I’m looking for a referral for a good chiropractor in the Washington, DC area (preferably in DC itself) to help out a runner friend who is having some sciatica and related problems. I’ve been fortunate to have found a great chiropractor for myself in San Francisco, so I’m eager to find one on the other coast for my friend. Thanks for your suggestions.
She’s not in DC (about 2 miles outside the beltway in Fairfax), but Dr Kathy Coutinho of Positively Chiropractic treats mostly triathletes. She’s a very serious triathlete herself, having placed as high as 3rd at XTerra Worlds. I own a local coaching company and we’ve referred hundreds of athletes to her for over a decade and never had a negative report. http://www.posichiro.com/
Ken
I used a Dr. Brown (I think his first name was Larry) in the DuPont area – he was on NH just South of the circle, but that was 10 years ago. He was very good, though the office could be a little hectic.
Why a Chiro? If she wants a professional go to a PT. If she wants to get the same thing as a Chiro but less expensive a massage therapist will do.
Dr. Marty Skopp in Alexandria, VA is the go-to ART chiro for triathletes. 703 721-9600. He is worth the drive. Also can consider Capital Rehab in Arlington.
John Romero is great. He got me back in the game after a few years of nothing but pain. He has a unique type of manual therapy that does wonders for sciatic back problems.
You should go to Rose Physical Therapy if you want downtown. They are the only clinic that is certified by McKenzie Institute (back and spine specialty), Active Release Techniques (ART) and they do some other cool stuff like dry needling and biofeedback. They are near Farragut Square so right by every metro line.
I think you are making a mistake going to a chiro, but the first place I’d start is on the ART website.
Dr. Marty Skopp in Alexandria, VA is the go-to ART chiro for triathletes. 703 721-9600. He is worth the drive. Also can consider Capital Rehab in Arlington.
Marty is the only chiro I’d see in DC–he’s a cool guy. Although again, I wouldn’t see a chiro. 
Marty is at least ART certified. However, in my personal opinion McKenzie technique is going to be able to get your friend healed better, and teach them to manage their symptoms by self treatment.
In contrast, a chiro pretty much equals 3x per week for 3 months, 1 time per week for 3 months, and one a month forever. You do the math.
Why do you assume to know that every chiropractor is going to need to see the patient 3xwk for xxx time. This is such BS. Try broadening your mind even beyond your possible limited experience.
Why a Chiro? If she wants a professional go to a PT. If she wants to get the same thing as a Chiro but less expensive a massage therapist will do.
Rubbish, for starters you can be in and out in 5 minutes for the same price with a Chiro; and you don’t get any of that lovely oily smugness with a PT. Chiro’s are also much more social, they always want to make sure they see you again.
Chiropractic - Removing the emotionally needy from PT waiting rooms since 1895.
When someone claims to maximize a persons performance energies through the removal of structural, neurological and soft tissue distortions a skeptical persons BS meter goes a ringing. FSM also has very little clinical data available and seems to be no better than placebo. Any relief coming from FSM is probably just associated with the mild amount of electrical current stimulating the muscles. Just a really expensive tens treatment.
Hmmm… So you are going to understand evaluate and judge my methods without any experience whatsoever.
Why not try to “…seek first to understand”. These forums are great for sharing information. Why start bad mouthing things. What purpose does that serve?
The purpose is to keep people from being talked into therapies that are going to waste their time when they could be receiving actual treatment. People should always question authorities to understand better and make educated decisions. This is true if they were in the office of their personal physician, physical therapist or Chiro. If my doctor came to me and in an authoritative manner told me that he could fix my disease by taking a machine that he had learned about in a manual he bought off Amazon that he could tune to the same frequency as my disease and heal me I would walk out of his office and find a better doctor. I know many Chiro do many of the same treatments and take detailed medical histories much like a PT but when you start advertising energy healing that is when you are doing a disservice to people by practicing quakery.
I am not a medical doctor, but neither are Chrio. I don’t need an advanced to degree to logically conclude that Reiki healing and medieval blood letting are not going to fix my shin splints.
