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If you live in El Paso, Texas, and you’ve ever searched for help with back pain, a car accident injury, or a health problem that nobody else could explain, there’s a good chance you’ve come across the name Dr. Alexander Jimenez. He runs Injury Medical & Chiropractic Clinic, and he holds a rare combination of licenses: he is both a Doctor of Chiropractic (DC) and a board-certified Family Nurse Practitioner (APRN, FNP-BC). That means he can view a patient’s pain from two angles at once—the mechanical, hands-on approach of chiropractic care and the medical, whole-body approach of nurse practitioner training.
This guide is written for people who are curious about Dr. Jimenez but don’t have a medical background. We’ll explain who he is, what his letters after his name mean, how he thinks about healing, what a visit to his clinic looks like, and the many conditions and treatments his practice covers. We’ll also look at what independent, outside sources—not just his website—say about his reputation in the El Paso community, and we’ll give you a glossary and a set of questions you can ask any provider, not just this one, before you commit to a course of care. By the end, you should have a clear, plain-English picture of what makes his approach to health care different and enough information to decide whether his clinic might be a better fit for you or someone you care about.
Nothing in this article is meant to replace a real conversation with a licensed health care provider. Think of it as a map that helps you understand the terrain before you walk into the building—not a diagnosis, and not medical advice.
Dr. Alexander D. Jimenez has practiced in El Paso for more than three decades, since 1991, when he first opened his doors as a Doctor of Chiropractic after graduating with honors from the National University of Health Sciences (formerly National College of Chiropractic) near Chicago. Over the years, most chiropractors have stayed within the scope of chiropractic care—spinal adjustments, joint work, and soft-tissue therapy. Dr. Jimenez took a different and much longer path. He went back to school again as an adult. He completed a Master of Science in Nursing with a Family Nurse Practitioner specialization, graduating with honors (cum laude) from a nurse practitioner program. That additional training earned him board certification from the American Nurses Credentialing Center (ANCC) as a Family Nurse Practitioner, commonly written as FNP-BC.
Because of this second career track, Dr. Jimenez holds active licenses as a Doctor of Chiropractic in both Texas (license #TX5807) and New Mexico (license #NM-DC2182). He holds a multi-state Advanced Practice Registered Nurse (APRN) credential as well, with individual state licenses that include Texas (APRN #1191402), New Mexico, Florida, Colorado, New York, and Georgia. Because his nursing license is part of a multi-state compact agreement, he is authorized to practice as a nurse practitioner in dozens of U.S. states.
Beyond those two primary licenses, Dr. Jimenez has picked up a long list of additional certifications over his career, each one representing extra coursework and testing in a specific area of health care:
He is also a member of several professional organizations, including the Texas Chiropractic Association, the American Association of Nurse Practitioners, the American Nurses Association, the Texas Nurses Association, and the Texas Nurse Practitioner Association. His National Provider Identifier (NPI), the number the U.S. government uses to track licensed health care providers, is 1205907805, and it is publicly searchable in the federal NPI Registry under the taxonomy code for “Nurse Practitioner, Family,” with a secondary listing for “Chiropractor.” He is also listed as a certified practitioner in the Institute for Functional Medicine (IFM) public practitioner directory, a nonprofit organization that trains health professionals from many backgrounds—MDs, DOs, nurse practitioners, chiropractors, and others—in a root-cause approach to chronic illness. His clinic’s own site, dralexjimenez.com, publishes his full biography, service lines, and clinic locations in more detail than this guide can cover.
Ethics in Practice
We have organized our clinic’s ethical framework around nine core values: Purpose, Commitment, Dedication, Beneficence, Client Autonomy, Nonmaleficence, Veracity, Justice, and Personal Perseverance. These are not abstract ideas borrowed from a textbook and pinned to a break-room wall. They are the working principles that our staff is trained on, held accountable to, and trusted to apply—often in real time, often under pressure, and often without a supervisor standing over their shoulder. It is my responsibility to ensure these ethical principles underpin every aspect of our care and permeate our actions in our offices.
Dr. Jimenez’s son, Dr. Alex Isaiah Jimenez, is also a chiropractor in El Paso, and the two occasionally appear together in clinic materials and community outreach, including videos and testimonials that describe a father-and-son approach to chiropractic care in the region. While this article focuses on Dr. Alexander Jimenez, it’s worth knowing that chiropractic and integrative care run in the family, and the clinic has built a multi-generational presence in the El Paso health care community over more than thirty years—long enough that some patients report having been treated by both father and son at different points in their lives.
When you’re choosing a health care provider, especially for something as personal as pain that affects your daily life, the provider’s training history isn’t just a resume line—it shapes how they think about your problem. A provider trained in one narrow discipline will reach for its tools first, because that’s what they know best. A provider trained across two very different fields—the mechanical, structural world of chiropractic and the diagnostic, whole-body world of nurse practitioner medicine—has a wider toolbox to draw from and, arguably, a wider set of “first questions” they ask when a new patient walks through the door. That’s the practical reason this background section matters, beyond just listing credentials.
There’s also a simpler, less technical reason a long local track record matters: a health care practice that has operated continuously in the same city for over three decades has, by definition, been through multiple economic cycles, changes in insurance regulation, shifts in the local population, and the ordinary test of time that separates a durable practice from a short-lived one. El Paso is a specific, distinct community—a large border city with its own demographics, its own mix of insured and uninsured patients, a significant population of active-duty military and veterans connected to nearby Fort Bliss, and a notable number of manual-labor and physically demanding jobs that contribute to a steady local demand for musculoskeletal and injury care. A provider who has spent over thirty years treating patients specifically in that environment has, in effect, built a huge, very long-running track record that a newer practice hasn’t had time to accumulate yet, which is part of why this guide places so much weight on independently verifying that record rather than taking it at face value.
Understanding where chiropractic care came from can help explain how it fits into the broader health care system today and why a provider like Dr. Jimenez chose to build additional medical training on top of it rather than treat it as a complete, stand-alone system.
Chiropractic care was founded in 1895 in Davenport, Iowa, by Daniel David Palmer, who believed that manually adjusting the spine could restore proper nerve function and, through that, overall health. For much of the twentieth century, chiropractic existed somewhat separately from mainstream medicine, and there was real tension—including, for a period, formal efforts by some medical organizations to discourage physicians from referring patients to chiropractors. That tension eased significantly over subsequent decades as research on spinal manipulation for back and neck pain accumulated, chiropractic education became more standardized and science-based, and licensing boards were established in every U.S. state.
Today, chiropractic is recognized as a licensed health profession in all 50 states; chiropractors are eligible providers under Medicare and most private insurance plans for musculoskeletal conditions, and major clinical practice guidelines—including guidance from bodies like the American College of Physicians—list spinal manipulation as a reasonable, evidence-supported option for acute and chronic low back pain, generally alongside other conservative measures like exercise and heat therapy, and generally before more invasive options like surgery or long-term opioid medication are considered for uncomplicated cases.
It’s within this modern, more integrated landscape that a provider like Dr. Jimenez practices—one where chiropractic care is treated as one useful, evidence-supported tool among several, used within a scope that research actually supports, rather than as a stand-alone cure-all for every health condition. His decision to add nurse practitioner training on top of his chiropractic degree reflects that same modern, integrated mindset: rather than staying inside the boundaries of a single license, he built the medical training needed to recognize, on his own, when a patient’s case needs something beyond what chiropractic care alone can offer.
One of the more confusing things about researching Dr. Jimenez is the long string of letters that follows his name almost everywhere it appears: DC, APRN, FNP-BC, MSACP, CFMP, IFMCP, ATN, CCST. If you’re not in health care, that can look like alphabet soup. Let’s break each one down in plain language so you understand exactly what training stands behind each credential.
A Doctor of Chiropractic completes a four-year graduate program (similar in length to medical school) that focuses heavily on the musculoskeletal system—the bones, joints, muscles, ligaments, and nerves that let your body move. Chiropractic school includes coursework in anatomy, physiology, biochemistry, radiology (X-ray interpretation), diagnosis, and the hands-on techniques used to adjust the spine and other joints, along with hundreds of hours of supervised clinical practice treating real patients before graduation. Chiropractors are trained to examine the spine and joints, take and read X-rays, perform manual adjustments (sometimes called “spinal manipulation”), and design rehabilitation programs. In Texas, a Doctor of Chiropractic must pass national board exams administered by the National Board of Chiropractic Examiners and hold a state license issued by the Texas Board of Chiropractic Examiners, which can be verified through the state’s public license lookup tool. Dr. Jimenez has held this license since 1991, meaning his active license has been continuously renewed through periodic continuing education requirements for more than three decades.
This is an umbrella term for registered nurses who have completed graduate-level training (a master’s degree or higher) that allows them to take on more responsibility than a standard RN—including diagnosing conditions, ordering and interpreting lab work and imaging, and in many states, prescribing medication. APRN is the licensing category; within it, there are several specialties (nurse practitioners, nurse anesthetists, nurse midwives, and clinical nurse specialists), and Dr. Jimenez’s specialty is family practice, delivered through the Family Nurse Practitioner track.
This designation tells you two things. First, “Family Nurse Practitioner” means his advanced nursing training covers patients across the entire lifespan—newborns, children, adults, and older adults—rather than one narrow age group, unlike a specialty such as, say, an adult-only or pediatric-only nurse practitioner track. Second, “Board Certified” (BC) means he passed a national certification exam administered by the American Nurses Credentialing Center, which is the standard-setting body for nurse practitioner certification in the United States. Board certification has to be renewed periodically through continuing education, so it reflects an ongoing commitment to staying current, not a one-time test taken years ago and forgotten.
This additional graduate-level credential focuses on advanced clinical skills and decision-making, layered on top of his nursing and chiropractic training, reflecting continued academic work beyond the minimum required to hold his primary licenses.
Functional medicine is a style of practice that seeks to find and treat the underlying, root-level cause of a health problem, rather than only managing the symptoms on the surface (we’ll explain functional medicine in much more depth in Section 7). The CFMP credential is awarded after a provider completes specific coursework in functional medicine principles through a recognized functional medicine training program, typically covering topics like nutritional biochemistry, common lab markers, and case-based application of a root-cause framework.
This is a more advanced and more widely recognized functional medicine credential, awarded by the Institute for Functional Medicine (IFM), a nonprofit educational organization founded in 1991. To earn the IFMCP credential, a licensed provider—again, the candidate can be an MD, DO, nurse practitioner, chiropractor, or other licensed clinician—must complete IFM’s full core curriculum, which includes in-depth coursework on topics like gut health, hormone balance, detoxification pathways, cardiometabolic health, immune function, and energy/mitochondrial health, and then pass a certification exam and submit case studies for review. Because IFM maintains a public “Find a Practitioner” directory of certified practitioners, this certification is one of the easiest credentials for a prospective patient to verify independently—you can search Dr. Jimenez’s name directly on IFM’s own website, which we walk through step by step in Section 14.
This certification focuses specifically on evaluating and treating spine-related injuries caused by trauma, such as car accidents, falls, and sports collisions—which lines up closely with the personal injury and auto accident side of Dr. Jimenez’s practice. Training in this area typically covers the specific biomechanics of collision injuries (like whiplash), how to document trauma-related findings properly, and treatment protocols suited to acute, trauma-related spine injuries rather than routine, gradual-onset back pain.
