When Dr. Kelly Kimball opened Agape Family Chiropractic in the heart of Washington D.C. during the 2020 pandemic, many might have called it a leap of faith. Yet, she walked away with five consecutive Best Chiropractor titles. How did she do it? In this episode of Boss Leap, Dr. Kimball shares her incredible journey from a childhood of medical frustration to becoming a champion of Personalized Chiropractic Care. Discover her powerful philosophy of “innate healing,” the mission behind her practice’s name (Agape, Greek for unconditional love), and how focusing on the body’s nervous system can influence far more than just back pain. If you’re seeking a holistic approach to health or wondering what it takes to build an award-winning business from the ground up, Dr. Kimball’s story of passion, purpose, and resilience will inspire you to take your own leap.
Music courtesy of Dealer’s Choice Sound Recordings, Inc.
Music artist: djezi
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Personalized Chiropractic Care And Building Agape Family Chiropractic With Dr. Kelly Kimball
Welcome back to Boss Leap, the show about the bold moves, quiet, pivots and leaps of faith that shape who we become. I’m Dr. Angela Walker.
I’m Dr. Sylvia Morris. In this episode, we have a guest whose story stopped us both in our tracks.
She is a chiropractor, a researcher, an educator and an entrepreneur who opened her own practice in the middle of a pandemic in one of DC’s most beloved neighborhoods.
Somehow, she walked away with not one, not two, but five consecutive best chiropractor titles from Washington City paper. Five years, five wins. Dr. Kimball, welcome to the show.
Thank you so much for having me.
We are so excited. It was a pleasure to meet you. The characteristic of our show, we’d love for you to take us maybe all the way back. You’ve described chiropractic as a childhood dream. Where did that dream come from? Was there a specific moment, a person or an experience that made you say, “That’s it. That’s what I want to do?”
Chiropractic As A Childhood Dream And Dealing With Undiagnosed Illness
I was sick as a child. The illness I had never fit well into the box that Western medicine was trying to figure out for me. For example, I struggled to breathe. I couldn’t run in gym class and I was like six years old and was struggling. Yet I could pass an asthma test. There were a lot of gut health symptoms. I would say breathing and gut health for the top two. Even like scrapes and bruises didn’t heal quickly for me. I went through all of the medical testing for it and it came back all negative. I had this experience as a kid of feeling very frustrated and not listened to. I even had the experience growing up where I heard a doctor tell my mom, “I think she’s making it up.”
That’s horrible.
I was young at the time. I was in like 1st or 2nd grade. It left an impact on me of feeling frustrated. Fast-forwarding a bit at, since I didn’t fit into a diagnosis, I didn’t receive too much care. It was like “You’re not dying so you can move forward,” situation. I was interested in science but I had a desire to make this experience better for other people. I looked science. I was not interested in going into direct care because I had some negative experiences.
Discovering The Innate Healing Philosophy Of Chiropractic
I was thinking of maybe doing something more on the research side of things. I still love research and still do that now. What shifted everything for me was when I did a job shadow day in high school because of my interest in science. I had done the program a couple of times, but I got assigned one of these times to shadow a chiropractor. I thought that I wasn’t going to be interested in it. I thought that chiropractic was for older people with back pain and that was it. It’s a big misconception.
I went in and shadowed this chiropractor who had his own private practice. He told me the chiropractic story of what it’s all about helping the body heal from within. Helping the brain in the body, communicate more effectively and coming down to the root of your body is designed to heal and is always trying to heal. Even if it’s not always expressing that in the best way. It’s trying to heal. That’s what differentiates the living from the dead. The paper cut on your finger, you don’t have to think about it. It’s going to heal on its own.
This is the underlying assumption of a lot of Western medicine, which is for many things. Not all things. For many things, it’s says, “Let’s try to make you comfortable while the body does its thing.” Chiropractic is trying to help that process of the body’s innate healing. It happen more efficiently and more effectively by improving that communication between the brain and the rest of the body. It’s so that the brain is receiving status reports from all of our body parts then coordinating the best possible response and sending those instructions out.
This explanation to me sucked me in right away. I was all in on that idea. I fell in love with chiropractic in a moment and I had never even experienced it yet. I had been interested in research, especially this move towards personalized medicine saying, “If people don’t fit into the box, how can we make it more personalized to the person?” For me, this idea of that innate healing is the most personalized medicine that you could ever have. It’s the idea that the body knows more than any doctor could.
