Dr. Carol Adams
THE BODY READER

"We use the spine as a gateway
to access the nervous system"

by Jen Cowan

Dr. Carol Adams didn't initially want to move to Telluride; her husband wanted to live in the mountains. “Telluride was so tiny,” she claims of the town she relocated to in 1987. Yet, her husband, Rich Tombolado, was banking on her characteristic tenacity; 17 years in, it appears she’s here to stay.

Dr. Adams moved here from Longmont, Colorado, a town with 27 chiropractors, shortly after getting her medical degree in chiropractic medicine. She began looking for a town suitable to start her practice when a friend called. “My friend said, ‘I’m not interested in starting a practice in this town because I'm not married and I don't think it’s a great place to find a husband, you should look into it.’”

On a five-thousand dollar loan, Dr. Adams started her practice in the former chiropractor’s space. Chiropractics, she says, is hugely misunderstood. “People often think it’s about bad backs. It’s actually about the function of the nervous system. We use the spine as a gateway to access the nervous system." Although she attended a school that was interested in the Western medical tradition, she prefers a different approach. “The medical paradigm is that your body screws up and you must do something from the outside to correct it.” She prefers a wellness philosophy, “We have everything we need inside of us; however, if we’re not feeding it, it will get unhealthy.” The job of a chiropractor then is to remove interferences—old injuries or other abnormalities—to allow the brain to do its job within the body.

Adams describes herself as a person comfortable with insides; not just of the human body, but her hobbies tend to be reflective, indoor meditations. She playing the electric bass in church and beading jewelry give her calm. “I may need to start selling it as I’ve collected so much," she noted. When she’s not learning more about the human body, Dr. Adams reads. “It took a whole truckload to bring my books here,” she laughed. She prefers sci-fi and Edgar Allen Poe, "the darker stuff.” It balances me out, because I’m like the girl-next-door.”

Perhaps her house in Placerville indicates a commitment to staying in the area. It’s a 14-year work-in-progress. Despite her initial reluctance, she now feels a tiny voice inside say, “You're supposed to be here.”

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