Nutrigenomics is the study of how a person’s genes interact with the nutrients and foods they eat. This certification reflects additional training in using genetic information to help personalize nutrition and supplement recommendations. This area has grown alongside the falling cost of genetic testing over the past decade.
Here’s the practical difference this dual license makes for a patient. A chiropractor who is not also a nurse practitioner is limited, by law, to the scope of chiropractic practice: manual adjustments, some physical therapy modalities, and lifestyle or nutrition counseling. A chiropractor who also holds an active Family Nurse Practitioner license can—within the boundaries of that separate nursing license and state law — also order and interpret a broader range of lab work, evaluate systemic or “whole body” symptoms that go beyond the spine and joints, and coordinate more directly with medical doctors. Dr. Jimenez’s clinic reinforces this by keeping a board-certified Internal Medicine physician, Dr. Maria Cardenas, MD, on staff as Medical Director, so that any patient who truly needs a physician’s level of care has one available on-site rather than being sent away with a generic referral slip.
It’s worth noting that none of these credentials are permanent achievements you earn once and then forget. Chiropractic licenses, nurse practitioner board certifications, and functional medicine certifications all typically require ongoing continuing education credits, tracked and renewed on a regular cycle (commonly every one to three years, depending on the specific license or credential). This matters because health care knowledge changes—new research comes out, new treatment techniques are developed, and guidelines get updated. A provider who has kept an active, continuously renewed license for more than thirty years, as public licensing records show for Dr. Jimenez, has necessarily completed substantial continuing education over that time, even though the specific content of each renewal cycle isn’t itemized in a public-facing profile.
Because so much of chiropractic care —and a good portion of Dr. Jimenez’s practice —centers on the spine, it helps to understand, in simple terms, what the spine is and why it matters for how your whole body feels and functions.
Your spine is a stack of 33 bones called vertebrae, running from the base of your skull down to your tailbone. The top 24 are individually movable, which lets you bend, twist, and turn your body. They’re grouped into three regions:
Below the lumbar spine sit the sacrum and coccyx (tailbone), which are made of fused vertebrae rather than individually movable ones.
Between each pair of movable vertebrae sits an intervertebral disc—a tough, fibrous outer ring surrounding a softer, gel-like center—that acts as a shock absorber and lets the spine bend and flex without the bones grinding against each other. Running down the middle of the spinal column, protected by the vertebrae, is the spinal cord itself: a thick bundle of nerve tissue that carries signals between your brain and the rest of your body. At each level of the spine, a pair of nerve roots branches off the spinal cord and exits through small openings between the vertebrae, eventually forming the network of nerves that reaches your arms, legs, organs, and skin.
This anatomy explains why a problem in the spine can cause symptoms far away from the spine itself. For example, if a herniated disc in the lower back presses on a nerve root that eventually becomes part of the sciatic nerve, the pain, numbness, or weakness can show up all the way down in the foot—nowhere near where the disc problem is. Understanding this “referred” pattern is part of why an accurate physical exam, rather than just asking “where does it hurt,” is so important for diagnosis.
A dense network of muscles and ligaments surrounds the bones and discs, stabilizing the spine and controlling its movement. Small joints called facet joints connect each vertebra to the ones above and below it, guiding the direction and range of motion available at each spinal level. When these facet joints become restricted—from injury, poor posture held over long periods, or simple lack of movement—the surrounding muscles often tighten up in response, which is part of why stiffness and muscle tension so frequently accompany spine-related pain and why treatment often addresses both the joint and the surrounding soft tissue together rather than just one or the other.
Knowing this basic anatomy helps make sense of why a chiropractor asks the specific exam questions they do, why certain movements are more painful than others depending on which structure is involved, and why the same general symptom (back pain, radiating leg pain, a stiff neck) can come from several genuinely different underlying problems that all need to be told apart before an effective treatment plan can be built.
Dr. Jimenez’s practice is called Injury Medical & Chiropractic Clinic, and according to the clinic’s own materials, it describes itself as the largest multidisciplinary injury recovery practice in El Paso, spanning more than 30,000 square feet across several locations. The clinic lists three physical addresses in El Paso:
The clinic is generally open Monday through Friday from 8:30 a.m. to 7:00 p.m., and Saturday and Sunday from 8:30 a.m. to 4:00 p.m., with online scheduling available at any hour. Because hours and locations can change, it’s always smart to call ahead or check the clinic’s official scheduling page before a visit.
“Multidisciplinary” is a term you’ll see a lot on the clinic’s materials, and it’s accurate. Rather than a single provider seeing every patient for every kind of problem, the clinic brings together several types of professionals under one roof:
This team structure mirrors how a hospital-based rehabilitation department works, but in a smaller, community-based clinic. The idea is that a patient recovering from, say, a car accident might need a chiropractic adjustment, a nurse practitioner’s medical evaluation, some physical therapy exercises, and nutrition guidance to support tissue healing—all as part of one coordinated plan, rather than four separate appointments scattered across four unrelated offices.
It’s worth pausing to consider why a clinic built around a chiropractor and nurse practitioner also keeps a board-certified Internal Medicine physician, Dr. Maria Cardenas, MD, on staff as Medical Director. In a “medically integrated” practice like this one, the Medical Director’s role generally includes providing physician-level evaluation for cases that need it, offering oversight for medical decision-making that falls under a physician’s scope, and giving patients direct access to physician care without needing to be sent to a completely separate office and start the intake process over from scratch. For a patient, the practical benefit is continuity—your chiropractic and nurse-practitioner-level care, plus any physician-level care you might need on top of it, can happen within the same coordinated system, with shared records and shared communication between providers, rather than being fragmented across unconnected offices.
To make this concrete: imagine a patient who was rear-ended in a car accident. On the first visit, the intake team gathers the accident details and symptom history. Dr. Jimenez or another provider performs a physical exam covering both the spine and a broader medical checklist. If something outside chiropractic’s scope shows up—say, signs suggesting a concussion or unexpectedly high blood pressure—Dr. Cardenas or another medical provider can be looped in the same day, rather than requiring a referral to an outside office weeks later. Imaging is ordered if warranted. A combined plan might then include chiropractic adjustments for the neck and back, soft-tissue massage therapy for muscle guarding, a home exercise program from the rehabilitation team, and documentation prepared in a format useful for the patient’s insurance claim or attorney, if the accident is being handled as a legal case. That’s what “multidisciplinary,” in practice, is meant to describe.
Two additional facilities are affiliated with the practice: Push-as-Rx, a rehabilitation-focused fitness center, and Just Play Fitness, a 24-hour gym and wellness hub. These facilities extend care beyond the exam room into the guided exercise, mobility training, and strength conditioning many patients need once the acute pain of an injury has settled but full function hasn’t yet returned. Just Play Fitness also offers macro-friendly, pre-made meals (things like protein-forward “Player Bowls” and overnight oats) to support recovery nutrition without requiring patients to become expert home cooks. At the same time, they heal, along with women-focused group training sessions and 24/7 gym access for members working irregular schedules.
The clinic uses several types of assessment technology as part of its evaluation process, including:
If you read enough of Dr. Jimenez’s own writing and public materials, one phrase comes up again and again: root cause. His stated approach is to figure out why a symptom is happening in the first place, rather than only masking or managing the symptom itself. This is sometimes summarized in his materials with the phrase “living, loving, and mattering” — a way of saying that the goal of care isn’t just to make a pain score go from a 7 down to a 4, but to help a person get back to full participation in their own life: work, sports, family, and community.
In practice, this root-cause philosophy shows up in a few concrete ways.
Dr. Jimenez’s materials repeatedly emphasize non-invasive, conservative treatment as the starting point, before more aggressive options like surgery or long-term medication are considered. This doesn’t mean surgery or medication are never appropriate. In fact, one of the stated benefits of having a nurse practitioner’s diagnostic scope is that Dr. Jimenez and his team can more clearly recognize when a case is beyond what conservative chiropractic and functional medicine care can safely handle, and refer that patient onward to a surgeon or specialist. The philosophy is “try the least invasive, most reversible option first, and refer out quickly and honestly when it isn’t enough” — not “avoid all outside referrals at any cost.”
Rather than treating a single body part in isolation, the clinic’s evaluation process looks at a patient’s physical structure (spine, joints, posture), nutrition and metabolic health, stress levels and sleep quality, and, where relevant, environmental exposures and family health history. The reasoning is straightforward: a stiff neck might be a purely mechanical problem from poor posture, or it might be connected to chronic muscle tension driven by high stress hormones, poor sleep that prevents tissue repair, or an old whiplash injury that never fully resolved. Two patients with the same complaint on paper can have very different underlying causes, and a whole-person evaluation is designed to catch that difference rather than applying the same generic treatment to everyone.
Consider two patients who both walk in describing the same thing — chronic lower back pain that’s lasted eight months. Patient A is a construction worker who lifts heavy materials daily and has a visibly restricted, stiff lumbar spine on exam, with normal bloodwork and no other health complaints; his pain is very likely mostly mechanical, and a combination of adjustments, targeted strengthening exercises, and ergonomic changes at work is a reasonable starting plan. Patient B has the same eight months of lower back pain, but also reports poor sleep, high daily stress, occasional joint pain in other areas of her body, and some digestive discomfort; a purely mechanical treatment plan might help her somewhat, but a root-cause approach would also look at whether chronic inflammation, poor sleep quality, or stress-driven muscle tension are working against her recovery, and would build nutrition, sleep, and stress-management support into her plan alongside the hands-on treatment. Same starting complaint, two different underlying pictures, two different (though overlapping) treatment plans — that’s the practical meaning of “whole-person evaluation.”
The clinic frequently describes itself as working with other providers rather than instead of them — partnering with orthopedic surgeons, neurologists, medical specialists, and rehabilitation providers, and referring patients onward whenever another provider is a better fit for their specific condition. For patients involved in car accidents or workplace injuries, this collaborative approach also extends to attorneys and insurance adjusters, since Dr. Jimenez’s clinic states that it provides detailed clinical documentation that can support personal injury and workers’ compensation claims — while being clear that its goal is genuine physical recovery, not simply producing paperwork to support a settlement.
A recurring theme across the clinic’s blog (which, as of this writing, includes several thousand published articles) is patient education. Rather than simply telling a patient what to do, Dr. Jimenez’s materials aim to explain why a treatment is recommended — what a herniated disc actually is, what happens biologically during a whiplash injury, or why inflammation matters for chronic pain — using everyday language rather than dense medical jargon. This guide you’re reading now is written in that same spirit.
A final, less obvious piece of the stated philosophy is an emphasis on measurable checkpoints rather than open-ended treatment. Instead of a vague plan to “keep coming in and see how it goes,” the clinic’s described process involves periodic re-assessment — checking range of motion, strength, pain levels, and, where relevant, updated lab values or imaging — at defined points along a patient’s care plan, so that both the provider and the patient have an objective way to know whether the current approach is actually working. This matters because it creates a natural decision point: if a patient is genuinely improving according to these objective measures, the plan continues; if they’re not, the plan is supposed to change, whether that means adjusting the treatment approach, ordering additional testing, or referring the patient to a different type of specialist altogether, rather than continuing an approach that isn’t producing results simply because it’s already underway.
