Son joins father in 25-year-old practice
By Kelly K. Serrano
Reporter-Herald Staff Writer
From the Loveland Daily Reporter Herald 4/26/03
Christopher Tusken considered becoming a teacher, nurse or surgeon when he grew up.
But he found those careers just didn’t stack up to his father’s.
So Christopher became a chiropractor and acupuncturist — like his dad.
“I think chiropractic was what you compared everything else to,” Rhett, 53, recently said to his 27-year-old son.
Rhett said he didn’t pressure Christopher to go into chiropractic medicine but encouraged him to compare other lines of work to it.
“I kind of hoped he’d come in this direction,” Rhett said.
He said he knew he eventually would need another chiropractor at his practice and, when Christopher was a teen, he decided to keep the position open in case his son chose to follow in his footsteps.
The father and son now practice together at Tusken Chiropractic and Acupuncture, 706 N. Taft Ave.
The office, which Rhett opened in 1978, has been in business for 25 years this spring.
Unlike Christopher, who grew up getting regular adjustments, Rhett knew nothing about chiropractic when his cousin, who was studying to become a chiropractor, invited him to attend classes with him.
“I went to school with him for a few days and realized this was something I would be interested in doing,” Rhett said.
What appealed to him, he said, was “the idea that you could heal the body without putting anything in or taking anything out; just balancing what is there.”
Chiropractic is the practice of manipulating the skeletal and muscular system so that the body is in balance and working as it should.
Rhett graduated from Logan Chiropractic College in St. Louis, Mo., in 1977. He practiced for a year in Wisconsin before moving to Colorado, having fallen in love with the state after spending his summers off from college here.
“I could not live in north-central Wisconsin,” Rhett said. “I knew this is where I was going to end up.”
Rhett said when he opened his office in Loveland, the town was home to only about six other chiropractors. Within a few months, four others opened.
The population was less than 30,000.
“The competition was fierce,” he said.
Not only has the population increased — it now exceeds 50,000 — “the appeal of chiropractic has grown in the last 25 years,” Rhett said.
The Loveland area now supports more than 25 chiropractors.
Kerry Randa, who opened the fourth or fifth chiropractic office in town in 1970, said he hasn’t felt the impacts of competition.
Rather, people’s awareness of and attitude toward more natural approaches to health have increased the demand, he said.
Rhett became certified in acupuncture in 1989, when he found that patients had some problems chiropractic treatment couldn’t solve. His education included a trip to China, where he studied how doctors used acupuncture daily to heal patients or relieve pain.
He became a diplomate, a form of a graduate degree in acupuncture, with the National Certification Commission for Acupuncture and Oriental Medicine in 1998.
The idea behind acupuncture is the balance of the body’s energy, which traditional Chinese doctors call “chi.”
When someone complains about pain, it is said he or she has too much chi in the painful area. To ease the pain, the chi must be released and redirected, and this is done by piercing parts of the body with needles to either sedate or bring energy to those parts.
Acupuncture facilitates healing from a different perspective than does chiropractic, and the combination of both treatments has “a powerful synergistic effect,” Rhett said.
Christopher decided if he was going to integrate into his father’s practice, which he did in fall 2001, he needed to offer both chiropractic and acupuncture.
He also practiced acupuncture on friends in college and saw how well it worked.
“It was pretty obvious I’d have to go do this acupuncture stuff, too, because it’s really great stuff,” Christopher said. “Why limit yourself when you have a really great tool like that?”
He became a diplomate with the International Academy of Medical Acupuncture in the spring of 2002, six months after graduating from the Cleveland Chiropractic College in Kansas City, Mo.
When patients come in, Rhett and Christopher find out what ails them and decide from there whether to use chiropractic techniques, acu-puncture or both to help them, they said.
The Tuskens charge $50 for acupuncture, $30 for chiropractic treatment and $70 for both.
Randa, too, has added acupuncture to his list of services. He also is a board-certified chiropractic orthopedist, nutritionist, herbalist and strength and conditioning specialist. He also offers neuroemotional treatment, which neutralizes the emotions that cause physical problems.
“Times are changing,” Randa said of why he has added so many treatments. “A great share of my practice is not back problems; it’s health problems of all kinds.”
Randa said he always is looking for better ways to help patients heal, which is why his business thrives 33 years later.
“Most importantly, it’s helped people,” he said. “The patients, I think, kind of drive you.”
Between Rhett’s experience and Christopher’s modern education, the two are able to solve most patients’ problems, they said. And patients are comfortable seeing Christopher if Rhett isn’t available, and vice versa.
Randa said the Tuskens have a good reputation.
“Basically, they’re very good at what they do and a very good part of the community,” he said.
While Christopher is an employee right now, “we have plans for the future,” Rhett said. “Christopher is definitely going to be a partner.”
For now, Rhett takes comfort in knowing that he has help whom patients know and trust, so he can take the long vacations he dreams of.
“Christopher and I are having a lot of fun,” Rhett said.
His son added, “You can pick up on the energy, no doubt about it.”
