What is the difference between a chiropractor and a massage therapist?

A massage therapist is a person who is licensed to do body work to loosen muscles and joints and give people exercises to help themselves at home.

A chiropractor is someone who believes that by manipulating spines he will be able to alter the energy fields in your body to cure illness, but only if you come back again and again and keep paying him money.

You make the call as to who you should go to.

To follow up on Rarebear’s theme, chiropractors also go to school for 2–3 years during which a significant proportion of the course work is marketing and business planning. Hmmmm. Nothing shady about that.

Both have uses, but it depends entirely on your particular situation what you need.

I went to a Chiropractor for a while, got better and he discharged me (this has been my experience every time, actually). They aren’t all like @Rarebear and @Quakwatch describe. But they both can help you. Why don’t you call one up of each and ask them?

Uh huh
http://michelledobbertean.com/faq-chiropracticenergy-healing.html
http://drbanko.com/about.htm
http://dreicerchiropractic.com/specialties/energy-medicine/

Massage is the way to go. Massage has many benefits and few risks, compared to letting a Quackopractor mess with your alignments. Rarely deep tissue massage can dislodge a blood clot, but this would be relatively rare. I get regular massages and they are highly beneficial to my well being.

Depends on the issue. If its skeletal I’d say chiropractor. If its muscular then physiotherapist. I don’t know why you automatically went to massage therapist. After all, an MT is just a well trained physiotherapist. Most injuries, especially in young people are a result of weakness in the body, poor habits and a lack of exercise. Most ppl who like chiropractors are just lazy wanting a quick fix but what they don’t like is that a physio is gonna give you exercises and recommend things that really will get you better given your own efforts. I speak from experience. I had a severe lower disk herniation and my ex who was a physio helped me by giving me workouts and telling me how to strengthen the muscles so that they could support the surrounding tissues that were damaged.

One of them is a scammy quack pretending to be some sort of doctor, whose bumblery can leave you permanently paralysed, or dead

The other is a massage therapist.

Here are some nice horror stories about chiropractors:

Linda Barter
After a neck manipulation at her chiropractors, Linda now has a permanent neck problem and must take tranquilizers daily.

Kristi A. Bedenbaugh
Kristi sought relief from sinus headaches from her chiropractor. A neck manipulation caused a brain stem stroke and she died three days later. The chiropractor later paid a $1000 fine

Frances S. Denoon
She visited a chiropractor to relieve some neck pain. On her second visit, “my world went into a dizzy spin” with nausea and loss of speech. The neck manipulation had caused a brain stem stroke.

Donna Claire Fawcett
She had a chiropractic neck manipulation and died after several months in a coma.

Brittmarie Harwe
A chiropractic manipulation permanently paralyzed one of her vocal cords and left her unable to swallow food. She received $900,000 in a settlement. Later the chiropractor was given probation for harassing her by phone.

Christa Heck
Ten minutes after visiting her chiropractor for headaches & back pain, she found herself crumpled & paralyzed in her SUV. She had been given a stroke.

John Hoffman
His wife found him collapsed in their stairwell. He had had a chiropractic adjustment 3 hours earlier. His stroke was ruled to have been caused by the adjustment. He died 6 days later.

Yvonne Hoskin
She attended a chiropractor for backache. X-ray taken, and cancer of the vertebral body was missed. Subsequent manipulation caused major fracture which required 3-level fusion to fix and resulted in chronic pain.

Karen Labdon
She had visited her chiropractor before for headaches and stress, but this time she felt sick after the visit. The alphabiotics practitioner had given her a brain stem stroke.

Renate Dora Labonte (died)
Chiropractic neck manipulation for her migraines induced a stroke.

Lana Dale Lewis
Two weeks after a chiropractic neck manipulation, she suffered a stroke. The chiropractic board ruled her death an accident.

Les Limage
Les went to a chiropractor for some neck pain related to his hip replacement. The neck manipulation caused a brain stem stroke that paralyzed him and put him on a respirator.

Jose Lopez
He went to see an unlicensed chiropractor at his home. A neck manipulation seriously injured him and left him unconcious. He was declared brain dead at hospital and the chiropractor faces murder charges.

Laurie Jean Mathiason
Laurie had a tailbone injury and sought out a chiropractor who manipulated her neck. She fell into a coma and died three days later.

And that’s only halfway down the page.

Nothing except for the belief in magical healing…

Despite the fact that this Wikipedia article is poorly written, repetitive and slanted, it still neatly outlines the absurd history and founding of chiropractic. The entire “profession” is built like a house of cards.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_chiropractic

Many years ago I hurt my shoulder. I went to my local physician who prescribed muscle relaxants. I kept going back to the guy who kept telling me to keep taking the pills and to wait because I’d get better (I was very young and trusting at the time). It got so bad that I had lost almost complete use of that arm, and the pain was over the top. Finally after two months of this I fired him and went to see a chiropractor. She said I had a “frozen shoulder” and that because I had waited so long, she was not sure if she could help me. Three (3)! sessions later I got back the full use of that arm, and she discharged me with some exercises to do.

Yep. I should have stayed away. I should have kept going to the idiot down the road who kept taking my money and offering nothing in return except lots of pills that did nothing. Now that makes a lot of sense. Boy did I make a mistake! And the money I saved at the chiropractor could have gone to line the pockets of that doctor instead! You guys are Sooooo right! I have seen the error of my ways. I’m so ashamed.