Because “functional medicine” is central to how Dr. Jimenez describes his practice, it’s worth slowing down and explaining exactly what that term means — especially since it’s often confused with “alternative medicine” or “holistic medicine,” which are related but not identical ideas.
Imagine your body as a complicated, interconnected system — kind of like a car engine, where the fuel system, the electrical system, and the cooling system all affect each other. If your check-engine light comes on, a mechanic who only looks at the dashboard light itself (and finds a way to switch it off) hasn’t actually fixed anything. A good mechanic traces the wiring back to find out why the light turned on in the first place.
Functional medicine applies that same logic to the human body. Instead of asking only “what is the name of this disease, and what standard medication treats it,” a functional medicine provider also asks, “what is going on inside this specific person’s body — their gut, their hormones, their immune system, their stress response, their genetics, their environment — that is driving this problem?” Two people with the same diagnosis (say, chronic fatigue, or migraines) might have completely different root causes once you dig into their individual biology and history, which means they might benefit from different, more personalized treatment plans, even though the label on their chart is the same.
The Institute for Functional Medicine (IFM), founded in 1991, is the leading nonprofit organization that trains and certifies functional medicine practitioners in the United States. Importantly, IFM does not require its trainees to be medical doctors already — it accepts and trains a wide range of already-licensed health professionals, including MDs, DOs, nurse practitioners, physician assistants, chiropractors, naturopathic doctors, dentists, and pharmacists. That’s exactly the pathway Dr. Jimenez followed: he built functional medicine training on top of his existing chiropractic and nurse practitioner licenses, which is how he earned both the CFMP and the more advanced IFMCP credentials.
IFM organizes the body into interconnected systems using a framework it calls the “Functional Medicine Matrix” — a visual model that maps out how areas like assimilation (digestion, absorption), defense and repair (the immune system), energy production, biotransformation (detoxification), transport (the cardiovascular system), communication (hormones and neurotransmitters), and structural integrity (the musculoskeletal system) all interact with each other, layered on top of a person’s individual genetics, lifestyle, and environment. A practitioner trained in this framework learns to look for imbalances that ripple from one system into another. A patient dealing with joint pain, for example, might also have chronic low-level inflammation from their gut or diet, and addressing that inflammation can sometimes make a real difference in how well the joint pain responds to hands-on chiropractic treatment.
At Injury Medical & Chiropractic Clinic, functional medicine typically shows up through:
A common misconception is that functional medicine is positioned as a replacement for, or an alternative to, conventional medicine. In practice, and consistent with how the field describes itself, functional medicine is better understood as an additional lens layered on top of conventional diagnosis and treatment, not a rejection of it. A functional medicine provider still uses standard diagnostic categories, still refers to specialists and prescribes medication when appropriate (within their scope of licensure), and still relies on established lab tests and imaging. What’s different is the additional layer of asking “why did this specific person develop this problem, and what upstream factors might be maintaining it,” and being willing to spend more time on personalized lifestyle, nutrition, and environmental factors than a typical short primary-care visit usually allows.
It’s worth being clear-eyed about one thing: functional medicine, as a field, is not without controversy in mainstream medicine. Some of its specialized lab testing and supplement recommendations go beyond what is typically covered by insurance or supported by large randomized clinical trials, and patients considering this route should feel free to ask direct questions about the evidence behind any specific test or supplement being recommended, and what it’s expected to cost out of pocket. A good functional medicine provider — which is exactly what the IFMCP certification is designed to represent — should be willing and able to explain that evidence clearly rather than being defensive about the question, and should be comfortable saying “the evidence for this specific test in your specific situation is limited, but here’s why I think it’s still worth considering” rather than presenting every test or supplement as equally well-proven.
Since chiropractic care is the other half of Dr. Jimenez’s dual license, and probably the reason most first-time visitors find his clinic, it deserves the same plain-English treatment.
Your spine is made up of 24 movable bones called vertebrae, stacked on top of each other, cushioned by soft discs, and surrounded by a dense network of muscles, ligaments, and nerves, as described in Section 4 above. When everything is aligned and moving properly, your body can move freely, and your nervous system can send signals efficiently between your brain and the rest of your body. Chiropractic care is built on the idea that when one or more of those vertebrae become misaligned or lose their normal range of motion — sometimes called a “subluxation” in chiropractic language, though that specific term is used differently in medical radiology — it can contribute to pain, muscle tension, reduced mobility, and irritation of nearby nerves.
A chiropractic adjustment (also called spinal manipulation) is a controlled, hands-on force applied to a joint—usually in the spine, but sometimes in other joints like the hips, shoulders, or knees—to restore more normal movement and reduce the mechanical stress that may be contributing to pain. You’ve probably heard the “cracking” or “popping” sound that sometimes happens during an adjustment; that sound is simply gas bubbles releasing inside the joint fluid (a phenomenon called cavitation) and is not, by itself, an indicator of anything being “put back into place” in a literal sense — the sound is a normal, harmless side effect of the joint moving through its range of motion.
Not every adjustment looks the same, and different chiropractors are trained in different specific techniques, often using several depending on the patient and condition:
A clinic like Dr. Jimenez’s, treating a wide range of conditions from routine wellness care to acute trauma, would typically draw on more than one of these techniques depending on the specific patient and diagnosis.
Chiropractic spinal manipulation has a reasonably solid evidence base for certain conditions — most notably acute and chronic lower back pain and neck pain — where multiple clinical guidelines list it as a reasonable first-line, conservative option, often on similar footing with other conservative treatments like physical therapy and exercise. The evidence is weaker or more mixed for chiropractic’s effect on conditions outside the musculoskeletal system. A responsible chiropractor—and this is consistent with how Dr. Jimenez’s clinic describes its own approach—recommends spinal manipulation only where the evidence supports it, and refers patients elsewhere when a condition falls outside chiropractic’s evidence-based scope.
Chiropractic adjustment is generally considered safe for most people when performed by a licensed provider, but it isn’t appropriate for everyone in every situation. Conditions that typically call for extra caution, further workup, or an alternative approach include severe osteoporosis (bone-thinning that increases fracture risk), certain spinal fractures or instability, some cases of severe or progressive nerve compression, spinal cancer or infection, and certain blood-clotting disorders or blood-thinning medications, particularly for neck manipulation speis is exactly the kind of situation where a provider’s broader medical training — the kind Dr. Jimenez’s nurse practitioner license and physical exam process are designed to screen for — matters, since a thorough history and exam should catch these red flags before any adjustment is performed, and steer the case toward imaging or a different specialist instead.
Modern chiropractic practice, including at Dr. Jimenez’s clinic, typically involves much more than just the manual adjustment itself. Other tools commonly used alongside adjustments include:
One of the most common sources of anxiety for a new patient—chiropractic, medical, or otherwise—is not knowing what to expect. Based on the clinic’s own published description of its process, here is a realistic walkthrough of a first visit.
Before or during your first visit, you’ll fill out intake forms, either online in advance or in the office. These forms typically ask about your current symptoms, when and how they started, your general medical history, any prior injuries, and any treatment you’ve already tried. Filling these out online ahead of time, when available, can save you time in the waiting room.
Your first real conversation with the provider will focus on understanding your symptoms in detail. Expect questions like:
Next comes the hands-on portion of the visit. A typical chiropractic-style physical exam includes checking your reflexes, blood pressure, pulse, and respiration, along with a set of orthopedic and neurological tests that assess:
Because Dr. Jimenez is also a Family Nurse Practitioner, this exam can, when appropriate, extend beyond the standard chiropractic checklist into a broader medical evaluation—something not available at a chiropractic-only office.
Based on the history and physical exam, the doctor may order X-rays, the most common initial diagnostic tool, particularly effective for identifying recent trauma, bone fractures, and spinal deformities like scoliosis. If the exam suggests a soft-tissue problem—such as a herniated disc, a torn muscle, or nerve compression — an MRI is typically the better tool, and that’s usually arranged through an outside imaging center or diagnostic partner.
Once the history, physical exam, and any imaging results are all in hand, the provider puts the pieces together to form a working diagnosis and discuss treatment options with you directly. This is also when a functional medicine-style assessment, like the Living Matrix questionnaire, may come into play if your case suggests something beyond a purely mechanical spine problem is at work—chronic inflammation, a hormone imbalance, or a nutritional gap that’s slowing your recovery, for example.
According to the clinic’s own materials, an initial exam typically runs 45 minutes or longer, since there’s a lot of ground to cover. Follow-up visits, once a care plan is in place, are generally much shorter and focus on delivering the planned treatment and checking your progress.
A single visit rarely resolves a long-standing or significant injury, and it helps to know roughly what the following weeks typically look like. Most chiropractic care plans are structured in phases:
Not every patient needs, or chooses, to go through all three phases — someone recovering from a single acute strain might only need the relief phase, while someone managing a chronic condition or recovering from a serious accident may benefit from moving through all three. A responsible provider should explain, in your specific case, roughly how many visits are anticipated and why, and should adjust that plan based on how you’re actually responding rather than sticking rigidly to a pre-set number of visits regardless of your progress.
You should contact your provider promptly, rather than waiting for your next scheduled visit, if you experience new or worsening numbness, weakness that makes it hard to grip objects or causes your leg or foot to give way, loss of bladder or bowel control, fever, unexplained weight loss, or pain that is dramatically worse than before treatment started. These can signal a more serious underlying problem that needs prompt medical attention rather than routine chiropractic follow-up, and any responsible clinic should have a clear process for a patient to reach someone quickly if one of these warning signs comes up.
This is the largest section of this guide, because it’s also the most practical one. Below, we walk through the major categories of conditions and treatments associated with Dr. Jimenez’s practice, based on his clinic’s own published service lines. For each one, we explain, in plain language, what the condition or treatment actually is, and how it’s generally approached.
Back pain is, by a wide margin, one of the most common reasons people see a chiropractor, and it’s one of the leading causes of missed work and disability worldwide. “Acute” back pain refers to pain that comes on suddenly and is expected to improve within a few weeks, often from a specific strain, awkward lift, or minor injury. “Chronic” back pain persists for three months or longer and often involves multiple contributing factors—old injuries, weak core muscles, poor posture, and sometimes stress or inflammation.
At Dr. Jimenez’s clinic, back pain evaluation typically starts with the history and physical exam process described above, followed by a combination of spinal adjustments, soft-tissue work, and a rehabilitative exercise program designed to build the strength and stability needed to prevent the pain from returning once it improves. Risk factors that commonly come up during the history-taking process include prolonged sitting, jobs involving repetitive lifting or twisting, excess body weight, smoking (which reduces blood flow to spinal discs), and a prior history of back injury.