Dr. Marty Skopp in Alexandria, VA is the go-to ART chiro for triathletes. 703 721-9600. He is worth the drive. Also can consider Capital Rehab in Arlington.
Marty is the only chiro I’d see in DC–he’s a cool guy. Although again, I wouldn’t see a chiro.
Marty is at least ART certified. However, in my personal opinion McKenzie technique is going to be able to get your friend healed better, and teach them to manage their symptoms by self treatment.
In contrast, a chiro pretty much equals 3x per week for 3 months, 1 time per week for 3 months, and one a month forever. You do the math.
Agree with Skopp. Loved him when I lived in DC. He’s a triathlete himself and often works the Ironman and other Iron-distance events including Kona. Definitely understands us ducks.
Apologies for hijacking the thread. Any further discussion directed towards me please message.
Mike
Your response to him calling BS on chiro is to claim that people should have open minds and try you out? If you are truly a man of medical science, how about you back up your claims of the benefits of chiro techniques with some facts, rather than appeals to open minds?
There are also subpar physical therapists who will see a patient for weeks by watching them do exercises, maybe doing some heat and ice, maybe e-stim…then the patient doesn’t get well and the therapist just blames the patient. Regardless of who it is, you don’t want bad care. And to the defensive chiro, sorry, man. I hope you aren’t one of the bad ones.
I just want to give the best advice that I can give to whoever it is that’s injured here. Don’t accept care from someone who can’t make you better quickly, who can’t diagnose you effectively, who can’t give you the absolute best.
In Washington, DC, there is **ONE **physical therapy clinic in which patients receive a full one-hour evaluation with a therapist–never a technician (they don’t have any), and which has visits covered by insurance, and that is Rose Physical Therapy. At Rose, therapists are skilled in both ART and McKenzie, which are the leading programs for physical therapy evaluation and treatment. A critical point of McKenzie therapy is that the therapists teach patients how to self-treat so they don’t need to keep coming back. In DC there is only one clinic that is McKenzie certified, and that is Rose Physical Therapy. There are actually no other physical therapists who are ART certified in Washington, DC and who also take insurance.
http://www.mckenziemdt.org/
http://www.activerelease.com/
http://www.rosept.com/what-we-do
I would honestly not go anywhere else other than RosePT. The reason I would not go elsewhere is because they don’t have the requisite tools to diagnose and treat. They either don’t have certifications, don’t spend the time, and don’t take insurance.
At RosePT, with one hour diagnosis time by someone who is more skilled, how can your therapy not be better? How can you not get better, faster? Why would you not try to go to the best?
I’ll plug Rose PT more: they have been to Kona, they have been the USAT Championships, multiple 70.3s and Ironmans, etc. They also teach motorcycle safety for DC/Virginia, and have a range of PT that is unbeatable (adult, children, women’s health). They have techniques that are extremely rare in the entire nation (e.g. biofeedback). These are all little valuable things that add up. To get all of this AND have insurance pay is not beatable at a chiro or PT anywhere except for a couple of academic facilities. The reason it’s not available is because it requires personal investment by therapists, but it’s difficult or impossible to pass those investment bills on to the patients, so therapists just don’t do it. In DC, real estate prices are high and margins are thin, so having someone who is making the investment is really amazing!
As Ray (dcrainmaker) said, Marty is known and has been an active ART guy in the chiro community. If you insist on a chiro after all of this, then I’d recommend him. However, Ray doesn’t know Rose Physical Therapy because it’s a newer clinic that was founded when Ray moved to France. I met both Marty and therapists from Rose PT (Clare) at Nations expo.
Incidentally, you can check out RosePT for free if you call and ask for a complimentary injury assessment. They post them to their facebook page pretty often. I follow them which is why I know about all of this stuff – just saw some info about assessments related to the MCM this week.
Enjoy the marketing video
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The video is cool. It goes down the National Mall and through Lafayette Park by the White House. There is a great video guy who works with a lot of local cyclists who shot it. Also, she has a single speed specialized transition, which is reason enough for a triathlete to go to this clinic. 