We recently connected with Dr. BreAnn Hoffman and have shared our conversation below.
Dr. BreAnn , looking forward to hearing all of your stories today. Is there a heartwarming story from your career that you look back on?
I’ve had the opportunity to work with many women throughout their pregnancies and each one has held a special place in my heart. It’s often said that you never forget your first, and I will never forget my first prenatal patient. The first prenatal woman I was lucky enough to work with came in to see me when she was 33 weeks pregnant. She was nervous about coming in late into her pregnancy and she had also never seen a Webster Technique Certified Chiropractor before. For those who don’t know, Webster Technique is a technique used to balance the sacrum and pelvis so that a woman’s pelvis is in an optimal position for a smoother delivery by creating space that allows for a baby to position themselves for their birth.
As her due date was approaching, I was able to witness this woman transition from nervous to deliver, to empowered and ready to have her baby. Her OB had scheduled her for an induction due to risks associated with her pregnancy, but by the time her date had come around, she had naturally gone into labor.
After her beautiful daughter made her appearance, I received a message from my patient saying that her delivery was normal, natural, and that she only pushed for 10 minutes, whereas she had pushed for 3 hours with her first daughter. I had told her throughout the 7 weeks we worked together that many women have quicker labor and delivery times when under consistent Chiropractic Care and she would laugh it off every time. She definitely won’t take that as a joke ever again and can attest to the truth behind it. I’m grateful that I was able to work with her during her prenatal stage, and now I’m even more grateful that I get to work with her and her beautiful baby girl in her post partum phase of life.
Awesome – so before we get into the rest of our questions, can you briefly introduce yourself to our readers.
How I Found Chiropractic My journey in finding Chiropractic is a bit different than most. I didn’t always want to be a Chiropractor, and I also wasn’t raised in a Chiropractic family. My dad was the type of guy that only went to see the chiropractor when he was in enough pain that it made him unable to work, and my mom wasn’t big on Chiropractic either. To this day, she has only been to the chiropractor twice. My original dream was to become a Physical Therapist after a minor four-wheeling accident that resulted in a broken femur and a few months of Physical Therapy. I followed this dream until my senior year of college. There’s often a saying mentioned about the Chiropractic profession and it’s that you don’t find Chiropractic, Chiropractic finds you. Chiropractic truly did find me, and looking back, it was actually there all along.
I grew up in the beautiful state of Utah and spent most of my time competing in rodeo and riding horses. At my high school rodeo state finals senior year, a chiropractor and father of one of my fellow competitors, was in attendance and offering a deal where he was adjusting competitors as well as their horses. At that point in time, I had no idea that there was such thing as an animal chiropractor, let alone one that would be able to adjust horses. Chiropractic instance number one.
After some minor convincing, my mom gave me the okay and the money to sign up and claim our spots. Both my horse and I received our very first adjustments that day, and I couldn’t believe it. Looking back on it, I think my horse was feeling a little too good after his adjustment because during our pole bending run, he decided he wanted to go a little faster than his legs could carry him and we both ended up face first in the dirt. I stood up, gave a little bow, grabbed my horse, and exited the arena. Our pride was a little hurt, and we were disqualified, but at the very least we provided everyone with a good laugh and were introduced to Chiropractic.
I put my rodeo career on pause to attend college and decided I wanted to major in Exercise and Sport Science. Little did I know chiropractic was going to make its way back into my life. During my sophomore year of college, I became very close with a soccer player from California. We sat next to each other in every class and spent countless hours studying together. Over the next year and a half my friend continuously tried convincing me that I should look into becoming a chiropractor because that’s what she was doing. I half-heartedly investigated it, but was still leaning towards PT. This was Chiropractic instance number two.
The next year I transferred to Weber State University and completed my senior year of college in Ogden, Utah. During the middle of the fall semester of 2018, Weber State held a Graduate Fair that had vendors from different graduate schools and professions from all over the country come onto our campus and speak to students about their opportunities and programs post-graduation. This was Chiropractic instance number three.
There were three vendors for three different Chiropractic colleges at this Grad Fair. I spoke with one from California and one from Iowa and neither of those places were appealing locations for me to want to live, so I still wasn’t completely sold on the idea of becoming a Chiropractor yet. I finally found the third school and it just so happened to be located in Dallas, Texas. This was selling point number one. Growing up, my dad was an avid Dallas Cowboys fan, and I had always thought living in Texas was something I could see myself doing. I spoke with the recruiter for a few minutes, and he mentioned that Parker University was one of the few Chiropractic Colleges that offered a certification in Animal Chiropractic. This was selling point number two, and the only one that mattered. I applied that day and was accepted within a week. Six months later I packed up my car, drove 20 hours, and never looked back.
