After her grandfather passed away in 2016 from Parkinson’s disease, Faith Wilson spent her undergrad studying the disease in hopes of becoming a physical therapist.

She studied kinesiology and focused all her collegiate projects on Parkinson’s, but she said her plans changed after shadowing a chiropractor. While she was shadowing, the chiropractor showed her a video of an adjustment on a patient with Parkinson's disease.

“He walked in with tremors ... and when he got up, he didn't have tremors anymore,” Wilson said. “It shifted my whole viewpoint, and I was like, ‘this is what I want to do.’”

In March, Wilson opened her own clinic in League City, where she provides pain relief and spinal corrections through chiropractic care.

The approach

As a chiropractor, Wilson said she takes pressure off nerves by adjusting the spine.

During a patient’s first visit, she’ll talk with them before doing a full orthopedic and neurological exam, as well as X-rays of the patient’s spine. While pain relief often happens in the first visit, Wilson said it can take up to 18-24 visits for a patient to be fully corrected.

“I am more than just a pain relief clinic; we’re a correction clinic,” Wilson said. “So correcting the curves in the spine, correcting your posture, taking pressure off the discs and off the nerves ... it takes time.”

Wilson said the repetition of multiple adjustments over a few months helps prevent the spine from developing more problems in the future. One way she treats her patients is through spinal decompression, which targets pain caused by herniated discs.

Typically, this happens when an individual bends, lifts and twists at the same time, Wilson said.

“When a disc is herniated, it pops out and touches a nerve [and] it causes pain,” Wilson said. “Decompression therapy takes a disc, and it stretches the spine to suck the disc back into place.”

More details

Additionally, Wilson said she loves treating infants and toddlers.

She said some of the benefits of pediatric chiropractic care include restoring range of motion, reducing discomfort, and improving digestion, feeding and constipation.

Longer births can put trauma on the infant’s muscles, Wilson said, so she focuses on relieving tightness and stress, especially around the neck area.

Muscular tightness is the most common issue Wilson sees in her patients, which builds up when individuals sit in front of a computer for long periods at a time, she said. She said having monitors placed at eye level and holding phone screens in front of the face instead of looking down can help.

She encourages her patients to invest in preventative maintenance, rather than just coming in when something hurts.

“Even after my patients are done with their care plan and they feel great, we put them on a maintenance care plan where they come in once or twice a month to stay healthy,” Wilson said.