Advanced Spine & Injury Center

After suffering a back injury in an automobile collision in 2007, I saw multiple doctors, physical therapist and a acupuncturist. There was some improvement to my upper and mid-​back, however I continued to have chronic back pain in my lower back and I was depended on strong back pain medication daily.
I read about spinal decompression therapy online and decided to try it.
During the summer of 2008 I entered into an 7 week treatment program
with Dr Boelk at the «Advance Spine and Injury Center» in San Diego.
During the first two weeks I spent about 40 minutes on a spinal
decompression machine (DRX 9000) four days a week which tapered off to
three days a week and eventually one day a week.
During the course of the treatment my back pain appear to have worsen but Dr Boelk
already informed me that this may happen. It wasn’t until the final week
that my pain level dropped from about a 7 down to a 1 on a scale of 1 —
10 with 10 being the worse pain. I was no longer on pain meds.
I began living a normal life again doing the things a normal person would
do such as household chores. In March 2010 I re-​injured my lower
back while bending over cleaning my bathtub. The chronic pain returned. My
personal physician took me off work and put me back on the pain
med’s.
I started spinal decompression treatments again. But this time i
went to a different chiropractor instead of the «Advance Spine and Injury
Center». The ASIC is in San Diego where I worked and since I wasn’t working
I went to a chiropractor who was closer to my home and less expensive
than the ASIC. This chiropractor used a different spinal decompression
machine. Treatments were only for 20 minutes and twice a week (less
aggressive that the ASIC). After about five weeks of treatment I didn’t
see any positive results and stopped treatments. What’s that old saying… You get what you pay for:(
I knew that I have to get back on the DRX 9000 machine in-​order to receive the same treatments that I received at the ASIC but I could not find a chiropractor near my home who offered it. And I didn’t feel able to make the 80 mile commute to the ASIC in San Diego. I live in Riverside County. Also, since I wasn’t working any longer the money for treatments at the ASIC was not available. So, I purchased a home decompression spine machine by Saunders and after using it for about 6 months I have not seen any improvements. I still have chronic pain and I am still dependent on pain meds. When my finances improve I plan to start spinal decompression treatments again and hopefully soon.

I was referred to this office by a coworker for some lower back pain that I had been experiencing. When I went in for my consultation, I was really impressed with the office, the staff and the doctor. I was told that I had a compressed disc in my lower back and that the treatment would be over $ 3,000. Pretty hefty, but I was in a lot of pain and was assured that this would do the trick. After my sessions were over (I believe I had 10 total treatments) I could barely stand up straight. They offered me some additional treatments (even though I was told 10 would do the trick) but I declined because I didn’t want to go through with it anymore. In their defense, they offered the treatments for free. When I declined, they told me to think about it and if I really didn’t want more, they would offer a discount on the treatments I already had. I thought that that was a very nice gesture (considering I already had the treatments) but it didn’t matter because the discount never came to fruition.
Because of the high cost of the treatments, they put me on a payment plan of $ 200 per month. Again, so nice of them to offer this, as when I walked into the office for my consult, I was NOT expecting to fork out 3 grand. I finally finished paying them bill off a couple months ago. Over this year between the treatment and the final payment, I never once received any sort of invoice, payment receipt, etc. So when I finished payments, I asked for a paid in full receipt showing all of the monthly deductions from my account. Pretty simple request, right? Not so much! For over 3 months I have been calling and asking for this to be sent to me. I’ve been told it was mailed, faxed, emailed. You name it! Only to receive a call from someone last week saying that the office has requested my records be pulled from storage so they can send me the info I’m requesting. Really!!! I was lied to on more than one occasion as to the status of my request, and when I called again today, I was told they understand my frustration but they will hopefully have time to «look through my file tomorrow». Wow… They say you never get a second chance to make a first impression, but my lasting impression of this place is not a good one!

I wish I could say otherwise, but the massage I got here was the worst I’ve ever had! The girl who brought me to the room didn’t tell me how their process works, she just asked me if I’d ever had a massage before and then said, «Do the thing» and left. Uhh… ok. I had to flip over when the massage therapist came in. She didn’t even introduce herself, just suddenly slapped freezing cold lotion on my back! Yikes! Throughout the entire experience I constantly had to ask her to adjust her pressure lighter or heavier; she couldn’t seem to maintain a steady pressure. On top of that, I could clearly hear the doorbell ring every time someone opened the front door so whenever I began to relax I was jerked out of it by the freakin’ doorbell! Ugh!
I don’t know about the chiropractor himself, but definitely DO NOT go here for a massage!

Chiropractors are a tricky group. Depending on your issue, they’ll seem extremely helpful (read: they’ll stop the feeling of knives in your temple), or they can just plain be in it for the money, selling something that’s difficult or impossible to measure on our own.
Dr. Cassidy and his wife run the Advanced Spine & Injury Center, a name that probably sounds pretty specific and therapeutically helpful. Since I’m one of those people who can only by pain reduction, he was an outstanding chiropractor. Headaches went away. Knives went back in their drawers, etc. Good times.
The downside to going to getting care here isn’t the care at all — that part is great. It’s when you don’t need or want care. Unfortunately, they send you all kinds of mail (I didn’t give them my email, so I can’t attest to whether they send you emails or not). Health tips, flyers, marketing material, informational stuff. It doesn’t stop. It just keeps coming. Sometimes, they even write «personal» on the envelope to get you to open what is certainly not personal.
So, if you like a lot of chiropractic information, go to these folks. They’re great chiropractors, and they give you all the info you want.
But, if you just want some chiropractic work done on an occasional basis, I’d suggest someone else.