Good Neighbor Podcast: Colorado Springs

EP #81: Structure Determines Function: Dr. Peter Harris Reveals Chiropractic's Hidden Benefits

• Tony Hills & Dr. Peter Harris • Episode 81

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What makes Dr. Peter Harris with Hexis Chiropractic a good neighbor?  

What exactly happens when a bone in your spine shifts out of place? According to Dr. Peter Harris of Hexis Chiropractic, the consequences extend far beyond just back pain. With his neurologically-based approach, Dr. Harris addresses how spinal misalignments disrupt nervous system function, creating a cascade of symptoms throughout the body that many would never connect to spinal health.

Dr. Harris shares the powerful personal story that led him to chiropractic care—watching his father transform from a man plagued by chronic migraines and impending sinus surgery to someone who now experiences these conditions rarely, if ever. This family revelation changed his career trajectory from engineering to becoming a doctor of chiropractic medicine, a journey that took him through rigorous scientific training and multiple practice locations before establishing his Colorado Springs office.

Throughout our conversation, Dr. Harris methodically dismantles common misconceptions about chiropractic care: that practitioners aren't "real doctors" (they complete extensive scientific coursework and doctoral programs), that treatments are unsafe (he uses in-house x-rays to identify potential risks before treatment), that it's prohibitively expensive (especially compared to the progression from medications to surgery), and that it's not appropriate for children (he regularly treats infants and children for conditions like colic and ear infections using gentle techniques). For those curious about exploring beyond conventional medical approaches, Dr. Harris offers a compelling vision of health care that addresses root causes rather than just managing symptoms.

Ready to rethink what's possible for your health? Visit HexsChiropractic.com to learn more about Dr. Harris's approach and book your first comprehensive evaluation, including personalized x-rays and treatment plan.

To learn more about Hexis Chiropractic go to: 

https://www.hexischiropractic.com/

Hexis Chiropractic

719-247-6227




Speaker 1:

This is the Good Neighbor Podcast, the place where local businesses and neighbors come together. Here's your host, Tony Hills.

Speaker 2:

Welcome to the Good Neighbor Podcast. Are you in need of a neurologically-based chiropractor? One might be closer than you think. Today I have the pleasure of introducing our good neighbor, Dr Peter Harris, with Hex's Chiropractic. Dr Harris, how's it going?

Speaker 3:

It's going great. Thank you so much for having me. I appreciate being on your podcast.

Speaker 2:

Thank you All right, we're excited to have you on the show. Tell us about your business.

Speaker 3:

So, like you said, I'm a neurologically based chiropractor. People are like what the heck does that mean?

Speaker 3:

So, basically, structure determines function. So if the structure of your spine is altered, then the function of your nervous system is going to be affected. So many people come to me for the triad and I call it the triad. It's most notably neck pain, low back pain and headaches, but I help with so many other things. I've helped people with thyroid issues. I've helped people with, uh, high blood pressure.

Speaker 3:

I've helped people with digestive issues Uh, someone that would just get diarrhea right after they would, uh, after I'd eat something. So they had to schedule when they would eat around work or around travel. So, um, also I take care of kids around work or around travel. So also I take care of kids, kids that have colic sleep disturbances. They're not pooping well, they're just being really fussy, right. So a lot of these are neurologically based symptoms and people don't know that a chiropractor can help with these symptoms with a neurologically based approach. And that's why I also utilize my in-house x-ray machine, because that allows me more specificity in order to see exactly what's going on in the spine, so I can get you better quicker and know exactly which area of the spine I need to address to get you where you want to go.

Speaker 2:

Wow, pretty interesting. How did you get into this business?

Speaker 3:

So it's a long story, but if I can make it somewhat concise, my brother introduced my family to chiropractic. He basically walked into a chiropractic office one day and he said, oh my gosh, this is so cool. So then my family started going and the most impactful story was my dad. My dad was suffering from migraines as well as sinus infections, and so we went to the chiropractor and we said, okay, my dad never really had a history of neck pain or traumas to the neck, necessarily. But we saw his x-rays of his neck and the chiropractor said this doesn't look right.

Speaker 3:

This one bone right here it's super rotated and I think that's why you have migraines and I think that's why you're having sinus infections, because at that point my dad was about to get surgery for sinus infections. So the chiropractor said, hey, I need you to come this many times for this many weeks. Um, be patient with me. And I think even after just a week or two, my dad saw results and at it's, I think he's been under care. He's been going to the chiropractor weekly for gosh, I think it's been 17, 18 years, and he could probably count on one hand how many sinus infections and probably on one hand again how many migraines he's had in those years.

