Understanding Health From the Inside Out

 

My desire to understand health began early in life. I grew up as the overweight kid in a large family that wasn't overweight. Health became something I was constantly chasing, especially watching my father and brother, who were in incredible shape, while I struggled despite eating the same way they did. I was also in and out of the hospital as a kid with ear infections and other illnesses, frequently on antibiotics, and never quite understood why my body responded so differently.

 

But through learning about diet, exercise, and sheer determination, I discovered something profound as a teenager: the body is designed to be healthy. It can change. It wants to heal. That revelation has shaped everything I do as a doctor.

 

The Moment That Changed Everything

 

The event that brought me to chiropractic happened when I was 19, working as a painter in San Diego. I was on a scissor lift at a construction site when it tipped over, and I fell 18 feet, landing hard on my right side. My wrist, arm, neck, and upper back took the brunt of it. The ER said everything looked okay, gave me pain meds, and sent me home.

 

Three years later, my wrist flared up, and I was in excruciating pain. I couldn't use it for weeks. My aunt, Dr. Mia Curcuruto, a chiropractor in Emeryville, California, examined me at Life West Chiropractic College and referred me to Dr. Paul Walton in Orinda. X-rays revealed an old fracture of the lunate bone in my wrist that had never healed properly.

 

My medical options were grim. Doctors proposed removing three of the eight bones in my wrist or fusing all eight bones together, which would leave me with almost no range of motion in my right wrist. But Dr. Walton had a different approach. Yes, he worked his magic on my wrist as an extremity specialist, but he also adjusted my entire spine.

 

Something remarkable happened. Not only did my wrist pain disappear over multiple weeks of care, avoiding surgery entirely and a permanent loss of motion, but the lasting stiffness in my lower neck and upper back also went away. More importantly, I left his office feeling like something unlocked in my body. I was already a high-energy person, but this was different. I experienced energy and vitality I didn't know I was missing.

 

Walking out of his office after an adjustment, feeling charged up, I realized this is the service I wanted to give to humanity. If someone could help me escape the pain I was in, get my life back, and help my whole body feel this incredible in just weeks of care, that seemed like something worth dedicating my life to. In 2001, I began taking the required prerequisites, and in April 2005, I enrolled at Life West Chiropractic College in Hayward, California, to pursue my doctorate.

 

15 Years of Practice Across the World

 

After graduating, I practiced in Oakland, California, for 4 years. In 2011, some close friends and fellow chiropractors approached me about an incredible opportunity to work with them in Singapore. After some consideration, my late wife Sasha and I made the leap. What we thought would be one year turned into eleven!

 

It was an honor to care for thousands of patients over that period, literally hundreds of people each week, helping their bodies to heal the way they are designed to. Many conditions they thought were permanent began to improve. Chronic pains in their bodies. Migraines they had dealt with for decades. Numbness, tingling, and weakness in arms and legs. Patients with canes and walkers regained long-lost mobility. Digestive issues, sleep problems, and many things I never imagined chiropractic care could benefit when I was a student.

 

After caring for thousands of patients, I quickly learned that it's not just about back pain. When you remove stress and tension from the spine and begin restoring its proper function, the nerves that coordinate the body's functions can communicate more effectively, and the body's ability to heal itself is enhanced. Patients would come in for neck pain, and their decades-long migraines would disappear. They'd come in for numbness in their legs, and suddenly their bowel movements became regular, they slept deeply, and their posture improved.

 

These weren't the results I promised anyone. They were the natural result of a nervous system that could finally communicate with the body the way it was designed to. All I or any other doctor of chiropractic does is remove the interference over time. The body does the healing. The older generation of chiropractors coined a saying: "The power that made the body heals the body." I didn't fully grasp that until I saw it happen, over and over, for almost 20 years now.

 

My time in Asia was also an incredible adventure, traveling to China, Indonesia, the Philippines, Australia, Malaysia, Vietnam, India, Sri Lanka, and so many more countries. No matter where we're from, what we look like, or what we believe, people are fundamentally the same: full of love, kind, good-hearted folks who just want to be healthy and vibrant so they can take care of their families and do what they love.

 

Loss, Healing, and New Beginnings

 

Sasha and I returned to the United States in January 2022, ready to start a new chapter. But in March, we received devastating news. Her cancer, which we believed was in remission, had metastasized. For nearly two years, she fought with everything she had. The tumors eventually went away, but the damage they caused in her lungs led to severe pneumonia. Sadly, in 2023, she moved on from this life.

 

I took time to grieve, to honor her memory, our time together, and to recalibrate after losing my best friend of 25 years. Sasha will always be a part of my life, and I wouldn't be the person I am today without her. During that period, I stepped away from practice to heal, but I knew my calling to serve others and help people achieve higher levels of health would bring me back.

