When it comes to keeping people in line, Baltimore chiropractor Dr. Douglas C. Miller knows just what to do.
With 18 years of chiropractic experience, including working with premier athletes from the Baltimore Ravens, Baltimore Blast and the Maryland Terrapins, Dr. Miller is an expert on many techniques that improve people’s comfort and get them back in the game.
The chiropractor’s blue eyes light up as he speaks passionately about his hope that those who visit his Catonsville office simply longing to feel better, will, in the end, have an improved lifestyle.
Patients may come to him because their back or neck pain has increased to the point where they can no longer pick up their grandchildren or swing a golf club, explained the St. Mark, Catonsville, parishioner.
Dr. Miller performs chiropractic adjustments, where he manually adjusts the misaligned areas to improve spinal movement and restore function.
“People end up leaving with improved mobility, less pain and better energy patterns,” he said, noting the benefits of establishing a relationship with a trusted chiropractor.
For athletes, he checks their structural alignment so there is less risk of injury and a greater opportunity to improve performance.
“The body also heals faster when in proper alignment,” said Dr. Miller, a graduate of Loyola Blakefield, Towson, the University of Maryland Baltimore County and Palmer College of Chiropractic.
The doctor, who recently was appointed to the State Advisory Council on Physical Fitness, has served as a team chiropractor for the Ravens since 1996. He said an entire medical team serves the needs of the NFL team, including his colleague, chiropractor Dr. Alan Sokoloff.
“I like dealing with elite, world-class athletes and helping them meet their health care needs,” said Dr. Miller. “I like helping an athlete be able to perform at his best level, and what we do is part of that.”
A focus of his community-based practice is helping patients lead a healthy and active lifestyle.
“The challenge is our lifestyle has become so sedentary,” said Dr. Miller. “For people to become more active, we have to create strategies.”
The 43-year-old, along with his wife, Trish, and children, Molly, Garrett and Mave, tries to incorporate healthy choices in his everyday life by exercising and eating right.
The importance of leading a healthy lifestyle hit especially close to home about a year-and-a-half ago when the doctor was diagnosed with non-Hodgkin lymphoma.
“We’re all going to have health challenges, but the lifestyle you live going into it will determine how well you get through it,” said Dr. Miller, who was able to work through most of his treatment and now serves on the board of the Maryland chapter of The Leukemia and Lymphoma Society.
Leading a healthy lifestyle is so important that Dr. Miller is implementing a 12-week program for patients called Creating Wellness, which focuses on healthy eating, physical fitness and stress management.
“People walk in here with pain and stress, and they walk out of here and can smile,” he said. “It’s nice to be able to offer that.”
For more information, visit marylandchiropractic.com.