We bring a very unique approach to health care not offered by any other kind of practitioner. We are not only distinctly different from traditional pediatricians and medical doctors, but we also differ from natural medicine, functional medicine, wellness doctors, and traditional movement-based therapies like PT and OT. What makes pediatric chiropractic most unique is our 100% focus on the central and autonomic nervous systems. The nervous system is an intricate network that encompasses the brain, brainstem, spinal cord, and millions of nerves that branch from the NeuroSpinal network to every tissue, organ, and cell in the body.

Dr. Bruce Lipton describes it this way:

“The function of the nervous system is to perceive the environment and coordinate the behavior of all other cells.”

Meaning the nervous system is the “boss” or, as we like to say, the “mom” of the body. Moms know everything, coordinate everything, keep it all organized, and keep it moving at all times. Get in a mom’s way, and everyone suffers.That’s what chiropractors work with – the thing that gets in the way. Pediatric Experience Chiropractors are the only doctors on the planet who really understand the true root cause of what causes our kids to get so sick and stressed. Because of that, they understand exactly what it takes to restore health to a child who has lost it (no matter the condition or diagnosis). Furthermore, for wellness patients and families, we help preserve, protect, and promote that good health. So what’s that “root root” cause of our kids’ chronic illness and struggles these days? We call it “The Perfect Storm” – a phrase coined by Dr. Tony Ebel all the way back in 2008 when he first started to notice that before environmental stressors like toxins (gluten, dairy, medications, vaccinations, etc.) showed up in a child’s life, two (2) other major elements had already occurred for 90% of their sick and struggling patients:

1. 1. Prenatal + Maternal Stress
2. Birth Intervention + Trauma

Those two things show up in 80-90% of cases of colic, reflux, constipation eczema, ear infections, RSV, croup, etc., in infants. From there, pediatricians continue to inappropriately tell parents they’ll “grow out of it,” and the truth is, they don’t. Because those two early life and neurodevelopmental stressors trigger what’s known as subluxation, where the central nervous system “shifts” to running on sympathetic fight-or-flight mode almost exclusively, over time, this leads to another condition called dysautonomia.

Because subluxation, dysautonomia, and the function of the nervous system are the “missing link” that very few parents know about yet, and because it’s the single most important element of our health (even more important than diet, detoxes, etc.)… it’s the core foundational focus of all Pediatric Experience Chiropractors. It doesn’t matter if your child struggles with digestive, immune, neurological, behavioral, emotional, focus, or really any challenge – give Pediatric Experience Chiropractors a chance to help! When you focus on the one system that makes every other system work, you get incredible benefits. Just look at this chart below indicating all the positive changes our pediatric patients experience when under neurologically-focused care!

If you’re interested in getting started, learn more about the PX Clinical Process here.

While no one loves to talk neurology, science, and technology quite like our PX Docs crew – we’re going to keep this one super simple for you. 

Our INSiGHT Scans measure one thing – stress. 

The nerd terms for that stress on the nervous system are subluxation and dysautonomia. But, all you need to know is that when your child’s nervous system is stressed out and stuck in fight-or-flight mode at all times – it cannot develop appropriately, fight off illness, control gut function, or stay healthy. 

Our INSiGHT Scans do three (3) very important things for us: 

1. Find out if your child’s nervous system is sick, stressed, and subluxated or not
2. If so, quantify and measure how much stress and subluxation is there and how long it’s likely been there 
3. If so, locate and help us track down exactly where the subluxations (stress and interference) are within the NeuroSpinal System 

The other great thing about our INSiGHT Scans is that, unlike the majority of medical testing, it’s so easy, painless, fast, and simple. It takes only 15-20 minutes in most cases. Since the scans are reading and receiving neurological information from the body, there is absolutely no radiation or input at all like an X-ray, MRI, or CT scan would have.

Once your child’s PX Doc has your child’s INSiGHT Scans, they can sit down with you at that Report of Findings visit and lay out a fully personalized and customized Care Plan for your child. The PX Doc Care Plan will let you know exactly how long it will take to restore your child’s neurological health, how many adjustments, and exactly what to watch for and expect along the way! It’s through our INSiGHT Scans that we truly can provide you with the Hope, Answers, and Help you’ve been looking for all along! 

