Ten minutes earlier, she’d been at her chiropractor’s office for a routine follow-up.
But something had obviously gone wrong.
“I thought I was going to die.”
Chad Springer, Getty Images
“I had the impression that it was good for health maintenance,” she says.
“Not once had I been told there were risks involved.”
In November 2003, she’d had her first visit with a new chiropractor recommended by a friend.
But 24 hours later, her head still hurt.
It lasted only a second," she says.
“I thought it was an inner ear infection.”
When he twisted to the other side, however, it didn’t crack.
Once more, her neck didn’t pop.
“I felt this wave of nausea,” Heck recalls.
“I left the office a little dazed.”
But when she shifted her SUV into park, she collapsed, the motor still running.
She tried grabbing her cell phone, but her hands flailed.
Finally, Ed recognized two words:Red Mills,the name of the convenience mart.
“He was 45 minutes away,” Heck says.
“I was terrified.”
By the time her husband arrived, Heck felt a little better.
She was weak but could sit up and talk.
So instead, he drove her home.
The next day, Heck awoke feeling numb on the right side of her body.
Her left eyelid drooped, and the right side of her face was frozen.
When she walked, both feet dragged.
As the doctor quizzed her over the phone, Heck mentioned she’d just visited a chiropractor.
“Oh, Christa,” he said.
“I need to see you right away.”
“Christa is lucky to be alive,” he says.
“I knew the moment I saw her that she had had a stroke.”
“I see at least two cases like this or worse a year,” Dr. Kazmi says.
“Cervical manipulation is a preposterous thing to do, and it should be banned.”
A 2005 study in theJournal of Manipulative and Physiological Therapeuticsreached a similar conclusion.
Eight percent said they felt worse.
The most common problem is disk injury in the neck or lower back, which can be extraordinarily painful.
But only neck manipulation, not back adjustments, can cause the life-altering side effect Christa Heck had.
“The damage was done after the first manipulation, then she started throwing clots,” he says.
“You take a thorough exam.
And although researchers aren’t sure why, young women tend to have slightly more of the injuries.
I have made it my life’s campaign to warn people of the risks of chiropractic neck adjustment.”
The stories are frightening.
But the actual risk for injury remains a topic of fierce debate.
Chiropractors and the organizations that represent them say the dangers of manipulating the neck have been overplayed.
“A stroke following a manipulation is phenomenally rare,” Lauretti says.
With this issue, we are approaching that point."
“The expectation of benefit is almost negligible.
“It’s not always clear what came first, the dissection or the manipulation.”
On the other hand, patients see chiropractors an average of 10 times during treatment.
“It’s a low risk but potentially a life-threatening one.”
Her light-brown hair is freshly highlighted, her dark-blue pantsuit neat and stylish.
But when she steps from the street to the curb, she stumbles to the right.
Nor does she see her friends as often as she used to.
It breaks my heart.”
But when her company introduced a new product for her to sell, Heck resigned.
“I couldn’t handle too many things at once,” she says.
The group is urging Congress to ban cervical manipulation.
“I miss the old Christa so much.
Had I known better, I’d still have her.”
