Dr. Dawn Harrell

Dr. Jack Wong: Hey guys, welcome to our best provider spotlight series. My name is Dr. Wong. I’m the owner of Next Level Regenerative Physical Therapy. Today I’m with my colleague Dr. Dawn Harrell with Bearpaw Chiropractic in Humble, Texas. Welcome to the show, Dr. Dawn Harrell. How you doing?

Dr. Dawn Harrell: Good. How are you? Thanks for having me.

Dr. Jack Wong: Yeah, absolutely. For sure. So, today I’m bringing Dr. Dawn Harrell to the show because we see a lot of patients in the clinic and one of the most common questions we get asked all the time is hey what’s your thoughts on chiropractors right so what better way to ask Dr. Dawn Harrell from Bearpaw chiropractic about you know what chiropractic is why she decided to be a chiropractor and kind of get to know who she is and her uh clientele’s health awesome all right so I guess my first question is uh what made you decide to be a chiropractor Dr. Dor Herald.

Dr. Dawn Harrell: I’m not a spring chicken by any stretch of the imagination. Um I’m actually on my second like life basically. I was an athletic trainer. I worked predominantly in the secondary school setting for about 20 years. Um and I decided in 2016 to make a change from that working with the students and you know coaches um and the stress of that and no work life balance to working in the industrial setting um and at that same time I was working on my doctorate degree in athletic training and I moved to the industrial setting which was wildly rewarding but I still didn’t have a great work life balance um and I wasn’t actually able to use any of my skills like my manual therapy skills that I had um that I’d learned through the doctorate program. And I was looking for other things that I could do. Um I was lucky enough to have met my now husband in that time frame and I really wanted like that work life balance. I didn’t want to be working late a lot of the nights um because I wanted to be home with him and our family. One day, it was April of 2019. Um, I was just like lying around and I looked at my now husband and I said, “Hey, what do you think about me being a chiropractor?” And he goes, “I think you’d be a good chiropractor.” I’m like, “Huh, me, too. Do you think I’d be good at it?” And he’s like, “I think you’d be great.” I’m like, “Huh, can we do it?” And he’s like, “I think so.” we had a little bit of a a little extended income at the time and um I was like, “Huh, well, I think I’m going to do it.” Uh so I applied right then and there to chiropractic school and got in and I started in that September. But really the biggest thing was I wanted to have an impact on PE patients um beyond fighting with someone about playing time or um arguing with someone about the proper lifting techniques. Like I wanted to be able to actually use my manual therapy skills and be able to have more than superficial conversations with my patients. Yeah. Entered chiropractic.

Dr. Jack Wong: That’s awesome. So I know in the chiropractic world there’s a lot of different type of chiropractors, right? So what kind of separates you from other chiropractors in the area?

Dr. Dawn Harrell: That history that I was talking about is the biggest thing. Um, I mean, we’re at almost 30 years now of working with athletes. Um, whether professional, college, high school, um, or just our general everyday, you know, I say it all the time, and I don’t mean it with any disrespect, but, um, our stay-at-home moms, man, those those women are so athletic. They’re using their bodies on a daily basis to do their job, to keep other people alive. Um, so I work with athletes and I’m always have that athlete mindset that no matter what you do, you’re an athlete because you use your body to make a living or help other people survive. So, um, that sets me apart. Um, but having the the manual therapy skills that I had developed prior to becoming a chiropractor um gives me a really good sense on like when we do trigger point um work. I do muscle work as well as the adjustments. Uh I have a good feel of what that body is. Like a lot of my patients will tell me that I have magnet fingers because I just know where to go to hit those trigger points to um really get the muscles to to calm down so that the adjustments go well. Um and then outside of that is really just my view on you need to have exercise, you need to have chiropractic. It you can’t you can have one, you can have the other, but the system works so much better when it’s both together.

Dr. Jack Wong: No, absolutely. I totally agree with that. We uh we have a lot of patients who, you know, they might have an injury, they go on Google or YouTube and just look for, you know, exercises, but unfortunately, like it’s in a wrong order or they do something a little too advanced, they might hurt themselves. Um, and we truly believe in the same concept that everybody’s an athlete, right? Even though you’re not necessarily playing a sport, like if you have to lift, if you have to push something, if you pull something, like those are athletic type of movements, right? Um, so yeah, I definitely agree with that. Do you have an ideal like patient or age group you specifically work with?

