Ep 13: From Polio to Purpose

In this special episode of Before The Scalpel, Dr. James P. Powell shares the deeply personal story that shaped his life, his career, and the foundation of Powell Chiropractic Clinic.

From witnessing his mother battle polio in the 1950s to seeing the life-changing effects of chiropractic care firsthand, Dr. Powell reflects on the experiences that inspired generations of chiropractors within the Powell family. He also shares powerful stories from his early years in practice, including remarkable cases involving asthma, spinal injuries, and the importance of thorough patient evaluation.

This episode dives into the philosophy behind chiropractic care, the body’s incredible ability to heal, and why finding the root cause matters more than simply masking symptoms.

Episode Highlights:
• The story behind “From Polio to Purpose”
• How chiropractic changed the Powell family forever
• The origins of chiropractic and the story of D.D. Palmer
• Why faith, confidence, and belief matter in healing
• Powerful patient stories that shaped a 50+ year career
• The importance of proper diagnosis, X-rays, and patient-centered care
• Chiropractic as a lifestyle, not just a treatment

This is more than a conversation about chiropractic, it’s a story about legacy, purpose, healing, and hope.

Transcript

SPEAKER_01 0:15

Welcome back to Before the Scalpel. I'm honored to introduce my father, Dr. James Peepowell, that actually started this whole thing, and so we're so happy to have him here. Hi, Dad.

SPEAKER_02 0:32

Hi, morning.

SPEAKER_01 0:33

Can you give me your earliest memory of being exposed to chiropractic?

SPEAKER_02 0:40

Well, when I was a kid back in the 1950s, polio was a problem. Fact is in grade school there were a lot of kids that had braces on their legs. And my Cub Scout leader, my friend's mom, died of polio. She was in an iron lung because polio was into the respiratory system or into the extremities. And so it was very serious. So when they came out with the vaccine, my mother got vaccinated as well as our her children. And so soon after that, which she didn't realize, is that her legs started malfunctioning and she started getting weaker and weaker. She went from doctor to doctor, and we lived in Cleveland at the time, and so she ended up at the Cleveland Clinic. They did muscle biopsies and all kinds of tests, and finally they came back and they said it's unfortunate that we have discovered that from other sources that there are people that have gotten the disease from the vaccination. This, of course, was before computers and the ability to get stats from around the country, but so it took months. And so she was pretty well paralyzed in the lower extremities. And so back then, when you were a kid, you had to dress up to go to school. Today, who knows, you know, but so my sister would make sure I was dressed correctly because I was about ten, and we would go into my mom's bedroom, and we'd have to get behind her and roll her up and put pillows behind her back so she could see us to see that we looked presentable to go to school. That was my recollection of how bad it was. And so as a kid, what are you gonna do? You know, I didn't know any different. So her neighbor suggested, why don't you go to a chiropractor, her chiropractor? And so, what do you got to lose? And back then, he was in Bedford, Ohio, on the second floor of an old Rexall drugstore. Of course, no elevator. And the staircase was like this. And so, as I recall, my dad and my uncle would carry her up the stairs to the chiropractor. And he put her on a table, he would adjust her and go and see other patients, come back adjust her again, and maybe she spent two or three hours there. And he adjusted her five or six times.

SPEAKER_01 3:03

Wow.

SPEAKER_02 3:03

And that was my first experience to what chiropractic was. And hard to believe, but I as it's now understood, a lot of chiropractors helped people with polio back then, but really didn't know what they were treating.

SPEAKER_01 3:18

Right.

SPEAKER_02 3:19

Because didn't have the diagnostics that we do today. And uh six weeks later she was walking.

SPEAKER_01 3:25

That's incredible.