Moving to Texas was one of the best decisions I have ever made. Don’t get me wrong, it was difficult to leave my family and life I had known behind, but I was lucky enough to meet my husband here and adopt the coolest dog. We’ve created a pretty amazing life out here and we’ve seen a lot of miracles happen in our office. Chiropractic changed my life in the very best way. Every day I’m reminded that Chiropractic found me, and I couldn’t be more grateful for it.
How I Found Pediatric Chiropractic
In Chiropractic school, there are 10 trimesters that are 15 weeks long. When I first began school, I wanted to become a sports chiropractor and work with athletes. Around the halfway point, I decided that I was no longer drawn to only working with athletes, but I also didn’t have a target population in mind either. I didn’t think much of it at the time, but that quickly changed once I attended a seminar taught by two doctors that were married and owned a family practice here in Dallas.
During this time in school, I had met and began dating my now husband, who was only one month away from graduating. His plan post-graduation was to open his own practice, and at the time I was planning to open my own after graduation as well. I was one year behind him in school, so the thought of owning a business and working together hadn’t come up in conversation and we were still figuring out where our relationship was going. The seminar I attended was focused on pediatric chiropractic and owning a family wellness practice. To this day, it’s still one of the most interesting seminars I have been to, and it made me realize that I wanted more than anything to work with moms and babies.
After the seminar, I asked Alex if he could ever see us owning a family practice and working together and what he thought that might look like. He told me he had been thinking about that for a while but wanted to make sure I was on the same page so it wouldn’t feel like he was convincing me to do something completely different than what I wanted to do.
We spent the next few months looking at office locations for lease all over Carrollton, Addison, Colleyville, and Grapevine. We both agreed that we loved the small town feel of Grapevine and had found an office space on Main Street that had the potential to be our own for the next five years- but the green walls and old carpet would have to go. Our walls and flooring have since changed to make our office feel more like home, and we really love the space we’ve created.
My Services/Who I work with
Majority of the patients I work with daily are pregnant women, newborns, toddlers, and teenage girls. My purpose as a chiropractor is to find areas in the spine where a misalignment, or subluxation, has occurred and adjust that area to remove the subluxation that has caused an interference within the Nervous System. Our Nervous System is composed of our brain, spinal cord, and all the nerves that travel throughout our body. It controls everything we do, that’s why it’s very important to have proper function and why we are so adamant about working with babies and children specifically.
Our health throughout our childhood determines our health in our adulthood. Some of the common cases we see in our office are babies and children who suffer from colic, reflux, constipation, sleeping difficulty, torticollis, behavioral issues, sensory processing disorder, autism, and that’s just the beginning.
I’m often asked if an adjustment on a baby looks the same as the ones you see on TikTok and Instagram. They are not even close to the same. Babies require much less pressure and force to achieve the same result as an adjustment on an adult. Most of the time, all it takes to adjust a baby is a sustained contact hold on the area where I have found a subluxation. The best part of my job, aside from helping babies and moms feel better, is that I get to hold cute babies all day long.
I also work with teenage girls who are dealing with hormone issues such as heavy and painful periods. For many years, the quick solution to these issues has been putting teenage girls on birth control, and now I’ve made it my goal to help moms and daughters see that there is a more natural approach to helping solve these issues and it starts in the spine.
One of the most important parts of my job as a Chiropractor is to support moms so that they can continue to be the best moms for their children. Moms are total superheroes in my eyes and are always so supportive of everyone else. I believe they deserve the same support they give to others and so much more. We’ve created a space in our office where moms are allowed to come in, bring their kids to run around and play, all while they’re able to focus only on themselves for 10 minutes while getting adjusted. They always leave looking happier and feeling better than when they walked in the door. Many of the moms I work with joke that their time in our office is their 10 minutes of self-care for the day.
Now, I know what you’re thinking… ‘but what about dads? They need care too!’ You are absolutely correct, and we love taking care of dads as well. That’s why we have a pediatric and family wellness practice! This is where my wonderful business partner and husband comes into the picture! He spends majority of his time working with dads, athletes, and children who have autism, ADHD, and SPD. Together, we want to provide care for the whole family so that everyone is as healthy as possible. Happy, healthy families live happy, healthy lives!
If you could go back, would you choose the same profession, specialty, etc.?
