Georgia resident Caitlin Jensen, 28, had just graduated from Georgia Southern with a degree in chemistry when she went to a chiropractor on an uneventful Thursday morning in June to relieve neck tightness after studying for her chemistry finals. Twenty minutes later, her life was changed forever, for the worse.
As reported by The Independent, “Caitlin was texting with her mother Darlene Jensen as the recent college graduate headed in for a routine neck adjustment at a chiropractor appointment she’d nearly canceled.
Caitlin read her mother’s last text at 9am. Twenty-one minutes later, Ms Jensen got a call: her daughter was having a reaction to the treatment, the chiropractor said.
The 28-year-old’s neck adjustment appointment resulted in vertebral artery dissection, which causes stroke – cutting off blood flow to the brain. Her decline was rapid, and she faces a long, arduous recovery. Since that time, she has been unable to respond to her mother’s texts – or walk, talk, eat or breathe properly on her own,” The Independent reported.
“Caitlin was eventually put on a ventilator; she’s now been moved to the acquired brain injury unit in Atlanta’s Shepherd Center, where Ms Jensen is sleeping in her daughter’s room, more than four hours from home,” the report states.
“It’s a far cry from where she thought Caitlin would be right now. When her daughter went to the chiropractor two months ago, she’d just graduated from Georgia Southern with a degree in biology and chemistry and was applying to a job researching microplastics in wastewater and the environment.”
“I think people should just avoid neck adjustments, for one thing,” Ms. Jensen told The Independent. “If they are really insistent and they think they need a neck adjustment, then a good chiropractor will do X rays. There should be an MRI done, there should be extensive tests done first, before they ever touch your neck with any sort of adjustment.
“And truthfully, I just think chiropractors should not do them at all.”
For the moment, Ms. Jensen is just looking forward and spending every waking moment with her daughter. But Caitlin’s spirit hasn’t faltered.
Read it at The Independent.