The body knows more than any doctor. Share on XIt’s interesting. You brought up so much and I have so many follow-up questions from that. Number one, I find it interesting that you were introduced to chiropractic in high school. I’m sure Sylvia probably has a similar experience. I was interested to nursing and medicine. Whether it was MD or DO, but never Chiropractic.
I didn’t have an understanding of it. At my first practice, I practiced with a doctor that was doctor of osteopathy. I got a little bit of understanding from that perspective of medicine, but still not chiropractic medicine. It wasn’t until my child had an injury and the Orthopedic MD had discussed chiropractic care. It’s interesting that unless you’re introduced, unless you see it and hear it, touch it, feel it that you may not understand all aspects.
I’m welcome to all aspects of medicine that makes sense and have some evidence behind it. Sylvia, I know you’ve got a question as well, but the second question is. You mentioned your mother. How did your mom deal with what was going on? I don’t know if any other adults in your life. I imagine as a parent it’s frustrating and dependent upon her background and her knowledge. She could have taken that information from the doctor as the gospel or said, “I don’t believe this. Something’s going on with my child.” I’m just curious how that was how it was received.
My memory from that time, being very young was that, we continued going to all of these doctor’s appointments until we just hit a dead end in all of them. It ultimately became a dead end. The issues were still there but it wasn’t necessarily taking it as gospel. It also wasn’t riding off that idea or even just taking it as like, “They don’t see anything wrong, so hopefully it’s okay.” Somewhere in between.
Forgive me for being very Western. Did someone come up with a diagnosis or how is it that you are, I presume, well or better now?
After this job shadow day, I went home and I couldn’t stop talking about it. I was like, “I want to try this,” and I asked my parents. I was like, “Could I try this for me? Let’s see how it works out.” I feel like my help dramatically improved. I was someone who was always out sick from school and always getting cold. That died down. I was able to run. I ran a half-marathon. That was incredible. I used to be on like purple adult doses of different supplements for gut health things and I no longer need those.
It was incredible. It’s the slow progress over time. It wasn’t like an instant moment. With chiropractic, what it came down to is my body wasn’t healing well because that misalignment was leading to miscommunications through the nervous system. The diagnosis given is the misalignment diagnosis. It’s called segments somatic dysfunction of the cervical region, the thoracic region, the lumbar region, and the stateful region. Wherever that was adjusted. It’s saying there’s a chiropractic issue. There wasn’t a larger diagnosis of something autoimmune or something like that. I think that’s good.
Since you’re dealing with the nervous system, a chiropractic issue can lead to so many different types of symptoms. It doesn’t mean every problem is a chiropractic problem. There might be someone with a gut health problem that might be helped by chiropractic but they might also have an allergy or lactose intolerant or something like that. For me, where all those other stones were uncovered and came up as nothing.
All that was left was it was a chiropractic problem. Even the immune system element. I was part of a small study that looked at how chiropractic influences the immune system. We adjusted just the upper neck then we measured immune biomarkers and saliva before the adjustment, 30 minutes after the adjustment, and two weeks later. This is a small study, but we’re able to see that that immune system is kicking into gear and changing at that 30-minute mark.
Also, it’s coming back to homeostasis. We don’t want things to be elevated indefinitely. That’s autoimmunity, but helping the body re-regulate. The idea being, if there’s a misalignment and the body can’t see an issue. Once we bring that back online, the brain can see it, handle it, then bring us back to baseline.
Thank you for sharing that. We know that alignment is important out of our outside worlds as well as far as what we do and how we move. Let’s look at your actual chiropractic practice. You’re a chiropractor now and your practice is called Agape. Which is the Greek word for unconditional love? Can you talk about the name?
I named it for unconditional love because that unconditional love is a great basis for healthcare to try to meet each person from a place of trying to meet them where they’re at, trying to obviously trying to help them but also trying to meet them in love. It also comes out of that childhood experience for me of dealing with I was met with some callousness. It even would have been helpful at that time to be met with someone being like, “We don’t know what’s going on, but I can see that there is a problem. I’m just not sure if I can help you.” Even being able to say that is so helpful and truly so healing, too.