Dr. Dawn Harrell: Um, I would love to say yes, but the real answer is no because each one of them is so personally rewarding for me. Um, do I enjoy I love working with um pregnant moms?

Dr. Jack Wong: Okay.

Dr. Dawn Harrell: Um, actually it’s pregnant moms. Yes. It’s the postpartum mom that’s really important. Um, after that six weeks when everyone’s kind of forgotten that they exist as their own entity, you know, when they’re pregnant, how are you feeling? How are you doing? How are you doing? Um, and then after the baby’s born, it’s how’s the baby? Is the baby growing? Is the baby sleeping? No one asks the mom how they are. So being able to manage their health um and be a sounding board because sometimes it’s really hard. Um and moms don’t want to talk about it being hard and some days kind of suck. Um, there’s a many great days, don’t get me wrong, but some kind of suck and your body hurts and you haven’t slept and you know your partner’s working and so you’re left with only this little wonderful human that you created to talk to, right? Um, so being an outlet for those moms that that really like helps my heart a lot. Um but we’re also seeing an influx of patients who are in their 60s and 70s, okay, here that are getting um chiropractic care. It looks a little different, but we’re also able to kind of advance and help their activities of daily living, which helps prolong their life and makes their quality of life better. Um so that’s been really rewarding. Uh, so yeah, and then everything in between, man. You’ve got that the dad who’s got to keep his family fed and you’ve got the mom who’s got to keep him alive and um, but I really just like the every patient is different approach that we have here.

Dr. Jack Wong: Yeah, for sure. No, it’s great. Um, heard good things about how you customize the care to each patient and I think that’s really important because, you know, everybody coming in with a knee problem has a different like cause of the problem. So the treatment has to be a little different depending what’s causing knee problem or you know whatever you’re coming in for. Right. So okay. Uh what is a process to look like for you? Do you have a certain flow at all?

Dr. Dawn Harrell: We do. We’ve got a pretty specific flow um from the time that you call to make an appointment. You get all the necessary information. I work with the um two different women. I have one woman who works actually remotely where if you call, you’re going to talk to her. Um she’s going to answer the phone. She’s going to get you scheduled. She’s probably the sweetest, most wonderful human on the planet. Um, and then when you come in, I’ve got another wonderful front office um, young lady who makes sure that all of our paperwork is done, right? We’ve got either online forms or paper forms depending on where we are, excuse me, with the, um, the portal. Um, we get them set up. She then takes the patients back for a quick tour of the clinic because that takes a lot of the the fear away like what’s coming out of that door, what’s that for? We tell them as they go through our clinic what everything is for. We get them into our medical room and in their uh a medical history, a pretty detailed medical history is taken about current injury and even past injuries because a lot of patients don’t understand that. Um just because you’re dealing with something now doesn’t mean it started now and it probably started way back when. So we want a detailed past history as well as current history. Uh then we do a handoff where we actually after finding out the true reason the patient’s here. A lot of patients will come in because they’re in pain.

Dr. Jack Wong: Yeah.

Dr. Dawn Harrell: But what is the reason? And usually it’s something like I can’t bend down to pick up my child or I can’t um do something like I can’t put my socks on.

Dr. Jack Wong: Yeah.

Dr. Dawn Harrell: Um older patients I have to have my wife put on my socks, right? and that just kind of feels that makes them feel bad here. So, we get to that root cause like what is the real like reason you need to get here. Um and then from there I get to talk to the patients. We do a thorough examination. Um we do muscle testing. We do nerve testing to make sure that we’re not dealing with anything that could be a brain or spinal cord injury. Uh and from there after the examination is the X-rays. We do X-rays here on site which is really exciting for us to be able to do. Um and from there um currently patients are getting uh their first adjustment as long as I can rule out it being a safe thing for them. Um and I say currently we may be changing that process here in the near future just because we may add in services. But um and then on the second visit, it’s really where the the rubber meets the road where we go over those X-rays with the patient and the patient and I then do that custom care like what is important to them, what do we need to do to get them where they need to be, right? Um and so and then that’s when we like decide on what that true plan of care is. So that’s usually the the process.

