Don
Hilary Mark Nelson
Most mornings I check the Lafayette Journal and Courier for any woo worth writing about. Sometimes I find nothing, sometimes I find things that are fun to laugh at. Usually I don’t find anything really worth writing about. This changed last Thursday when I found a full-page insert ad for Cline Chiropractic, a local chiro clinic, titled “The Story Of ‘My Little Bean.’”
It’s ridiculousness is a wonder to behold.
Before I get started with the dissection, I want to post the circular itself, which I scanned because I want you to know that I’m not just making it up. So click to embiggen:
Cline Chiropractic is a little place I drive by frequently and usually think nasty thoughts about the surfboard emblazoned with “Cline Chiropractic” that lives on top of one of the cars in the parking lot. It is one of an unfortunate many chiropractic and holistic “centers” or “clinics” in the Greater Lafayette area, but I knew precious little about it until I found this ad.
The ridiculousness begins in the subtitle: “How I became pregnant through acupuncture.”
So, to begin, Dr. Adam Cline is a mixer, and he’s one of the bad ones.
Frankly, the idea of getting pregnant through acupuncture brings to mind all sorts of snide and unproductive comments, like “Yeah, it is hard to get pregnant without some kind of puncture,” or “Good thing it was acupuncture and not saddlebacking, else you’d be waiting quite a while.” I’m a classy guy, so I won’t subject you to such crudities. And you certainly won’t hear more of what I already haven’t said as this post goes on. Because I’m classy like that.
Anyway, our mother’s name is Carla Coleman, and her story begins with
One month. That is all it took for Dr. Cline to get accomplished what my husband and I had been trying to do for eight long agonizing years.
Jeez, you’re a cold fish. Trying to get pregnant is agonizing? Not only that, but you’re airing your sexual frustration to anyone who reads this ad! How must your husband feel? On the upside, no more “agony” for you, ma’am. Thanks to your lack of discretion, Mr. Coleman will likely be seeking different company in the future.
I first met Dr. Cline when I went to see him about my lower back…He was able to diagnose and solve the problem using gentle chiropractic, acupuncture, and muscle therapy.
So, non-specific, incredibly subjective and unpredicatable lower back pain is “cured” by a trio of useless or mostly-useless treatment modalities. Color me unsurprised.
One day while I was waiting to be called back for my appointment, I looked up and saw a brochure that caught my eye. I saw the words “infertility” and “acupunture” and knew I had to investigate further.
Lady, if that’s all you saw, it could have said “Acupuncture causes infertility.” Granted, that would require further investigation, but you certainly need to work on your skimming skills.
[Dr. Cline] told me that he had in fact worked with several women and that all but one of the women was able to become pregnant using acupuncture.
I can see the headlines. “Doctor gets eight local women pregnant.” I would certainly not suspect that needles were the primary factor.
That’s all it took. I was hooked. We started the process immediately.
So let me get this straight: your chiropractor tells you about a slightly different process that will cause you to pay him even more money, says “Yeah, it’s worked when I’ve done it before,” and you immediately just take him at his word? Despite the plain fact that getting pregnant by acupuncture should raise even the most rudimentary of bullshit detectors? Lady, you almost deserve what you get.
The best news is that after only four weeks of acupuncture treatment, we were pregnant. I was shocked and amazed that we were able to get pregnant that quickly with Dr. Cline and acupuncture.
Oh, for God’s sake! I can’t hold it in any longer! Dr. Cline is having sex with these women!
Phew.
Okay, much better now. To continue:
Unfortunately, my story does not end there.
“My husband found out what kind of puncture was really going on and he took off with his secretary.”
Twelve weeks into our pregnancy, my husband and I lost our baby. It was and still is at times, very devastating.
Okay, let’s sober up for a moment and discuss the issue of this miscarriage.
The ostensible topic of this ad is “How I became pregnant through acupuncture.” That, coupled with the smiling mother and her happy child to the left of the title, clearly imply that the baby was carried to term and lived happily ever after. Instead, the story ends with a miscarriage.
So let me get this straight: the big selling point of this ad, which is, I might add, fraught with unintentional and hilarious sexual innuendo, is that a woman who had, for eight years, failed to have a child, yet again failed to have a child. I don’t buy for a second that she and her husband were trying honestly and regularly for eight years and not a single pregnancy ever took, even for a few weeks. My understanding of this issue (which, admittedly, may be way off base) is that fertility difficulties over a long period of time often involve multiple miscarriages in addition to a general difficulty in getting pregnant in the first place. Likely what’s going on here is that it was the first one to take in a while, and it happened after the acupuncture, and, well, post hoc being all propter hoc and stuff, we have this ad.
Mrs. Coleman, how do you know that it wasn’t the acupuncture that caused the miscarriage? The pregnancy might have been a lucky fluke, but then the sticking of magical needles could have upset the meridians of the developing embryo.
But really, why on God’s green earth would you attribute a successful pregnancy to this “doctor” when the pregnancy was not, in fact successful? This is nothing but a continuation of the same pattern you’ve been facing these eight long years. I’m sorry for your loss and the pain that your difficulties must have caused you, but your thinking is far from clear on this issue. The introduction of the acupuncture variable did not actually change anything for better or worse. You still don’t have a child.
This ad is a fail in so many ways, and now I’m kind of depressed. Let’s jump to the very end of the ad to finish on a light note.
I am once again working with Dr. Cline to become pregnant. I keep reminding him that there is no hurry as long as he gets the job done in four weeks!
Lady, if it takes you that long to get off, no wonder those eight years were so long and agonizing. Badabing!