Naming The Practice Agape And Opening During The Pandemic
It’s like, “I see you and I hear you. I respect what you’re saying. I don’t know what it is.” I say that oftentimes. You opened Agape Family Chiropractic during the pandemic. This is 2020. Where did you get the Moxie to take that lead?
I graduated from chiropractic school of February 28th, 2020. A few weeks before the world shuts down.
Your wheels were already in motion, though.
What’s interesting is, at the time, I also got married during 2020. My husband was in law school. I had my graduation because in chiropractic school, we were on a trimester system. My graduation being in February, we had that. My husband and I graduated from our grad programs. He’s a lawyer and we had been long distance for four years. We got married at Georgetown. My husband and I met at Georgetown.
We got married during the pandemic. There was this attitude of like, “I’m not going to let this stop me. This is what I wanted to do for so long.” In a way, it felt so delayed. I know that it’s not really delayed but just like getting through school, knowing what I want to do and being so excited to be there. I was like, “There’s no more delays. People need health care now.” What I did was I started with house calls because I was like, “There’s no point in getting a brick and mortar at the moment. Let’s start with house call.”
Giving the nature of a house call and me as a woman. I started with people I knew or immediate referrals. I wasn’t doing a huge marketing campaign at that time but I started that way. I had my table. I packed it up into my Volkswagen Beetle and drove around adjust families. I had one family. I would like set up my table in their kitchen. I always remember they would have like their Alexa play Spa music while all five of them would get adjusted. It was very fun. I enjoyed it. I eventually decided that lugging around my table wasn’t great for my own spine. I was ready to make that move into the brick and mortar, which I did in November of 2020.
That’s gutsy because the vaccine had just come out.
Only for health care providers.
I’m based in DC, but DC stopped issuing licenses because they require an in-person licensing exam. I got licensed in Virginia and then took the reciprocal. It was like an emergency reciprocal licensing program where they allowed other states in because of the pandemic. That was my workaround for that. It was creative thinking. I enjoyed it a lot. I think fondly on that time.
It sounds like so many ways you could answer this question. What was the hardest part of building this practice literally from the ground up to have table while traveling into a full practice? What surprised you the most about what it took?
A lot of people asked me about the hardest part or the most unexpected part. For me, it was just joyful. I enjoyed it so much. It was very time-consuming, but it comes down to, if you’re doing what you love, that’s what gives you energy. I was gaining energy from my work and some things are a little bit stressful, like the licensing, but I was like, once we figured out a workaround, it’s all good. We’re supposed to keep moving forward.
I eventually then got my DC license before the switch changed back. It was a joyful time. There were a lot of hours, but I also expected it to be a lot of hours. It was fun. It comes down to maybe I expected it to be a slog and it came down to like, “I love this.” It gives me energy to do it. It was a surprise in a way that it was so happy.
It sounds like you were also living your dream and the joy that you were able to give other people. If we think back to those times, having someone come to your home for house call that was a way which we connected with people. That’s fantastic. You mentioned the body’s innate body to heal. Help us understand what that looks like when you examine and take care of a patient.
Based on this idea that the body has an innate ability to heal. As I had said before, this is almost just a baseline assumption of a lot of medicine, but in a way we almost forget it. People come into a chiropractor’s office for a number of different reasons. Some people are more holistically minded and for other people, it’s because they don’t have anywhere else they can go. They’ve already been everywhere else. They may not even want to be there, but they’re like, “I’ll try anything.” Especially for those people who might have more complex cases or more. Things that aren’t well explained just because our science hasn’t risen to that level yet to explain everything about the human body.
For those people, it’s always important to start by reminding them that your body’s trying to heal. Even if it’s creating these symptoms, it’s trying to tell us something. It did this to survive something and that’s good. We want to survive, but maybe how we survived is not how we want to live. Now, we’re going to try to help the body realize that it’s safe to adapt, heal and give the body the information it needs to heal appropriately, too.
At my initial patient visits, I do a very long in details history where I take in everything. I do a full review of all body systems and it’s very thorough. I spend a lot of time with patients. I talked about their whole health because chiropractic has the potential to influence your whole health. As I said before, it doesn’t mean every problem is a chiropractic problem. A chiropractic problem could lead to many different types of symptoms because we’re dealing with the nervous system.
For those of us who are not in in healthcare or medicine, what is a nervous system?