Sciatica refers to pain that travels along the path of the sciatic nerve — the longest nerve in the body, which runs from the lower back, through the buttock, and down the back of each leg. It’s technically a symptom, not a diagnosis by itself; something is pressing on or irritating the sciatic nerve, most commonly a herniated disc in the lower spine, and sciatica is the resulting pain pattern. People with sciatica often describe a sharp, burning, or electric-shock sensation running down one leg, sometimes along with numbness or tingling in the foot. Because a very similar pain pattern can also come from a tight piriformis muscle deep in the buttock pressing on the nerve — a separate condition called piriformis syndrome — Dr. Jimenez’s clinic specifically discusses distinguishing between true sciatica and piriformis syndrome as part of an accurate diagnosis, since the treatment emphasis can differ between the two: true nerve-root sciatica often responds well to flexion-distraction and disc-focused care, while piriformis syndrome typically responds better to targeted soft-tissue release and stretching of the piriformis muscle itself.
The discs between your vertebrae act like cushions, made of a tougher outer layer surrounding a softer, gel-like center. A “bulging” disc is one where the disc extends slightly beyond its normal boundary without the outer layer tearing, while a “herniated” disc (sometimes called a “slipped disc,” though nothing actually slips) is one where the outer layer has torn enough to let some of the inner gel push out. Depending on which direction the disc material pushes and how much, it can press on a nearby nerve root and cause radiating pain, numbness, or weakness. Clinic treatment options can include spinal decompression, targeted chiropractic techniques like flexion-distraction, and rehabilitative exercises, with the understanding that severe or worsening cases—particularly those involving significant nerve compression or loss of muscle strength—may need referral to a spine surgeon for evaluation.
Related to disc problems, an annular fissure is a small tear specifically in the tough outer ring (the annulus) of a spinal disc, often caused by age-related wear and tear on the spine over time. Not every annular fissure causes symptoms, but when it does, it can contribute to localized back pain, and in some cases can be a step along the way toward a fuller disc herniation if the tear worsens. Management typically overlaps closely with general disc-related and back pain care.
Neck pain can come from poor posture (including the modern “tech neck” caused by looking down at phones and laptops for long hours), sleeping in an awkward position, or trauma. Whiplash is a specific injury pattern that happens when the head is suddenly and forcefully thrown backward and then forward (or vice versa) — most commonly during a rear-end car collision — straining the muscles and ligaments of the neck faster than they can naturally resist the motion. Whiplash symptoms don’t always appear immediately; stiffness, pain, and headaches often build up over the 24 to 72 hours after an accident, which is why the clinic encourages a prompt evaluation after any car accident, even if you feel “fine” immediately afterward.
Not all headaches are the same, and figuring out the specific type matters for treatment. Tension-type headaches often come from tight muscles in the neck and scalp. Cervicogenic headaches originate in the neck (often the upper cervical spine) and refer pain up into the head. Migraines are a distinct neurological condition involving changes in brain activity and blood vessels, often accompanied by nausea, light sensitivity, and sometimes visual disturbances called an aura. A rarer but especially severe pattern, hemicrania continua, involves a continuous, one-sided headache that some patients manage with a combination of medical nerve block procedures and integrative care. Because chiropractic adjustment of the neck has the best evidence specifically for cervicogenic-type headaches, an accurate diagnosis of which type of headache a patient has is an important first step before deciding on the right treatment mix, which might include chiropractic care, functional medicine work on migraine triggers (certain foods, hormones, sleep patterns, or stress), and in some cases nerve block procedures for particularly stubborn headache patterns.
This is a specific type of headache caused by irritation or inflammation of the occipital nerves, which run from the top of the spinal cord up through the scalp. It typically causes sharp, shooting, or electric-shock-like pain that starts at the base of the skull and sometimes radiates toward the front of the head; it’s often triggered or worsened by neck tension, so combined chiropractic and integrative pain-management approaches are commonly used.
Scoliosis is a sideways curvature of the spine, often shaped like an “S” or a “C” when viewed on an X-ray from behind. It’s most often diagnosed in adolescence, though it can also develop or be identified later in adulthood. Chiropractic care for scoliosis generally focuses on managing pain, supporting posture, and slowing progression through targeted exercises and adjustments, rather than claiming to reverse a structural curve on its own — more significant curves typically require coordinated management with an orthopedic specialist, including options like bracing in growing adolescents or, in more severe cases, surgical correction.
Fibromyalgia is a chronic condition marked by widespread pain throughout the body, along with fatigue, sleep problems, and difficulty concentrating (sometimes called “fibro fog”). Its exact cause isn’t fully understood, but it’s believed to involve the nervous system processing pain signals differently than normal. Because fibromyalgia affects the whole body rather than a single joint or muscle group, it’s a condition where the functional medicine side of Dr. Jimenez’s training — looking at sleep quality, inflammation, stress hormones, and nutrition alongside more traditional pain management — is particularly relevant, often combined with gentle, low-impact movement and manual therapy rather than aggressive spinal manipulation.
“Arthritis” is a broad umbrella term for joint inflammation, but there are meaningfully different types underneath that umbrella. Osteoarthritis is the “wear and tear” type, where the cartilage that cushions a joint gradually breaks down over years, most common in older adults and in joints that have experienced repetitive stress or prior injury. Rheumatoid arthritis, by contrast, is an autoimmune condition, where the body’s own immune system mistakenly attacks the lining of the joints — affecting an estimated 1.5 million people in the United States — and it requires different management, often involving a rheumatologist and immune-modulating medication, alongside careful, coordinated symptom support rather than aggressive joint manipulation during active flares. Dr. Jimenez’s clinic addresses joint-related arthritis symptoms through conservative, non-invasive care and functional approaches to inflammation, while recognizing that autoimmune arthritis needs coordinated medical management alongside any hands-on therapy.
Neuropathy refers to damage or dysfunction in the peripheral nerves — the nerves outside the brain and spinal cord — and it often shows up as numbness, tingling, burning, or weakness, most commonly in the hands and feet. It can be caused by a wide range of things: nerve compression (like carpal tunnel syndrome in the wrist, where the median nerve is compressed as it passes through a narrow tunnel of ligament and bone), diabetes, certain medications, vitamin deficiencies, or traumatic injury. Because peripheral neuropathy has so many possible root causes, a careful diagnostic workup — which is where the nurse practitioner side of Dr. Jimenez’s training becomes especially useful, since it allows for a broader lab-based evaluation — is an important step before deciding on the right combination of nerve-focused therapies, nutritional support, and, when appropriate, referral to a neurologist.
Sprains (ligament injuries), strains (muscle or tendon injuries), and overuse injuries are all common among athletes, from weekend warriors to competitive CrossFit participants — a category the clinic specifically discusses as its own, given how common these injuries have become in a city with an active fitness culture. Common problem areas include the shoulders (from overhead lifting), the lower back (from heavy compound lifts), and the knees (from high-repetition jumping and squatting movements). Sports injury care at the clinic generally combines chiropractic and soft-tissue treatment for the acute injury with an agility- and mobility-focused rehabilitation program aimed at getting an athlete back to their sport safely, rather than sending them back too soon and risking re-injury.
Tendonitis refers to inflammation or irritation of a tendon, the tough tissue connecting muscle to bone, usually from repetitive overuse rather than a single traumatic event. The shoulder is a particularly common site because of its wide range of motion and the number of overhead activities — throwing, lifting, swimming — that stress its tendons repeatedly. Conservative treatment typically emphasizes activity modification, targeted soft-tissue work, and a graded strengthening program, with regenerative or injection-based treatments (discussed below) sometimes considered for cases that don’t improve with basic conservative care.
This is one of the largest and most distinctive parts of Dr. Jimenez’s practice, reflecting his additional Certified Chiropractic Spinal Trauma (CCST) training. After a car accident, a patient typically needs three things at once: an accurate medical evaluation of what was actually injured, a treatment plan to recover, and clear, well-organized documentation of the injury and its treatment, since that documentation often matters for insurance claims or legal cases. The clinic states that it provides this kind of coordinated care, working alongside attorneys when needed, while being explicit that the underlying goal is real physical recovery for the patient — not simply generating paperwork to support a settlement. The clinic’s materials also specifically reference a Crime Victims Program and support for patients recovering from domestic violence-related injuries, extending trauma-informed injury care beyond car accidents alone.
Similar logic applies to on-the-job injuries. The clinic also specifically mentions working with federal employees, who fall under a different workers’ compensation system (administered through the U.S. Department of Labor’s Office of Workers’ Compensation Programs) than most private-sector employees in Texas, which typically requires familiarity with a distinct set of forms, deadlines, and documentation standards.
Mild traumatic brain injuries, commonly known as concussions, can happen during car accidents, sports collisions, or falls, and their symptoms — headache, dizziness, difficulty concentrating, sensitivity to light or noise — can overlap significantly with whiplash and neck injury symptoms, which makes an accurate evaluation important. The clinic maintains a specific service line addressing TBIs as part of its broader injury care, recognizing that a patient can have both a concussion and a neck injury from the same accident, requiring coordinated management of both rather than treating only the more obvious complaint.
Platelet-Rich Plasma (PRP) and Platelet-Rich Fibrin (PRF) are both regenerative treatments that use a concentrated portion of a patient’s own blood, spun down in a centrifuge to isolate platelets and growth factors, then injected back into an injured area — commonly tendons, ligaments, or joints — with the goal of supporting the body’s own natural healing response. These treatments are used for conditions like tendinopathy (chronic tendon irritation, sometimes treated with a related technique called “brisement,” or high-volume injection), certain cases of knee osteoarthritis, meniscus tears, and some sports-related soft-tissue injuries. Because these are relatively newer regenerative techniques, patients should ask specifically about the evidence for their particular condition and what results are realistically expected, since research quality varies depending on which body part and which condition is being treated.
Related to PRP and PRF, MFAT therapy uses a small amount of a patient’s own fat tissue, processed to isolate certain cellular components, then injected into an injured area — another category of regenerative, autologous (meaning “from your own body”) treatment sometimes considered for injuries that haven’t responded to more basic conservative care.
This is a non-invasive treatment that delivers focused sound wave pulses into injured or chronically irritated tissue — often used for stubborn tendon problems — with the goal of stimulating blood flow and the body’s natural healing response in areas that haven’t responded well to more basic conservative care.
Because Dr. Jimenez holds prescriptive authority as a nurse practitioner, his clinic offers medically supervised weight loss programs and hormone optimization services, including testosterone replacement therapy and bioidentical hormone balancing for both men and women (the clinic’s materials specifically discuss androgen physiology in women and subcutaneous, or “SubQ,” testosterone therapy for women, reflecting a more individualized approach than a one-size-fits-all hormone protocol). These programs typically start with lab testing to identify actual hormone levels and metabolic markers, rather than starting a patient on hormone therapy based on symptoms alone.
Peptides are short chains of amino acids (the building blocks of proteins) that can act as signaling molecules in the body. Certain peptides are used in medically supervised settings for goals like recovery support, metabolic health, and anti-aging protocols. As with any newer or specialized treatment category, patients should ask about the specific peptide being recommended, the evidence behind it for their particular goal, and the cost, since these treatments are generally not standard insurance-covered items.
The thyroid gland regulates metabolism, and both an underactive thyroid (hypothyroidism) and an overactive thyroid (hyperthyroidism) can cause a wide range of symptoms — fatigue, weight changes, mood changes, and temperature sensitivity, among others. “Adrenal fatigue,” a term more commonly used within functional medicine than in mainstream endocrinology, generally refers to the idea that chronic, prolonged stress can dysregulate the body’s normal hormonal stress response (involving the hypothrenal-pituitary-adrenal, or HPA, axis) over time. Evaluation of both areas typically involves targeted lab testing as part of the clinic’s functional medicine assessment process, alongside standard medical evaluation for thyroid conditions specifically, which are well-established, mainstream diagnoses with clear lab criteria.
