Candace Salmi, a doctor of chiropractic and a certified clinical nutritionist, posts her philosophy of care on the wall of her BodyMind Chiropractic Center on Montreal Avenue: “There is a vast difference between treating effects and adjusting the cause.”
Dr. Salmi is a native of Thunder Bay, Ontario. She graduated from Northwestern College of Chiropractic (now Northwestern Health Sciences University in Bloomington) in 1999 and stayed in the U.S. because the scope of the practice here is broader than in Canada.
“I stayed because of how I want to see health care, how I want to treat patients,” said Salmi. Now, along with spinal adjustments, she draws blood, does acupuncture and attends to nutritional needs.
Dr. Salmi focuses on the whole person. She believes in a functional model of medical care, one that supports health rather than merely treats symptoms. She will spend an hour getting to know a new patient and will encourage them to tell her everything going on in their lives. Everything is relevant, she said. “I look at health as a triad,” she said.
“Because people see me as a chiropractor, they come in with their structural pain. The nervous system has to be in good shape for everything else to function.” That is one side of her care triangle.
Another is the chemical side. “That’s going to be your nutrient status, your hormone status, your neurotransmitter status,” she said. Finally, Dr. Salmi looks at a person’s mental or emotional side. “Research tells us that 80 percent of our health care problems are stress-related,” Dr. Candace Salmi at the Body-Mind Chiropractic Center. she said. “I can’t affect one thing in the triangle without affecting the other.”
Dr. Salmi’s office is not far from the Mississippi, and she uses the river as an apt analogy: “Let’s look at the root cause of your health problem and correct that,” she said. “Let’s go upstream. If there’s something wrong with the Mississippi River, let’s go up to Lake Itasca and correct what’s happening there, rather than to St. Louis or New Orleans.”
BodyMind Chiropractic Center
1150 Montreal Ave., St. Paul
651-293-1497
getwellstpaul.com