Detailed Explanation Of The Nervous System And Whole Health
The nervous system is your brain, your spinal cord and your nerves. That is how information travels from the brain and to every other part of the body. This is the communication that helps the brain know how to coordinate our healing. At initial visits too, I do a lot of patient education about this idea too that the body can heal and what chiropractic is about, which is that communication. It’s trying to help the body do its thing.
I always tie back to different areas. When I asked about different body systems, I’m talking to patients about where that might relate back to in the spine. For example, many people have reflux. The nerves that are involved to those parts of the body, come from between the shoulder blades. Sometimes, there can be a correlation or people may not mention something because they don’t think it’s related to how chiropractic can help them. I’m talking about the whole body, how it relates to the spine and always how it is related to chiropractic to tell them, “I’m not just asking this to be noisy. I’m asking this because it’s all connected.”
Me standing or sitting at a laptop all day like this, could in fact influence or my body then can be respond with my heartburn that I have?
It’s possible.
When you say shoulder blades, now I’m getting a free console. I’m like, “I have a tension in my shoulder blades.”
It’s a very common one. My practice is in DC, where people tend to run on the high-stress side of the nervous system. I talk a lot about that balancing between our fight or flight response and our rest and digest. The sympathetic is the fight or flight. The parasympathetic is at rest and digest. Our parasympathetic nerves are at the top of the spine and the bottom of the spine. The upper neck, then the tailbone and low back. The misalignments in those spots can basically interfere with our ability to turn on the parasympathetic or in other words, activate our rested side.
It makes it more easy to get stuck in a fight or flight response when we can’t activate that other side of the nervous system as efficiently. This isn’t an on-off thing. You can think of it like a dimmer switch on a light bulb or saying that this communication is going down to maybe 95% instead of 100%. We’re still functioning but there might be something that get missed and can build up over time.
People may not notice a misalignment initially because it’s can be a small change, but they might notice it down the road. It’s twofold. Many people come in with the symptoms and we address that symptom first. I always talk about that preventative side of health and wellness, too. I give people the option of if they would like to then continue for preventive and maintenance or wellness care that they can because we can find those issues before you get the downstream symptoms.
This is probably the first time I’ve ever had someone explain the whole notion of the communication between the brain, the spinal cord, and the spine itself, which in cases the spinal cord. You’re giving us a lot of great information. It’s a background information for even physicians like ourselves. I can speak for myself. Tell me, what do you think is the biggest misconception that people have about chiropractic that you find yourself correcting maybe over and over again?
Initially, probably the number one is that it’s only for back and neck pain, which I’ve talked a lot about already. Many people think that we’re just there for that pain or even just pain generally. It’s about functioning as a whole. I also think that in this current age of AI, people have seen a lot of maybe AI videos of chiropractic on the internet and come in very scared to be adjusted.
Many people think we are only there for pain—or pain in general—but it’s really about functioning as a whole. Share on XThere’s misconceptions about what an adjustment looks like. We’re not breaking anyone’s bones. People are very nervous about the any popping or cracking. Another big misconception is that chiropractic is only popping and cracking, while there are manual adjustments. I’m also one of many chiropractors trained in low force technique, which adjusts the spine with zero popping or cracking.
That is good to know because certainly, I have heard anecdotally a lot of that. I worry if something could go wrong as far as that is concerned with all of the adjustments, popping and cracking. Thank you for a dispelling that myth. I also wonder. How do you have the conversation with someone that comes in and you identify that perhaps chiropractic care is not the best thing for them?
I always talk to them about what I find or what I don’t find. I do a thorough report then as well. I make a lot of referral and I have a very broad network, which is awesome. Sometimes, someone will come in with a particular issue and maybe it’s not a chiropractic issue at all. Sometimes, even just on the phone I’ve sent people being like, “Maybe you need to go to urgent care on this one or the emergency departments.” There might be something like that.
That’s the first line of defense. When people are coming in for an issue that could be a chiropractic issue. If the exam is not lining up with the symptoms, then I’ll tell them, “This is something real, but I don’t think that you have the chiropractic findings that line up.” Maybe they don’t have any chiropractic findings, which is always good in a way because then there’s your spine’s aligned. I’ll help them on their way to someone else who can help them.
