Get an adjustment for Maximum Wellness

The upholstered adjustment tables are aligned neatly in the large room at Maximum Wellness Chiropractic.

Sitting on one is a junior high-age girl who had hurt her shoulder playing volleyball. On another table, a high school athlete with back problems. There’s a man being treated for leg and lower back pain and a woman who’s there for her regular chiropractic treatment.

On any given day, 25 to 30 people with all kinds of aches and pains make their way to Maximum Wellness in the Vineyard Center on RR 12 in Wimberley. The husband and wife chiropractic team of Tony and Leslie Maxwell and their staff poke, twist, stretch, decompress and stimulate patients with electricity.

Dr. Tony — as many of his patients call him — says the specialty of the office is dealing with pain. He has a close working relationship with other medical professionals in the Wimberley area. If chiropractic treatment doesn’t do the job, he readily recommends patients see a medical doctor or try some other form of alternative medicine such as acupuncture or massage.

There’s a friendly, casual atmosphere in the office. “People call me Dr. Tony, or Hey You, or Get Out of the Way,” he says with a grin. Then quickly adds: “I shouldn’t say that, my wife will kill me.”

When a thin, young girl comes in for treatment, Dr. Tony prescribes two cheeseburgers for lunch and two cheeseburgers for dinner. The girl is delighted; her mother is surprised. “I’m just kidding,” says Dr. Tony. “Just kidding.”

Dr. Tony’s road to chiropractic medicine started with an injury. He was an offensive tackle and a defensive lineman for the 4A state football champions Bay City Black Cats in 2000.

He got a chemistry degree from Wharton County Junior College, before working in the petroleum industry. “Physically, it wasn’t too demanding,” Dr. Tony says, “but mentally it was exhausting.” All around him workers were getting sick and injured.

When he got hurt, he went to a chiropractor. “My parents had always told me that chiropractors weren’t doctors, but he really helped me,” he recalls.

He followed the chiropractor around for a week and was hooked.

Injured dancer

Dr. Leslie was a dancer who performed as a Rangerette at Kilgore College when a serious hip injury led to a visit to a chiropractor. Relief came quickly and so did a fascination with chiropractic medicine. She graduated from the University of Texas with a Bachelor of Arts degree in Theater and Dance and a Bachelor of Science in Kinesiology.

Leslie enrolled at Texas Chiropractic College in Pasadena. She met Tony, also a student, in the chemistry lab there.

During his training period, Dr. Tony worked in the Rice University athletic department. “The baseball coach at Rice didn’t like chiropractic medicine so the players would sneak over and see us,” says Dr. Tony.

With undergraduate studies out of the way, it takes three and a half years to become a chiropractor.

Lower back pain No.1

Here’s how the American Chiropractic Association defines the practice: “Chiropractic is a health care profession that focuses on disorders of the musculoskeletal system and the nervous system, and the effects of these disorders on general health. Chiropractic services are used most often to treat neuromusculoskeletal complaints, including… back pain, neck pain,  pain in the joints of the arms or legs, and headaches.”

Dr. Tony says lower back pain is the No. 1 complaint his patients come in with. He tells the story of a registered nurse who came in with back pain but was scared death of a chiropractic adjustment (manipulating the spinal column). He treated her without an adjustment and she left surprised and feeling better. “Lots of people are scared of adjustments,” he explains, “but not every condition needs an adjustment. Sometimes we’ll try something a little different.”

While working at a pain clinic in Austin, Tony and Leslie were invited by their friend Carol Kelly, a local nurse and acupuncturist, to attend the Wimberley Fourth of July Parade. They loved it. “We went to that parade and Leslie fell in love with Wimberley, the whole feel of it. It was like Mayberry.”

The couple lives in Wimberley and has two little girls, Elma Jane, 4, and Catherine Anne, 10 months.

Rapid expansion

The couple opened their practice in January of 2016 and it has grown steadily. They quickly had to double their office space.

Recently, they bought out the practice of retiring chiropractor Dr. Richard Gillespie, who treated people for decades in San Marcos. There are plans to open a second Maximum Wellness there.

For the third year in a row, Maximum Wellness has been named the Best Chiropractor in town by the readers of The Wimberley View.

Dr. Tony has a couple other passions: barbecue and veterans.

He’s a member of the “No Sauce Allowed” barbecue team. Dr. Tony is the brisket guy. Locally, he has been known to cook up a mean brisket for veterans’ groups and for WAG, the local dog-rescue group.

Of the 16 members of the competitive barbecue team, 14 are veterans. Members of the group are in the process of forming a non-profit that will help injured veterans deal with the bureaucracy at the Veteran’s Administration.

Dr. Leslie’s specialty at Maximum Wellness is pediatric and postpartum treatment. She also teaches a class at UT that focuses on dancers and how to cope with the strain that is put on their bodies.

Now that the practice has become established, it might be time to slow down a bit. Since they opened their practice they have been working six days a week. There has been no time for a vacation.

Things are on track now. “We are accepted by the local (medical) community. That has not been a problem for us,” says Dr. Tony. “There’s a mutual respect for what we do and what they do.”

Say Dr. Tony: “I don’t take a lot of time to celebrate the success. Mostly, I worry about the failures.”