Jaycie Conley, 33, a mother from California, just wanted to relieve the neck pain left by the birth of her six-month-old son. She went to her usual chiropractor, as she had so many other times. No one explained what she was really risking.
The adjustment happened so fast that doctors later told her bluntly: that speed tore the arteries in her neck. She suffered a bilateral vertebral artery dissection. First came two mini-strokes. Then a more severe one left her in intensive care for five days.
Today, at 38, she slurs her words when she speaks and has weakness on the right side of her body. She can no longer carry her own son. Before that adjustment, she had signed a waiver about the risk of stroke, but she says she never really understood what she was agreeing to. How many people sign that same paper without knowing what they could lose?