Introducing Oneida Chiropractor Dr. Peter Lombardi
I grew up with Chiropractic, but I did not understand what it was really about.
I was brought up in a Chiropractic family. My father was a Chiropractor, my Aunt and Uncle were Chiropractors, my cousin is a Chiropractor and my oldest brother is a Chiropractor. You would think with that kind of lineage that I would know everything there is to know about Chiropractic, and it would be a natural progression for me to carry on the family tradition. In actuality, nothing could be further from the truth.
 While growing up I had very little idea about what my Father did. I knew that he was a Chiropractor and that many people would come to his home office with different problems, and some how what he did seemed to help them. My father was a man of few words, and did not explain to me what he was doing or how it worked. He enjoyed his work and did not want to be disturbed while he was in the office with patients. So I learned to stay away. My father did insist that our family come into the office periodically to get "checked". I never really understood what he was checking, but I always felt more relaxed after he was done. Our family was also different in a lot of ways compared to my friends. We never went to a doctor, we always ate our meals together as a family, our meals always contained fresh vegetables that we raised on our family farm, we never drank soda, we always had fresh baked bread and never Wonder Bread, we didn't have a medicine cabinet anywhere in our house, none of my brothers or sisters were vaccinated, we never had any junk food in the house, and if anyone did get a cold we would rest and get checked by my father until we were well.
When I was 15 my mother developed a nagging cough that never went away. She went to the VA hospital to have some tests done to look into this cough. They told her that she had cancer and she had about 3-6 months to live if she underwent chemotherapy. My mother tried 1 chemotherapy treatment and decided not to do anymore. Instead, she decided to eat a 100% organic Macrobiotic diet and decrease the level of stress in her life. Six months later she was still alive and seemed to have a better complexion and a less severe cough. A few months later, she got into a car accident and was unable to keep up her regimen and died a few weeks later.
At 16 years old, I had no idea why my mother developed cancer. I also began to develop a skeptical attitude toward Chiropractic. After all, if it was so great, then why did my mother get sick and die?
I enrolled at SUNY Oswego to study Biology. I had a love for nature and the outdoors, so Biology seemed like a wise field of study. While taking an Immunology class I was assigned the topic of cancer to research for the semester. This research project was worth 50% of my grade so I put a lot of time in at the library. During my research, I discovered that cancer was the inability of the body to reproduce appropriate cells as it continually regenerates. I also found that the main causes were physical traumas, emotional stress, chemical exposure, genetic mutation, and unknown. This caused me to reflect on my mother's life...
 At the end of that semester I went home and picked up my father and drove to Florida where my brother was a Chiropractor. We stopped at his office to see him when we arrived. While waiting in his reception area I picked up one of his brochures that described Chiropractic. It described something called a Subluxation. It said that the spine could go out of alignment and cause pressure on the nervous system. It also said that subluxations were caused by physical, emotional and chemical stress.
At that point everything seemed to make sense. You see, my mother had a diving accident as a teen and severely injured her neck. I remembered how the skin across the back of her neck was always dry and flaky. I also remember that my father would adjust my mother all the time and it seemed to help her tremendously. It also made sense to me that when my mother changed her lifestyle that her body began to function more normally. That was the day that I decided to become a Chiropractor. I wanted to teach the world that a healthy lifestyle and a healthy nervous system was the best way to achieve optimum health.
After I graduated from SUNY Oswego with a BS in Biology I enrolled at New York Chiropractic College in Seneca Falls, NY. I graduated from New York Chiropractic College in December of 1995.
My practice has changed dramatically over the past 16 years. Initially, I treated patients like they taught us in school. This usually consisted of the "how do you feel now?" approach. Unfortunately, this was symptomatic treatment and crisis management. People in our society are very familiar with this type of care because this is exactly what medical doctors do. They wait until problems are so severe that the person cannot tolerate it anymore and become desperate to try anything to feel better. Not a very wise way to live.
Through the years, we have transitioned the practice to educate our practice members on how to live healthier lives naturally. All of our office procedures have been developed with this fundamental principle in mind. Since our bodies are self-healing and self-regulating, if someone is not expressing 100% health there has to be something that is throwing off this delicate balance. We first look to the nervous system because it is the master system of the body. It controls and regulates all of the body's functions. If there exists interference to the nervous system then we develop a plan to correct that interference as well as what created the interference.
We encourage all of our practice members to engage in regular physical exercise, eat healthy foods, take supplements to fill in the gaps where diets may be weak, drink adequate amounts of clean water, rest properly, engage in healthy relationships, mature spiritually, and most importantly to get themselves and their families checked for nerve interference (subluxations).
I met my wife Sandy in college at Oswego. We dated while I went to Chiropractic College, and we married in 1996 after graduation. Sandy and I have three boys, Nathan, Luke and Timothy. Seven years later we were blessed with our daughter Grace. They are full of life and an abundance of energy! Our family spends a great deal of our spare time enjoying outdoor activities such as hiking, camping, fishing, berry picking and gardening. There is something about being in the outdoors that just makes me feel connected to something bigger than all of us. I want my kids to have that same connection. By the way, our children have never been vaccinated (and attend public school), have never received any medications and have never needed to see a Pediatrician for a sick child visit. If this sounds interesting to you, please don't hesitate to ask questions and visit our information center.
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Leslie Zimmerman has been part of the Lombardi Chiropractic team since 2006. Leslie and her husband Marc have one daughter, Amelia, who was born in August of 2010. Leslie is a loving and dedicated mom who received chiropractic care throughout her pregnancy, during her labor and had Amelia adjusted the next day. Amelia has been a special part of our team as she came to work with Leslie for her first year of life so she could reap the benefits of breastfeeding and bonding with mom. Leslie is a co-leader of the Pathways Connect Group for moms and enjoys her work as our Team Leader. Not a day goes by that she doesn’t experience a person becoming healthier through Chiropractic. She realizes that this is making her community a better 
Sandy Lombardi brings her gift of teaching and compassion for others to our practice members and community. She co-leads our Pathways Connect Group to support, educate and empower mothers as they strive to bring greater health to their families. She also coordinates educational workshops, brings our team to area events to share our mission, and pampers our members with our much loved, Ladies Night, that is held twice each year. She and Dr. Pete have three wonderful boys and sweet, little Grace.