Chiropractic care in Platte County as an alternative healing

Mark DeLap
Posted 11/9/21

Healthy Living

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Chiropractic care in Platte County as an alternative healing

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WHEATLAND – The Wheatland Chiropractic Center (WCC) is just one of a handful of chiropractors in Platte County that encourage healing without the aid of medicine or surgery.

It is an alternative method to gain relief that is sometimes not recognized by medical practices. According to the National Center for Complementary and Integrative Health, (NCCIH), “Chiropractic is a licensed health care profession that emphasizes the body’s ability to heal itself. Treatment typically involves manual therapy, often including spinal manipulation. Other forms of treatment, such as exercise and nutritional counseling, may be used as well.”

David Beauprez of WCC has been a practicing chiropractor in Wheatland for 28 years and is a respected member of the community who has built a reputable practice.

“Chiropractors approach patient care in a manner similar to that used in conventional medicine,” according the NCCIH. “They interview the patient, obtain a detailed health history, perform an examination, do tests and develop a working diagnosis. They then develop a management plan, start treatment and monitor the patient’s progress. Chiropractors often treat problems related to the musculoskeletal system.

“The manual treatment methods used by chiropractors range from stretching and sustained pressure to specific joint manipulations, which are usually delivered by hand and involve a quick and gentle thrust. The purpose of the manipulations is to improve joint motion and function. Manipulations are most commonly done on the spine, but other parts of the body may also be treated in this way.”

Beauprez also is skilled in acupuncture at his Wheatland clinic. He hails from Wiggins, Colorado, where he grew up on a farm. The path he followed into the medical profession was on advice from his father who told him that farming was not perhaps going to be stable enough to do for a living.

“About the time I graduated from Wiggins High School in 1984, things changed in farming,” Beauprez said. “My dad said, ‘you might want to go do something else.’ We raised pretty much what they do around here, corn and wheat, and our farm was a dairy but by the time I was born there were no more cows.”

High school was, according to Beauprez a divine appointment and he first met his high school sweetheart, Debi who has now been with him for nearly 40 years.

They actually met at a Superbowl Party and after 33 years, three children and a successful chiropractic center, the team concept they incorporate in their business has a winning formula with David doing all the hands-on medical work and Debi doing all things to run the business including being the secretary, office manager and administrator.

From Wiggins, the couple both attended Aims Community College in Greely, Colorado, for two years.

“That’s where I got my undergrad degree,” he said. “From there I went right into chiropractic school in the Dallas/Ft. Worth area. I can’t really look back and say it’s something I knew right away I wanted to get into. It is just something that over time sort of evolved and it just felt right.”

Beauprez was fascinated with the anatomy and physiology courses, and didn’t know quite how to use it or how far to go with it.

“I didn’t fully know or understand what chiropractic was all about,” he said. “As I began to learn about it, it became very interesting and when acupuncture came along, and that always really interested me. When there was an opportunity to do that, I did a course while I was also doing chiropractic. I graduated both in chiropractic and acupuncture at about the same time.”

He mentions that life doesn’t always give you direct signs as to direction, but felt that God’s hand was upon him leading him through that period of his life.

“To practice in the United States, chiropractors must earn a Doctor of Chiropractic (D.C.) degree, pass the National Board of Chiropractic Examiners exam, and have a state license,” according to the NCCIH. “Many states also require chiropractors to pass an exam about state-specific laws, and all states require practicing chiropractors to take continuing education classes. Chiropractic education includes classes in basic sciences, such as anatomy and physiology, and supervised clinical experience in which students learn skills such as spinal assessment, adjustment techniques, and making diagnoses.”

“When I graduated, I think we had over 200 more hours than what a medical student coming out of school had,” Beauprez said. “There were some in the class who weren’t quite sure if they were going to go medical or chiropractic. Some of them actually went to the medical side, quit and came back to chiropractic.”

According to Beauprez, they were both using the same books, but the medical students had more hours in microbiology, pharmacology and toxicology.

“In the medical field, they are trained more into that where we maybe get more training in neurology,” he said, noting the diagnosing and treatment is a bit different. “We center more on the neurological part of it and how the spine and the nerves work with the body, where medical would probably introduce a medication. I think we’re all after the same end result. We just come around one way as they maybe come around another.”