Like we did with the INSiGHT Scans question above, we’ll keep it nice and simple on this one! Your PX Doc will provide more technical explanations and demonstrations before you get started with care, but this answer will help you understand exactly what an adjustment does (and does not) do! 

The coolest thing about a neurologically-focused adjustment is that it essentially does two things at the same time: 

1. It reduces and releases that built-up stress and tension (subluxation) 
2. It activates and stimulates the healing capacity of the body by bringing the autonomic nervous system back into balance 

The adjustment is not the fix and certainly not the cure. The only way the body heals, restores, and cures, is on its own. But, it can’t get that job done with interference to the master control system that organizes and controls all that healing and health promotion – the central and autonomic nervous system. Think of the adjustment as the “catalyst” or “jump-start” to the neurological healing that has been stuck and limited inside your child, likely since birth. 

Done in the Neuro-Tonal Model that our PX Docs are trained in, adjustments do not hurt, and they do not have any side effects either. In fact, we always like to share that any “side effects” we do have are all good! Most parents report that their child sleeps better and has a better gut and immune function after getting care, even if those were not the original issues they sought our care for in the first place! 

Yet another awesome thing about chiropractic is how fast the adjustment process can be and always should be.

While many other amazing helpful options like physical therapy, occupational therapy, speech therapy, ABA, counseling, and so forth can take an hour or more per appointment… adjustments literally take 5-10 minutes, so frequency over time, building momentum during the healing process is key!  That’s because when you know exactly where and how to address the central nervous system with a Neuro-Tonal Adjustment, you can get a ton of positive change happening in a matter of a few minutes! 

Now the one tricky thing we are always upfront with parents about is that while the adjustments themselves don’t take long per visit, most kids are so stressed and subluxated – that they need a high frequency of adjustments starting out. 

This can vary from 1-2x per day for the toughest of neurological disorders (autism, epilepsy, etc.) to just 2-3x per week for more common things like Sensory Processing Disorder, Sleep Challenges, Constipation, and so forth!  Neuro-Tonal adjustments are so easy and relaxing many infants fall asleep during them, and many other kids can’t get enough, even fighting with their siblings to hop on the table first and not wanting to get off once the adjustment is done! In the beginning, there is a “getting to know you period,” and children with severe stress can be uncomfortable for a short period of time when they are adapting to change.

The answer to this one really depends on the condition and its severity and chronicity, which our PX Docs can measure through their INSiGHT Scans described above. But, to cut right to it, for most kids, it doesn’t take long at all to start seeing positive changes and results! We thoroughly assess each visit and are in communication with you regularly. The first changes we look for and typically see observation and are what we call neurological “soft” signs. These are things like improvements in sleep, digestive motility, immune function, motor planning, coordination, and emotional regulation. 

Your PX Doc will communicate with you all along the way as to what changes to really look for in your child, when they may occur, and what they mean. Additionally, the most important thing we look for to confirm we’re on the right track and headed towards amazing results is once again within our INSiGHT Scans! One of the other incredible things about the scans being so fast, easy, non-invasive, and affordable is that we can run them on a regular basis. 

Your PX Doc will run a Progress Scan on your child every 2-6 weeks (or 3-6 months for wellness patients) and, in doing so, ensure that neurological healing and restoration are occurring right on pace and as expected! One thing we always notice, especially in tougher cases or older grade school and teenage cases, is that the INSiGHT Scans will often start to see change and improvement before symptoms do. This can be frustrating for families, as, of course, we all want to see our children’s suffering go away immediately. But having these scans is crucial to know we’re on the right track even in tougher neurological conditions. 

One thing that can confuse parents when they start to look into Pediatric Chiropractic is that there seem to be a few different models or methods out there. Just like in the rest of health care, there are various specialties and levels of expertise. And with that can come variation in the recommendations for care. The one thing that truly does set a Pediatric Experience (PX Doc) Chiropractor apart is their understanding of what’s called neuroplasticity. Or simply put, the science of neurological health and healing. The brain is constantly learning, there is hope, each brain’s capacity is NOT fixed. No different than how it takes time, frequency, and repetition or being in class and doing homework for a child to excel in school or hundreds of hours of practice for a child to become great at a particular sport, getting and staying healthy is no different. 

