Working with both animals and humans, a Colorado chiropractor finds success in this unique niche

Jay Komarek, DC, CAC, gives his equine patient an adjustment using momentum adjusting, where the animal is put in motion and the adjustment is done using the animal’s natural reflexes.

Despite what persistent critics claim, chiropractic is not a bunch of horse hockey. The clear exception, though, is the Boulder, Colo, practice of Jay Komarek, DC, CAC, where it is precisely that several times a week thanks to a patient base that includes hundreds of equines. And dogs. And cats.

Lest one mistake Komarek for Dr. Doolittle, rest assured that his four-legged patients do not talk to him. But therein lies the challenge of applying chiropractic principles of care to animals—it is not easy to diagnose their problems since they cannot tell you where it hurts or even that they do hurt to begin with, let alone that they are feeling relief as a result of efficaciously administered adjustments and adjunct therapies.

Chiropractors who adjust animals are few and far between, so Komarek faces only scant competition within this niche. “A chiropractor could treat animals 7 days a week from morning to night and still not have a shortage of patients,” he says.

Komarek gives Ariel, an Australian Shepard, a cervical adjustment as part of a 7- to 10-minute session.

Komarek himself could take on more animal patients, but to do so would mean reducing his human caseload, which is something Komarek has ruled out.“My practice is right now 60% animals, 40% humans. I like this mix and prefer to keep it that way,” he says.

Horse Play
A big slice of that 60% consists of horses. To treat them, Komarek must travel to the ranches where they are stabled, since his downtown Boulder office lacks facilities to accommodate horses. Usually, he sees 15 to 20 of them a day, and arranges his schedule so that he sees nothing but horses on the days he touring ranches. (He does the same in scheduling small animals, which he treats mainly in his office but also at a veterinary clinic or two, setting aside a day to work exclusively with dogs and cats, adjusting as many as 35 or 40 of them in the span of about 8 hours.)

“It takes me 25 minutes on average to adjust a single horse; 7 to 10 minutes for a dog,” he explains.

Ranch calls are almost always scheduled by veterinarians on behalf of their own clients. “The vet arranges for the horses to be there. All I have to do is show up and go to work,” Komarek says, adding that he charges $75 to $125 for each horse he treats, depending on how far he must to travel. He keeps the entire fee, even if the ranch call was set up by a vet.

On the other hand, Komarek splits his fee when the care is delivered to small animals in the vet’s office. For treating a dog, Komarek charges $45—the same as his fee for humans. Regardless of whether he’s treating man or beast, Komarek accepts cash only for his services.

All Creatures Great and Small
Word-of-mouth has been Komarek’s primary means of building the practice, which he operates under the name Principled Chiropractic Care. He has not spent a dime on advertising—there is no need, he insists. One reason why: several years ago, the “Today” show, which airs coast-to-coast on the NBC television network, profiled Komarek and his work; immediately thereafter he was deluged with patient requests from around the country and even overseas.

Komarek gives another cervical adjustment to his canine patient. The $45 fee for a chiropractic adjustment is the same for small animals and humans.

“The ‘Today’ people,” he says, “found out about me from one of my clients, the owner of a very expensive show horse who happened to know someone in the TV business who knew people at the show.”

An important facet of Komarek’s practice-building is the strong relationships he enjoys among veterinarians in Boulder, as well as in Denver and beyond. He is licensed to practice in his own state, plus Wyoming and Pennsylvania. In other states where he visits (such as California and New Jersey), licensure is not an issue because he provides care only under the auspices of practicing veterinarians there.

Komarek notes that chiropractic for animals holds much appeal to a growing number of veterinarians, who view it as a conservative strategy that should be attempted before resorting to radical traditional interventions.

“Veterinarians are increasingly attracted to the idea of natural restoration of normal function of tissues and structures,” he says. “That’s what chiropractic does best. I wish I could say that veterinarians are becoming attuned to this on their own initiative. But it’s in many instances a response to market pressures. They have clients who are using the Internet to learn about interventions like chiropractic and are now asking for it when they bring in their pets and large animals.”

Veterinarians are, as a result, interested in forming relationships with chiropractors who can adjust animals. Komarek introduced himself to these particular vets across Colorado by sending them a letter. However, he was careful to limit the recipients to just those who were offering acupuncture services. “I knew that any vet doing acupuncture had an understanding of the energy systems of the body and would be naturally inclined to embrace the work that I do,” Komarek shares. He says he developed his mailing list by contacting the state’s acupuncture society and requesting names of veterinarians who were members.

Family Business
With a father, an uncle and about a half-dozen adult cousins licensed as chiropractors, it was perhaps inevitable that Komarek would also take up the profession, a decision he says he reached at age 12. It also was perhaps a given that Komarek would accept animals into his own practice, just as his father before him did. “My dad was always taking care of dogs,” he recalls.

