It was a tough start to what has become a lifelong desire to help people feel better. Dr. Catherine Valen was a senior in college with a double major in Mechanical Engineering and Physiology and a minor in Sports Injuries. She didn’t know it then, but it was a great introduction to what became her life path.
At the age of 21, while driving with friends, Valen was in a head-on collision. As she got out of the car, she was hit by another car. Months of appointments with specialists and surgeons left her with a prognosis of being wheelchair-bound by the time she’d be 25. Her family’s military status deprived her of access to chiropractic doctors.
About seven or eight months after the accident, guidance from a family friend led Valen’s mother to bring her to a chiropractor, who had her walking with complete control in less than a month.
Valen changed her major to premed on the spot, 14 hours from graduating with an engineering degree. She followed up by attending chiropractic college. She’s been helping people ever since.
Valen opened her doors for business on September 15, 1988. She moved to Nederland, almost sight unseen, purchasing the practice from a college friend.
Beyond chiropractic, Valen was an athletic trainer through college. She offers sports taping, kinesiology taping, traction, whole body vibration, class III and class IV laser, massage coordination with others in the facility, as well as nutrition, and homeopathy.
During Covid, Valen has test driven a new diet that has helped her lose over 80 pounds. She now offers it through the center. She chose ChiroThin after learning of a chiropractor-developed diet. She now finds herself offering and overseeing a diet plan for patients.
When asked why people should come see her, she says, “Everybody is different; sometimes I’m not going to be the right doctor for somebody, but I’ve been doing this now for 36 years and I’ve got a lot of different techniques I can claim competency in. And so I try really hard to find out what’s going to work for every patient that comes to see me. My goal is to give the treatment I wish I got when I was on the table with somebody, and to do whatever I can to help somebody.”
Valen’s favorite part of what she does is basically the instant gratification she has when seeing a patient. Valen says, “People come in hurting and they leave feeling better. Sometimes they feel fabulous, sometimes they just aren’t in as much pain.” Valen loves turning the patient’s day around and making it less painful and better. She says, “there is an awful lot of pleasure in being able to do that.”
The region covered by Nederland Chiropractic and Wellness Center is broad. Valen has regular patients from Ward to Black Hawk, Longmont, Boulder, Arvada, and other communities down the hill. She has many patients who come to Nederland from farther away, and even patients who come to see her from out of state, when they are in town visiting.
The leadership team at the Center currently includes Greg Allum, a local 30-year Eldora resident with an EMT background. He helps with patient care and running the office, sharing his years of healthcare experience with the team. Carol Koltz also works at the office, offering massage therapy through the center. Koltz brings over 40 years of experience as a massage therapist.
Right now, Valen is offering the ChiroThin diet plan, a supervised diet plan, at a 10 percent discount. In the initial six-week losing phase, Valen sees many women losing 20 to 25 pounds and men losing 30 to 35 pounds if they follow the diet plan strictly. The goal is to help with the weight loss and have it stay off.
Valen closes with a reminder that her goal is to help patients attain optimal health.
Dr. Valen is located at 20 E Lakeview Dr., Ste 205 in Nederland. She can be reached at (303) 258-7730 or by email at nederlandchiroandwellness@gmail.com
Sponsored by the Town of Nederland, with funds from the American Rescue Plan Act.
