Chiropractic manipulation, personal account

I actually had some kind of extreme neck manipulation done once. Several years ago at a health fair, I was running a booth next to a chiropractor and got to gabbing with him. He seemed eager to preach so I talked about some long-term back pain I had due to working the floors (wards) at the hospital. He suggested I needed my neck worked on but he couldn’t do it; that there were few chiropractors around that could do it. He did say that his partner taking over the booth in the afternoon could do it. When he arrived, I lay prone on his health-fair table and underwent several minutes of what felt like a nice neck massage. He asked if I could be completely relaxed, then suddenly it was like Bruce Lee finishing off Bolo. A few seconds later my head was similarly "manipulated" in the other direction. The popping felt and sounded like a crepitus knee, but it was not uncomfortable. In fact, I jumped up off the table with my head and shoulders feeling lighter than air and better than they had in months! The cool thing was, it took several more weeks of lifting patients up in bed before I even started to notice my upper back again. I've long since abandoned floor work, and my back problems have gone away.

Despite my developing wisdom, skepticism and cynicism, my attitudes about this have not changed. I understood there was serious risk to the neck procedure as was explained by this guy's partner, but I trusted he knew what he was doing and the chances for adverse effects were small. I'd do it again if my back ached, provided it was this same guy.