Dr. Jack Wong: That’s awesome. It sounds very comprehensive for sure. Um, and from your standpoint, how do you determine if someone needs chiropractic care or if they don’t need chiropractic care?

Dr. Dawn Harrell: Oh, I’d love to be like, well, everyone needs chiropractic care. But really, um, the biggest thing is what we’re looking for are those those, um, restrictions in the range of motion, restriction in the test that I do, as well as then we look at that X-ray, and the X-ray really pretty much tells you what you need to do. Um, the restrictions will tell you where their bad movement patterns are. The X-rays help tell us where those structures have some problems. And we can look at if there’s any rotations on the X-ray. Um, if there’s anything that positionally on that that X-ray looks different that we can actually affect with our hands. And if we’re able to do that, then that’s the patient that gets the chiropractic care.

Dr. Jack Wong: Awesome. What do you want people to know about chiropractic care before they actually see chiropractic care? if they’ve never had experience with chiropractic care.

Dr. Dawn Harrell: A lot of the patients, especially in, you know, my age group, not so much yours, you’re very young, but in my age group, um, we grew up watching Ramos and Arnold Schwarzenegger where there’s that, you know, the bad guy gets killed by adjusting their neck. Chiropractic is safe. um we’re we take the bones to their their limit on the tension and then apply a thrust. We’re not breaking any bones. We’re not um breaking any necks or backs. That someone who is trained can take the tissue to that actual physiological move limit is what it’s called and create a thrust that isn’t um dangerous to the patient. Um, and that chiropractors, although in the past have gotten kind of a bad rap for being shysters, really the difference is like, we’re just here to make sure bodies get better. Um, we want our patients to get better. And I get this a lot from patients. You’re not going to hurt me, am I? I’m like, no, it’s bad for business if we hurt you, right? So, we’re educated. we keep up with our continuing education so that we can provide the best care to our patients without that that danger sneaking up.

Dr. Jack Wong: For sure. For sure. Yeah, that’s a very common question we get asked all the time. It’s like, oh, um I know they do adjustments. Is that like going to break my bones? Is like is it going to fracture my bones or is it even safe? I’m like, yeah. I mean, it’s just like any other technique out there if you apply it, practice it, and learn it properly and know the red flags, right, of when to do it, when not to do it. Like why would it be dangerous? Because there’s not one technique that solves everybody’s problem. There’s always a risk no matter what. Whether it’s adjustment, taking a medication, they get an injection. There’s always a risk. The question is what’s the risk versus the reward? And that’s kind of what we tell our patients.

Dr. Dawn Harrell: Yeah. About adjustments and stuff like that. Yeah. And that’s that’s the other reason we do such a comprehensive examination is that we can rule out those red flags before we get to it.

Dr. Jack Wong: For sure. No, I think that’s very important. um is very similar to our process where you know patient might call in and say hey I need this or that I’m like hold on a sec let’s actually see if you need it or or not right and that’s kind of where assessment will dictate what is the actual intervention awesome what’s your thoughts about um getting physical therapy combined with chiropractic care

Dr. Dawn Harrell: necessary 100% done with that question no um we do a form of reh rehabilitation here. It’s not the highintensity physical therapy that that you provide um Dr. Jack, but um I really don’t think you can have one with like succeed without the other.

Dr. Jack Wong: Yeah.

Dr. Dawn Harrell: Um you’ve got to get the structures online. You got to get the muscle tone online. Um and you’ve got to address dysfunctional movement patterns. Otherwise, our patients are just going to fall back into that those same bad patterns without any mindfulness to it. And when that happens, both of us look bad. Like, oh, I went to physical, it didn’t work. Oh, I went to chiropractic. It didn’t work. Well, did you do X, Y, and Z? Well, no. Why would I so that it works, right?