SPEAKER_02 3:26

And so he was a hero in our house, you know. And so I thought chiropractic was the greatest thing ever. And uh so my mom, being the strong person she was, I believe, started then in her mind. I think I'll make my son a chiropractor. She was very important. She was influential in my life, and so here I am, you know, 60 years later. However, uh, I could not be more grateful that she encouraged me and that she got well. She did have repercussions from that disease. So she had a lot of nerve damage, and so as I learned and studied and I grew in my practice, I was able to help my mom, and she lived up into her 80s, and so I'm grateful for. But she did have some problems as a result of having polio, but she didn't die from it, nor was she in a wheelchair all her life.

SPEAKER_01 4:14

Right. And I remember you telling me that because of the complications that she had from the polio, that those uh conditions forced you to go into textbooks and take extra classes and find experts in those particular fields, which in turn widened your scope. So uh all things work for good kind of thing. Yeah. Because that negative thing that happened inspired you, gave you faith, confidence, and belief in these products, services, and ideas, and changed the course.

SPEAKER_02 4:48

Well, maybe as I grew older and got a little wiser, you realize how God had a plan.

SPEAKER_01 4:54

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 4:54

And so you're right, absolutely right. So I studied a lot of different techniques trying to figure out how to help her. I too had some serious problems as a teenager, injured my spine a couple of different times, and so in addition, I was looking for ways of helping myself. Sure. So as I look back on my career, I'm so grateful that I learned a variety of techniques that Powell now does, which I think is unique to this facility.

SPEAKER_01 5:21

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 5:21

When someone comes in, not everybody needs the very same thing. And so, because our doctors are so well trained in a variety of different methods, what would be the best thing to help the patient entering the office? And I think that is what makes Powell unique.

SPEAKER_01 5:37

Agreed. The cascading of knowledge, because of grandma and your own personal, mastered those particular techniques and those different treatment uh aspects, therefore training me, Dr. Nall, and then soon to be Jonathan, your grandson, uh, on these different things, which gives us a wider uh set of tools in our tool bag, so to speak.

SPEAKER_02 6:02

Good way to look at it, yes. Oh, I agree. And uh when you were born, uh mom had a very difficult pregnancy.

SPEAKER_01 6:11

Right.

SPEAKER_02 6:11

And a very difficult delivery. And I was a student in school. In fact, uh we we had you and and your sister Heather, uh, two children when we graduated from chiropractic college. So when you were a baby, after a very difficult delivery, you developed asthma.

SPEAKER_01 6:29

Right.

SPEAKER_02 6:30

And so we lived in Chicago going to school, and one night we went into your bedroom and you were turning blue. We thought maybe you were choking on something, so luckily we were about two blocks from a hospital, and it was 10 or 11 or 12 o'clock at night, so I ran, carried you to the hospital, ran down a couple blocks, and back then they put you in an oxygen tent, right? And the diagnosis was asthma, and then back then everybody smoked.

SPEAKER_01 6:59

Right.

SPEAKER_02 6:59

And you couldn't be around cigarette smoke or kind of smoke or uh perfume or hairspray, or you know, because you would get an attack. So we tried real hard to do that. And so, unfortunately, in spite of our efforts, you had a couple more attacks back to the hospital. Also, incidentally, I had no insurance, of course, in those days. Wow. And I think I was two or three years in practice before I paid the hospital bill off.

SPEAKER_01 7:26

I was an expensive. You were expensive right off the bat.

SPEAKER_02 7:30

Worth every penny. However, uh, a clinic director at our uh college, I was telling him about your situation. He said, next time that baby gets sick, you bring him to me. So one o'clock in the morning, you turn blue. And the way you could see a baby's respiratory distress is the sternum pulls way down into the spine in the what we call supraclavicular spaces above the collarbone, sink way in deep. That's really restricted breathing. And uh and that's bad, you know, that's could be fatal. And so uh we took him, took you to his house, and God, ooh bless him, his name is Dr. Lane, and he was about my size, but he had really thick fingers and big hands, and and he was so strong, and you were just about maybe 18 months old or something like that. He grabbed a hold of you and he started adjusting and uh vigorously. Right. And you started to vomit out of your lungs the most putrid mucus, and it was incredible. Right. And mom was upset, you know, where are you killing my baby? And sure. And I didn't know what was happening. I was just a student, I really hadn't been in clinic yet. And uh now that was uh 50 some nine years ago, yeah, 58 years ago, and uh never had another asthma attack, never been sick since. And so I was so convinced that chiropractic can cure polio and asthma, what what can it not fix, you know? And so as I started my career, I had great confidence in the healing aspect of adjusting people, not only for pain relief, but for general health.