Maybe they do have some chiropractic findings but where those nerves go are not related to their main complaint. I’ll talk with them saying, “You have these findings. I don’t think this is related to that. This is where we go for this main issue. If you want to address the more holistic elements, I’m happy to help you.” Also, sometimes people need to focus on their main priority, especially if they’re dealing with something that is very painful or dysregulating to their life that they need to take care of that first. I’m here if they need me later.
I’m curious because when I listen to you and some of the themes that you’re talking about holistic and healing from within reminds me of some philosophies in terms of lifestyle medicine. Which I’ve Incorporated my practice and maybe functional medicine. Do you have certain routes that you refer to and/or do you just have your own cadre of providers in your area?
In a way, a little bit of both. There are certain things that I respected the whole. Even if I didn’t have a certain person yet, I would recommend it more generally. Something like acupuncture. Acupuncture is great. I’m always going to be looking for an acupuncturist. I have great acupuncturist I refer to now. I also refer to functional medicine. Finding the right person is so important.
My experience was a little bit more negative with the Western medicine, but many people have that exact experience with chiropractic, too. Finding someone who is not listening to them or telling them chiropractic can help with X, Y, and Z and it can’t. I don’t want people to have that experience. Finding the individual providers important of finding someone who listens well. I love functional medicine. Finding people who will take the time to go through all the details of someone’s history is just invaluable.
I’m hearing Integrity as well as listening and all forms of medicine. Whether it’s chiropractic, Western, or allopathic. All of those do much better. We have better outcomes if we listen. The answer, truthfully, is always with the patient. If we are able to draw upon that, then it does help to shape our interactions and things are improved.
Certainly, you started out joyfully in February or March of 2020, doing your house calls from your Beetle. In November of 2020, you opened a brick and mortar. Here we are years later and you have five consecutive years one best chiropractor from Washington City Paper. That’s a big deal. For such a new practice, can you put on your entrepreneur hat and talk about how you knew that what you were building at Agape Family Chiropractic was moving in the direction and doing some great things?
Entrepreneurial Path To Winning Five Consecutive Best Chiropractor Titles
Thank you. As I said, I love what I do. It meant so much shimmy when we did win that because it’s a readers poll. It’s entirely voted on by patients. To me, that was huge because I have a small practice. I spend more time with people. I can’t see as many people as a practice that maybe has quicker appointments and they can see more people in a day. In order to win that, I needed a high percentage of my practice to vote for me.
It meant a lot to do that. That also meant just building out my networks and different referral systems so that I could see a lot of patience. When I started, I started with the house calls and started building a following that way. When I put myself into the brick-and-mortar, I also bought a chiropractor’s patient list who was retiring and took on some existing patients that way. I went right into his space as he was retiring.
It worked out great because the equipment was there. It was a known chiropractic office already in Georgetown in DC. It was a chiropractor who I had known a long time. He was my chiropractor when I was a Georgetown student. I had been looking for a brick-and-mortar space. At the time, I didn’t consider Georgetown just because of my own limiting beliefs. It was too expensive. I had only reached out to him to get adjusted for myself because I get adjusted regularly. I was there. We had kept in touch a little bit while I was in school. He was like, “Do you want to be here? I want to retire.”
It was just this beautiful meeting of world. Initially, I was like, “I couldn’t.” I then was like, “Maybe I could.” It worked out great. He did a slow retirement. We were in the same space for a number of years working opposite hours then he fully retired in 2023. It was great. I built out. I had some patients coming in that way, which also helped grow my business. I would say it grew more starting in 2023 because he had always worked part-time. He didn’t reduce his hours and most of his patients still saw him.
I basically rented a room from him while buying out the patient list until he retired. People got to know me because I was around. I did a lot of networking in Georgetown. I was part of a BNI group, which means Business Networking International. There’s a lot of chapters throughout the country. There was a Georgetown chapter that had been around for a long time. I feel like I fit in well. I met with them every single week. I got to talk with everybody in the group about what is chiropractic. In a way, you get to build out your team.
As I learned about their businesses and what would be a good referral for them, they got to learn about my business and what a good referral would be for me. I focused on building partnerships. Not necessarily looking for patience but looking for a pediatric physical therapist and finding these referral partners that are so helpful to build out your practice long term.
Can you talk a little bit about the mentorship or in the coaching that you had from the chiropractors whose practice you joined have been bought?
