Why I do this

I sat in class as a first-year osteopathic medical student with the same ache in my back and hips I had carried for as long as I could remember. I would twist one way and a series of pops would run up my spine. Twist the other way and they would happen again. Then my neck.

I had been trying to solve that since I was a kid, looking for corners of desks and walls that stuck out far enough to dig into the places I could not reach. Nothing worked for long. Sitting in that chair, it occurred to me that if I could not fix myself, I had no business expecting to fix anyone else.

Early in my training I found a physician whose approach was different. Subtle, mostly light touch, and on the surface it looked like intuition. Then I heard him reason through a case and understood it was nothing of the kind. It was a systematic application of anatomy.

I went to him as a patient. Whole regions of my body woke up. Areas let go that had never let go. A few visits in, I was sitting in class waiting for the familiar discomfort and it did not arrive. I twisted to test it and nothing happened. That was over a decade ago and I have not needed to pop my back since. When the sensation does start now, I take it as information that something needs resolving.

That is the whole reason I work the way I do. A muscle in spasm is not the problem. It is a report about a problem. The job is to find what it is reporting.

Then my daughter

The tongue and airway work, the part of my practice I am now best known for, did not come from a textbook. It came from watching what changed in my own daughter after a release, and then from having one myself and feeling it in my own body.

That sent me looking at how the tongue connects to everything else, which turned into lectures at national conventions, a set of courses, and a book in progress. It also explains why I treat patients of every age, from newborns to seniors. The same anatomy is doing the same work at both ends of a life.

How I got here

I am a Colorado native and a graduate of Regis Jesuit High School. I was first introduced to osteopathy as a swimmer at Truman State University in Kirksville, Missouri, which happens to be the birthplace of the profession, and where I earned my B.S. in Biology.

I graduated from Midwestern University Arizona College of Osteopathic Medicine in 2007. While in Arizona I studied Neurofascial Release with my mentor, Stephen Myles Davidson, DO, whose influence runs through everything I teach. I completed my internship at Mercy Hospital in Portland, Maine, and the remaining two years of residency at Plaza Medical Center in Fort Worth, associated with the Texas College of Osteopathic Medicine.

I practiced in New York City for six years before returning home to Colorado in 2016. In 2022 I co-founded Inspire Osteopathy Denver with Dr. Sarah Curtis. I am also a certified instructor in Primal Reflex Release Technique.

I live in Denver with my wife, our two daughters, and our pets.

What I write and teach

I have written Digging Deeper, Unwinding the Body, and An Osteopathic Approach to the Eyes, with a book on the jaw, face, and head in progress. I teach clinical courses internationally to physicians, physical therapists, acupuncturists, and dentists.

What runs through all of it is a preference for evaluation over technique. Most manual therapy asks what to do about a finding. I am more interested in how you decide where to look in the first place, and in being clear about which parts of what I teach are established anatomy and which are mechanisms I am proposing. Those are different things and I try never to blur them.

Selected talks and publications

• Lopez D, King HH, Knebl JA, Kosmopoulos V, Collins D, Patterson RM. Effects of Comprehensive Osteopathic Manipulative Treatment on Balance in Elderly Patients: A Pilot Study. Journal of the American Osteopathic Association, 2011;111(6):382–388.

• Lectures on the tongue and airway at national osteopathic conventions

• Speaker for Vivos Therapeutics, the Colorado TOTS group, the International Association of Orofacial Myology, and Airway Circle

• Guest on the Untethered Podcast, the Airway and Facial Development Collaboration, and Breastfeeding Talk

• Contributor to GloWell and Best Ever You magazines

Looking for treatment?

I see patients of all ages at Inspire Osteopathy Denver, 1777 S Bellaire St #185, Denver, CO 80222.

[Visit the practice website and schedule an appointment with Dr. Lopez here]

A practitioner?

I teach courses for physicians, physical therapists, acupuncturists, and dentists. There is also a free class for DOs and osteopathic students.

[ SEE THE COURSES ]

Not sure where to start?

The writing is free and there is a lot of it.

[ READ THE BLOG ]