Spotlight Series

Guest Name: Dr. Joshua Clark

Credentials: DC

Dr. Betty DeLass: All right, welcome, Dr. Josh. Thank you so much for joining us on the Spotlight series for the Best in Utah Public Health Edition. I’m really excited to chat with you. Per usual, we have so many things in common, and we always always are bumping into each other in all sorts of ways, in the best of ways. So I have Dr. Josh here. He is a Utah native, born and raised in Sandy, Utah. He grew up as a lover of the outdoors and playing football. Dr. Josh graduated from Utah State University in 2018 with a Bachelor of Science in Animal Dairy and Veterinary Sciences and planned on attending veterinary school. After working as a vet tech in emergency vet medicine, Dr. Josh didn’t feel like this field was where it was he was meant to be. After a lot of searching and prayer, Dr. Josh found chiropractic. Chiropractic offered more than he was looking for: the patient-centered care, the holistic center, and, most importantly, helping the body find its way to heal itself. He chose to attend Parker University in Dallas, Texas. He graduated with his Doctor of Chiropractic in August 2023. Dr. Josh married his high school sweetheart, Sarah, and they have three hooligans. I love how you put them there: Gavin, Az, and Brienne. Dr. Josh calls his family his rock and the reason he’s been successful in his life so far. Dr. Josh has a natural love and desire to serve others. He is always ready with a dad joke and up to talk nerd culture and DIY projects. I can attest to the dad joke moments. Well, thank you, Dr. Josh, for being on our spotlight series. Why don’t you go ahead? Obviously, that was a little bit about why you decided to be a chiropractor, but jump in and tell us how you are now blending some of that animal stuff into your chiropractic business, and give us the whirlwind around that.

Dr. Josh: Absolutely. So, as you said, I was a veterinary technician for the better part of nine years; I was in animal research. I did emergency medicine. I did a lot of large animals, especially at Utah State. I loved that school. They had some amazing veterinarians. They were all supportive. But when I was working in the emergency field, a lot of animals like dachshunds, corgis, even the big breeds like Saint Bernards, Great Danes, they all had back issues, pain. They all went for surgery. Some of them had good outcomes. Some of them didn’t. And I was walking one of the dogs in the back after surgery, trying to get that rehab movement in, trying to get them feeling a little better. And I just had that moment of This doesn’t quite feel right. So I started looking around, seeing what other options I had because I tried veterinary school applications for the better part of a year, and it didn’t quite work out. So then I applied to chiropractic school because I found out I could actually be an animal chiropractor. The long story short of that is, while I was in chiropractic school, I came home one time after our third child had been born because I went to school in Texas, but my family stayed here in Utah. They had a better support system. It was just easier not to move a pregnant mother at the time, and my daughter was just walking funny. She was just learning how to walk. She was trying to pull one leg forward, and after, you know we did all the gait analysis, walking, child development said she’s looking funny. Is she being funny or is that like legitimate? My wife said no, that’s kind of how she walks. I walked over one little click; she started running, and I had my aha moment of I can do humans, I can do animals, I got the understanding of both. Let’s do it. So that’s where my journey has led me so far.

Dr. Betty DeLass: So cool. Okay, what do you feel like makes you different in the way that you practice in your practice with either humans or animals?

Dr. Josh: Humans or animals. So when it comes to the human aspect, the one thing that makes us different is we actually specialize in pregnancy, pediatrics, as well as the whole family. A lot of chiropractors don’t necessarily know how to adjust like a one-day-old baby, just because they’re used to dealing with large spines. The tiny itty-bitty spines that you get to deal with, you have to have a really good understanding of dexterity and feeling where those subluxations are, and the other aspect of it is learning exactly how to read baby and mom at the same time, because mom’s had baby for nine months, and then she hands them over to you, thinking that they’ve never seen a baby adjusted, so they’re thinking you’re going to do like the big boom, the big pop, and none of that is possible. None of that is how we do that. We do very gentle, very small little movements just to feel how everything’s moving. And if something feels stuck, like a subluxation, that’s the big chiropractic word. We do a little, little push, and once the muscle relaxes, then we know that’s good. We don’t have to hear a pop. We don’t have to do big movements or adjustments. And as we watch baby relax, we see mom relax, and then baby gets handed back over to mom, and everybody is happy because then the last few times we have adjusted kids, they’ve gone home. Baby slept for four hours. Mom gets her much-needed rest from recovery. And the world’s brighter, the world’s better because mom actually got some sleep. So that’s where I love the human aspect of it is watching and helping baby, mom, everybody get that first step to recovery when it comes to structure, especially because the I can’t remember the exact terms, but the biggest trauma most people have outside of car accidents or big falls or childbirth. So the rearrangement of all the bones and everything for the baby to come out and the relaxation of the pelvic floor, the back, everything to let the baby come out is is a huge change for a lot of people. Now, when it comes to the animal aspect of it. The biggest thing again is behavior. Dealing with a new horse, dealing with a new dog, they’re a little leery because usually coming to the doctor’s office usually means a shot or something like that from a veterinarian. We as chiropractors, we don’t give shots. We maybe do some acupuncture, but learning really quickly how to read the animal and the owner because if the owner is a little uneasy, just like mom is, the baby or the animal is going to pick up on that, and they’re going to be a little nervous to deal with stuff. So, and then adjusting a horse is very different than adjusting a person. But I have videos. There are a ton of videos online you can see, but it’s really amazing to see how comfortable either the baby, mom, the horse, the dog, anybody that once they’re adjusted, they can just relax and let the nerves and everything kind of not be at that heightened state and allow it to relax and recover and have a much better overall personal feeling.