SPEAKER_01 9:24

Right. So if you can think about the confidence that Dr. Lane had to say you have an infant in distress, turning blue, life-threatening situation, bring him to my house at one o'clock in the morning, don't go to the ER. That's some confidence.

SPEAKER_02 9:45

That took courage, really did.

SPEAKER_01 9:47

And then that's contagious. So you see that, and then your confidence changes.

SPEAKER_02 9:52

You're right, absolutely right. And so I am grateful that he had that level of confidence because reality was the hospital didn't do anything to solve the problem. They just did uh whatever took emergency-wise, which we're grateful for.

SPEAKER_01 10:07

Right.

SPEAKER_02 10:07

And so I think the same thing is true with most people when you're dealing with a situation that could very well be life-threatening, yeah, whatever emergency situation. Absolutely. But we have pride in ourselves as chiropractors, is what is the cause?

SPEAKER_01 10:22

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 10:23

A lot of people think, I hate pain, of course you do. But pain is the alarm system of the body to tell you something's wrong.

SPEAKER_01 10:30

Correct.

SPEAKER_02 10:31

So instead of just killing the pain, which sounds like the right thing, why do you have the pain?

SPEAKER_01 10:36

Right.

SPEAKER_02 10:36

Address the cause. Absolutely. So that's the philosophical difference between chiropractic and medical care. And we need both. Correct. And I've learned that over my lifetime, so I'm grateful.

SPEAKER_01 10:48

Yeah. Can you give us um I know that you don't know him personally, but uh the the history of how we began with David or uh David David Daniel Palmer in uh Davenport, Iowa, in 1895.

SPEAKER_02 11:05

There was a janitor that had lost his hearing. Right. He was a hearing person, then he lost it. And so uh Palmer must have been a curious character, and so he said, What happened? How did it happen? He said, Well, I was putting some boxes away and I was reaching in real uh strong into a cabinet, and I felt something pop in my neck, and I couldn't hear. So I said, Let me see you. So he checks his neck and he feels this big lump on his neck, which as we see it was a subluxation or vertebrae out of place. And so he thought figured a way to put it back in place, and his hearing was restored. That was the beginning. That's crazy. That's crazy. That's how the story began. And so he was the discoverer of chiropractic.

SPEAKER_01 11:51

Right.

SPEAKER_02 11:51

His son was named BJ, right? Bartlett Joshua, and so what he did was develop chiropractic into a school, and he started a college in Iowa, which is still there today, and that was the beginning of our profession. And so it wasn't for bad backs, it was for general health. And so, because we are so good with getting rid of back pain, we have become well known in that area, but not enough people know about the health care benefits, because chiropractic is also a health care delivery system, unlike medicine.

SPEAKER_01 12:28

Right.

SPEAKER_02 12:28

Because the spine houses the nervous system.

SPEAKER_01 12:31

Correct.

SPEAKER_02 12:32

The nervous system controls every part of your body, right? So if something's wrong with the spine, so will those nerves be affected to wherever that part's going. Incredible. Incredible, it's very simple.

SPEAKER_01 12:44

It's very logical, though.

SPEAKER_02 12:45

So logical. It's also too simple.

SPEAKER_01 12:48

Right.

SPEAKER_02 12:48

And so the patients I've seen over my lifetime, and I know both you and Dr. Chip have, is that once they start feeling better, they realize the benefits of staying well. Right. And that's what we encourage people to do, is to be checked. Because your spine is affected from stress. Do you know anybody that doesn't have stress?

SPEAKER_01 13:08

Oh, I don't have any stress.

