SPORTS ILLUSTRATED, SIDNEY CROSBY, AND DR. TED CARRICK
Sidney Crosby has been suffering from severe headaches and dizziness for the better part of eight months. Why is this a big deal? Only because, Crosby is, after all, arguably the best hockey player on the planet —- and has been for several years.
After being on the receiving end of a brutal hit on New Year’s Day, followed by another a few days later, the concussed Crosby started having HEADACHES, vertigo, mental fog, and other symptoms of POST-CONCUSSION SYNDROME. If you are the Pittsburgh Penguins, it’s not good when your star player (and your biggest investment) is sitting on the bench, instead of out on the ice earning his tens of millions of dollars.
When I heard that one of my all-time favorite magazines, Sports Illustrated was going to carry an article on Crosby’s Post-Concussion Treatment by world famous Chiropractic Neurologist, and pioneer in Functional Neurology, DR. TED CARRICK, I could hardly wait to read it. Dr. Carrick is one of the most brilliant men on the planet — period!
His creation and development of Functional Neurology is changing the landscape of healthcare — both alternative and mainstream. The article is short, and could actually be viewed as two separate articles; the first being Crosby’s excellent experience with Dr. Carrick’s treatment protocol, the second being the medical community’s “dogging” both Carrick and Functional Neurology as unscientific.
One of the first problems that I had with the article is that Sports Illustrated chose to use HARRIET HALL of Stephen Barrett’s anti-chiropractic / anti-natural health, Quackwatch Site, as one of their so-called medical “ex-spurts”. But really, when given an open mic, what did you expect these hand-picked, anti-chiropractic, medical mouthpieces to say?
Were they about to admit the doctors in charge had utterly no idea what they were doing over the course of a half year of Crosby’s treatment? Not on your life! Wouldn’t it have been nice to see them admit the truth for once — the fact that all they do is evaluate the concussed player, hoping that they improve quickly so they can take credit for returning them back to the ice?
But bashing Dr. Carrick as some sort of “unscientific” pseudo-doctor who has somehow mesmerized Crosby, sells more magazines. SI’s article should have contained at least a small portion that read a little something like this…..
For the past eight months we tried everything that we knew to do, but Sid’s symptoms did not change. Since there are no medications or surgeries to perform that can help Post-Concussion Syndrome, we continued to carefully analyze his symptoms, performing as many tests as humanly possible, while continuing to give zero amount of effective treatment.
Needless to say, we spent countless hours educating Sid on his condition in an attempt to convince him not to seek out other treatment options that could prove to be either dangerous, or more effective than anything we have done for him so far. We warned Sid that according to our profession’s most esteemed experts, his choice to go outside of the Penguin’s organization for his healthcare was both unscientific and dangerous. Unfortunately, those efforts fell on deaf ears.
Sid personally recruited Dr. Carrick into the case, even though we made every attempt to stop him. We must admit that after starting treatment, and since working with Mr. (er, uh) “Doctor” Carrick, Sid has done remarkably well —– making us all look like we have absolutely no idea what is going on —– even though Carrick’s treatment obviously had nothing to do with said improvement.
Our current protocol for managing this difficult case involves constantly testing Sid, secretly trying to figure out why Dr. Carrick’s treatment seems to be light years ahead of anything we have to offer, and trying to save face by saying anything and everything possible to discredit and undermine Dr. Carrick.
The truth is, Dr Carrick is a quack, Functional Neurology is whitewashed voodoo, and he uses big words that he made up himself. Of course Sid’s recovery was actually due to a coincidentally-timed placebo effect. I.E, he would have gotten better on his own eventually —- at least that’s the message we keep pumping out to other patients like Harry Carson, Dave Duerson, and Jr. Seau.
Would we ever consider referring a patient to a Chiropractic Neurologist in the future —- even if there was ample research to validate what they are doing? Are you kidding me? We would rather die first!
Believe me, sometimes you can figure out what is being said by reading carefully between the lines. It’s amazing that even though Carrick’s completely non-invasive treatment of Sidney Crosby obviously worked, half the article was spent telling readers why it shouldn’t have. Wouldn’t it have been nice to have seen this article presented with some more information about Carrick and the fact that his specialty is bringing people out of comas (WAKING UP THE BRAIN)?
However, you will not hear Carrick toot his own horn. Dr. Carrick DC, Ph.D, DACAN, DABCN, DACNB, FACCN, is a class act —- an articulate, yet humble man, who happens to be the chiropractic profession’s only “Neurological Fellow”. I am not sure that there is another Neurologist on the planet who could keep up with him. The bottom line is results. It’s almost embarrassing to listen to the whining from the people who could not get the job done with Crosby’s health and career.