Dr. Betty DeLass:  Awesome, awesome. Okay, who would you say then? You kind of allude to this is your ideal fit for your clinic, and who is that person that should come in today and see you?

Dr. Josh: So anybody who is looking for a more holistic approach. So they’re not necessarily done with Western medicine ideals because, you know, medications are needed for some things. I have that background in veterinary medicine. I’ve seen some animals do need a pain medication. Somebody needs a good muscle relaxer after a surgery or something. But if they’re looking to get off of that and try to figure out one where their spine is, where their nerve function is, where those muscle imbalances are. That’s where I and I love PT, so that’s where we come in together as a team to try and figure out one: better health for that person, a better way for them to live, better quality of life, I guess.

Dr. Betty DeLass: Totally, totally. Okay, walk us through the process to work with you, whether that’s human or animal; how does one get to work with you?

Dr. Josh: So we have a website, or we actually have a new artificial intelligence that helps answer our phones and our daily questions. But what you do is you give us a call. We set up a spinal health screening. It’s free to everybody. You come in. We just basically do a posture analysis. We do a little palpation, so we feel how your spine is moving, and then we take a little pause and like, hey, are you in the right spot? We don’t want you to feel like you’re wasting your time, your money, your effort, or anything. We want to make sure you’re in the right spot. And if you are, we get a secondary setup. We do X-rays on site, same day. We can do a few other scans, and then after that, we either do an adjustment. But if there are any, like, really bad issues, we want to do either further imaging or further tests, just to make sure we’re not missing something. And then we come up with a care plan for everybody. Each one is tailored to that person for their needs, for their, again, better quality of life, and then we are virtually a family for the rest of the time that you come to us.

Dr. Betty DeLass: That’s so great, Keith. Talk to us about recovery. You talked about it a little bit. Dive us deep a little bit more on recovery for mom and recovery from baby or baby from birth.

Dr. Josh: Yeah. Okay. So one thing we usually talk to most pregnant moms is that, because that’s usually when we see them as they’re coming in when they’re pregnant, is low back pain. We want to specify that as they get closer to due date, there’s a whole bunch of hormones that are going to be coming in. The main one that we talk about is relaxing. So it relaxes all those ligaments, tendons, everything in the pelvic floor. So we can get them comfortable, but then as soon as baby comes out, that relaxes and hangs out in the system for a little while. So if they are uncomfortable, we can at least get the body moving better, and then we refer them to reborn quite a bit to get the muscles and everything strengthened back up. A lot of the research says, you know, a year is roughly a good starting point for recovery. Sure, you have a much different time frame. I would say for that,

Dr. Betty DeLass: relatively a year. You’re right. I think I think it’s like it starts as soon as the birth happens, not. Six weeks, right? We both agree on that, and then generally speaking, a year or so. But I mean, honestly, personally, I didn’t really feel myself until about three years postpartum after my last. So it’s all relative. 

Dr. Josh: It is very all relative. So then, baby, let’s see. The youngest we’ve seen is a one-day-old. We’ve we had mom under care the whole time. The second baby was born. Everything was absolutely perfect. They brought her in. We do a general screening because she’s brand new. You want to make sure that she’s comfortable. We did a quick analysis. Everything moved great. Usually, when babies come in, they have, like, a torticollis, like a tightening on one side; we usually check that side. We check the other side, and then kind of develop a little care plan for that particular baby. But I mean, recovery for baby-it’s probably the first couple of years for them because they’re going to start learning how to walk, and then it’s a whole new set of traumas-a little bump here, a little stumble there, and chiropractors we see a lot of kids they get walking, and they get a little bump on the head. We like to tell our parents that, like, if you notice your kid 2448 hours after a little stumble, they start acting sick, getting sniffly. For us, that means something’s either off in the neck or the back, and the body’s trying to figure out what’s going on because it’s not used to that. So always come in, get at least a little assessment. You don’t even need an adjustment if it seems like, yeah, they had a little bump. We give you an adjustment, and everything’s better. Great. If they’re in school or daycare and they catch the yearly cold or something, that’s something different. But a few years after the baby’s born is definitely a long recovery for them too.

