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Meet Caitlyn Cortner of Arise Family Chiropractic in Cumming

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Today we’d like to introduce you to Caitlyn Cortner.

So, before we jump into specific questions about the business, why don’t you give us some details about you and your story.
As a chiropractor, I am very patient about what I do. I lost my health at the age of 13 when I was diagnosed with polycystic ovarian syndrome and was told that I would always have to take birth control medication to help with the symptoms. The medical system had failed me in finding the true cause to my problem. I went an entire year until my mom happened upon a chiropractor she had been seeing for her herniated discs. The chiropractor mentioned that I should be checked because there must be a reason why my body was not healing properly. Dr. Majors did a full exam and xrays and found that I had a complete reversal of my cervical curve in my neck. I had lost 198% of a normal 45-degree curve. Consequentially, this created extreme tension on my spinal cord and the nerves going out to my reproductive organs were being crushed. He explained that this was the reason why my body was unable to heal appropriately. This reasoning made complete sense since nearly every medical intervention I had tried up until this point was unsuccessful in finding the direct cause.

After just two months of care, all of my symptoms started to diminish and in 6 months total, I was completely healed from my condition of PCOS.

It was at that time that I decided to become a chiropractor. I knew if my body had the ability to heal that others have the ability to heal from their digestive problems, headaches, heartburn and acid reflux, etc!
After high school, I immediately started my journey to chiropractic school and graduated in December of 2016. While in school, I met my lovely husband Greg Cortner and we got married March of 2017. After graduation, I practiced for a couple years to get my feet wet in the profession and to see what type of practice I wanted to create. Just this year my husband and I decided to make my passion into a reality and thus Arise Family Chiropractic was born. We are so blessed to be able to move to Cumming, transition my husband from his corporate job to full-time office manager, and open our doors in October of 2018.

Has it been a smooth road?
The journey to where I am today was not at all a smooth road, but it is exactly what it needed to be. I had it all planned out (or though it seemed) when I graduated from high school. I was going to move down to Georgia and get my chiropractic degree, go work with my original chiropractor in Chicago and eventually open my own practice in my home town.

I did make it to Georgia and was in school for about two years when I met a wonderful guy next door in my apartment complex (who was not a chiropractor… I get this question a lot). We quickly started dating and eventually, he became my husband. Greg has been my rock through school and struggles of taking classes and making plans for our future. We decided to attend a post doctoral training program with the intentions of moving to Greenville, South Carolina after completing the 9-10 month franchise program. We moved to Florida in April of 2017, a couple weeks after we got married, to start the program in Naples. The move was great and we were excited to start our new journey together. I was going to learn how to run a practice and train to be a leader in my community and he was going to learn how to run an office while working alongside some of the top leaders in our profession. Well… after the first month of training we found out that Greenville, SC was no longer available because someone in our group was moving there to open up his office. We were told it was open from the beginning of training so this threw a monkey wrench into our plans. We were on a mission to find a new town and decided on St. Petersburg, Florida. It was 6 hours away from family but it was a wide open market and seemed to be the perfect spot for the franchise program. From there we pursued commercial real-estate and started the process of opening our own practice with the company we were training with. After looking for SEVEN months, we quickly realized that we did not have enough funds to make the process happen, banks were not working with us nor lending to us, and real-estate was not going to work out in such a high-end area.

My husband and I had to make some hard decisions after pursing an endeavor that was just not working out the way we had planned. Instead of forcing it into a reality we decided to break ties with the company and move back to Georgia to be with family and make a better decision for our future going forward. It was still a huge passion to open a practice together and we pulled as many funds together as we could and even asked the bank a second time for the proper funding… this time we got it! Through this transition, we knew our heart was in Georgia and that we could make it work in the growing area of Cumming. After pursing real-estate in Georgia and following through with our business loan everything for Arise Chiropractic fell into place just as it was meant to be.

Though my life is nowhere near what I had imagined when I first started grad school, it is everything I’ve always dreamed of. I would not want it any other way.

We’d love to hear more about your business.
I own Arise Family Chiropractic in beautiful Cumming Georgia. I specialize in spinal correction and family-based care. I see babies that are days old to people in their hundreds. At our office, patients are family and not a number. They know they are getting exceptional value behind their care and that is why they refer their family and friends. What I’m most proud of is that I get to see people regain their health and overcome disease processes every day! Most of the patients that I see have no symptoms at all because they know the benefit of preventative care, however, most of those patients did not come into my office in that state of health. In fact, a lot of my patients started out having neck pain, herniated discs, ankle, and joint problems, some even had diabetes, hormone imbalance, ear infections and the list can go on. See the reason people have a better chance of overcoming their symptoms in my office is that structural chiropractic is not a “treatment option” but rather a way of life. Patients know they are targeting the cause of their problems instead of just merely treating them. It is from there that they are able to understand the true premise of what health is, which is not just in the absence of symptoms or disease but is centered around how the body functions. When your body is functioning at a higher level it is healing on a daily basis and therefore has less of a chance to create those disease processes or sickness.

Is our city a good place to do what you do?
I would say that Northern Georgia is a perfect place for chiropractic. Atlanta is the “hub” of chiropractors though. We have one of the best schools in the nation for chiropractic right in Marietta so this makes it a more convenient location for DC’s to open their clinic or associate for an existing practice. I would say if a student or doc wants less competition to branch out to neighboring cities within the state. On the other hand, how I view my “competition” is they are friends on the same mission. In our county, we have nearly 212,438 ‎people to serve and there is no feasible way I can serve them all. With the help of other chiropractors in the area, we can help bring the health of our county to the next level.

Pricing:

  • For those wanting to get to the cause of their health problems, we are offering an introductory discount on the initial exam and X-rays taken in the office. Normally $150 for both we are offering $75 (50% discount).

Contact Info:

Getting in touch: VoyageATL is built on recommendations from the community; it’s how we uncover hidden gems, so if you know someone who deserves recognition please let us know here.

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