Longmont chiropractic office welcomes new doctor

Alternative Family Medicine and Chiropractic in Longmont recently welcomed Dr. Jennifer Christian, DC, to its family. Christian joins Dr. Ann-Marie Barter, DC, a Niwot chiropractor, who has served Boulder County for several years.

Christian only moved to the Denver area just over two weeks ago from her small hometown of Taos, NM, where she was working in her family’s practice. “My dad is a chiropractor with his advanced practice and my uncle is a doctor of oriental medicine,” Christian said. “And my grandfather is actually a retired chiropractor, so it’s a whole family thing.”

Christian explained that her family’s experiences are similar to what Barter does, which is a lot of functional medicine and functional blood chemistry. Barter focuses on optimizing health by incorporating diet counseling, supplementation, wellness and lifestyle coaching, scar tissue work, herbal therapy, deep tissue massage and exercise programs.

“It’s integrative, so you’re trying to solve the problem as opposed to just putting a bandaide on it,” Christian said of the practice.

Christian fell into her new position by happenstance after being introduced to Barter through a friend of a friend. Although Christian didn’t always want to be a chiropractor, she knows it’s the right profession for her that encompasses her many interests.

“I didn’t ever think I would be a chiropractor,” Christian said. “I actually wanted to be a lawyer, then I wanted to be a surgeon, then I wanted to be a nutritionist, then I wanted to be a massage therapist. My dad was just like, why don’t you be a chiropractor, you can do all those things besides surgery.”

“It’s just such an amazing job,” she added. “I get to spend time with people one-on-one, I get to help people who are in pain and it’s fun. It’s active and it’s never boring.”

Christian, as well as Barter, focus a lot on functional blood chemistry, where they take a more in depth look at their patient’s blood work to diagnose what’s going on.

“Based on their symptoms and what’s going on in their lab work, we look at a tighter range than the actual reference range that most doctors look at,” Christian explained. “They’re looking for disease and we’re looking to catch things before they turn into disease.”

Christian sees patients with a wide array of symptoms from structural complaints such as neck, feet and back pain; severe fatigue to being bloated, and patients with autoimmune diseases. Through her three years of practicing, Christian has realized many issues people face can be interconnected.

“For someone that has a chronic problem that won’t go away,” she said, “it could actually be something more chemically going on, like they have a lot of stress. It’s all connected.”

Some of Christian’s main areas of interest are headaches, low back pain and helping people get healthier by regulating their blood sugar. Overall, she said they’re focused on “trying to do a whole body approach.”

Christian has started giving talks at Natural Grocers in Longmont and Lafayette on how people can regulate their blood sugar levels and on food sensitivities. A new endeavor for Christian, she said Dr. Barter thought it would be a good way to introduce her to the community.

Although Christian was excited about her journey to Colorado, she said it was bittersweet leaving her family. However, she’s looking forward to gaining more patients and helping Barter grow the practice.

“Getting more involved in the community, having more patients and being busier,” Christian said when asked what she’s most excited about. “We eventually want to have more of an integrated practice, so have a bigger practice with an MD eventually and be able to refer within the company.”

Alternative Family Medicine and Chiropractic is located at 1260 S. Hover Rd., Suite D in Longmont and at 1735 E. 17th Ave., Suite 1 in Denver. For more information or to schedule an appointment, call 303-652-0900.