may be used to reduce the probability of early development of spondylosis in young Boxers. Another study done on racehorses found significant changes in thoracolumbar and pelvic kinematics with veterinary chiropractic treatment but stated increased numbers of horses and clinical trials are needed. The practice remains controversial.
So to those downvoting, I get it, and agree with why you are downvoting, but I feel this comment is making a fair point, as we technically don't seem to have as much actual science on veterinary chiropractic results. It may very well be complete bunk, but as it seems hard to nail down an actual definition for what chiropractic care is, if a person is massaging sore animal parts and giving them physical therapy and calling that chiropractics, I don't feel that is necessarily indefensible.
Again, do not take that as a defense of the practice from me, I lean towards the pseudoscience stance, but with all the vagueness of the industry, I don't feel this comment should be dogpiled.
Pseudoscience is for the birds
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.
The Owl Chiropractor? Man, Marvel is really scraping the bottom of the barrel lately, aren't they?
The Reeeeally Extended Universe!
"Alright, turn your head and hoot.”
"Alright, now I'm just going to adjust your neck by giving it a quick 360° rotation."
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.
Tacowl