I would say I have like two main chiropractic mentors. The one where I started in Connecticut and the one I shadowed in high school and became a patient. Later, worked in the office, in high school at the front desk and then scribed for him as well. I would work there in the summer during college. I was with him a long time. When I was in college, I saw this chiropractor in Georgetown, where in a way, I carry on his legacy with his patients. They’re both very different from each other and helpful for different things.
When I joined the practice by just renting this side room, this chiropractor was very clear where he said, “I don’t want to manage anyone. I want someone to do their own thing.” I was like, “That’s great because I’m hesitant about jumping into something already existing. I want to build my own thing.” It was very symbiotic. We love talking with each other as well. It was helpful for discussion of maybe some patient cases and ideas. As I said, we overlap them Friday mornings and that was our routine for those three years.
You answered one of the questions I had. I was just curious if you got adjusted yourself and you had mentioned that you did in high school. It sounds like it’s something that you’ve continued to do. What do you tell high-achieving women like our readers, a lot of them genuinely believe, “I don’t have enough time to do this. That’s way outside of comfort zone or time allotment for something that maybe considered even like self-care versus caring for the body?”
It’s a very common thing to be thin for women who wear many hats and then for DC women who are often very high achieving. Maybe intense jobs. An ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure. As cliché as that may be, it does go a long way. Another way of saying that is, if you don’t make time for your wellness, you’ll be forced to make time for your illness.
If you don’t make time for your wellness, you’ll be forced to make time for your illness. Share on XPay me an hour or pay me later.
Everyone has a different point where it affects them. That’s one of the things that I’ll ask in a new patient exam, why now? Especially because most people come in with something that’s been going on for a while. What made you seek out care now? Sometimes, it’s just hit a point where it’s like, “I can’t lift up my child for whatever it may be.” There’s something that’s the true motivator. It’s usually not pain and discomfort. It’s how it’s affecting your life. Talking with people who don’t have a lot of time. I talk about when they’re when they come in an acute stage, we’re trying to get ahead of muscle memory.
I talked about what trying to stay ahead of muscle memory or say it had a muscle memory. Hopefully, we’re able to retrain that muscle memory entirely, potentially. It depends on what it is going on. That’s why I’m very passionate about working with kids. They have a lot less muscle memory and you can set them up for a great life ahead if you’re able to address these things early. If we can take care of the muscle memory, stay ahead of that for those adults.
Focus on giving your body the adaptability to address the small things that come up in your day-to-day. If we are running very close to our threshold of overwhelm, then there might be something very small that happens that puts us over that threshold. Now, we have a big acute issue that’s going to take a while to heal from. If we do some of that maintenance care, we can stay well below that threshold with room for those daily stressors to go up and down. That’s my hope for everybody so that they can do the things that they love to do.
It sounds like you’re helping us be a lot more resilient. I never knew that chiropractic care did all of these things. I am so thankful that you are here to share that with us. You mentioned taking care of children in the pediatric population. That’s certainly not something that I knew that chiropractors did. Can you tell us about being Webster Certified? Which is a specialized training, certainly in Pediatric and newborn care. What drove you to serve both pregnant and patience as well as babies?
Providing Specialized Care Including Webster Certification For Pregnancy
I’m Webster Certified. Webster’s on the pregnancy side. That’s a special technique to help pregnant women help them maintain alignment, which pregnant women often have many types of symptoms. Even if you have no symptoms, chiropractic in healthier birth go more smoothly if babies lined up right and mama’s all ready and aren’t restrictions. First, it goes a lot more easily. Also, on the neurological side, the brain has to coordinate a big response with labor and delivery. Chiropractic is helpful for all of that.
I love working with pregnant women and kids. To me, the earlier you can see someone, the more change you can affect. I was fortunate that I found chiropractic in high school. I always think, if I had found this when I was six years old part of my childhood could have looked very different. Many people don’t find Chiropractic until they’re 60 or later or not at all. The sooner, the better. I’m passionate about working with kids. Even in the womb, too. I consider that. We only adjust mom. We don’t do any in-utero adjustments for baby.
We’re trying to balance mom’s pelvis so baby has the most space to grow and to heal. Even those small things affect the baby even though we are only adjusting mom. Even simple things like Webster. I’m I’ve enrolled my practice now and yet another study where we’re repeating results from previous studies that have shown that Webster technique can be helpful when there’s a breech baby. It’s to help them move into a head down position.