Yes. No questions asked, I would absolutely choose this profession and specialty all over again. Chiropractic has given me more than I ever thought possible. Chiropractic led me to my life partner and that alone would make me choose it all over again.
We’re often asked what made us want to work with children and the answer we both agree on is that we wanted to make a difference and help others understand the importance of health from an early age on. The potential of helping change someone’s life from the very beginning could help change the world for the better in the long run. Not to mention, the energy from children is unmatched. The second we have a kid walk into the office it brightens our day.
You hear talk all the time of people being stuck in the same routine and living the same day repeatedly, that doesn’t happen here. Every single day is different, every patient is different, and every connection we make is different. It’s truly beautiful and ever changing.
The relationships we’ve formed with our patients are incomparable. We’re able to learn so much about the people who come into our office and we’re able to celebrate all the wins with them, but we’re also there as a form of support during the losses and hardships that occur. Our main purpose at Innately Chiropractic is to serve families in this office, and that means so much more than just the adjustment.
Can you open up about how you managed the initial funding?
The money we spent to start our practice was truly the bare minimum. We didn’t have a lot of money coming out of school, but we made it work the best we could. Dr. Alex worked at Cheddar’s Scratch Kitchen throughout his time in graduate school, and I was involved in the work study program through Parker University off and on during mine.
As mentioned previously, Dr. Alex graduated one year earlier than I did. After he graduated, he began working at The Joint Chiropractic to make a little extra money to put towards the practice we wanted to open. In his last trimester of school, he also took out a Graduate Plus Loan through FAFSA and was given $10,000. He put this directly into savings so that when it came time to open doors, he would have an ‘in case of emergency’ fund.
During this time, we had already signed our five-year lease in Grapevine. We were then waiting on the property managers to decide how much they were going to award us for tenant improvements. The office space we found was previously a law firm and needed quite the face lift. Hunter green walls didn’t exactly scream ‘welcome, please bring your kids here!’.
Before graduate school, I spent my summers working construction with my dad. Majority of the work I did was cultured rock, stucco, and brick. I’d seen enough houses and offices that I felt I could cultivate a family-friendly environment. We talked it over and Dr. Alex gave me free reign to decide what I wanted to change. His only request was to make it “feel like home” and be a place where moms would walk in and think it was cute.
I quickly got to work and created a list of changes to be made. Carpet would need to be ripped out, one wall needed to be knocked down to open up more space, another wall needed built to create our office room, and new paint was necessary immediately. The original offer for TI was $12,500, and the contractors that bid our office were quoting the renovations at $14,000. We asked for more money to cover the total cost, and the property managers granted us $17,500 and informed us that anything over that would be covered out of our pocket. Our overall cost once completed was around $18,100. My husband always jokes that that $600 we spent went towards the wall in the back and when we move, he is taking it with him because he owns it.
After construction was finished, we needed to buy our chiropractic tables. My father-in-law bought Alex’s table as part of his graduation gift. This saved us an additional $900. During my final trimester of school, I had also taken out the Grad Plus Loan and used a portion of that to pay for my table. My table cost just under $2,000. The reason mine is more expensive than Alex’s is because I wanted drop pieces, or portions of the table that prop up and drop when you push on them to help with adjustments. I use these specifically when I work with pregnant women because I don’t have to lay them on their side to adjust their low back or pelvis and create unnecessary torque or tension.
After tables were set up, our next purchase was a front desk and office chairs. We found a standing desk that we both liked on Amazon and bought it for $200. Another Chiropractor we know, had recently updated the chairs in his office in Oklahoma, so he kindly donated his old ones to us, free of charge. The rest of the furniture in our office were things we owned already. For example, we have a comfy pink chair in our exam room for breastfeeding moms to sit and relax in while they feed their babies in peace, a coffee table in our waiting area with different health related magazines, and a desk and office chair for the back office that Dr. Alex and I have meetings in.
When we first opened, we didn’t have much in the office. We have slowly added more and more as we’ve grown. Now, we have a kids play area with a tent, cooking play set, other toys, a baby changing station, a rocking chair, and pictures hung up on the walls. It truly feels welcoming and like a home now. We are so proud of the space we’ve created and love serving in our office. We can’t wait to see what other changes will continue to come!
Contact Info:
- Website: https://www.innatelychiro.com/
- Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/innately_chiropractic/
- Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/InnatelyChiropractic
- Other: Dr. Alex has recently started a podcast on Spotify called The Innate Effect- https://spotify.link/stWFYF0QnDb
Image Credits
Johnathon Valdez (Pic JV)