SPEAKER_02 13:09

Oh, well then you're lying. Because it's either physical stress, you know, working too hard, exercising too much, or too ineffectively, emotional stress, of course. And then chemical. We're now learning that all the chemistry of the foods that we eat and the environment, it's making people sick. Correct. And so all those cause stress on the body, and if you can get the stress out of the spine, at least that part of your body will work better.

SPEAKER_01 13:37

Yeah. I heard a story, um, I believe it was at a Parker seminar. One of the older docs had said this story, whether it's the actual way it happened or not, we you know, sometimes you don't know.

SPEAKER_02 13:48

Yeah, it gets embellished a little bit.

SPEAKER_01 13:50

But he said that uh Dr. Palmer believed that he had found the cure for deafness. Yeah. And so he advertised in the paper and he put it in the magazine journals. So people came from all over to Davenport, Iowa that were deaf. And he would adjust their spines the same way that he did uh Harvey Lillard, and not one other person got their hearing back. However, other ailments that they were suffering from were were treated properly and and and those things went away. And he discovered wait a minute, what's going on here? It's not deafness, it's returning the spine to normal function.

SPEAKER_02 14:27

I I believe that probably is true. We didn't have research in those days, but that's a great way to begin research.

SPEAKER_01 14:34

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 14:34

Is through trial and error and then collecting that data and then going from there. And that's what is that, 150 years ago.

SPEAKER_01 14:42

Yeah. Think about the confidence that Dr. Palmer received when he aligned a spine and the janitor got his hearing back, and then he sees all these other ailments changing.

SPEAKER_02 14:55

Well, similar in my life, is that because I had we had such great success with you with asthma, uh, I had great confidence in it. Sure. So my in my career I helped a lot of babies, children, and even adults with asthma get well by adjusting them. Yeah. Not everybody, of course. No. But those that that was the cause of their asthma, I was able to help them.

SPEAKER_01 15:18

So that T1 nerve that goes to the lungs, could you give us a little more uh explanation on that?

SPEAKER_02 15:25

Well, a great story is that uh a lady came in to me, she was an older lady, and uh she learned a little bit about what we do, and she said that my grandson has asthma really bad. And he uh is in and out of the hospital all the time. And I wonder if you would see him. I said, Of course, I'll be happy to look at him. So this was when I first started practicing, I was in an old house downtown, and uh the father and mother came with the little boy and the grandma to see me. And so when they got there, uh I could hear the husband from the window that I was sitting next to. He said, This guy's a chiropractor. I'm not taking my son to a chiropractor. She said, Well, at least let's see what he has to say. And they so they were arguing out about it, and so and he was a state highway patrolman.

SPEAKER_01 16:16

Oh god.

SPEAKER_02 16:16

Great big guy, very intimidating. Right. So they came in and and his name was Mickey. And uh I asked him if I could examine him, because I was one of the first, one of the few who had a chiropractic uh license to x-ray patients. So I was trained in x-ray, and so I had an x-ray. So I took an x-ray of them, and the only thing that was really obvious about his spine in a little boy about eight or ten was that area of his spine, the upper thoracic area, which affects the lungs.

SPEAKER_01 16:51

Right.

SPEAKER_02 16:51

And it was obvious, and they saw it. I said, if I can align this better, there's a high probability that his asthma will get better. And so they agreed to do it, which I was very happy for. Well, the end of the story was Mickey ran track for Michigan State when he was in college. What? He never had another asthma attack. Within a year he gained 30 pounds, started exercising, weightlifting, and and uh I was thrilled as were they. Wow. And anyway, I ended up seeing a whole lot of policemen came in highway patrolmen as patients because they thought I was a miracle worker. Sure. That's how simple it can be. And I wish they were all that way. Right. But that was a miracle case. I'm so grateful I was able to do.