It was while he was in his teens that Komarek witnessed for the first time a horse undergo adjustment. He found the process spellbinding and realized it was something he wanted to incorporate into the practice he dreamed of one day having.

His first practice was in Pennsylvania, the city of Langhorne, where he had spent much of his youth. “I had bought my dad’s practice and, when my uncle passed away, I assumed ownership of his as well,” he says. Komarek eventually merged the two offices under a single roof. At its peak, he was handling approximately 125 patients a day. Then, in order to be able to spend more time with his wife and children, he decided to move the entire operation from the office building in which it was located to his home on a 10-acre parcel.

The owner soothes her pet as Komarek finishes the session with a hock adjustment, which is one of the techniques Komarek shares during his visiting lectures at many chiropractic colleges.

Back in the mid-1970s, as a student at Western States Chiropractic College in Portland, Ore, Komarek became acquainted with Colorado, fell in love with its rustic charms, and made it a custom to vacation there every chance he got. “With my kids grown and out of the house, there was no reason not to move to Colorado and reside there permanently,” he says.

Differences between his former and current locales in terms of market opportunities and practice patterns are virtually nonexistent, Komarek insists. “In Pennsylvania, I had very large and successful practices; same thing here in Colorado. As long as you’re good at what you do and are passionate about it, you can practice anywhere and people will come from all over to be under your care,” he says.

The horses Komarek works with are often used for pleasure riding, but many more are involved in competitive sports, such as roping or racing. A rodeo event known as barrel racing is particularly hard on the animals—this is where a horse and its rider charges from one end of an arena to the other and then back again, all the while maneuvering through a slalom of 55-gallon drums.

Says Komarek, “They go at a full gallop, put on the brakes, make incredibly tight turns. The riders pull hard on the reins to turn the horses, which get a lot of torque put on their necks in the process.”

A common source of problems for horses of all types is their shoes. “A bad shoe job creates a lot of distortion to the feet; and in a horse, the condition of the feet is crucial to their overall health,” Komarek offers. “And, yes, they do make orthotics for horses.”

Komarek continues Ariel’s treatment with a shoulder adjustment. He is following in his father’s footsteps, who is also a chiropractor and works with animals.

A visitor to Komarek’s downtown office hears about his horse practice and wonders how the doctor gets a 1,500-pound animal to lay down on the adjusting table. “With a lever and a fulcrum,” Komarek jests in reply. Actually, he adjusts horses while the animals are standing upright; no tables are involved. To adjust a horse, Komarek mounts a step-stool positioned alongside it in order to be high enough to exert the necessary pressure on the animal’s shoulders and back.

“There’s a lot of physics involved in it,” he says. “The process is formally known as momentum adjusting where, basically, I put the horse in motion to get the adjustment. By that, I mean I use a lot of his natural reflexes. For example, if you have your hands in the right places on his shoulder, the horse will reflexively turn his neck toward that spot - and that motion is what produces the adjustment. The same thing applies to reflex spots at his rear end which, when triggered, causes him to arch up his back and self-adjust.”

Animal Kingdom
So how does he know if he is getting good results when these patients can’t form words to convey how they feel?

“I rely on several indicators to tell me what the animal obviously can’t,” Komarek reveals. “One is muscle tension. A horse in discomfort is going to have a lot of that. If the adjustment has been successful, the horse will be relaxed, the muscle tension will be gone, respiration will be normal. Another indicator of problems is gait. I watch how the horse walks. I can tell there is a problem if there’s not a good rhythm to his gait. Also, I check range-of-motion. If it’s improved after adjustment, then I know the problem is being correctly addressed.

The patient’s owner lends a helping hand as Komarek gives a lumbar adjustment. Komarek’s passion for his work includes being an active member of the American Veterinary Chiropractic Association.

“One nice thing about treating animals is that, unlike with humans, their intellect doesn’t get in the way of the healing.”

Komarek is active with the American Veterinary Chiropractic Association (AVCA), based in Hillsdale, Ill. He currently serves on an examination committee of the organization’s education arm. In the days when the AVCA was putting together its animal chiropractic certification program, Options for Animals, Komarek was there to help support the organization. “It’s a great organization with a lot of incredible individuals who have the best interests of animals in mind,” he says. “I’m really glad to be a part of it.”

Involvement with the AVCA has spurred Komarek’s interest in teaching. “Educating chiropractors about animal chiropractic, that’s where I see my next evolution as a practitioner,” he says. “I’m spending more time now making the rounds of chiropractic colleges where I teach educational programs on animal chiropractic. I thoroughly enjoy sharing my adjusting techniques, which is unique and accomplishes things that can’t be done by any other means.

“But as much as I love the educational process, my real joy still comes from going out and doing ranch visits. There’s nothing quite like entering a barn and finding a horse in need of care, delivering that care and then watching the animal get well again.”

Rich Smith is a contributing writer for Chiropractic Products.