Metabolic syndrome refers to a cluster of conditions — elevated blood pressure, high blood sugar, excess abdominal fat, and abnormal cholesterol levels — that together significantly raise the risk of heart disease, stroke, and type 2 diabetes. The clinic’s materials specifically connect chronic inflammation (partly driven by excess body fat, which produces inflammatory signaling molecules called cytokines) to cardiovascular risk, and frame nutrition, weight management, and lifestyle coaching as tools for addressing this risk alongside, not instead of, standard medical monitoring and treatment.
Functional medicine places significant emphasis on digestive health, based on research connecting gut function to inflammation and immune regulation throughout the body. The clinic’s materials specifically discuss connections between disc-related back problems and digestive symptoms, and more broadly address topics like food-related triggers for autoimmune activity, reflecting the interconnected “systems” approach to functional medicine described in Section 7.
Building on his ATN (Advanced Translational Nutrigenomics) training, Dr. Jimenez’s clinic offers personalized nutrition counseling, sometimes informed by genetic testing that looks at how an individual’s genes may influence their nutritional needs. The clinic also carries several professional supplement lines, which are generally higher-quality, third-party-tested products than what’s typically found on a drugstore shelf, though they’re also usually not covered by insurance. The clinic’s blog also covers structured nutrition approaches like ketogenic diets, gluten-free diets, and fasting-mimicking diets as tools that may be discussed as part of an individualized plan, rather than a single universal diet recommended to every patient.
Acupuncture involves inserting very thin needles into specific points on the body, based on traditional Chinese medicine principles, and is used at the clinic as a complementary pain-management tool. Electroacupuncture adds a small, gentle electrical current to the needles, which some patients find provides additional relief for certain types of chronic pain compared to traditional acupuncture alone. The clinic also references “Battlefield Acupuncture,” a specific, simplified ear-acupuncture protocol originally developed for military use, as a fast-acting option for acute pain relief that can complement ongoing chiropractic and functional medicine care.
Therapeutic massage reduces muscle tension, improves circulation, and supports recovery, often as a complementary treatment alongside chiropractic adjustments rather than as a stand-alone therapy.
The clinic offers telemedicine visits, which can include medication management, coordination of home delivery for durable medical equipment, remote monitoring through wearable health devices, and virtual health coaching — useful for patients who need ongoing check-ins but can’t easily make it into the office for every visit.
Beyond the X-ray capability in-office, the clinic coordinates with outside diagnostic imaging centers for more advanced imaging like MRI and CT scans when a case calls for it, and it uses the InBody 770 body composition analyzer, mentioned earlier, for a more precise picture of muscle, fat, and water balance than a standard scale provides.
Because poor sleep and chronic stress can both worsen pain sensitivity and slow tissue healing, the clinic’s materials treat sleep hygiene (habits and practices that support consistent, restorative sleep) and structured stress-management techniques as legitimate components of a pain-recovery plan, not just generic “self-care” advice tacked onto the end of a visit.
Because the clinic combines chiropractic, functional medicine, and nurse-practitioner-level family practice care, its patient base tends to be broader than a typical single-focus chiropractic office. Based on the clinic’s own description of its work, patients generally fall into a few overlapping groups:
It’s worth noting explicitly, as the clinic itself does, that not every patient is a good fit for this kind of care. Dr. Jimenez’s materials state that when a patient’s condition falls outside what conservative chiropractic and functional medicine care can appropriately address, the standard practice is to refer that patient to the right specialist rather than trying to manage everything in-house. That kind of honest gatekeeping is arguably one of the more important, if less flashy, parts of any responsible health care philosophy.
Health care costs are a real, practical concern for most families, and Dr. Jimenez’s clinic addresses it directly in its own materials. According to the clinic, it works with most major insurance carriers to help patients use their existing benefits, and it also offers multiple structured care plans designed to make ongoing chiropractic visits more predictable and affordable for patients who are either uninsured, underinsured, or simply prefer to avoid the complexity of insurance billing, copays, and deductibles for routine wellness visits. The clinic also mentions military discounts as part of its effort to make care more accessible.
For personal injury and workers’ compensation cases specifically, billing is often handled differently than a routine visit — sometimes through a “letter of protection” arrangement with an attorney, or directly through a workers’ comp claim, rather than through a patient’s own health insurance — and it’s worth asking the clinic’s billing staff directly how a specific type of case will be handled financially before treatment begins, so there are no surprises later.
If you have a Health Savings Account (HSA) or Flexible Spending Account (FSA) through your employer, many chiropractic and functional medicine services, including some nutritional supplements when recommended by a licensed provider, may be eligible expenses — though the specific rules depend on your plan, so checking with your HSA/FSA administrator is worthwhile before assuming a specific service qualifies.
Because specific plan pricing, accepted insurance networks, and available discounts change over time, the most reliable way to get current numbers is to ask directly when you call to schedule, or to review the clinic’s current pricing and insurance pages before your visit. Functional medicine services that involve specialized lab testing or professional-grade supplements are worth asking about separately, since these are more likely to fall outside standard insurance coverage than routine chiropractic visits.
It’s also worth understanding, in plain terms, the handful of different ways a chiropractic and functional medicine visit typically gets paid for, since the paperwork can otherwise feel confusing:
Regardless of which payment path applies to your situation, a trustworthy office should be willing to give you a clear, itemized explanation of expected costs before treatment begins, rather than leaving you to discover charges only after the fact on a bill or an insurance explanation of benefits.
Anyone can write flattering things about themselves on their own website, which is exactly why it’s worth checking what independent, third-party sources say. Here’s what a broader search turns up about Dr. Jimenez and his clinic, separate from his own site.
ThreeBestRated.com, an independent business-rating directory, lists Dr. Alex Jimenez, DC, APRN, FNP-BC of Injury Medical & Chiropractic Clinic among its top three chiropractors in El Paso, Texas, alongside two other independently reviewed local providers. ThreeBestRated says it chooses listings through a “50-Point Inspection” process that reviews a business’s reputation, complaint history, licensing, and customer satisfaction, and it publishes both positive and negative reviews for transparency. As of the most recent listing reviewed for this article, Dr. Jimenez’s clinic held a 5.0 score and 119 out of 120 possible inspection points, and the clinic has appeared in ThreeBestRated’s El Paso chiropractor rankings for more than ten years running, including a 2024 Award of Excellence, which was covered independently in a press release distributed through PRUnderground.
Birdeye, a reputation and reviews-management platform, lists Dr. Alex Jimenez DC, Injury Medical & Chiropractic Clinic with a 4.9-star rating based on over 1,200 reviews at the time this article was researched — a substantial review volume for a local health care practice, suggesting a consistent pattern of patient satisfaction over time rather than a handful of hand-picked testimonials.
The clinic’s Yelp listings (it has separate pages for its different physical locations — Vista Del Sol and Gateway East) show it operating continuously in El Paso since 1991, with photo galleries and public reviews from patients describing their experiences with chiropractic treatment, staff friendliness, and clinic cleanliness.
The clinic also maintains a BBB Business Profile, a nonprofit accreditation and complaint-tracking platform separate from any review site the clinic itself could curate.
Medical News Today, a well-known health information publisher, maintains a provider directory that includes Dr. Alexander Jimenez, DC, listing his 1991 graduation from the National University of Health Sciences (National College of Chiropractic), a residency in Advanced Clinical Practice, and patient-reported feedback describing him as someone who explains conditions clearly, is trustworthy, keeps visits efficient, and maintains a friendly, easy-to-schedule office — all data points reported independently by patients on that platform rather than written by the clinic itself.
As mentioned earlier, Alexander David Jimenez, DC, appears in IFM’s own public “Find a Practitioner” directory, which independently verifies his functional medicine training and certification status directly through the organization that issues the credential — a useful, hard-to-fake way to confirm this particular qualification.
The federal NPI Registry, run by the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services, lists Alexander David Jimenez under NPI 1205907805, with a primary taxonomy of Family Nurse Practitioner and a secondary chiropractic taxonomy, at the clinic’s Vista Del Sol address in El Paso — confirming his active licensure status through a neutral, government-maintained database rather than a marketing source.
Dr. Jimenez and his practice are listed as a member profile connected to the American Academy of Anti-Aging Medicine (A4M), which independently describes his dual licensure, his multidisciplinary team, and the range of services offered at Injury Medical & Chiropractic Clinic.
No single review site or directory listing should be treated as absolute proof of quality — every rating system has its own quirks, and a savvy patient should always read a range of individual reviews rather than just looking at a star average. That said, when a provider’s credentials show up consistently and verifiably across multiple independent, unrelated sources — a government registry, a nonprofit certifying body, and several separate consumer review platforms, each with a large volume of reviews and high average ratings collected over a long period of time — that consistency is a meaningfully stronger signal than marketing claims made on a single website alone.
Whether or not you choose Dr. Jimenez’s clinic, it’s a genuinely useful skill to know how to independently verify any health care provider’s licenses and credentials before your first visit — a skill this section is designed to teach you, using Dr. Jimenez’s own public information as a working example.
Doing this kind of quick, independent check — which typically takes less than fifteen minutes — is a reasonable step before committing to ongoing care with any health care provider, not just a chiropractor, and not just in El Paso.
Reading through publicly posted, independently hosted reviews (rather than testimonials curated by the clinic itself) gives a useful sense of the day-to-day patient experience. Several recurring themes show up across platforms like ThreeBestRated, Yelp, and Birdeye:
As with any health care review, individual results and experiences vary from person to person, and past patient satisfaction is not a guarantee of a particular outcome for a new patient with a different condition.
Whether you choose Dr. Jimenez’s clinic or another provider, bringing a short list of your own questions to your first visit is one of the best ways to ensure you receive care that fits your specific needs and budget. Consider asking:
A provider who answers these questions clearly, without becoming defensive, and who is comfortable saying “I’m not sure” or “that’s outside what I can help with” when appropriate, is generally a good sign — regardless of which specific credentials are listed after their name.
Is Dr. Jimenez a real doctor, or just a chiropractor? Dr. Jimenez holds two separate, active professional licenses: Doctor of Chiropractic (DC) in Texas and New Mexico, and Advanced Practice Registered Nurse (APRN) with board certification as a Family Nurse Practitioner (FNP-BC), licensed across multiple states through a nursing compact agreement. “Doctor” in the chiropractic sense refers to his DC degree, similar to how a dentist (DDS) or optometrist (OD) is also called “doctor” within their own licensed scope, and separately, his FNP-BC license grants him nurse-practitioner-level authority to diagnose and treat a broader range of medical conditions within his scope of practice and state law.
What is the difference between chiropractic care and functional medicine? Chiropractic care is a specific, hands-on discipline focused on the spine, joints, and nervous system, most often used for musculoskeletal pain. Functional medicine is a broader philosophy and diagnostic approach, used by many licensed providers, that focuses on identifying and treating the root biological cause of a health problem—such as gut health, hormone imbalances, or chronic inflammation—rather than just managing symptoms. Dr. Jimenez practices both, which is what allows his clinic to combine the two approaches for patients who need it.
