Good Neighbor Podcast: Cooper City
Bringing Together Local Businesses & Neighbors of Cooper City
Good Neighbor Podcast: Cooper City
EP# 294: Dr. Nancy Gomez with TULA Mobile Chiropractic
How does chiropractic care change when it comes to you? In this episode of the Good Neighbor Podcast, we promise to reveal how Dr. Nancy Gomez, founder of TULA Mobile Chiropractic, revolutionizes personal healthcare by delivering it directly to your doorstep. With her unique blend of chiropractic adjustments, therapeutic massage, and trigger point dry needling, Dr. Gomez makes wellness more accessible, especially for those with mobility challenges. Listen as she shares her insights on the benefits of treating patients in their personal environments, which allows her to better understand their lifestyles and form deeper connections. You'll also learn the difference between trigger point dry needling and acupuncture, and find out which areas Dr. Gomez serves, including Broward, Boca Raton, and Delray Beach.
Join us for an inspiring conversation about personal transformation and resilience. Dr. Gomez takes us through her journey from massage therapist to a chiropractor, integrating her vast experience to offer a comprehensive approach to bodywork. Highlighting the evolution of chiropractic care towards evidence-based practices, she also dispels common misconceptions and shares her thoughts on its growing acceptance in the medical community. Beyond her professional pursuits, Dr. Gomez opens up about the meaningful role her family plays in her life, from the inspiration drawn from her daughter Mila, a competitive dancer, to the unwavering support of her husband, an architectural photographer. This episode is a testament to the power of overcoming life's challenges and the strength found in family support.
Call: (773) 339-4366
Visit: https://tulachiro.com/
This is the Good Neighbor Podcast, the place where local businesses and neighbors come together. Here's your host, Jeremy Wolf.
Speaker 2:Well, hello, hello, hello, friends, family, great community, extraterrestrials, anyone out there listening, welcome to the show and welcome to our guest. Today we have a special guest. She actually, if I'm not mistaken, she lives here in the community, right, right, dr Gomez, in Cooper City. So she is, by virtue of that, a good neighbor of the show and we're happy to have her on. And Dr Gomez, it's Dr Nancy Gomez. She joins us from Tula Mobile Chiropractic. Dr Gomez, should I call you Dr Gomez? Nancy, what's the best way to address you?
Speaker 3:Whichever way you feel comfortable, my patients call me both.
Speaker 2:Okay, I'm going to go with Nancy then to keep it less formal here. So, nancy, welcome to the show. Pleasure to have you here.
Speaker 3:Thank you so much. I'm happy to be here, of course.
Speaker 2:So I think you mentioned this when we first spoke the name of your business, tula. It stands for balance, correct, correct. So I love that. We're going to get into that later, but I wanted to kick this off with a little quote that I found interesting here, and it's this the body heals with rest, the mind heals with peace and the spine heals with alignment.
Speaker 3:Nice.
Speaker 2:As a chiropractor, how does this quote resonate with your approach to helping patients achieve balance and optimal health?
Speaker 3:Well, I think that the quote kind of encompasses it all it's mind, it's body, it's spirit. So I mean we're a combination of everything. So we all, we want to be in balance with as much as we can.
Speaker 2:Yep, balance is super important. So let's start off there. Tell us a little bit about your business. I've interviewed plenty of chiropractors on the show. I've not yet had a mobile chiropractor, nor had I really heard about that. But if you think about it, it does make a lot of sense because, generally speaking, if you need to go see a chiropractor, you're probably having issues with mobility. So if you could have the doctor come to you, well, that makes a lot of sense. So tell us a little bit about Tula Mobile Chiropractic.
Speaker 3:Yeah, so, tula, mobile Chiropractic, as you said, we're a mobile business and so we go to people's homes and I integrate chiropractic adjustments, therapeutic massage, trigger point, dry needling, a lot of different body work techniques, all in the comfort of your home or office. What's really cool is that I get to know people's families, their environments, their pets, their co-workers. So being in people's environments and having more hands-on time with them really helps me improve their lives better.
Speaker 2:Yeah, absolutely, it does make a lot of sense. You mentioned trigger point needling. Is that similar to acupuncture or is that accurate?
