Today we’d like to introduce you to Dr. Amy Hawthorne
Hi Dr. Amy, so excited to have you on the platform. So before we get into questions about your work-life, maybe you can bring our readers up to speed on your story and how you got to where you are today?
Hi! My name is Dr. Amy Hawthorne. I’d love to tell you a bit about how and why I became a chiropractor. I’m originally from a small town in Iowa and as a kid I had a huge love of horses. I began riding at age 8 and joined the United States Pony Club. I became active in competitions and competing in eventing, and had two horses of my own. As you can imagine, horseback riding can be a dangerous sport. I had several falls, and one especially bad one where the horse (not my horse) spooked at something. I was thrown 10 feet and landed right on my neck! I was rushed to the hospital, and I was extremely fortunate to have no visible damage on the tests they did. However, due to that fall, I started having neck pain from age 10. My parents were regular chiropractic patients, and started taking me for adjustments. This is where I first started learning about chiropractic and experienced for myself the healing benefits for the body and my neck!
The town I grew up in was a pretty unique place as it was home to a meditation and yoga community. This is the community I grew up in and we meditated and did yoga in school twice a day throughout my childhood. Growing up practicing meditation and yoga taught me about the importance of breath and movement for effecting the physiology, for relieving stress, and promoting wellness from within.
My mother was a physical therapist and often I would get to shadow her at work in a school for children with disabilities. She also provided homecare for a large variety of patients and I got to observe her working with people and helping them reconnect and heal their bodies through movement. My mother was influential in my career as a chiropractor because growing up she taught me about holistic medicine. Holistic means whole person, and when addressing any disease, symptom, or malady it is helpful to look at physical, mental, social, and spiritual factors. She taught me how movement repairs the connection between the brain and body, the power of herbs and supplements for various health issues, about the lymphatic system, and the importance of a balanced and healthy diet. From her I learned about essential oils and how they can get rid of viruses and balance hormones. And from her, the importance of the spine for health and vitality.
When I was in college my grandmother passed away from breast cancer. She had been a huge part of my life and this was a very big loss for our family. Several years later in my senior year of college, my mother was diagnosed with breast cancer. She started her healing journey to learn how to heal herself from this cancer. I had known I wanted to be a doctor and help people to heal from a young age. After watching my mother and grandmother, two women I deeply loved, go through this, my passion for truly helping people heal was piqued. It was at that time that I decided to go to Chiropractic school, because I felt that would be a good starting point in my learning more about the body, anatomy, and how to address the root causes of disease. Even more, how to keep the body healthy so these health problems don’t arise. I realized then I didn’t just want to be handing out prescription medications that only mask the symptoms. My interest was in helping people have vital fully functioning bodies for as long as possible, so they can enjoy life to the fullest while they are here! Our health is absolutely one of our most important assets! When we don’t have our health it is harder to do the things we love, do the work we need to do to provide for ourselves and our families, and harder to enjoy our time with our families and friends.
In my 16 years as a chiropractor I have practiced in multiple countries and worked with thousands of patients. While I was in chiropractic school I helped to found a program called Mission Trip America to provide care to homeless and veterans in San Francisco who didn’t have access to chiropractic care. After school I travelled to India with my yoga teacher and provided care at a medical clinic in a rural area that was at the orphanage he founded. I adjusted some pretty interesting cases there including a man who had been stepped on by an elephant! His spine was all twisted from the trauma that had happened many years before. My next adventure was starting a practice in Arequipa, Peru with two other chiropractors. It was incredible to get to know that culture and the people in it, and to get to introduce them to chiropractic! While we were there we volunteered in a home for orphans with disabilities and created many incredible connections.
After Peru I moved to Singapore where I practiced for 11 years. I started my own practice there and eventually expanded it into a holistic center with multiple practitioners and different classes called SamataSoul centre for well-being. We had things such as art therapy, trauma release exercises, access bars, network spinal, somatic therapy, yoga classes, nutritional counseling, sound therapy, and community meetings around the teachings of Ram Das (a great yogi and spiritual teacher). SamataSoul was also an art gallery and our art curator had a different exhibition every 3-4 months. We had events around the art, events with the artist, and used the artwork as a tool for self-reflection with guided art experiences. We also started a program at SamataSoul providing free chiropractic care and yoga classes for foreign domestic workers once a month on Sundays when they usually had a day off. These were women who were working far from home to support their families, and would normally not have had the financial means to get chiropractic care.