SPEAKER_01 17:37

Another wonderful case that you told us about, I mean, I got to hear these stories when I was a kid. And so that, you know, we we have this acronym FCB in your PSI that we learned from Dr. Parker, that I learned from you, faith, confidence, and belief in your product, services, and ideas. So I'd hear these stories as a kid, which inspired me to know what is it that you do and why all these people in the community were so thankful. I mean, I remember having your cards in my pocket in elementary school and giving them to the teachers when they complained about a headache, all they needed was their neck adjusted. They thought I was insane. But turns out it was a pretty good program. But one of the stories that you had told us was a little bit about this bricklayer named Sam. Can you give us the story of Sam?

SPEAKER_02 18:30

Sure. Um, early in my career, a nice young man, probably in his mid-twenties, came in. Right, muscular kid, you know, he's a bricklayer. And uh he said his neck bothers him and his arm is tingling and numb and weak, and he wanted to know if I would treat him. I said, well, take an x-ray. He says, I had x-rays at the hospital when I fell, because he had fallen off a scaffold, and uh and he said, and there's nothing wrong, you know, but they couldn't figure out. I said, Well, I'd feel better. And so he said, he agreed. So I took an x-ray, and what I found out is the fifth cervical in the middle of his neck was split right in half, it was broken right in half. And I gasped as I saw the x-ray, and I was very nervous. Sure. So I had a friend who was an orthopedic surgeon. I got him on the phone and I told him what I had found, and he said, put a collar on him and have somebody drive him to the hospital right now, and I'll meet him in the ER. And so back then, he had surgery, they operated him in the front and they fused his neck, and then they operated in the back and fused his neck. And uh, he told me, the surgeon told me, had I given him an adjustment, I could have split the spinal cord and he could have died right on the spot. How he didn't roll over in bed and paralyze himself, it's we don't know, but he didn't. So that encouraged me to realize thorough examinations are important.

SPEAKER_01 19:58

Right.

SPEAKER_02 19:59

An x-ray. An x-ray. So that was part of our way of uh evaluating patients. Uh we felt strongly about it. We don't really want to adjust anybody. Here's a young, healthy, handsome, young, muscular kid. What could be wrong with him? Right. Right? Or somebody who is a senior and has osteoporosis and everything else is more serious. You'd never believe he could have something like that. So opened my eyes, really good, and I'm grateful. And P.S. 30 years later or whatever, 20 or 5 years later, he referred me a patient. He turned out to be a missionary over in Europe. Oh my gosh. He sent me a patient from Italy, and they came here from Italy because this guy can do anything. The faith, confidence, and belief he had in me, and I only had it because and I never really treated him.

SPEAKER_01 20:50

Right.

SPEAKER_02 20:50

I just discovered what was wrong with them. And so I think patients are truly grateful. As you know, and Dr. Chip knows, that people come here finding out what really is wrong with them after they've been to different doctors. Right. They have great respect for us, and even if you may not actually treat them, but you get them to the right method of care, that's the right thing to do.

SPEAKER_01 21:14

So the the faith in the x-ray we have stood strong on. Yeah. So there are chiropractic clinics that don't have x-ray, and so they do their very best, and they may treat patients without x-ray, which is completely their decision. There's nothing uh right or wrong, it's just whatever your choices are. But we've chosen here that typically we won't treat a patient if we don't have a full exam, orthopedic evaluation, and x-ray. And we have found that to be invaluable for us to diagnose the case properly. And if it patient needs to be referred to a medical doctor, we're the first ones to tell them. But if there's something that we can do here, we accept them as a patient, and we seem to get pretty darn good results because of that.

SPEAKER_02 22:00

Well, that's the way the method that I developed, as I just explained. Right. And that's the reason why I developed it, and I feel strongly about it. However, the beauty of chiropractic, it's so safe, it's really rare that you ever hurt anybody. Correct. And so, as you know, most people pay more for their car insurance than we pay for malpractice because we don't hurt anybody. And so, even though, in spite of what others may say or make up, reality is chiropractic is very, very safe. And the chiropractors that don't do those exams like we do, I think are careful with the way they treat people, not do anything too aggressive. And uh so I've learned my lesson from trial and error, and took 50 years to figure it all out. But the good news I think is I've been able to pass it on to my kids and God willing and to our next generation with our grandson coming into chiropractor.