Speaker 3:Yeah, so trigger point dry needling. So yeah, it's akin to acupuncture, but we don't really follow the energetic channels like acupuncture does. We pretty much find trigger points or knots within the musculoskeletal system and we focus in on those.
Speaker 2:Now, what areas do you service? Obviously, we talked that you live here in Cooper City. What's the extent of where you will travel to go see someone?
Speaker 3:city. Where do you like? What's the extent of where you will travel to go see someone so Broward, Boca Raton, delray Beach? I have a lot of clients in Boca and Delray so I go up that north two, three times a week sometimes.
Speaker 2:Nice. So how did you decide, or when did you decide? Talk a little bit about the evolution of the mobile chiropractic business. How did you land on doing that? What does the background look like?
Speaker 3:Well, it's a bit of history involved with it All right, let's get into it.
Speaker 3:I started my career as a massage therapist. I've been doing body work for 25 years, so I started off as a massage therapist and throughout my career as a massage therapist it evolved. I became a lot more interested in body work and the capacity of it and I decided to go to chiropractic school. So in chiropractic school I think I had a really great advantage because I had already had, you know, about eight years of experience working on bodies, so I had the touch, I knew how to relate to people. So my patient care and my bedside manner was already developed and I knew how to move the body From there.
Speaker 3:I was very interested in integrating the two massage, which was so innate to me, and with chiropractic so that has always been my passion with doing body work is combining the two. Um, the mobile aspect, you know, with massage you do house calls, it's just part of your practice. So throughout massage school I was practicing, you know, some adjustments on my clients as appropriate and uh, and it just kind of stemmed from there. You know, going to people's homes and doing, you know, massage and chiropractic together just makes sense.
Speaker 2:Yeah, it does definitely make sense, like I said earlier. And what are some of the typical or common, what are the most common myths or misconceptions that you typically hear from patients? I know a lot of people out there they hear maybe not so much anymore, but you hear chiropractor and you think of like a doctor just doing quick adjustments to fix things. What are some of the things that you typically hear from patients in this space?
Speaker 3:Yeah, you know, I do hear a lot about that when I treat my clients because I do work on them for much longer.
Speaker 3:My sessions are typically 45 minutes to an hour long, so of course they do enjoy all of that hands on time and all of that personalization. But I mean as a profession as a whole, I think that chiropractic has really kind of moved away from a lot of the misconceptions of the past. We're working in multidisciplinary clinics now. I think the medical community has really embraced us as a standard of care for musculoskeletal conditions before going into more invasive surgeries or interventions. A lot of the research that's been done with spinal manipulation and a lot of the evidence-based practices and guidelines that we've received in treating clients just learning best practices on how to treat lower back pain, understanding better the prognosis of some of these injuries, how long it's going to take for them to heal, you know what kind of therapeutic interventions work best, home exercise protocols I think that our profession's done a lot of work with debunking a lot of these myths. It's kind of being seen more as a philosophical practice in the past and now we've emerged to more standard of care.
Speaker 2:Yeah, and certainly with the abundance of information that's available nowadays all that research that we're talking about is so readily available and I think we're seeing, if I'm not mistaken, a shift to more holistic practices of healing, as opposed to trying to just treat the symptom and not really get in there and fix the underlying problem. Um, and I think I mentioned to you when we spoke initially, I've been doing a lot of recordings with people in the holistic healing space. You mentioned my previous guests of the show, dr provendron, at the pro Institute. They take a holistic approach to sports medicine and regenerative medicine and that kind of thing. I think that's's like on the forefront of many's minds nowadays, because we do live in a society that's geared towards instant gratification and quick fixes and there is an epidemic of health in this country, so I love raising awareness around these topics.
Speaker 3:Yes, thank you.
Speaker 2:Yeah, absolutely so. You had mentioned also we were talking before the show. We both have daughters around the same age. You have an 11 year old. She goes to Pioneer. My daughter, emma, goes to Pioneer as well. She's one year ahead, obviously. For most, family is often the backbone of what we do. It's the probably one of the most important, if not the most important things. Tell us a little bit about your family. Is that your only child? Do you have any other kids?