Beauprez agrees that chiropractic care was not as accepted for many years as regular, traditional medical care, although the medical community has been more open to the practices in recent times.

“It is what it is,” he said. “I just have to focus on the idea that I am here for the patients and my community. You have to focus on the positives and the people you can help, although you can’t help everybody.”

According to Beauprez, the cool thing about chiropractic is the different forms of care that can be used on all parts of the body, rather than having to be refereed to specialists who only deal with certain parts.

“I’ve got people coming in with ankle pains, others have sinus pains while still others have headaches,” he said. “I have people with shoulder problems and some with digestive problems. We deal in the entire body. And we’re not limited. We also have the ability to do physical therapy. Whatever we have been trained in, we can approach that part of the body with whatever we feel will help the body.”

There is a misconception that the only skill chiropractors practice is bone manipulation. According to Beauprez, that is a very small part of what they do.

“I think that most people think there’s a bone out of place and we’re putting it back into place,” he said. “That is probably the furthest thing that is going on, because if you really did have a bone out of place, you really would be seeing another doctor as you would have a dislocation. The big thing behind what we get to do is we get to stimulate that nervous system because it is what controls basically everything and anything that goes on in your body.”

Beauprez says that freeing up nerve interference, the area of pain will get better.

“If you are talking about joints, we get to work on all those trigger points called receptors,” he said. “They all feed information to the brain where it is processed. We should almost be looked at more as a nerve doctor than a back doctor. We just use the bones to get to the nervous system.”

The Wheatland Chiropractic Center offered front-line care for people in pain throughout the pandemic. Their clinic never shut their doors, although according to Debi Beauprez, there was more cleaning, social distancing and taking more precautions.

“We were fortunate to stay open during COVID and we are seeing a lot of post-COVID patients that we are working with,” he said. “When they come in and have a virus, we can’t get rid of that but can pretty much just help them through the symptoms they’re having. Most people are still coming in with the sinus, the neck pain, the headaches, some dizziness and actually, we’ve thrown in some acupuncture and it has worked quite well with some of these issues we’ve been seeing.”

As for the loss of smell and taste, Beauprez says that that may all be sinus related, but also mentions that may be a cranial nerve issue as well and the situation needs more precaution.

“For instance,” he said. “Is there anything else going on in that brain activity that causes these other symptoms that might have to be looked at by perhaps an MRI and being sent out for second opinions. As chiropractors, again, we are not treating anything, but we are just definitely helping some of those symptoms that are associated with something that may be just a normal cold or a flu.”

People have come to complain about the multiple manipulations and Beauprez addresses this point as he states, “It’s just like having to go in for a dental appointment for follow-ups every year. We’re dealing with living tissue and we’re dealing with environmental things that are constantly affecting that tissue and it’s always going to change.”

He also attributes the pain to the “wonderful aging process” and as we age, the tissues change.

“If we can maintain good, healthy tissue as we go through this journey of life, more than likely you’re going to have less pain and a better quality of life, and quite possibly that’s the best we can do,” he said. “But getting to the point where you think you will never need another adjustment, that’s like saying, ‘just because I had my cavity filled, do I ever need to go back to the dentist?’ You have other teeth that need taking care of.”

In addition to general chiropractic, WCC offers things like acupuncture, ultrasound, electrical stimulation and Beauprez says that he does get into some trigger point issues, depending upon what he is dealing with.

“I also get into a little deep massage, although I don’t spend a lot of time with that and it is not my specialty,” he said. “I have, over the years, I can see certain things that I know where to go and what I’m looking for so I can kind of attack that area. We also have some wonderful massage therapists here in town that we can refer the patient.”

The family run chiropractic center in Wheatland is an experienced venture and both David and Debi work hand in hand handling pain issues to insurance issues, and after 28 years, they feel that they have pretty much the experience that they need to help their patients.

Their goal is to help people become pain-free and their website proclaims, “Enjoy a healthy, vibrant life without pain.”

Their office is located at 1557 Oak Street in Wheatland and the number to call for hours or to set an appointment is (307) 322-3533. You can also visit their website at: https://www.wheatlandchiropracticcenter.com/