Chiropractic office opens in Lakewood Ranch

When Ben Duke, owner of Circle Chiropractic, was 15 years old, he suffered a lower back injury and was told he needed to have surgery.

That devastated his mother, because she was raising two children on her own. Instead of surgery, though, Duke and his family decided to give chiropractor Pat Gottfried a try. 

Within two weeks of the first treatment, Duke said he felt considerably better, so much so that he continued his basketball season. The experience inspired him to become a chiropractor, instead of following other medical pursuits.

“It shifted my awareness,’” he said. 

Duke purchased Circle Chiropractic three years ago and Oct. 6 opened a new location at 8120 Lakewood Main Street, Suite B101. 

He hired Greg Hengel to be his clinic director. Hengel moved from Port Charlotte, where he ran his own practice for 21 years.

When it came to choosing the chiropractic field, Hengel had a similar experience to Duke. He was a swimmer at the University of Kentucky who had developed pain in his shoulder. He was taking a cortisone injection before every competition, and he said those injections actually led to more damage. Like Duke, Hengel was scheduled to have an exploratory surgery. 

A chiropractor on staff at the University of Kentucky (Eric Gottfried) convinced Hengel to give him a try. After receiving therapy from Gottfried, Hengel's shoulder was pain free for the first time in two years. He eventually decided to pursue chiropractic care. 

Photo by Madison Bierl

The two are now working together.

“Our philosophy is we want to empower people to understand that the body was designed to heal, and that's through the nervous system,” Duke said. “That's how your brain communicates. When we talk about balance, we're talking about the balance to the nervous system, because it governs all other systems. That's where we start.”

Duke said patients are set up with personalized care through stretching, exercise and nutrition protocols.

As far as a place to open a business, Duke said there are plenty of active adults in booming Lakewood Ranch. 

“Everybody's getting older, and as you get older, stress builds in the body,” Duke said. “Without having an avenue to release that stress or to manage it, it just continues to become a problem. A lot of what we do has to do with anti-aging and regenerating."

Duke said it is inevitable that aging, active people are going to suffer from injuries.

“You're going to run into roadblocks, and things are going to happen,” Hengel said. “Nobody gets out of this life without being injured or hurt. We need to hold their hand and help them with that to maintain those levels of activity and the lifestyle they're looking to maintain.”

Duke said he wants to promote and accelerate healing through natural measures.

Zoey Young, the marketing director of Circle Chiropractic, said it’s important that alternative forms of wellness flourish. She said the three main components of care at Circle Chiropractic are chiropractic care, spinal decompression therapy and soft wave tissue regeneration therapy.

Alex Scholz, the operations director at Circle Chiropractic, said the practitioners always ask the patients why they are in pain.

“They're coming to us and they're complaining saying my neck hurts, my lower back hurts, but that's not really the root of the problem,” Scholz said. “It's ‘I can't play golf,’ ‘I can't lift my grandkids.’ There's something bigger that's affecting their life that's making them come seek us out.”

Sarasota resident Patti Como is a longtime Circle Chiropractic client who fell playing pickleball and tore her rotator cuff.

"I might be 70 years old, but I still work at a full-time job (as a mammographer at Sarasota Memorial) and I don't plan on retiring anytime soon," Como said. "I do yoga all the time. I still do my own yard work. I'm an active person and the idea of being laid up was just terrifying to me along with the pain."

Como tried soft wave therapy at Circle Chiropractic. A year and a half later, she continues to be active.

“That is our bread and butter — people who see radical improvement, radical life change through nonsurgical means,” Young said.