SPEAKER_01 22:57

Well, the inspiration that you have given to the community, but also to our family. Like our family has become a chiropractic family. So you're a chiropractor, both of my brother-in-laws are a chiropractor, my son's gonna be a chiropractor, all in within two or three generations. And the number of people that every one of those docs are touching, that all came from Grandma Powell.

SPEAKER_02 23:26

Yeah. That's that's wonderful to say that because in one person, whatever you may think, say, or do may affect millions of people in the future. Pretty cool. Awesome, really is awesome. The beauty of it all is that in addition to not everyone in our family is a practicing chiropractor, but we live by a chiropractic philosophy in that the body can heal itself. So give the body a chance to heal, find out what's the ultimate cause, that doesn't mean that we wouldn't utilize medical or surgical care. We do.

SPEAKER_01 23:59

We do.

SPEAKER_02 24:00

And we recommend it. But also that it's a lifestyle more than just a treatment. So many of our patients, because as I come in here for care myself, the people that are under regular care have been here 20, 30, 40 years. 56 years. Yeah, or maybe 50 years, and they come in periodically just to stay well.

SPEAKER_01 24:22

Right. And they are well because of that, I believe. What's funny is I'll be, you know, I've been in practice uh 33 years this year. Well, and uh I'll have patients that come in and they'll ask about you. So they knew you when you were still in active practice, want to see how you're doing, what's going on with you, and but they've been under care the majority of their life. And not just them, their family, their wife and their kids, and when that philosophy is uh truly learned, those kids may move to different communities and find different chiropractors in those different communities. Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 24:59

That's what whatever you think say or do, yeah, affecting people in the future, and I feel grateful that I've had that opportunity. And uh what's very I'm very proud of is the fact that I was in here one day and there was a young lady holding a baby, and she introduced herself. She said, You of course don't know me, but my mom brought me to you when when I was like this baby, yeah. And the baby's been sick. And I asked my mom, what do you think? She says, Take that baby to Powell. We hear that all she says, I live in Cleveland now, but I came down here because I wanted to come to Powell. I thought, oh man, does that make me feel valuable to that family? Yeah, and that baby got well. It's just a beautiful story.

SPEAKER_01 25:43

Well, that was your commissioned choice and also a gift to provide that.

SPEAKER_02 25:51

Destiny and purpose in life, as God has a plan.

SPEAKER_01 25:53

Right.

SPEAKER_02 25:54

And chiropractic is a great place to be.

SPEAKER_01 25:57

Oh, it's been a wonderful career. For you've had a wonderful career. I've had a wonderful career, and being able to see these changes, it's just been a lot of people.

SPEAKER_02 26:06

I couldn't be more proud of what Powell's doing, and it's busy here, and people are getting well and providing wonderful care without drugs, without surgery. Right. But doesn't mean that you don't agree with what they do. It's just when it's unnecessary, they ought to have chiropractic.

SPEAKER_01 26:22

Yeah, everybody should have chiropractic.

SPEAKER_02 26:23

Everyone should have chiropractic. Thanks, Jim.

SPEAKER_01 26:26

Thank you. Well, thank you for uh our first episode of uh What is About Powell? Our next episode uh will be the oxygen tent. A little more uh about my story when I was a baby. Thank you.

SPEAKER_00 26:46

Powell Chiropractic Clinic introduces Discovery, the alternative to back surgery. The advanced discovery protocols created in 2006 by the doctors at Powell Chiropractic Clinic are healthy and effective ways to avoid surgery and relieve pain. Innovators in chiropractic care. Dr. Jim Powell and Dr. Walter Null invite you to live pain-free, drug free. Call today for a free no cost consultation and preliminary examination. Powell Chiropractic Clinic, located on Munson Street Northwest in Belvin Village and at Powellchiropractic.com.