TWENTY YEARS GIVING CHIROPRACTIC CARE … Dr. Michael Miller has expanded to cover health care for the whole body, prompting the name change, to Wellness Huddle.
By: Rebecca Miller
Dr. Michael Miller, of Edon Family Chiropractic, more recently “Wellness Huddle”, has been serving Northwest Ohio, Northeast Indiana and Southwest Michigan patients for the past twenty years. He remembers taking over the practice which had been under the care of Dr. V. Duane Burns. Dr. Burns and his wife, Beverly Jo who ran Burns Realty from the same little bungalow, had decided they were ready to retire, just as Dr. Miller was graduating from his Chiropractic studies.
“I grew up in Toledo in a family who received chiropractic care often so it was a norm for me. My mom had been in a bad car accident and my dad was in bad shape after Vietnam, so they went for pain relief.”
“I would get maintenance chiropractic in between sports season for basketball and soccer in High School,” Dr. Miller shared in an interview. “Originally I wanted to go into Pediatrics, but Chiropractic kind of chose me. The great thing with chiropractic, looking back on it, I still get to work with children along with all age groups.”
Following graduation from State Line Christian School in Temperance, Michigan in 1960, Dr. Miller went on to Cedarville College (which became Cedarville University in 2002) in Cedarville, Ohio, graduating with a Bachelor of Arts in Biology in 1996. He then chose to spend the next three years studying Chiropractic care at Parker College of Chiropractic in Dallas, Texas, graduating on 9/9/99.
When asked how he found this specific office in Edon, Ohio when he was in Texas, he explained that Dr. Burns had placed an ad in the back of a Chiropractic journal, he saw it, and was thrilled to find something so close to his home, just an hour and a half away. They talked on the phone and scheduled to have a visit while he was home on break early in 1999.
“We liked each other,” Miller said, “and so I bought the business on a land contract through Dr. Burns, until I could get it up and running for himself. He was a kind man and understood that a young man fresh out of college didn’t have enough to buy it otherwise.” At that point in time, Dr. Burns was only working a few hours a week and had just a few patients, but within a year of moving in, Dr. Miller was “doing pretty well.”
(Now, during normal times, he averages around sixty clients a day, with that being less during the COVID quarantine, as people are trying to hold off their visits until it is lifted.)
Dr. Burns’ assistant, Laura Wehrle, stayed on and worked with Dr. Miller until 2017 when she took her smiling face, friendly conversations and efficient work ethic that patients had loved, elsewhere to benefit others. In 2016, Angie Kiess-Flegal joined the staff to be in charge of IT Operations, Sierra Savage came on in 2017 as Medical Assistant for just shy of a year, and Heather Humbarger was hired in June of 2019 as Medical Assistant.
“I am thrilled to be working here,” Humbarger shared. “I love helping others but the best part of it for me is that now I am healthier as I do what I am learning! I have learned so much here. I love the results that the people get who use the PEMF (*) bed, and their reactions. They have gone years with chronic pain and after they come here it is like night and day.”
“Also, Dr. Miller has a way of helping people really start understanding…or making the lightbulbs light up about nutrition and the importance of eating real food and that it is the key to being healthy.”
PEMF (*) stands for Pulsed Electro Magnetic Field and was discovered by scientists such as Nikola Tesla, to be usable for healing. In a flyer which Wellness Huddle gives to anyone who is interested, it says, “Life is energy and all energy is electromagnetic. … Tesla was the first to demonstrate the healing principles of electromagnetic fields and his research evolved over time into what we know today as PEMF.
Used worldwide , and as a standard therapy in Europe for decades, PEMF is the targeted application of penetrating electromagnetic energy delivered in billionths-of-a-second pulses to support the innate healing functions that keep you well.” The office in Edon has a chair and a bed which are used to administer this treatment to patients in need of pain relief.
Concerning PEMF, Dr. Miller explained, “It is taking off slowly as it is a newer technology, but the new clients are loving the experience and are recommending it to others. I had clients traveling all the way here from Toledo so decided that since that technology was not available in Toledo at all I would open one there in my hometown and support the people there.”
Besides PEMF, which is a relatively new addition to his care options, Dr. Miller does chiropractic spinal adjustments with a ProAdjuster, offers nutritional counsel, Health Screenings, recommends herbs and whole food supplements, does blood work analysis, and Thermography screenings.
As he has moved into offering so much more than spinal adjustments only, the need for a new name, which would raise awareness of his desire to “meet patients where they are and direct them to where they want to be health wise,” led him to the name “Wellness Huddle” in October of 2018.
Presently he is working on his Clinical Nutrition Certificate, and has recently opened a new office in Toledo that focuses only on PEMF. “Wellness Huddle PEMF” Center is run by his sister, Anissa Yoder, and is open by appointment only (419-419-1307). His website www.wellnesshuddle.com has many links on it so people can find the information they need to get healthier. He has started making educational videos as well, covering topics such as immune support and COVID 19, and looks forward to making more.
IT Operations director, Angie Kiess-Flegal, shared that she is extremely excited about the holistic focus, collaboration and technology portal they are developing. “The platform that he is building, a collaboration and technology platform, that will allow other doctors and health care people to be able to come on board and treat their patients holistically is wonderful!”
“Bringing all of a client’s health care information together and talking about it from a patient centricity perspective, I think that is the piece that I am most thrilled about.”
Dr. Miller continued the thought, saying that it is a platform where doctors can come together to discuss a patient and their needs confidentially. The patient could be in on it, but the ability for doctors to be able to brainstorm together is huge. In today’s society where people have so many specialists, that support is so needed.”
Angie added, “So many patients have issues that Dr. Miller has been able to support. Cancer, Parkinson’s, and others and when they look at their health through that approach is awesome. That is the piece that will be so exciting in the future. The doors are starting to open and we are looking forward to more open mindedness on the part of what are seen as traditional doctors.”
In a written description of what Angie sees happening, she stated it this way, “Dr. Miller has an uncanny way of working with individuals and their health issues – he looks at the systems of the body and focusses on cellular health throughout the body.”
“Combined with this new platform, our goal is to provide the most beneficial and impactful holistic care to our patients; we will offer an avenue for other like minded health providers to deliver outstanding and individual care to the whole patient through sharing of ideas, discoveries and scientific information. This will be totally transformational!”
“We know the body is a wonderfully created mechanism and by focusing on the health of the cells with nutrition, PEMF and chiropractic care and other like minded protocols we can unharness the potential for the body to heal itself.”
Things have changed very little in the past twenty years, as far as economics and the building are concerned. A few facelift projects have the little building looking new and fresh and the inside was renovated this past year. The cost of an adjustment has barely gone up since he bought the practice and he has chosen to keep it priced in a way that lets anyone get help whether their insurance will cover it or not.
He doesn’t remember exactly, but thinks it cost around $20 for an adjustment when he started and in all that time it has only gone up to $35 in 2020. The initial visit charge is $100 as he spends time getting to know the client’s health history and present issues, gives them their first adjustment and starts a plan with them to get healthier.
Trying to remember what was different 20 years ago, he jokingly added that he had a lot more hair in 1999. He still lives about a half hour north of his business, in Michigan and enjoys his ride to work each day.
He attends church and has many good friends at New Hope Community Church in Bryan, loves music and hanging out with friends. “This twenty years has flown by,” he said with a smile. “It doesn’t feel that long.”
Rebecca can be reached at publisher@thevillagereporter.com