Dr. Jack Wong: Yeah. No, it totally makes sense. You know, we’re one of the few clinics from Phil Der therapy side do adjustments as well, but we always tell the patient like, hey, if you don’t do the habits that keep the adjustments in check, like eventually like you’re going to lose the benefit of the adjustments of or kind of what we speak about in office. So, that’s definitely a lot of uh education we have to do up front. Um, yeah. Why the home exercise program is so important.

Dr. Dawn Harrell: Yep.

Dr. Jack Wong: Awesome. If there’s one main thing you want to be known for, what would it be?

Dr. Dawn Harrell: Um, ultimately I want to be known for changing health care in our area. Um, you know, one thing we haven’t been able to talk about because I’m just not there yet is I will be bringing on a nurse practitioner in the next few months. And in doing so, we’re able to add services that can truly impact our patients without steroids, without surgery, without dangerous medications. Um, and if I just get to be a small part of bringing that to our area, um, because it’s something we’re we’re definitely lacking here in the Lake Houston area. Um, then I’m going to consider myself incredibly fortunate with my life.

Dr. Jack Wong: That’s awesome. You mind elaborating on what you’re you’re bringing to the area or

Dr. Dawn Harrell: Yes, I’d love to.

Dr. Jack Wong: Okay, cool.

Dr. Dawn Harrell: Oh, so by bringing in a nurse practitioner, what we’re also able to do is offer medical services. um that changes the dynamic a little bit in the mindset of our patients in that everyone of us is we’re all indoctrinated into that medical system where right um we learned through 2020 that maybe our doctors don’t know everything like we thought that they did but we’re still likely to like if we’re sick, if we’re injured, we’re going to seek a medical person professional. And for you on your physical therapy and me and my chiropractic side, we’re still kind of on the fringe of that. Um, so by bringing in a nurse practitioner, we’re able to actually bring in medical services um and a little bit more authority on like this is what we need to do to get you better. Um, and in those services currently, we’re looking at um joint injections being huge for us. um whether that’s through PRP, through peptides, um other services that have been shown to work to really help joints heal. So, not only will we have that that small rehabilitative piece, we’ll have the chiropractic piece. Now, we’re actually having joint healing piece um can be large. Uh we’re also working with a couple different companies for um supplements. and one company um called New Skin, we’re working with them to um start kind of helping repair gut health with our patients because if your gut’s not healthy, none of the rest of the body is going to um be healthy. You’re going to have more inflammation and problems there. We’re also partnering with a company called 10X Health where we are an independent contractor um where we can actually do full-on genetic testing where we can find out over 54 genes what patients can do to better their health whether um time of exercise, amount of exercise, uh what foods to eat, what foods not to eat, what supplements to take, what not to take, the whole gamut of information that we can get through 10X Health. And then there is uh some supplementation um that can go along with that as well. Um and then the big thing would be with that genetic 10x health the genetic testing we’ll also be able to offer IV therapy for patients that is specific to their genetic code as well. Um there’s so many wonderful exciting things that are going to happen here in the next probably six months that um I look forward to being able to talk to you again to talk about all those great things.

Dr. Jack Wong: No, that’s awesome. So, you’re basically doing like custom planning from the genetic side of things, right?

Dr. Dawn Harrell: Yeah.

Dr. Jack Wong: Yeah. Um, that’s definitely a very well-needed service. I don’t think anybody is doing that in the area. So, I’m excited to kind of catch up when that all comes into play.

Dr. Dawn Harrell: Well, it’s really exciting when we start talking about the Revivex once we’re able to get there. There are two facilities in the country that offer this like specific um IV therapy and they’re both in Las Vegas. One’s at the shoot, I’m gonna say it wrong. They’re both in Las Vegas. They’re not here. So um that’s going to be completely transform our area.

Dr. Jack Wong: That’s awesome. Cool.

Dr. Dawn Harrell: We’re here to help make a difference in our community. And if patients have pain, if they have dysfunction, if they’re just don’t feel good, um, let us see what we can do to try to help improve your situation.

Dr. Jack Wong: Awesome. And what’s the best way to get a hold of you guys?

Dr. Dawn Harrell: Um, you can either text or call our office number. It’s 281-8528724. or um check out our website at it’s currently drill.com.