Do I need a referral to see Dr. Jimenez? Generally, chiropractors and nurse practitioners can be seen directly without a physician referral, though this can depend on your specific insurance plan’s rules. It’s best to confirm directly with the clinic and your insurance provider before your first visit.
Will my insurance cover treatment at Injury Medical & Chiropractic Clinic? The clinic states that it works with most major insurance carriers. Coverage for chiropractic visits, functional medicine lab testing, and specialty treatments like PRP therapy or peptide therapy can vary significantly by plan, so it’s worth calling ahead to confirm what’s covered before assuming a service is included.
How long does chiropractic treatment usually take to work? This varies enormously depending on the specific condition, how long it’s been present, and the individual patient. Acute, recent injuries often respond within a handful of visits, while chronic, long-standing conditions typically require a longer course of care combined with home exercises and lifestyle changes. A good provider should be able to give you a realistic, individualized timeline once they’ve completed your initial evaluation, rather than a generic promise that applies to everyone.
Is chiropractic care safe after a car accident? For most soft-tissue and musculoskeletal injuries following a car accident, conservative care — including chiropractic treatment — is a commonly used and generally safe option, provided that serious injuries like fractures, significant nerve damage, or internal injuries have first been ruled out through an appropriate medical evaluation. This is one of the specific reasons a dual-licensed provider who can also perform a broader medical evaluation, or who works alongside a physician on staff, can be a practical advantage after a car accident.
What should I bring to my first appointment? Typically useful items include a photo ID, your insurance card (if applicable), a list of current medications and supplements, any relevant prior imaging or medical records, and, for personal injury or workers’ comp cases, any paperwork you’ve already received related to the accident or claim.
Does Dr. Jimenez treat children? Because his Family Nurse Practitioner training covers the full lifespan, and family practice more broadly includes pediatric care, the clinic’s scope extends to younger patients as part of its family practice services, though specific chiropractic treatment approaches for children differ from those used with adults, and this should be discussed directly with the provider.
What is the Living Matrix questionnaire, and do I have to fill it out? The Living Matrix is a detailed, IFM-associated health history tool used to support functional medicine evaluation. It’s most relevant for patients dealing with more complex, whole-body health concerns rather than a single, clearly mechanical injury like a recent ankle sprain, and whether it’s used for your specific visit will depend on what the provider recommends based on your situation.
How is Dr. Jimenez’s reputation verified outside of his own website? As detailed in Section 13 above, his credentials and reputation can be independently checked through the federal NPI Registry, the Institute for Functional Medicine’s public practitioner directory, the Texas Board of Chiropractic Examiners’ license verification tool, the Nursys nursing license verification system, and consumer review platforms including ThreeBestRated, Birdeye, Yelp, and Medical News Today.
Does “cracking” sound during an adjustment mean something is being fixed? Not exactly. The sound is caused by gas bubbles releasing within the fluid of the joint (a normal process called cavitation) as the joint moves through its range of motion during the adjustment. It’s a common, harmless side effect, not a direct measure of how effective the adjustment was — some effective adjustments produce no sound at all.
Can a chiropractor prescribe medication? Chiropractors, within their DC license alone, generally cannot prescribe medication in most states. This is one of the key practical differences that Dr. Jimenez’s additional Family Nurse Practitioner license and DEA registration provide — within that separate nursing scope of practice, and in coordination with the Medical Director when appropriate, prescriptive authority becomes available for the family practice side of the clinic’s services.
What is the difference between an MD and a nurse practitioner (APRN/FNP-BC)? An MD (Medical Doctor) completes medical school and a residency, typically totaling seven or more years of training after a bachelor’s degree. An APRN/FNP-BC completes a graduate nursing degree (a master’s or doctoral-level nurse practitioner program) built on top of an existing registered nursing foundation. Both are licensed to diagnose and treat patients and, depending on the state, prescribe medication, but their training pathways, and in some states their specific scope of independent practice, differ. Many primary care clinics today use both MDs and nurse practitioners as part of a coordinated care team, which mirrors the structure at Dr. Jimenez’s clinic, where his FNP-BC license works alongside Dr. Cardenas’s MD.
Is functional medicine covered by insurance? Generally, standard chiropractic and medical visits are more likely to be covered by insurance than specialized functional medicine lab panels and professional-grade supplements, which are often billed separately and paid out of pocket. Always confirm coverage specifics directly with your insurance provider and the clinic’s billing staff before agreeing to a specific test or treatment plan.
How often should I get chiropractic adjustments? There’s no single universal answer — frequency depends on the specific condition, how long it’s been present, and how you respond to initial treatment, as described in the “course of care” discussion in Section 9. A responsible provider adjusts your visit frequency based on your actual progress rather than a fixed schedule applied to every patient regardless of outcome.
What is the difference between a bulging disc and a herniated disc? A bulging disc extends slightly beyond its normal space without the tough outer layer tearing, while a herniated disc involves an actual tear in that outer layer, allowing some of the inner disc material to escape. Herniated discs are generally considered a step further along the same spectrum of disc injury, though the severity of symptoms doesn’t always match up neatly with the severity of what’s visible on imaging — some people have significant disc findings on an MRI with little to no pain, and vice versa.
Are PRP and peptide therapies FDA-approved? The regulatory status of specific regenerative and peptide treatments varies by exact product and use case, and this area of medicine has evolved quickly in recent years. Rather than assuming a blanket answer, ask your specific provider directly about the regulatory status of any specific product or treatment they recommend, and how that affects insurance coverage and expected outcomes.
Can I see Dr. Jimenez for general family health needs, not just injuries? Yes — because of his Family Nurse Practitioner license, the clinic’s scope includes general family practice services alongside its injury- and pain-focused chiropractic and functional medicine work, though the exact scope of services offered at each specific clinic location can vary, so it’s worth confirming directly what’s available at the location nearest you.
Is it normal to feel sore after a chiropractic adjustment? Mild, short-lived soreness after an adjustment — similar to the feeling after a new workout — is fairly common, particularly at the start of a course of care, and it usually resolves within a day or so. Pain that is severe, that worsens steadily rather than improving, or that comes with new symptoms like numbness, weakness, or loss of bladder or bowel control is not a normal or expected reaction and should be reported to the provider immediately rather than waited out.
What’s the difference between “relief care,” “corrective care,” and “maintenance care”? These are the three general phases of chiropractic treatment discussed in Section 9. Relief care is the initial, more frequent phase aimed at reducing acute pain and inflammation. Corrective care follows, with visits gradually spaced further apart, aimed at addressing the underlying mechanical or postural issue rather than just the immediate pain. Maintenance care is an optional, much less frequent phase some patients choose afterward, aimed at preserving the gains made and catching small problems early, similar in concept to a routine dental cleaning rather than a response to a specific new complaint.
Can chiropractic care help with conditions that aren’t related to back or neck pain? Yes, to a degree — some patients seek chiropractic and integrative care for conditions like certain types of headaches, some digestive complaints tied to nerve or musculoskeletal irritation, and general wellness support. That said, chiropractic care is not a universal treatment for every unrelated medical condition, and a responsible provider should be clear and honest about which of your specific complaints are a good fit for chiropractic and functional medicine care, and which ones need a different type of specialist entirely.
What happens if my condition doesn’t improve with conservative care? A responsible treatment plan includes checkpoints for measuring progress, not just an open-ended series of visits. If a condition isn’t improving as expected within a reasonable timeframe, the appropriate next step is usually additional diagnostic workup (such as advanced imaging) and, if warranted, referral to a specialist such as an orthopedic surgeon, neurologist, or rheumatologist, rather than simply continuing the same conservative approach indefinitely.
Is nutritional counseling from a chiropractor the same as seeing a registered dietitian? Not exactly. A registered dietitian (RD or RDN) completes a specific accredited nutrition education program and supervised practice requirement focused entirely on clinical nutrition. Dr. Jimenez’s nutrition-related credential (ATN, Advanced Translational Nutrigenomics) is a separate, specialized certification focused on the intersection of genetics and nutrition within a functional medicine context. Both can be valuable, but they represent different training pathways, and patients with highly complex nutritional needs, such as a diagnosed eating disorder or a complicated pediatric feeding issue, may be better served by a registered dietitian working alongside their other providers.
How do I know if a supplement recommended at the clinic is actually necessary? Ask directly what specific lab finding, symptom, or research-supported rationale is behind the recommendation, how long you should expect to take it before reassessing, and what the plan is for stopping or adjusting it based on follow-up testing or symptom changes. A supplement recommendation that comes with a clear rationale and a plan for reassessment is a different thing than an open-ended recommendation with no defined endpoint.
What if I’ve had a bad experience with chiropractic care in the past? That’s worth discussing directly and specifically at your first visit, rather than avoiding chiropractic care altogether or, alternatively, not mentioning it at all. A poor past experience might reflect a mismatch between a specific technique and your particular body or condition, a communication problem, or, in some cases, a legitimate treatment complication — and a good provider should be willing to adjust their approach, use gentler techniques, or explain clearly why a different plan might work better for you this time.
If you’re considering a visit to Injury Medical & Chiropractic Clinic, here are the practical next steps:
Dr. Alexander Jimenez represents an unusual combination in the world of El Paso health care: more than three decades of hands-on chiropractic experience, layered together with a full second career’s worth of training as a board-certified Family Nurse Practitioner, topped off with advanced functional medicine certification through the Institute for Functional Medicine. That combination allows his clinic to offer a wider range of services under one roof than a typical single-discipline chiropractic office — everything from spinal adjustments and personal injury care to hormone optimization, regenerative medicine, and whole-person functional medicine evaluation.
None of that makes his clinic the automatic right fit for every single patient or every single condition — no provider, however qualified, is a universal solution — but the underlying philosophy his materials describe is a reasonable and fairly mainstream one within integrative health care: look for the root cause where you can, start with the least invasive option that makes sense, be honest about the limits of what conservative care can fix, and refer a patient onward quickly and clearly when something falls outside that scope. Combined with a credential record that holds up well under independent, outside verification — through government registries, nonprofit certifying bodies, and a large volume of independently hosted patient reviews — that gives prospective patients a reasonably solid, verifiable foundation for their own decision-making.
Ultimately, the most useful thing any prospective patient can do — with this guide, or with information about any health care provider — is treat it as a well-organized starting point for your own research, not a final verdict. Read the independent sources for yourself. Call the clinic directly with your specific questions. Ask about your specific condition, not a generic one. And weigh what you learn against your own priorities: how much you value a conservative, non-drug-first approach; whether a whole-person, root-cause evaluation style appeals to you or feels like more than you’re looking for; how important insurance coverage and cost predictability are to your decision; and how much weight you personally place on independently verifiable, long-running credentials and patient feedback versus other factors, such as location, scheduling convenience, or a personal referral from someone you trust. Different patients will reasonably weigh these same factors differently, and that’s exactly why an informed decision, rather than a generic recommendation, is the right goal for a decision this personal.
