Meet chiropractor Kinal Patel, the Wasatch Back’s doctor in the (barn)house

While many would shy away from grabbing a horse’s leg to extend and rotate it, Dr. Kinal Patel, a chiropractor of humans, horses, dogs and cats, was in her element as she did so to the 21-year-old steed, Mariah, at Northfield Stables in Heber City. 

For many boarders and their horses, Northfield Stables is their happy place away from the hustle and bustle of downtown. The 20 acres are surrounded on all sides with the serene emptiness of the North Fields, a freshwater wetland area, with towering Mt. Timpanogos on the horizon.

Patel has spent as much time as possible in that environment since moving to Heber City last year, not just for the views, but to help her animal friends, too.

As Patel adjusted Mariah, the horse lifted one of her right legs, not to kick her doctor, but as her way of saying, “Help me out, here!” She has an uneven trot thanks to soreness on the right side of her body.

Patel gives Mariah adjustments once a week. The horse has arthritis in her hock and stifle joints in her hind legs, in no small part because her previous owner neglected her. Mariah’s current owner, Amy Hartquist, bought her nine years ago from a boarding barn in Washington. 

“She had at least two incidents where she reared up and flipped over with a saddle on, before I found her,” Hartquist said. “And she grew a whole baby without any nutritional support. They just threw her out in the field, and they were like, ‘Have a baby!’”

Patel said that, in her experience, saddles are the number one reason horses become lame. If a saddle is too tight, pinching the scapula while a human sits directly on the horse’s spine, it can create long-term health problems that can be worsened by running and jumping in high-octane events.

“It’s like an extra small bra, when you can’t fit into it. … You need space for their vertebrae to move around,” Patel explained. “But they try their hardest to please the owner and move.”

The goal of Mariah’s treatment is to make her healthy enough to be ridden. 

Patel’s treatment began with rubbing essential oils onto Mariah’s body to soothe her. Then, she performed a series of adjustments across Mariah’s body, extending her legs, pushing down on the spine and massaging the temporomandibular joint in the jaw.

As Patel performed the latter adjustment, Mariah involuntarily stuck her tongue out and flatulated. While stinky, that indicates the horse is relaxed and signals the treatment is working, Patel explained. Yawning and nuzzling up are also positive indicators.

By the time Patel wrapped up the treatment by enveloping Mariah in a pulsed electromagnetic field blanket, which massages the horse with vibrations and uses magnetic fields to stimulate cellular repair, the horse was falling asleep on her hooves. Hartquist’s anxious girl was completely relaxed.

Usually, it’s the horses that are in the most pain that have negative reactions, nipping, kicking or bucking if Patel tries to touch them. 

“You just have to keep calm and give the horse some space, and go back to see why it bucked back or reared up. It’s obviously pain or discomfort,” Patel said. “You don’t come in like you own them. It’s a kind of respect.”

Dogs can also be dangerous, but they’re typically easier to handle. 

For example, 13-year-old border collie poodle mix Beau didn’t resist when Patel picked him up and adjusted his legs. 

Beau suffered a neck injury last year. His owner, Ashley Peatross, didn’t see it happen, but he assumes Beau tripped on the stairs.

“I was upstairs, and he came up, and he was pretty much crawling,” Peatross said. 

After a month of trying to manage the injury, administering anti-inflammatory medications and carrying Beau outside for every bathroom trip, Peatross scheduled an appointment with Patel.

“She came over and did one adjustment, and after that, he went from barely being able to move to being able to move around and take care of himself,” Peatross said. “After two or three treatments, his quality of life was way better.” 

Patel entered chiropractic medicine because of the positive effects it had on her own life.

Patel was born prematurely, which resulted in lifelong health issues, particularly asthma and constipation. She didn’t discover chiropractic care until she was a pharmacy student at Western Illinois University. A friend recommended it to Patel, who had injured her knee while playing soccer. Patel was surprised to find that adjustments lessened the severity of her other health conditions. 

“I was literally hospitalized all the time for those two things. So, I was like, ‘If medicine didn’t help, and this is helping?’ So, I switched careers,” Patel said.

She earned her doctorate at the Logan University College of Chiropractic in Missouri in 2012, later opening a practice in Illinois with her former husband, where, among their many patients, the pair treated professional athletes from the National Football League and Major League Baseball.

Patel became interested in animal chiropractic after an experience she’d had with her dog. Then, Patel acquired a certification in animal chiropractic at the Options For Animals College of Animal Chiropractic in Kansas in 2018. 

“He got a nerve nicked by a veterinary procedure,” she explained. “When he came back, his right hind (leg) wasn’t working, and he was peeing himself. Gabapentin would make him absolutely neurotic and crazy, like, teeth out at patients, because he’d come to work with me. My girlfriend, who does show dogs and show horses in Florida and Pennsylvania … came and adjusted him, and it was magic.” 

She moved to Heber City last year after her divorce and soon found a family of sorts at Northfield Stables, where she spends her Sundays providing adjustments to animals. 

While treating human patients is fulfilling, treating horses, cats and dogs provides Patel with her sense of purpose.

“My goal is to give back to the ones that can’t speak,” she said.

Patel’s practice, Heber Valley Chiropractic, is located at 2 S. Main St. She also expanded to Park City last month and is located within Park City Fit at 4108 N. Forestdale Dr. 

Appointments can be booked at hebervalleychiropractic.com.