Again, we’re never moving baby. We’re only adjusting mom’s pelvis to give baby the best opportunity to move on their own. I’m always looking for people who have reached babies to help repeat the results on this study. Regardless of that, if you were a breach, many women will have a C-section. That affects that baby as well. We know that there’s a lot of effects on the microbiome to be born by C-section versus vaginal delivery. C-sections are necessary. That is a better outcome than many other options.
If we have the opportunity to try to help that baby movement to a head down position, that could also change their outcomes going forwards and change their microbiome. It can affect so much more the earlier you work with someone. I love working with those populations. Those populations tend to share my experience of feeling like maybe there may not be as many perfect diagnoses or women pregnant women and children. These populations are hard to study. We don’t have as robust literature, which means there’s not as many boxes to fit into. As chiropractic, we don’t have to fit into the box. We just try to help the body do its own thing.
It’s interesting. I’m an OB-GYN. I don’t know if you knew that, Kelly. My experience with chiropractic care and pregnancy is mostly anecdotal. There’s patients that were already seeing a chiropractor but by and large had great things to say about how they felt during pregnancy. I’d be interested to know what your study shows in terms of breech position, reverse to vertex. We all know that it either happens or it doesn’t.
Even with manual manipulation, it either happens or it doesn’t, it’s 50/50. When I’ve had patients that ask and I’m like, “As long as they’re following your guidelines, sure and try.” It’s so very interesting that you have this whole dynamic of adult medicine pregnancy and kids. I love all of that. You believe that all people were meant to experience the fullness of life and that is only possible at optimal health. That’s a big beautiful statement that you’ve given. What does the fullness of life mean to you personally?
Defining The Fullness Of Life As Optimal Functioning And The Negative To Positive 100 Spectrum
Where this statement comes from is a quote usually attributed to Saint Irenaeus. “The Glory of God is the human person fully alive.” You could also say like, “The greatest good is the human person fully alive.” That’s where we’re able to do the most. We can reach that fully alive state where we’re able to do the things that we want to do and be the people we want to be and affect the change in the world that we’re trying to affect for good.
We need our health to be able to do that. To me, it’s a very big picture view of saying that, “This is not only the best for the individual. It’s also the best for our world.” That idea of the fullness of life is being able to experience life and maybe not be held back by your health. More than that, being able to live it to the fullest.
Sometimes, I talk to people about a spectrum of negative 100 to positive 100. Negative 100 being your worst suffering. Zero being, “I’m not held back by any disease.” That’s gone. A positive 100 is saying, “I’ve optimal functioning. I’m able to dig into the things I love.” Chiropractic not only works on that negative to zero, but 0 to 100. That’s why the Olympic teams have chiropractors who are trying to optimize their performance and say, “What can we do? What can we think of on the positive sense?” To me, the fullness of life is that positive 100 trying to help all people get there.
We all want to get to positive 100. The world could certainly use more people who were functioning optimally for good. That’s fantastic. Can you give some advice for someone who may be thinking about opening their own practice? Certainly, the timing doesn’t feel quite right.
If you feel passionately about opening your own practice or opening your own business doing whatever project it may be. I think you should do it and just go for it. Certainly, there’s never a perfect time. There’s also less perfect times than others. If it’s something that’s going to give you energy, it’s worth doing now and maybe in a modified way like from my own story.
If you feel passionate about opening your own practice or starting your own business—whatever the project may be—you should do it and just go for it. Share on XI didn’t envision starting out with house calls. I still got to participate in something that was giving me energy. If I were to have delayed maybe two years before opening, it would have drained me. It would’ve been harder to open at that point. If it’s what you love to do and by that, if it’s something that’s going to give you energy, there’s no time like the present.
I love that. We can pretty much take that to all facets of life in no matter what you’re doing in life. Even if you’re not opening your own business. It just finding ways to give life and energy. It sounds like for you, it’s passion and purpose in what you’re doing. Thank you so much for all that you shared. This was eye-opening and enlightening in all ways. We love to close the show with this question because we believe that the leap requires you to take care of the leaper or the person that’s leaping. Dr. Kimball, you preach optimal health for living. Walk us through what your own self-care regime looks like. How do you pour back into you?