Dr. Betty DeLass: Totally, totally. Okay, what’s something that you think most people don’t know that you think that they should know about your services?

Dr. Josh: So one thing a lot of people don’t know is the overall aspect that a chiropractor kind of deals with. We’re physicians. We do see everything, but our main focus is the nerves in the spine and how everything moves. If you have autoimmune issues, there are a few things that we check, especially when it comes to gut health. When it comes to headaches, not all of them are caused by a subluxation in the neck. They can be dehydration. They can be migraines. There are over 30 different kinds of headaches, and each one has its own particular setups. So, we deal a lot of back pain, yes, but we’re more dealing with why the nerve flow and nerve conduction is. If that spine is moving properly, the nerves are happy. If the spine isn’t moving properly, then nerves or organs or something’s just not working quite right. So that’s why we come in, we adjust. You hear that pop or crack. A lot of it is satisfying, but it’s not 100% needed. That pop. We just want to make sure that movement’s there. So a lot of people think that we just crack and pop and send you on your way, and that’s why people feel better. It’s not necessarily it. We crack and pop so that the nerves feel better, the spine moves better, and then overall health is restored. So, and then there are probably a few more I could go over, but those are probably the biggies.

Dr. Betty DeLass: We’ll save that for another time, right?

Dr. Josh: Yeah. Okay.

Dr. Betty DeLass: Is there anything special that you want to promote to the audience watching here? Any workshops coming up? Anything new and exciting in your world?

Dr. Josh: Yeah, actually. So we have two things. We’re taking insurance. I know you just got your notification. You guys got insurance too. We’re covered under Blue Cross Blue Shield, Select Health, and just got approved for Etna,

Dr. Betty DeLass: amazing. Working

Dr. Josh: On a few others, so that’s that

Dr. Betty DeLass: That’s a big thing. Yeah, no. As soon

Dr. Josh: as you got yours, like, oh, I can’t wait to be that happy. So, and then we have our we do three times a year. We have our patient appreciation cycle. So we have our patients refer in people. We only do exams and X-rays for $39 on a particular day, so that particular instance starts next month. But we’re going to start promoting it here in the next couple of weeks, and we are doing two days where we have roughly eight appointments on those days, and then so again, exam X-rays, no adjustments. Just because we want to cover everything first before we adjust anybody. The referrals that we’ve been getting, our friends and family, and those people gave us their trust, and we want to make sure that their trust is very well protected. Because we do the exam, we do the X-rays. We want you to know everything about yourself first, and then we give our recommendations for adjustments.

Dr. Betty DeLass: Amazing, amazing! Great things to promote. I’m excited for you. Okay, what is the main thing that you want to be known for?

Dr. Josh: Main thing I want to be known for. So. The one thing that I noticed when I first walked into the clinic, Chiropractic for Kids and Families, was Dr. Bill Lawler, who brought me on. I walked in, and it felt like no doctor’s office I’d ever been into. It was bright. It was inviting. Everybody said it just felt happy and joyful there, so that when I took over last year, I wanted to maintain that. I want our clinic to be somewhere you come and you feel like this isn’t a doctor’s office. This is where people come to be happy, joyful. I dare say family, but you know some people are a little testy about that. But I want to be known for the office that people come to, and they feel almost like home.

Dr. Betty DeLass: Yeah, awesome! I love that. That’s amazing. Kate, where can we find you? Where are you located? Website, social media, all the things.

Dr. Josh: So we are in Alpine. We are just off of Main Street, so 45 West Main Street Court. We’re in kind of like a big complex; I want to say south of the I forget the name of the academy at the moment. But Instagram is Chirop for Kids. I also have my animal, which is Positive Chiropractic, P A W S, just because people ask. We have Instagram, we have Facebook, we have a few other social media, but all the things.

Dr. Betty DeLass: Amazing, amazing. Well, thank you so much, Dr. Josh, for being on our Spotlight series. It was a pleasure to talk with you today. Thanks for all that you’re doing in our community, and until next time.

Dr. Josh: Thank you so much for the invite.