Speaker 3:Yes, mila is my only daughter. My husband is an architectural photographer.
Speaker 2:An architectural photographer, nice yeah.
Speaker 3:So I have my previous life. I was a theater major. I went to New World School of the Arts in downtown Miami, which is affiliated with University of Florida. So him and I joined mostly because of our love of art and photography and theater, and so Mila is kind of following the same path. She's a competitive dancer, so we're all very immersed in her dance life, so that's where we spend a lot of our time and money, honestly.
Speaker 2:Competitive dancers. So what kind of dance does she do? Is it like hip-hop type dance? What kind of dance are we talking about here?
Speaker 3:Her studio works with every kind of dance. Ballet is the backbone, of course, but they do do hip-hop and jazz and ballroom. You know all kinds of dance.
Speaker 2:What studio are we talking about here? Where does she go?
Speaker 3:She goes to Dancer's Gallery, and so she's part of the past competitive team.
Speaker 2:Shout out to Dancer's Gallery. Shout out here in the community. Very cool.
Speaker 3:Yeah, we're a really great family. I enjoy my experience there, and so does she.
Speaker 2:Nice, nice. So, looking back through your journey, I find the older I get, the more aware I am of the struggle, and I find that I often gain more insight from the more challenging and difficult experiences than the rewarding experiences in my life, whereas in the past, when I was younger, I just I was like, why do I have to deal with all the stress and hassle? I just want everything to come to me easily. But the older I get, I really do feel grateful for the struggle. Looking and often we're defined by some of our most challenging moments in life Looking back throughout your journey, is there something that comes to mind, a specific time in your life, a hardship, something you struggled with, or some challenge that you faced that at the time going through it, you were shaking your head, wondering why this was happening to you and you couldn't find any reason for this and it seemed like the end of the world. But now fast forward to where you're at today. You could say you're grateful for having gone through that experience.
Speaker 3:Yes, Jeremy what do you?
Speaker 3:got. Jeremy. I think that probably in my mid-20s was one of them, when I was deciding what I wanted to be. When I grow up, I guess you know, I had this immersive, passionate experience with theater. But then I had to make money, so I went to massage school and I was doing massage at the same time. So I had to make a decision in my mid-20s. What was I going to do, you know, am I going to continue to pursue theater and go get my master's in theater or am I going to pursue body work? So we know what won. But it was a struggle to make that decision. You know you could go to college for something and then end up not doing what you majored in, and that's okay, you know.
Speaker 3:I think another one was more recently. I had worked for a company developing a company, and I was the vice president of operations for this company for 10 years. A company and I was the vice president of operations for this company for 10 years. We were a holistic company, chiropractic company that went into substance abuse treatment centers and we opened up our own clinics within these treatment centers and provided chiropractic and acupuncture massage, yoga, nutrition like a whole holistic package for the community that was undergoing substance abuse treatments, so rewarding, amazing.
Speaker 3:So it was a very left brain role for me because I did operations, I worked with HR, I worked with documentation, insurance, company compliance and for a little while I kind of backed off doing hands-on care just so I could focus in on that. But last summer, unfortunately, because of insurance, poor insurance reimbursements and guidelines, we had to close the company. So I think that was another crossroads for me and how I decided to really take the next step and really put all of my focus into Tula Mobile Chiropractic and get back into full-time hands-on care, kind of rekindle my fire for what I really love to do. What I'm really passionate in doing is patient care. So you know it was a struggle, it was another breakup, you know that was hard, but you's it's really lit a fire in me and I'm really grateful for that.
Speaker 2:Love it, love it. Yeah, there's something about helping other people and not just helping somebody like like a surface level, like help them carry a bag, that kind of thing, but actually helping somebody transform their life, transform their wellbeing, transform that and seeing that process. I was just talking to my daughter about this the other day over the weekend and, as most 12 year olds are, they're pretty self-centered. Kids are focused on what they want. I started having a conversation about how, the older I get, the more I realize that the you get so much I'm trying to remember how I phrased this to her but you get so much more out of helping other people than you do, focusing on yourself and really doing what you do, and I'm trying to shift my focus away from that.