Speaker 3:

So once I saw, that I was like I'm sold right, and so I went to UConn to. I originally went for engineering, but then I decided to go into kinesiology, which is the study of the body and how it moves, and then I decided to go to Life University, which is a college of chiropractic, and I got a doctor of chiropractic at Life University and then I started working. After that right, I practiced in Connecticut for a year, moved to Boulder, Colorado, after a year, practiced there for 15 months and then I just recently moved here a year ago, took about six months to actually renovate my office and I've been open since October of 2024. And that's where I'm at right now.

Speaker 2:

Awesome. What are some myths or misconceptions in?

Speaker 3:

your industry. There's so many, First and foremost, that chiropractors are not doctors. I've been through it all. You have to get a bachelor's of science degree and it's a pretty rigorous doctorate program. When I went to Life University, the College of Chiropractic, I mean, it was four years and you're taking all sorts of ologies, histology, parasitology, bacteriology, all these science classes. You're taking business classes, you're taking practice management, you're taking research classes. We're taking all sorts of classes in order to get prepared to be a doctor, right. So that's one misconception. Another is that it's unsafe. People probably hear about strokes. They probably hear about all these other things. My question is did the chiropractor take x-rays? Because if they took x-rays, you can see if someone is prone to getting a stroke after, if you do adjust the probe right. I take x-rays also because you can see if there's osteoporosis, you can see if there's spinal instability, if they have rheumatoid arthritis, so all these conditions that people are worried about.

Speaker 3:

I try to use my in-house x-ray in order to really see that before I even touch the patient, right, I try to make sure that everything is set in stone and ready to go. Another thing is probably that chiropractic is very expensive. Well, if you look at most reasons why a person goes to see a chiropractor, it's usually because of back pain. Well, do you know how expensive medications are? Over time, it's probably going to cost more and more, and also those medications may have side effects, right, if you get injections, that's also more expensive, and sometimes those wear off and then you talk about spinal surgery.

Speaker 3:

That could correct things, possibly, but that's also extremely expensive, much more and, who knows, you need to get another spinal surgery 10, 15 years from now, it depends. There's other misconceptions. I mean that it's painful. I mean, if not all my patients, most of my patients are like, oh, that was so relieving. It's not about the popping or cracking. The whole point is to move the bone into the correct alignment to take pressure off nerves that come out of your spine. That's the whole point, right. To take pressure off nerves that come out of your spine. That's the whole point right.

Speaker 3:

And I think another misconception is that it's not for kids, that it's unsafe for kids, it's only for adults. Not true at all. I have had I got adjusted when I was first 12 years old and I've had friends that I went to chiropractic school that they got adjusted as early as birth, Literally when they, you know, were just out of mom for a few hours. Get them adjusted. And it's not like we're doing a crazy manipulation. They're very small, little gelatinous beings. You're just doing slight pressure to move those bones. So it's very safe for kids. And again, I help kids with colic and ear infections. They are kids that are just not sleeping well, digestive issues, like they're not pooping. So I think those are probably the bigger misconceptions that I see in the industry.

Speaker 2:

OK, who are your target customers and how do you attract them?

Speaker 3:

I would say I'm a family, I'm a family focused chiropractor. I want to take care of families. I think families are the what's the word. They're the pinnacle of society. You absolutely need them, right? We're only as strong as our family unit is, and so and usually this isn't always the case, but usually the person in the household to make the health decisions are usually the mother, and so my target audience technically is the mothers that are looking to improve the health, firstly with themselves, Because they're, if you could tell, a lot of women are much more, I would say they're very receptive of their body.

Speaker 3:

They listen to their body a little bit better than men, you probably noticed, and some men will say ah, I'll go to a chiropractor when I'm in enough pain right when women are more likely to go before it gets too painful. So they listen to their bodies better. I would say that's more of my target audience. But also I love taking care of athletes too. My brother has a CrossFit gym back in Connecticut and I would take care of a lot of his clients, a lot of the people that would go to the gym, and I just like that community too. There are people that they want to get the most out of their performance. They want to get most out of this body that they live in, so they're much more receptive to chiropractic care as well. Honestly, at the end of the day, I want people to know that health is wealth, and I really love approaching those people specifically.

Speaker 2:

Outside of work. What do you do for fun?

Speaker 3:

Okay. So I love playing the ukulele, I love making music. I also like to read, I listen to podcasts. I mean, look at these beautiful mountains. We got here in Colorado Springs, we're going hiking. Okay, I got my puppy here. You can probably hear her barking a little bit. There she is, let's see. Just spending time with family and also spending time with my fiance. That probably kind of sums up what I do. I also like to play sports basketball. My fiance's got me into pickleball. Of course, everyone's playing pickleball these days. I think Fiance has gotten me into pickleball, of course, so everyone's playing pickleball these days, I think. And then I did mention that I also do CrossFit, so that's kind of more of what I do.

Speaker 2:

Okay, let's switch gears. Can you describe a hardship, a life challenge you overcame?

