Dr. Robert Nilles — My Why

I come from a small farming town in Le Mars Iowa and am the middle of five boys.

I grew up poor. The pride of our food came from our own farm and garden so nothing was taken for granted. My father was a workaholic like I consider myself to be.

I grew up to be the only chiropractor in my family.

My father had been a chiropractic patient for years. It never occurred to me then why he went.

Then when I was 14 I got injured from a snowmobiling accident. A medical doctor said there wasn’t much he could do for me and prescribed muscle relaxers to help with the pain.

My dad took me to see his chiropractor and after a few treatments I could walk and run again.

While I was in college a chiropractor helped me heal from another injury. This time it made me wonder how it works.

Today I have 25 years of chiropractic experience, along with 18 years of acupuncture experience. Helping people heal is just as important as breathing for me.

The spine is an important part of your body. Any misalignment in your spine could affect different parts of your body. No one deserves to live in pain.

At Diamond Chiropractic — What we do different

At Diamond Chiropractic we help patients after an accident or injury and diminish any pain or discomfort. But our care is more personal than traditional medical care. It’s about connecting with each patient. Developing trust is key.

There’s a lot of negative stuff out there. Every day we have patients that come in who are influenced by negative news and so they begin to look for negative things in their lives.

Chronic stress and tension will always create physical problems. The more you think about it, it will manifest itself physically.

Negative emotion will eventually show up as physical pain. As chiropractors I believe we have the responsibility to help patients realize they can get better. It’s a flip of the switch in your mind.

When they walk out my door I want them to feel better from a physical, emotional and psychological standpoint.

It’s about shifting the mindset to make room for optimism.

You’ve got to change the mindset and that’s how you change the person.

That’s why I use conversations to figure out what’s going on. It’s a two-sided coin. If something negative happened there’s something else positive that can come out it.

What causes the most trouble is often the negative thought process and you really need to drive into that. If you don’t get to the bottom of the issue then you’re not doing your full service by getting people well.

What we do as chiropractors is remarkably similar to psychology. A lot of cases go back to childhood and you’ve got to address it and pull patients out of protective mode.

I believe there’s a portion of God in every patient and if that’s true I need to do my absolute best for each person because they deserve my respect.