Today we’d like to introduce you to Dr. Laura Ferrao
Hi Dr. Laura, thanks for sharing your story with us. To start, maybe you can tell our readers some of your backstory.
When I was 18 years old, sitting in Biology class at the University of Puerto Rico, where I am from, I had an “aha” moment. I “realized,” the power and intelligence that lives inside of our body is unparalleled to any other. I thought, If i could just work and use this power, I would never lose.
It was in that very moment that my journey towards finding how to work with this innate power began. It led me to discover Upper Cervical Chiropractic.
It is a sacred form of healing within Chiropractic that was performed at the very early beginnings of Chiropractic back in 1885. It is a portal of entry to healing the nervous system in the most holistic and non-invasive way possible. It is where the miraculous stories of Chiropractic that we still hear about today come from.
I personally experienced what it was like for a medical professional to tell me “you need a pill to heal and function normally.” I was obsessed with finding another way to heal. A way that tells you “you are perfect just as you are” and by removing what is blocking that perfection, you can heal! And I have found that here, within Upper Cervical Chiropractic.
I left my home in Puerto Rico at the age of 22 to pursue this healing form. Through the ups and downs of learning English and repaying huge amounts of student loans after Chiropractic school, I began my career by doing an internship here in Downtown Austin TX, 11 years ago. Today I am fully living my dream of delivering the best results possible within the Chiropractic field to each and every one of my patients.
I do this gently, connected to the force that create us (God) and in a way that delivers profound healing from the root cause of dis-ease. I help people truly heal from chronic debilitating migraines, neck pain, back pain, sciatica and other neuromusculoskeletal conditions. I also see true miracles often, like babies healing fully from chronic ear infections, cerebral palsy cases go from poor coordination and head control, to drastically improving the way they walk, control their head movement and have overall attunement to their body.
I see people who were on the verge of needing spinal surgery, fully heal from their extreme pain, and pregnant mothers with placenta previa, who were scared of not being able to deliver vaginally, feel their babies and placenta move, making a natural birth possible.
I get to see and experience the magical powers of our innately intelligent bodies fully expresse themselves, and I love it!
I met my now husband here in Austin TX, as he was working for the business school at UT, where he graduated from, and he helps me on the business side of my private practice. We now have two beautiful sons who are 3 and 5, and when they ask me where they are from, I tell them “you are from both, Puerto Rico and the US” and we are all from planet earth.
After taking 2.5 years maternity leave to take care of my back then babies, I have just re-opened Healthy Spine Austin 4 months ago, and it is going better than expected after closing for so long! People remembered the healing effects it had in their bodies! Existing patients are referring family and friends because of the profound healing taking place within my practice.
Nothing excites me more than having experiences like the one yesterday, where as I was ordering my favorite oat chai latte at Summer Moon, I hear out loud “Dr. Laura!” because that’s what I go by since my last name Ferrao is a bit hard to pronounce, “I’m fully healed, I haven’t had a migraine since that Atlas adjustment you gave me 7 years ago.” I am a new person, my pain is healed. “Thank you!”
I love what I do and love Austin, TX, the place that taught me Love.
Alright, so let’s dig a little deeper into the story – has it been an easy path overall and if not, what were the challenges you’ve had to overcome?
When I moved from Puerto Rico to Florida for Chiropractic school at Palmer College of Chiropractic in Port Orange, FL., my English was very very broken, I knew how to read well but did not speak it well at all. Learning to speak English was definitely a challenge. I found myself in a “swim or drawn” situation many times since I moving to FL. Not only was I fully alone in a completely new culture, new language, miles away from home at the age of 22, but I was also getting myself deeper into student loan debt as the years went by. When I finished my over 3 years of post-graduate school I was deeply in debt by the age of 25.
I found an internship in Downtown Austin and moved here at 25. I had no money and no place to live. I had a car with no air conditioner, and lots to learn about how to truly help someone heal by aligning their spine. I was truly living on the edge.
I kept seeing this sign around the city that said “live a great story”, and the one over the lake downtown that says “never give up” and I knew those were my God sending signs that I had arrived to the right place.