Dr. Kimball’s Own Self-Care Regime And Daily Work Visualization
I get adjusted regularly by my chiropractor. I also regularly go to acupuncture like monthly physical therapy. I had a baby not long ago. Rehabbing my core is so important. I try to take care of myself physically in those ways. It’s also important to take care of yourself on what’s giving you life. I’m lucky to be someone who gets a lot of that life and energy out of my work. I also get a lot of that out of spending time with my family.
I have a one-year-old and spend time with my husband. All of us love to dance. That’s always big for me. My husband and I had ballroom dance for a long time. Before I was pregnant, I was in a tap-dancing company in DC. I still dabble. The things that give you joy are important, too. I can’t wait until my son is big enough to bring him to the parent-child tap class.
Is there like a non-negotiable for you on a daily basis?
As far as something, I would say, different context. At work before every single day, I always say, “Lord, send me the people who I can help.” That’s very important to me. I want the people who I can help to come and my door. I always do a visualization of my day, my ideal patient, and a list of affirmations before I see anyone so that I’m in the right headspace to take care of people.
I love that. That would be one of my takeaways. Dr. Kimball, thank you again so much. This has been fantastic. It was a lovely meeting you in person and we know our readers, especially in DC, would love to know how to find you and our readers in general, where can they find you on social media, how to visit your practice and follow everything that you’re building there at Agape?
My practice, Agape Family Chiropractic is located in the Georgetown neighborhood of Washington DC. The best way to reach us is probably through the website, which is AgapeFamilyChiropractic.com. On Instagram, it’s @AgapeFamilyChiro or @DrKellyKimball. We’re also Agape Family Chiropractic on Facebook. Those are probably our best social media spots, but the website is usually the best place to get in touch.
Dr. Kelly Kimball, thank you so much for your time, your honesty and for educating us on what chiropractic care is. Thank you for reminding us that being rooted in love in the middle of the hardest season and watching it become something extraordinary.
Five years, five titles, Georgetown is absolutely lucky to have you, Dr. Kimball, and we are, too. Thank you so much for taking this leap with us.
Thank you.
To everyone reading, if this moved you with Dr. Kelly Kimball, please share, like, read and subscribe this episode with someone who needs a little reminder that a leap is never wasted.
We’ll see you on the next episode. Until then. Keep leaping and may you be well.
May you be well.
Important Links
- Dr. Kelly Kimball on LinkedIn
- Agape Family Chiropractic
- Business Networking International
- Agape Family Chiropractic on Instagram
- Agape Family Chiropractic on Facebook
- Agape Family Chiropractic on X
- Agape Family Chiropractic on TikTok
About Dr. Kelly Kimball
Dr. Kelly Kimball is a chiropractor and the founder of Agape Family Chiropractic in the Georgetown neighborhood of Washington, DC. She opened Agape Family Chiropractic in 2020 and her practice has won the title “Best Chiropractor” in the Washington City Paper “Best of DC” Reader’s Poll from 2021 through 2025.
Dr. Kimball graduated summa cum laude from Georgetown University with her B.S. in Human Science. She then followed her childhood dream of becoming a chiropractor by attending Palmer College of Chiropractic in Davenport, IA, graduating valedictorian of her class. Upon graduation, she was awarded the Clinical Excellence Award, which is awarded to a single graduate for excellent clinical skills and chiropractic adjusting technique.
Dr. Kimball is committed to providing care that honors the dignity of each person and their unique needs. She is Webster-certified so that she can serve pregnant patients with the highest quality chiropractic care, and she has completed several post-doctoral education programs on caring for pediatric and newborn patients. Passionate about patient education, Dr. Kimball helps empower patients to take control of their health by optimizing the body’s innate ability to heal. She believes that all people are meant to experience the fullness of life that is only possible at optimal health.
Dr. Kimball is a published chiropractic researcher and enjoys staying up to date on the latest chiropractic research. She has guest lectured at both the undergraduate and doctoral levels, speaking about a variety of chiropractic topics. She has served as the representative for the District of Columbia in the International Chiropractors Association since 2021.
Outside the office, Dr. Kimball is on the board of the Georgetown University Alumni Club of Metro DC and the Parish Council at St. Stephen Martyr Catholic Church in Foggy Bottom. She enjoys ballroom dancing with her husband, snuggling her one-year-old son, and delighting in a good cup of Earl Gray tea.