 

Santa Rosa became that place for me. The community of Sonoma County welcomed me in, and over time, it became home. In 2025, life brought new blessings. I met Haeli, someone with incredible qualities who has become my partner in this next chapter. We recently got married, and our daughter Luna will be here in April. Now, we're building our life and are grateful to be raising our family here, and I'm very excited for the opportunity to serve the people of Santa Rosa with everything I've learned over my time as a Doctor of Chiropractic.

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Why I Do This Work

 

Health has always been personal to me. Not just because of my own journey, but because I've lost too many people I love to preventable causes way too early. I didn't get the chance to meet my grandfather on my mom's side, who died of heart disease at 54, or my grandmother on my dad's side, who died of cancer at 50. My aunt and uncle in the Philippines died from diabetes related complications early in life. These experiences shaped my mission: I don't just want to help people feel better temporarily. I want to help them function better so they can live longer, healthier, more vibrant lives and pass that knowledge on to their families.

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That's why I offer free wellness workshops at my office on topics such as healthy metabolism, understanding macronutrients, avoiding processed foods, and the importance of a healthy spine. One of my mentors in chiropractic college said something that stuck with me: "If we know what brings sick and hurting people into our offices, then the ethical thing to do is to address and teach about those things as well." Spinal health is foundational, but I also want my patients to understand how to live a truly healthy lifestyle that is compatible with our human design.

 

What Chiropractic Is Really About

 

Most people think chiropractic is just about back pain, neck pain, or headaches. And yes, it's very good at helping with those things. But chiropractic is so much more. When you understand that your brain controls and coordinates the functions of your body, and that the connection from your brain to your body is your spinal cord with nerves branching off to every cell, tissue, organ, and system, then you can really appreciate how important spinal health is.

 

Your vertebral column, the bones that make up your spine, is a movable structure that protects your spinal cord. Over the course of your life, things happen: slips, falls, bumps, bruises, poor posture, repetitive stress, chemical stressors, emotional stress, and more. These things can alter the movement and function of your spine over time, creating tension, swelling, and ultimately interference in how your nervous system communicates with your body.

 

When we remove that stress and restore proper function to the spine, the surrounding tissues (ligaments, tendons, muscles, cartilage, nerves) can begin to heal. The body returns to a state of improved dynamic balance. Proper function can be reestablished. And when the nervous system works better, everything downstream has the potential to improve: movement, energy, sleep, focus, immune function, digestion, and more. Do I claim to "fix" those things? No. What I claim to do is help your spine be healthier, and that can have a profoundly positive effect on all the areas your spine and nervous system influence.

 

The Power of Time and Consistent Care

 

Here's something most people don't understand about chiropractic: it's not a one-time event. When I first went to the chiropractor after my fall, I felt better after that first adjustment. But if I had stopped there, I never would have experienced the full healing I did. I had an injury that had been sitting in my body for four years. Even as a young 21-year-old, my body still needed time for the healing process to occur. It took consistent care to restore full function to my wrist and my neck.

 

I wouldn't want anyone who walks into my office to miss out on the true potential of chiropractic because they weren't educated on how powerful consistent care can be. That's why I take the time to help patients understand chiropractic, hear what you are going through, and answer any questions you might have.

 

A Foundation for Longevity

 

Whether you're a professional athlete or a professional parent, we all want to perform at our best. Having a healthy spine and nervous system is one of the greatest foundations for that. I'm not saying you don't need to eat well, move well, or sleep well. Those habits are fundamental for health. But making sure the foundation of your body, the housing for your mind-body connection, is as healthy as it can be gives you the best chance to thrive.

 

I focus on function, in addition to pain relief, because pain relief is a byproduct of better function. Pain tends to go away first, which can be misleading. If we focus only on the pain, we might miss the underlying cause. A cortisone shot can mask the pain. Pain meds can dull symptoms, which can be necessary at times. But addressing the underlying cause and stopping any progression is a worthy goal.

 

Life in Santa Rosa

 

When I'm not in the office, you'll find me running the trails at Spring Lake, Sugarloaf Canyon, or through Annadel. I'm a big fan of all of the amazing nature here in Sonoma County. I love paddleboarding at Spring Lake and on the Russian River, and I practice yoga and Pilates to keep my own body flexible and strong. My mother and sister recently moved to Santa Rosa as well, so I'm grateful to have family nearby.

 

Haeli and I are excited to welcome Luna in April and build our life together here. I also coach people on living healthier lifestyles, helping them lose weight and reach new levels of fitness so they can avoid chronic disease and have more energy and vitality.

 

Whether it's through chiropractic care, lifestyle education, or metabolic coaching, what drives me every single day is being of service: helping people get healthier and live more vibrant lives so they can better deliver their gifts and purpose to the world. I believe that when we're healthier, we can serve more fully our families, our communities, and humanity as a whole. That's what gets me out of bed every morning, and that's what is at the heart of everything I do.