Even though I was living in so much uncertainty, I had no salary, no family and no place to crash, I had Hope.
I had an inner knowing that kept me going and moving forward, because what I knew deep inside is that since my intentions were to find out the best way possible to help people heal naturally, God and the whole universe had to have my back.
We’ve been impressed with Healthy Spine Austin, but for folks who might not be as familiar, what can you share with them about what you do and what sets you apart from others?
It all first started on a Mission Trip I took to the Dominican Republic when I was in Chiropractic school. There, I had the opportunity to adjust a baby who was hospitalized for Colic. The moment I adjusted her Atlas bone she stopped crying, smiled and went off to sleep peacefully. Her mom next to her was so thankful. This was the profound experience that as a student taught me the path to true, deep, meaningful healing for my patients. It was all about the Atlas bone.
I am an Upper Cervical Chiropractor. Only about 3% of all Chiropractors specialize in this form of aligning the spine. Upper Cervical Chiropractors focus on the Atlas bone. This bone sits at the very top of the neck, right at the bottom of the skull. It is the only vertebrae in the whole spine that is only held in place by muscles and ligaments. It is the one closest to the brain and brain stem. Because of its complexity and delicacy, it takes much more than graduating from Chiropractic School to learn how to properly adjust it. It takes years and long hours to become a master of this adjustment. I spent many hours doing extracurricular activities during school, I shadowed many different upper cervical chiropractors, went through many years of NUCCA seminars, received a certification in NUCCA an (upper cervical technique) and also learned Orthospinology (another upper cervical technique ). I have gone through pediatric training to asses and align baby’s spines.
I have now been doing this work for over 11 years, I am in fact a master of it. And I work together with God.
I use tools like the Anatometer, that measure precisely your spine alignment. It tells me whether your head and neck are aligned with each other and with the rest of your body. It tells me how much weight you are carrying on one side of the body and the other. We know that if you are carrying more than 4-5 pounds over to one side, there is an overload and wear and tear being created over on that one side of you body. This can lead to inflammation, wear and tear of the bone and tissues and of course, pain.
I measure your leg length to see if one leg is contracted, a common finding that gives the impression of one leg being shorter and the pelvis being misaligned and twisted. Something that the body fixes itself almost immediately after the adjustment of the Atlas. Because the Atlas adjustment travels all the way down re-aligning the cervical, thoracic, lumbar and pelvis area.
After your assessment, when you come to Healthy Spine Austin, you experience a peaceful, gentle, painless, and a non-scary adjustment.
Besides the way I precisely asses the spine, the gentleness of the adjustment and the profound healing of the whole spine, another thing that differentiates Healthy Spine Austin is the number of visits it takes to heal. Because of the nature of my work, it takes much less time and visits to activate the healing channels in the body. A common comment on many of my patients reviews.
What was your favorite childhood memory?
Christmas in Puerto Rico at my grandparents house down the road from my parents house. Christmas is a huge deal in Puerto Rico, we celebrate it longer than any other part in the world, Starting right after thanksgiving and going until ” las octavitas” 8 days after the three kings day which is January 6.
And Christmas Eve at my grandparents house is where all the joy and wonder was at. With a big family of 6 children from my grandparents and another 4 from my grandmothers brother, most of us living on the same street, a cliff in front of the Atlantic Ocean. Christmas Eve was the most magical night of the year. With more than 20 cousins to play with, lots of arroz con gandules, pasteles, lechon and happy music, we where all so excited!
Somehow one of the adults figured out how to put a blinking moving red light on the cliff and they asked all of us children to go look down the cliff at my grandparents balcony, it seemed like Rudolf was around. And OMG, that was so cool to see!
I still get goosebumps remembering the Christmas Eves at abuelita and abuelito’s house. A house full of lights, happy music, love and of course, many gifts under the tree!
Pricing:
- 333$ New Patient Appointment
- 90$ Follow up appointments
Contact Info:
- Website: https://www.healthyspineaustin.com/
- Instagram: https://instagram.com/drlauraferrao
- Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/@drlauraferrao
- Other: https://healthyspineaustin.janeapp.com/
Image Credits
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