ShawneeDispatch.com

Two new chiropractors in western Shawnee hope to prevent illnesses and pain rather than just treat them.

Matthew and Meredith Gianforte, a married chiropractic team, opened LifeWorks Chiropractic, 22223 W. 66th St., last year, and they hope to show their patients how to maintain a healthy lifestyle and prevent medical problems through maintaining their body function.

"Research has found that your spine is a lifeline to every function in your body," Matthew Gianforte said. "... When you lose proper structure in your spine, it puts you into a state of disease that you don't even know about until the symptoms appear."

With this idea in mind, LifeWorks offers advanced health classes on topics like nutrition, exercise, ADHD and vaccinations. They offer patients a weekly newsletter and a lot of information on their Web site, www.lifeworkschiro.com.

"We want to make it easy for people to understand and get as healthy as possible while in our office," Gianforte said.

The Gianfortes' office is styled after a chiropractic clinic where he interned in Chicago. The clinic saw some 1,400 clients each week, and Gianforte said he quickly saw the benefits of a preventative approach.

"That's what we brought here to Shawnee is a wellness office," he said. "We found the area was very underserved."

The couple graduated from Palmer College of Chiropractics in Davenport, Iowa, and came to Shawnee because both had friends and family in the area.

"It's the type of community that we got a good feeling for," Meredith Gianforte said. "It's a nice, big community, but everybody is so friendly."

The Gianfortes opened LifeWorks in August, and they say they have already seen their patients make great advancements in their health.

"In that time period, we've seen some amazing miracles in our office," Matthew Gianforte said.

Among those are autistic children, who have started to function at a higher level, and clients with allergies or asthma who no longer need their medications.

"It's not unusual for people," Matthew said. "... After we restore function to their body, because their body is functioning at a higher level, what we've found is they have their medical doctors pull them off their medications."

This is actually why Gianforte said he decided to enter chiropractics. As a child, he had asthma and allergies that he took medications for, but he was able to stop taking the medications after seeing a chiropractor.

Continuing with their wellness approach, LifeWorks recently added a massage therapist to its staff, and the Gianfortes have free patient wellness dinners twice a month. LifeWorks also will offer a St. Patrick's Day Special March 16 that will allow new patients to get a free spine and nervous system check up.

It's all part of the wellness approach, Gianforte said.

"If we can prevent disease, we can literally save families thousands of dollars in medical expenses later on in life by keeping them healthy now," he said.