Please note, this article is for general educational purposes only and is not medical advice. It does not replace an individual evaluation by a licensed health care provider. If you are experiencing a medical emergency, call 911 immediately. Always verify current credentials, licensing status, hours, pricing, and insurance participation directly with the provider before scheduling care, since these details can change over time. Blessings, Dr.Alex Jimenez
One question prospective patients often struggle with isn’t “is this provider good?” but “is this even the right type of provider for my problem?” Musculoskeletal and chronic health complaints can legitimately be addressed by several different kinds of professionals, and they’re not interchangeable — each has a different training background, a different toolkit, and a different threshold for when they get involved. Understanding these differences in plain language can help you figure out where a combined chiropractic and functional-medicine practice like Dr. Jimenez’s clinic fits into the bigger picture, and when you might need someone else instead, or in addition.
Chiropractors (DC) complete a four-year doctoral program focused on the spine, joints, and nervous system, with an emphasis on manual, hands-on treatment—primarily spinal and joint adjustments—plus soft-tissue work and rehabilitative exercise. Chiropractors are licensed to diagnose musculoskeletal conditions and to order and interpret X-rays, but in most states, including Texas, they do not prescribe medication or perform surgery. Their scope is well suited to mechanical joint and spine problems — back pain, neck pain, many types of headaches, and general joint stiffness — especially when a patient wants to try a non-drug, non-surgical option first.
Physical therapists (PT or DPT) also complete doctoral-level training, but their approach centers on active rehabilitation: therapeutic exercise, movement retraining, and hands-on techniques aimed at restoring strength, flexibility, and function, often after surgery, injury, or a period of pain-driven inactivity. PTs typically see patients over a series of scheduled sessions built around a structured home-exercise program. Physical therapy and chiropractic care aren’t competitors so much as complementary tools — many patients benefit from both, using chiropractic adjustments to address joint mechanics and physical therapy to build the strength and movement patterns that keep problems from coming back.
Orthopedic surgeons (MD or DO) are medical doctors who complete a residency (and often a subspecialty fellowship) focused on the musculoskeletal system, with the ability to prescribe medication, order any form of imaging or lab testing, administer injections, and — when conservative care hasn’t worked — perform surgery. Orthopedic evaluation becomes the right next step when a condition involves a structural problem unlikely to improve without mechanical repair: a full ligament tear, a fracture, severe joint degeneration, or nerve compression severe enough to be causing measurable weakness or loss of function. A responsible chiropractic and functional medicine practice, including the one described throughout this guide, should be quick to refer a patient toward orthopedic evaluation when the history, exam, or imaging findings point in that direction, rather than continuing months of conservative care on a problem it isn’t equipped to fix.
Functional medicine practitioners — who can come from a variety of underlying backgrounds, including medical doctors, nurse practitioners, and, as with Dr. Jimenez, chiropractors with additional certification — take a different starting question. Instead of “which body part is causing this symptom,” the functional medicine question is closer to “what upstream systems (digestion, hormones, inflammation, sleep, stress response) might be driving this pattern of symptoms across the whole body.” Functional medicine tends to be most relevant for complex, multi-system complaints that haven’t responded well to treating one symptom at a time — persistent fatigue, unexplained weight changes, fibromyalgia-type widespread pain, or digestive symptoms that seem connected to other problems elsewhere in the body.
Primary care providers, including family nurse practitioners like the FNP-BC credential Dr. Jimenez holds, serve as a general medical home base: they can diagnose and manage a broad range of common conditions, order routine lab work and imaging, prescribe medication, provide preventive care like vaccinations and screenings, and coordinate referrals to specialists when a problem falls outside their comfort zone. A dual-licensed provider with both a chiropractic and a nurse practitioner credential occupies an unusual middle ground: they can offer hands-on musculoskeletal care and a broader medical evaluation, including labs and prescriptions, without necessarily sending a patient to two separate offices for two separate first visits.
None of this means one type of provider is objectively “better” than another — they simply answer different questions. A person with a straightforward, recent muscle strain from moving furniture likely doesn’t need a functional medicine workup at all; a course of conservative chiropractic and rehabilitative care may resolve it completely. A person with fifteen years of unexplained fatigue, digestive trouble, and joint pain who has already been told by several providers that “everything looks normal” on standard testing may be a much better fit for a functional medicine evaluation that looks more broadly across body systems. And a person with a herniated disc causing progressive leg weakness needs an orthopedic or neurosurgical opinion promptly, not an extended trial of conservative care alone. Part of what a good initial evaluation should do — regardless of which type of provider performs it — is help you figure out which category your particular problem actually falls into, and refer you onward quickly if it turns out to need a different kind of specialist than the one you first walked in to see.
To make the ideas in this guide more concrete, here are three illustrative, composite patient journeys — not descriptions of real, identifiable individuals, but realistic examples built from the kinds of cases the clinic’s own published materials describe, meant to show how the evaluation and treatment process described in earlier sections might actually unfold for different types of patients.
Imagine a 34-year-old office worker who is stopped at a red light when another car strikes her from behind at moderate speed. She feels shaken but declines an ambulance at the scene, since nothing feels obviously broken. By the next morning, her neck is stiff and aching, she has a dull headache starting at the base of her skull, and turning her head to check her blind spot in the car is noticeably uncomfortable.
She calls the clinic the same day. At her first visit, the intake process captures the full accident history — direction of impact, whether her headrest was properly positioned, whether her seatbelt engaged, and exactly when symptoms began — because these details matter both medically and, in an auto-accident case, for documentation purposes. The physical exam identifies restricted range of motion in her cervical spine and tenderness along the muscles on both sides of her neck, without the reflex changes, significant weakness, or “red flag” findings that would prompt an immediate MRI or ER referral. X-rays rule out a fracture or serious instability. She’s diagnosed with a Grade II whiplash-associated disorder — meaning there are physical exam findings (not just pain reports) but no neurological deficit.
Her care plan combines gentle cervical spine adjustments, soft-tissue therapy to address the muscle guarding, and a home program of gradually progressing neck mobility exercises, with a planned re-assessment in two weeks to check her progress. Because insurance and, potentially, a legal claim are involved, her chart also documents her functional limitations clearly — for example, that she initially couldn’t safely check her blind spot while driving — since that kind of specific, functional detail matters more to an insurance adjuster or attorney than a vague pain rating. By her fourth week of care, her range of motion has mostly normalized, her headaches have stopped, and she transitions to a maintenance phase with a home exercise program to prevent recurrence.
Imagine a 46-year-old man who has seen two other providers over the past year for persistent fatigue, occasional joint aches that move from one area to another, and mild digestive bloating after meals. Standard blood work each time came back “normal,” and he was told his symptoms were probably stress-related. Frustrated, he seeks out a functional medicine evaluation.
Rather than starting from a single presumed diagnosis, his intake includes a detailed history of his diet, sleep patterns, stress levels, exercise habits, and the timeline of when his symptoms began relative to any major life changes. Instead of only the standard basic metabolic panel, his lab workup is expanded to include more detailed thyroid markers, inflammatory markers, and a nutrient panel — the kind of broader testing described in Section 7’s discussion of functional medicine’s diagnostic approach. The results show a mildly underactive thyroid pattern that fell within a “normal” reference range on his prior basic testing but is functionally suboptimal, along with a vitamin D deficiency and signs of mild chronic low-grade inflammation.
His plan combines targeted nutritional support, a structured sleep-hygiene routine, and closer thyroid monitoring, with clear benchmarks set for re-testing in eight to twelve weeks — because functional medicine recommendations, as described earlier in this guide, should always come with a way to measure whether they’re actually working, not just an open-ended supplement regimen. Over the following months, his energy improves gradually rather than instantly, which is consistent with how these kinds of multi-factor issues typically respond: slowly, and through several adjustments working together rather than one single fix.
Imagine a 29-year-old competitive CrossFit athlete who develops sharp shoulder pain during overhead barbell work that gradually worsens over several weeks of training through it rather than resting it. By the time he seeks care, lifting his arm overhead is painful enough to affect his training, and he’s worried he’ll need surgery.
His exam focuses on identifying exactly which structures in the shoulder are involved — testing specific muscle groups of the rotator cuff, checking for impingement signs, and evaluating his overall shoulder and shoulder-blade mechanics, since overhead athletes frequently develop compensatory movement patterns that place extra stress on certain tendons over time. The working diagnosis is rotator cuff tendinopathy without a full tear, which is treatable conservatively in the majority of cases, though the exam specifically screens for signs of a full tear that would change that plan.
His care combines activity modification (not complete rest, but temporarily removing the specific movements provoking pain), targeted soft-tissue and joint work, and a structured strengthening progression aimed at correcting the underlying movement pattern rather than just calming down the current flare-up. Because his pain persists longer than expected after several weeks of this conservative approach, his plan is adjusted to include a trial of Platelet-Rich Plasma (PRP) injection, discussed and consented to only after a clear conversation about the realistic evidence and expected outcomes for his specific type of injury, as this guide recommends asking about in Section 16. He returns to full training roughly three months after his first visit, with an ongoing shoulder-specific maintenance routine built into his regular training to reduce the chance of recurrence.
These three composite journeys illustrate a common thread: the process starts with a careful, individualized evaluation, moves through a conservative first-line treatment plan matched to the specific diagnosis, includes clear checkpoints for measuring progress, and stays open to escalating toward more advanced treatment — or referral to a different type of specialist entirely — if the initial approach doesn’t produce the expected results within a reasonable timeframe.
A fair, balanced guide to any health care approach should address what the broader scientific and clinical research literature actually says, rather than relying only on a single clinic’s own claims. Here is a plain-language overview of where the evidence stands for several of the major categories of care discussed in this guide, along with where meaningful uncertainty or disagreement among researchers still exists.
Spinal manipulation for low back pain has been studied extensively, and multiple systematic reviews — including a Cochrane Collaboration review of spinal manipulative therapy for chronic low-back pain and a large individual participant data meta-analysis published in Physiotherapy — have found that spinal manipulative therapy produces outcomes for acute and chronic low back pain that are generally comparable to other established conservative treatments, such as physical therapy or standard medical care, particularly for pain reduction and short-term function. The evidence for manipulation as a treatment for cervicogenic headaches and certain types of neck pain is similarly reasonably well supported. At the same time, researchers are consistently clear that spinal manipulation is not a cure-all and does not show meaningfully better outcomes than other reasonable conservative options for every type of spinal condition — which is exactly why an accurate diagnosis before treatment, rather than a one-size-fits-all adjustment protocol, matters as much as this guide has emphasized throughout.
Functional medicine as a broader framework is younger and less thoroughly studied as a complete system than individual treatments like spinal manipulation, partly because it’s inherently harder to run a single controlled study on an approach that customizes multiple interventions to each individual patient. That said, many of the individual components functional medicine draws on — the role of chronic low-grade inflammation in disease, the connection between gut health and immune function, the impact of sleep quality on pain sensitivity and metabolic health, and the value of nutrition in managing chronic disease risk — are each independently well established in mainstream medical and nutritional science literature. The honest summary is that functional medicine’s individual building blocks are frequently evidence-based, even though the field as a whole is still developing more standardized research on how well the combined, personalized approach performs compared to conventional single-diagnosis care.
