The name Summit Chiropractic Center combines two of Dr. Aaron Wilson’s passions. First Summit alludes to his passion for mountain climbing and second his passion for chiropractic care. Dr. Wilson has climbed hundreds of mountains with the most notable being Mt. Adams. But the big mountains aren’t usually what he goes for.
“Most of the mountains I like to climb are smaller peaks,” he says. “I really like doing scrambling, which is class three where you kind of need to use your hands a little bit, but it’s not so steep that you have to use ropes. That’s really my niche.”
Lately Dr. Wilson has started going on sunrise hikes. He says he gets up super early, around two in the morning, and arrives at the trailhead predawn and hikes in the dark. Then when he arrives at the lookout nature provides a great reveal with the sunrise.
Even with a growing family and an expanding practice, he tries to hike as often as possible. “It’s a balance between work and family,” he says, “but it’s definitely my number one hobby.”
As it turns out, there is a correlation between his chiropractic practice and hiking. Dr. Wilson recommends hiking to his patients. His periodic newsletter even recommends local hiking trails.
“Hiking and walking,” explains Dr. Wilson, “are great cardiovascular exercise, good weight bearing exercise too, which is good for bone density. Also in our society, we spend so much time sitting, and studies have shown that’s really hard on your body, it puts a lot of pressure on your spine. So to counteract that by getting up and moving and using your body and staying active is a great way to keep your body healthy.”
For Dr. Wilson, chiropractic care is all about helping others to feel their best. “Someone comes in and they are struggling with one issue that is impacting their quality of life,” he says. “Oftentimes with just one adjustment you can really help change that and help them feel better. That’s why I do it.”
“Growing up, I really wanted to do something that made a difference in people’s lives. And I thought being a doctor would be a great way to do that. People are not feeling well and they go see the doctor and the doctor makes them feel better. I thought that would be really rewarding. But looking into it more I wasn’t too interested in giving people drugs or cutting them open, doing surgeries. When I found out that chiropractic helps the body heal naturally, I thought, I want to learn more about that. So I started taking some courses and looking into that and it seemed like a great fit and I went from there.”
“Chiropractic care helps the body heal itself naturally. The body is amazing,” he explains. “It can heal and recover from all sorts of things: scrapes, bumps, bruises, colds. When our body is functioning properly, it can heal from a variety of different conditions. When your spine is out of alignment, it puts a lot of stress on your body and on your nervous system which limits your body’s ability to heal.”
Most people know that chiropractic care is for your back, but it can also be beneficial to any moving joints in the body.
“Extremities are something people don’t think about,” says Dr. Wilson. “Cranial bones, Temporomandibular Joint Disorder (TMJ) of the jaw, wrists, elbows, hands, knees, ankles and feet. We can work on those and get really good results.”
Last year, Jibok Lee D.C. joined the team at Summit Chiropractic. Dr. Lee studied sports medicine in Korea, and later came to the United States to study chiropractics.
At Summit Chiropractic Center, they use a drop table for adjustments. The table has sections that drop down slightly when pressure is applied. When being adjusted on a drop table, it can sometimes be hard to tell that you have been adjusted, until you walk out of the office a little straighter. Besides the drop table, other tools used at the center are Arthrostim, which lightly tapes areas that need adjusting, and the Vibracussor, which uses vibrations to relax muscles and feels wonderfully like a massage.
Chiropractic care is for all ages. Dr. Wilson says he has adjusted people in their 90s and babies just a couple days old. Some of the benefits for seniors are that they may experience increased balance and coordination through adjustments; treatments can also help decrease joint degeneration, and decrease the incidence of falling. All of these combined with exercise help seniors to stay in their homes longer and out of nursing homes.
Local hikes suggested by Dr. Wilson include: Willapa Hills Trails that includes 27 uninterrupted miles of gravel, paved and hard packed dirt road. The Seminary Hill area in Centralia has a network of trails for shorter hikes or you may combine loops for a longer hike. The Capitol Forest area has several hikes like the Mima Falls hike which is about 6.5 miles there and back, or the Mima Mounds which features paved trails. Mount Saint Helens has several hikes—you can check out the Ape Caves and if going underground is unappealing there is a nice above ground trail that runs the length of the cave. Toward Packwood there is Packwood Lake, which is longer at 10 miles, but with a gently rolling trail. Waterfalls, Covel Creek Falls and Angel Creek falls are near Cispus Learning Center. Covel Creek is one of the few waterfalls in our area that you can walk behind making this a wonderful place to visit in the spring when creeks are running high.