Since being back in the states and moving to Jacksonville, I have started Balance Point Chiropractic & Wellness! The clinic is located in the heart of Jacksonville on Atlantic Boulevard near University. I am so excited to get to share my expertise providing holistic care to my community that draws from my many years of experience working in different types of practices.
Alright, so let’s dig a little deeper into the story – has it been an easy path overall and if not, what were the challenges you’ve had to overcome?
It has certainly not been a smooth road! Starting practices in other countries was really hard, especially navigating cultural differences, work permits, and marketing. It was hard to be so far away from friends and family.
At one point I had some health challenges for several years after having my children and training for an ultra marathon. I had autoimmune symptoms, leaky gut, pain in my abdomen, and had a viral infection that attacked the mitochondria in my cells leading to chronic fatigue and a persistent cough. I’d also had an irregular cycle and would go years without a period. Antibiotics and the medical doctors couldn’t help me. I decided to explore Traditional Chinese Medicine, acupuncture, herbs, saw a functional medicine practitioner, saw many other therapists including other chiropractors, and read book after book. I even saw a colon therapist in Bali. One of the practitioners I saw did Arvigo therapy, which is a form of uterine and abdominal therapy from the Mayan tradition. She became a friend and mentor, and with her help, my research, and the other practitioners, I was able to heal myself completely! This took time, but I was able to heal my digestive issues, food sensitivities, autoimmune symptoms, chronic fatigue, abdominal pain, and started having a regular cycle for the first time in my life!! I became more in touch with myself in many ways, and my body’s cycle lined up with the moon cycles. For years I always got my period on either the full moon or the new moon. Such an interesting phenomenon that happened when my body truly healed!
Ultimately this experience and with encouragement from my mentor, I decided to go to Thailand and study a form of abdominal therapy there called womb lifting, from a master teacher. She is a Traditional Thai medicine doctor and a midwife and teaches students from all over the world this technique that has been passed down through generations of Thai women. This form of abdominal womb therapy I went on to offer to my patients in Singapore for many years. Treating things such as period pain, postpartum healing, irregular cycle, infertility, pms, pelvic pain, scar tissue, fibroids, and more. This method is a very involved therapy that takes about 3 hours to perform. It helps the body to deeply release tension through holding pressure points along the legs, back, buttocks, and abdomen. It ends with a lifting and realignment of the uterus, which is done externally. It’s been incredible to witness women heal long standing issues with this work!
Thanks – so what else should our readers know about Balance Point Chiropractic & Wellness?
At Balance Point Chiropractic & Wellness our focus is on what we can provide the person to help them truly heal. We do this through somatic breath and body awareness exercises, specific chiropractic care, spinal rehabilitation exercises, and nutritional recommendations. We also offer abdominal therapy for women to heal the female reproductive system. The chiropractic care that is available really depends on the needs of the patient. When doing corrective care for more serious spinal issues, we measure spinal curves and consistently see between 20-50% improvement in the curves, and more in some cases. This is done through specific chiropractic adjustments that are based on x-rays, as well as functional movement, and through spinal rehabilitation exercises. For other patients we provide wellness care, care for pregnant moms (Webster technique certified), children and babies, and even dogs! Our adjustment techniques include the traditional manual adjustment where you hear that popping and cracking sound. Some people love that deep adjustment, and some people are scared of it at first. It’s simply gas releasing from the joint as the bones are moving, so it’s really nothing to be concerned about! We also use drop table adjustments, and activator instrument adjustments when indicated. The activator instrument is especially great for small children, people with spinal surgeries, and osteoporosis. The other method we use with some patients are gentle contacts to the connective tissue that help the body release stress and tension, called Network Spinal or Network Spinal Analysis. This helps to shift the physiology from a state of high stress and tension, to a greater state of ease and relaxation in the body.
Is there anyone you’d like to thank or give credit to?
My mother was a big influence and taught me a lot about natural health. Lisa Levine, encouraged me to pursue training to learn abdominal therapy and continued to provide mentorship and support after when working with clients. My teacher, Hom Prang, who taught me abdominal therapy, aka Womb Lifting. Many chiropractors in school, such as Dr. Louis Tiscareno, who was my advisor during my clinicals, who taught me both the art of chiropractic as well as the ins and outs of working with patients.
Contact Info:
- Website: https://www.balancepointchiropractic.net
- Instagram: https://instagram.com/balancepointchirojax