Speaker 3:

how it made you stronger and what comes to mind. So when I think of hardships, I think of I kind of put this in three different boxes a physical hardship, a mental hardship and an emotional hardship. So physically, I remember I used to wrestle and I remember it was only my second year of wrestling and there was another athlete that I thought was I mean, he was and probably is still very good at what he does, but I was really scared to face him and it was my junior year of high school and I remember that I was really scared before wrestling him and it was in a state tournament and my brother I really needed my brother at that moment because he gave me a great pep talk and I beat the kid in overtime. It was probably the most incredible physical thing I overcame. The most mental thing I overcame was I didn't I think I mentioned this but I switched gears in college.

Speaker 3:

I switched my, my major, from engineering to kinesiology, my major from engineering to kinesiology, and so that meant that the later portion of my schooling it was pretty intense because I had to take a lot of classes that I didn't take in the beginning of schooling.

Speaker 3:

So my last semester was very, very difficult and I just developed this discipline in order to really get through the schoolwork, taking very difficult classes, and my goal was to finish in four years. And that's what I did. I finished in four years and I think the emotional heart today came over was, you know, it has to involve a girl, right, she broke up with me when I moved to Atlanta, georgia, from Connecticut. My girlfriend was living in Connecticut at the time and we were doing the long distance thing for a few weeks and then she said no more, I can't do this. Probably the most difficult thing I had to go over, to go through emotionally, but, you know, with support from family and friends and just you know, realizing, you know I'm doing the right thing because I'm doing what my purpose is to be a chiropractor to actually help people. I think that was probably the biggest emotional hardship I came over.

Speaker 2:

What's the one thing that people should remember about X's Chiropractic?

Speaker 3:

Oh, what's the one thing people should remember? Oh, so, like I was saying, obviously the goal is to meet you where you're at. We want to make sure you reach your goals. We want to get you healthy as quickly as possible. But the next thing is also, I want to form a community here. I want you to feel like this is a safe haven when you're in the office. It's not just about moving bones and saying okay, hi, bye, not remembering your name, not knowing on, no, knowing what's going on with your life. We want to form a relationship with you.

Speaker 3:

I love people. I mean I understand. I mean I understand that everyone's good inside, everyone has this, everyone's amazing. They just have to realize that sometimes, when you're in pain, of course, you're probably at your bottom, you're probably at your worst, and I understand that you're at your worst. I want to get you to your best, and I really love seeing people connect within the office too. So that's probably the one thing I want to get you to your best and I really love seeing people connect within the office too, so that's probably the one thing I want people to remember.

Speaker 2:

Awesome, how can our listeners learn more about Hexix Chiropractic?

Speaker 3:

How can they learn more? So I mean, we've been kind of bringing more content on our Facebook and Instagram pages more content on our Facebook and Instagram pages. So I understand that when patients are here, they're probably only here for a few minutes a week maybe, and so I don't know what you're doing in between adjustments when you're here. So my goal is to get you content in order to help supplement what we're doing here. I want to help give you things that can get you healthier and, especially, things that are zero cost or low cost.

Speaker 3:

I'm not here to just you know. I want to make sure there's these simple little things that you can do. Right, the greatest doctors in the world is really things that don't take a lot of money to do getting great sleep, getting you know good sunlight exposure, moving your body around, uh, knowing what's going up, what's being put into your body, uh, things you could do like breath work and uh, maybe like exposure to cold temperatures and hot temperatures, and just getting together with family and friends. Those are things I really want people to engage in, um, because that is going to really get you healthy quicker.

Speaker 2:

Okay, okay, awesome. So you have Facebook and Instagram that they can get a hold of. Yeah, what other form?

Speaker 3:

of way can they Texaschiropracticcom, where you can read up on the techniques that I do as well as kind of a little bit about chiropractic and how it works. We try to make it super easy for people just booking appointments. We're at the top of the page. It's right in the middle of the page. It's probably at the bottom of the page too.

Speaker 3:

We just at first, when you book an appointment, I'm going to call you. I just want to see, hey, who are you and why are you coming in, and I just want to get to know you. You're going to talk to me, you're going to talk to the doctor, all right. So I want to know my patients as well as I can. And then you know usually the first visit. It usually takes anywhere between half an hour and an hour and we'll take some full set of x-rays. We'll take, we'll do the first adjustment, and it also includes the report of findings where I go over the x-rays with you in detail so you know exactly what's going on in your spine, so that we're both part of the care. I'm not just telling you what to do. We're both part of the care, but that's a great way to get in touch with me is the socials as well as the website.

Speaker 2:

Okay, well, dr Harris, I really appreciate you being on the show. We wish you and your business much success moving forward.

Speaker 3:

Thank you, tony, I appreciate it.

Speaker 1:

Thank you for listening to the Good Neighbor Podcast. To nominate your favorite local businesses to be featured on the show, go to gnpcoloradospringscom. That's gnpcoloradospringscom, or call 719-679-4720.