Platelet-Rich Plasma (PRP) has a more mixed research picture depending on which condition it’s used for. Evidence is comparatively stronger for certain applications, such as knee osteoarthritis, where multiple randomized-trial meta-analyses have shown meaningful improvement compared to placebo or hyaluronic acid injections, and some tendon conditions like chronic tennis elbow (lateral epicondylitis). For other applications, evidence is more limited or inconsistent, which is precisely why this guide recommends specifically asking a provider about the research behind PRP for your particular condition, rather than assuming uniform effectiveness across every possible use.
Extracorporeal Shockwave Therapy (ESWT) has reasonably solid evidence specifically for chronic tendon conditions that haven’t responded to more basic treatment, such as calcific shoulder tendinopathy and chronic plantar fasciitis, with multiple clinical-trial meta-analyses supporting its use in those particular contexts.
Acupuncture has a substantial body of clinical trial research behind it, including a well-known individual patient data meta-analysis published in the Journal of Pain, with results generally showing modest but real pain-relief benefits for conditions like chronic low back pain, osteoarthritis, and certain types of headache, though researchers continue to debate exactly how much of the benefit comes from the specific needling technique versus broader placebo and attention effects inherent to any hands-on treatment.
Nutrition and lifestyle interventions for metabolic and cardiovascular risk — weight management, dietary pattern changes, physical activity, and sleep improvement — rest on an exceptionally large and consistent body of research showing meaningful risk reduction for conditions like type 2 diabetes and heart disease, making this one of the more thoroughly evidence-supported areas of the functional medicine toolkit.
Peptide therapy and certain hormone-optimization protocols represent some of the newer and less extensively studied categories discussed in this guide. Where evidence exists, it’s often preliminary, based on smaller studies, or drawn primarily from research on specific medical conditions rather than the broader wellness or performance goals some patients seek these treatments for. This is an area where being an informed, appropriately skeptical patient — asking directly about study quality, sample sizes, and realistic expected outcomes, per the questions suggested in Section 16 — matters more than in categories with decades of accumulated research behind them.
The overall picture that emerges from an honest look at the research is neither “chiropractic and functional medicine are unproven pseudoscience” nor “every treatment offered under this umbrella is equally well supported by rigorous science.” Both extremes oversimplify a nuanced reality: some components of integrative musculoskeletal and functional medicine care rest on decades of solid research, some rest on a smaller but still meaningful and growing body of evidence, and a few newer or more specialized treatments are still in earlier stages of scientific study. A responsible provider — and a well-informed patient — should be able to tell the difference between these categories for any specific treatment being discussed, rather than treating “it’s part of an integrative approach” as automatically equivalent to “it’s proven to work.”
My promise to my patients is stated here for all to read. With God’s help, I will do everything I can to help you recover.
Warm regards to you.
Dr. Alex Jimenez, DC, APRN, FNP-BC, IFMCP, CFMP
Licensed Chiropractor: Texas** & New Mexico
Licensed Nurse Practitioner: Primary State: Texas (Multistate)
Licensed as FNP: NM, CO, FLA, GA, NY, AR, TX*
Licensed as RN: +43 Compact States.
Scope of Practice Governed By Each Licensing Board & State Scope of Practice*
Nurse Practitioner Licenses:
Texas APRN/FNP License No. 1191402; New Mexico/FNP License No. 90560
Florida APRN/FNP License No. APRN11043890
Colorado C-APN License No. C-APN.0105610-C-NP
Georgia APRN GAA-NP License No. GAA-NP0
**Primary License (Texas)
Medical License*
Dr. Maria Cardendas, MD
Internal Medicine Specialist & Medical Director*
License No. J2933
East Side: Main Clinic*
11860 Vista Del Sol, Ste 128
Phone: 915-412-6677
Central: Rehabilitation Center
6440 Gateway East, Ste B
Phone: 915-850-0900
North East Rehabilitation & Fitness Center
7100 Airport Blvd, Ste. C
Phone: 915-412-6677
God Bless You & Your Health
Dr. Alex Jimenez DC, MSACP, APRN, FNP-BC*, CCST, IFMCP*, CFMP*, ATN*
Dr. Alexander D. Jimenez, DC, MSACP, APRN, FNP-BC, CFMP, IFMCP, ATN, CCST
My Digital Business Card
General Disclaimer, Licenses and Board Certifications *
Professional Scope of Practice *
The information herein on "About: Dr. Alexander Jimenez, DC, APRN, FNP-BC" is not intended to replace a one-on-one relationship with a qualified health care professional or licensed physician and is not medical advice. We encourage you to make healthcare decisions based on your research and partnership with a qualified healthcare professional.
Blog Information & Scope Discussions
Welcome to El Paso's Premier Wellness and Injury Care Clinic & Wellness Blog, where Dr. Alex Jimenez, DC, FNP-C, a Multi-State board-certified Family Practice Nurse Practitioner (FNP-BC) and Chiropractor (DC), presents insights on how our multidisciplinary team is dedicated to holistic healing and personalized care. Our practice aligns with evidence-based treatment protocols inspired by integrative medicine principles, similar to those on this site and on our family practice-based chiromed.com site, focusing on naturally restoring health for patients of all ages.
Our areas of multidisciplinary practice include Wellness & Nutrition, Chronic Pain, Personal Injury, Auto Accident Care, Work Injuries, Back Injury, Low Back Pain, Neck Pain, Migraine Headaches, Sports Injuries, Severe Sciatica, Scoliosis, Complex Herniated Discs, Fibromyalgia, Chronic Pain, Complex Injuries, Stress Management, Functional Medicine Treatments, and in-scope care protocols.
Our information scope is multidisciplinary, focusing on musculoskeletal and physical medicine; wellness; contributing etiological viscerosomatic disturbances within clinical presentations; associated somato-visceral reflex clinical dynamics; subluxation complexes; sensitive health issues; and functional medicine articles, topics, and discussions.
We provide and present clinical collaboration with specialists from various disciplines. Each specialist follows their professional scope of practice and licensure jurisdiction. We use functional health & wellness protocols to treat and support care for musculoskeletal injuries or disorders.
Our videos, posts, topics, and insights address clinical matters and issues that directly or indirectly relate to our clinical scope of practice.
Our office has made a reasonable effort to provide supportive citations and has identified relevant research studies that support our posts. We provide copies of supporting research studies upon request to regulatory boards and the public.
For further discussion on how this information relates to specific care plans or treatment protocols, please ask Dr. Alex Jimenez, DC, APRN, FNP-BC, or contact us at 915-850-0900.
We are here to help you and your family.
Blessings
Dr. Alex Jimenez DC, MSACP, APRN, FNP-BC*, CCST, IFMCP, CFMP, ATN
Email: coach@elpasofunctionalmedicine.com
Multidisciplinary Licensing & Board Certifications:
Licensed as a Doctor of Chiropractic (DC) in Texas & New Mexico*
Chiropractic Licenses:
Texas DC License #: TX5807, Verified: TX5807
New Mexico DC License #: NM-DC2182, Verified: NM-DC2182
Nurse Practitioner Licenses:
Texas APRN License #: 1191402, Verified: 1191402 *
New Mexico CNP License #: 90560, Verified 90560
Florida APRN License #: 11043890, Verified: APRN11043890 *
Colorado License #: C-APN.0105610-C-NP, Verified: C-APN.0105610-C-NP
New York License #: N25929, Verified N25929
Georgia APRN License #: GAA-NP005701
Multi-State Advanced Practice Registered Nurse (APRN*) Texas & Multi-States
Multi-state Compact APRN License by Endorsement (43 States)
Compact Status: Multi-State License: Authorized to Practice in 43 States*
Nursing Licensure Compact: Updated Here
DEA Registration: (Drug Enforcement Agency Registered)
All medical (MDs) and family practice providers (FNP-APRN) are registered and licensed to offer various levels of medication.
Verify Providers' DEA Registration Here
License Verification Link: Nursys License Verifier
* Prescriptive Authority Authorized (DEA Registered Providers). Call if Required
Board Certification:
ANCC FNP-BC: Board Certified Nurse Practitioner*
Education:
Graduate with Honors: ICHS: MSN-FNP (Family Nurse Practitioner Program)
Degree Granted. Master's in Family Practice, MSN Diploma (Cum Laude)
Dr. Alex Jimenez, DC, APRN, FNP-BC*, CFMP, IFMCP, ATN, CCST
(Board Certified: Family Practice Nurse Practitioner—Multistate)*
(Licensed Nurse Practitioner & Chiropractor - Multistate)*
Clinical Director
DC & FNP License (Review Above)
Digital Business Card
NPI: 1205907805
Dr. Maria Cardenas, MD
(Board Certified: Internal Medicine)
(Licensed Medical Doctor)
Medical Director, Clinical Director & Collaborative Physician
NPI # 1164426748
MD License #: J2933
Licenses and Board Certifications:
MD: Medical Doctor
DC: Doctor of Chiropractic
APRNP: Advanced Practice Registered Nurse
FNP-BC: Family Practice Specialization (Multi-State Board Certified)
FNP-BC: Family Practice Across Life Span (Neonatal to Geriatrics)
RN: Registered Nurse (Multi-State Compact License)
CFMP: Certified Functional Medicine Provider
MSN-FNP: Master of Science in Family Practice Medicine
MSACP: Master of Science in Advanced Clinical Practice
IFMCP: Institute of Functional Medicine
CCST: Certified Chiropractic Spinal Trauma
ATN: Advanced Translational Neutrogenomics
Family with Primary Care Focus (Family Nurse Practitioner or FNP)
Memberships & Associations:
TCA: Texas Chiropractic Association: Member ID: 104311
TNA: Texas Nurse Association: Member ID: 06458222
TNP: Texas Nurse Practitioner Association ID: 2025091511
AANP: American Association of Nurse Practitioners: Member ID: 2198960
ANA: American Nurses Association: Member ID: 06458222 (District TX01)
| Primary Taxonomy | Selected Taxonomy | State | License Number |
|---|---|---|---|
| No | 111N00000X - Chiropractor | NM | DC2182 |
| Yes | 111N00000X - Chiropractor | TX | DC5807 |
| Yes | 363LF0000X - Nurse Practitioner - Family | TX | 1191402 |
| Yes | 363LF0000X - Nurse Practitioner - Family | FL | 11043890 |
| Yes | 363LF0000X - Nurse Practitioner - Family | CO | C-APN.0105610-C-NP |
| Yes | 363LF0000X - Nurse Practitioner - Family | NY | N25929 |
| Yes | 363LF0000X - Nurse Practitioner - Family | NM | 90560 |
| Yes | 363LF0000X - Nurse Practitioner - Family | GA | GAA-NP005701 |
Dr. Alex Jimenez, DC, APRN, FNP-BC*, CFMP, IFMCP, ATN, CCST
(Board Certified: Family Practice Nurse Practitioner—Multistate)*
(Primary Care Across Lifespan—Neonatal / Pediatric / Adult / Geriatrics)
(Licensed Nurse Practitioner & Chiropractor - Multistate)*
Clinical Director
Digital Business Card
NPI: 1205907805
Dr. Maria Cardenas, MD
(Board Certified: Internal Medicine)*
(Licensed Medical Doctor)*
Medical Director, Clinical Director & Collaborative Physician
NPI # 1164426748
MD License #: J2933
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