Speaker 2:I've always, going back in my twenties and thirties. I'd always also been very materialistic. Right, I thought I was a good person because I hold the door open for somebody. But when you really dug into it, was I really helping people on a deeper level? And it's something I've been exploring very deeply on the north side of 40, which is probably why I've been speaking with so many people that are in holistic healing and practices and well-being and spirituality and this whole space. It's just fascinating to me. Spirituality and this whole space, it's just fascinating to me and it's really given me a sense of purpose and meaning in my life. So I'm always happy to have another person that's kind of that has that on their radar in the professional space. It's nice to see.
Speaker 3:I think at the root of it, it's kindness. Kindness to one another is just the baseline of being a good person. Kindness to one another is just the baseline of being a good person.
Speaker 2:Kindness and gratitude. Right, I just had a guest on the show, leighton Campbell. He wrote a book called the Happiness Equation Check out the episode we did on the podcast and he basically came up with an equation for happiness a mathematical equation, and I'm not going to get into the structure and how he came up with it, but he was talking about how gratitude turned out to be an exponent in that equation and this idea of being grateful all the time for everything, and that's another thing that's been been sharp on my mind as well.
Speaker 2:So, yeah, good stuff. What would be one thing and this can be related to your business, this could be any personal wisdom, something you'd like to leave our listeners with again a life, a little nugget, a little piece of wisdom, anything you want to share.
Speaker 3:Well, I wish I could give a life wisdom nugget, but you know, I'll take the opportunity to just explain my practice a little bit more if you don't mind. Absolutely. And I think it also goes back to the myth of chiropractic at least as it relates to how I approach my profession is that it's not just about chiropractic popping and cracking. You know joints and you know getting things back into the alignment with an adjustment. But I use a lot of different tools in my toolkit to address people's conditions, anything from like acute pain or chronic pain or wellness, or even kids.
Speaker 3:I just want people to be able to function, to have good mobility, so that they could do the things that they love. So I can approach somebody's situation with the chiropractic adjustments. If that's not appropriate for them, I could use a little tool called the activator that really helps with joint mobility. Or I could get in there with my hands and do very specific manual therapy or massage, assisted stretching, trigger point, dry needling, you know anything that somebody would need from whatever angle. You know I really try to provide more personalized care and make it, you know, more accessible for people who aren't really into getting adjusted or if it's not appropriate for them to get adjusted. It's important for me to help people and provide body work for them.
Speaker 2:Yeah, and really give them, I'd imagine, try to give them the tools that they need to make changes moving forward in their life, because, as we both know, there's no quick fix with any of this Like, sure, you can go in and get a quick adjustment and it might give you some temporary relief, but the underlying condition is probably not gonna go away and, like with anything else, it takes lifestyle changes, it takes work, you know, takes all sorts of stuff right proper nutrition, exercise, proper mental stay, all this stuff. You got to do all of it and there are no shortcuts, but it's all worth it in the end.
Speaker 3:Exactly, Motion is lotion for the body. So getting out there, being active you know, I guess that's my little nuggets of wisdom is people that hold their adjustments the best are the most active people, especially squats.
Speaker 2:You just reminded me I need to get back out there and do my squats 's right, me too very cool all right, um, anything else I'm going to give you.
Speaker 3:I'll give you one other thing, anything else you want to share before we wrap up here, anything I missed no, I think that you asked some very good questions and we, you know, we were able to get into it a little, so it was a lot of fun perfect.
Speaker 2:Well, it was a pleasure having you on. Thanks so much for coming on the show and telling us a little bit about what you do. Yeah, thanks, jeremy, it was a lot of fun.
Speaker 3:I appreciate it.
Speaker 2:My pleasure and thanks, as always, to our listeners for tuning in. If you like the show and you have any comments, please leave them below. We'd love to. If you have any suggestions, anyone you want to see on the show, let me know. We'll reach out. We'll see if we can get them on. Until next time, everyone, take care and have a blessed day, thank you, bye.
Speaker 1:Thanks for listening to the Good Neighbor Podcast Cooper City. To nominate your favorite local business to be featured on the show, go to GNPCooperCitycom or call 954-231-3170.