The most important phase of the Care Plan at Life Alive is the starting out phase. This phase must have a high enough frequency of adjustments per week to be able to get the child’s nervous system out of that stuck and subluxated state. 

While many general family wellness chiropractors may recommend just 1-2 visits per week or something as low as one time a month or maintenance care, what we now know is that due to the high levels of stress and toxicity, we all face these days, the kind of care first developed in the 1970s and 1980s by chiropractors just doesn’t cut it. As families today, we all seem to have busier schedules than ever between school, sports, and perhaps other specialists and appointments your child may need. That is why our PX Doc offices promise to work step-by-step with you to make sure your child gets the exact level of care they need, all the while making it convenient and accessible for your whole family! 

Sadly no, not even close. 

Traditional “health” insurance has nothing to do with your child’s health, really. It’s there for urgent and crisis care, which the traditional medical system excels at. In contrast, they struggle mightily at caring for chronic health conditions and keeping kids healthy in the first place. Therefore it’s probably better to look at it as “medical” insurance more so than its traditional term, health insurance. With that, chiropractic care is only covered by insurance carriers when they deem it to be “medically necessary” care. And they’ve limited that care to adults with back pain, neck pain, auto accidents, and other injuries. The neurologically focused, health-promoting, and restoring care that Pediatric Chiropractors provide is not considered medically necessary. 

By focusing on the root cause of the problems and seeking to get kids healthy without the use of drugs and surgery, we are officially “out of the club” and not really welcomed into that highly corrupt and frustrating industry. 

On the surface, this can seem disappointing, but when you look at it differently – it is good news! Whenever medical doctors and insurance carriers get involved, they dictate and control what you can and can’t do to get your child healthy. The entire insurance system is symptom and condition and disease-label based. It does not take into account what will get a person healthier. Instead of parents making the decisions with the doctors, the insurance, who has never seen or know you does. 

Well, after a generation or two of them running the show – we’ve now got a generation of kids with more chronic illness, mental health disorders, autism, diabetes, obesity, anxiety, and depression than ever before. Your PX Doc will put together a personalized, customized care plan made just for your child. And since they don’t have to mess with all the red tape and inflated prices the insurance industry brings about, you’ll be pleasantly surprised by just how affordable chiropractic care this investment in your family’s health can be for the entire family! 

Once again, we don’t want to get too technical, but yes, this is an important element to know about. Chiropractic as a profession has over 100 different techniques, and all of them have slight differences that make them unique. However, they are more similar than they are different for the most part. 

What may surprise you is that truly, the best chiropractor you can find for your child and family is one that does not limit themselves to just one technique or two. It probably won’t surprise you to understand that every child and every condition is different and unique. As such, we can’t expect just one clinical approach to work for every child. 

That is why our PX Docs are trained to use a multitude of various adjusting techniques, using the PX Clinical Process to really hone in and decide exactly which one(s) will work best for your child! 

This is where true clinical expertise and experience come into play, and you can trust that your PX Doc is the most well-trained and prepared Pediatric Chiropractor out there for you and your child! 

Only if you get stressed out, worn out, struggle to sleep, get tension headaches, have gut and immune issues, back and neck pain, and so forth! And since most parents are full of energy and rarely get stressed out or worn out, you probably don’t need it! 

Believe us? 

Yeah, definitely just kidding. You can definitely get care from your local PX Doc as well mom and dad! 

In fact, perhaps the single most important factor in the health of our kids is this – our health. 

No matter what it is, our kids don’t really do as we say – they do as we do. 

If they see us making poor health choices and always stressed out, worn out, and sick – that’s what we can expect them to go towards as well. 

Therefore, really taking charge of your family’s health doesn’t just start with getting your child adjusted and under care with your local PX Doc, but by doing so yourself! 

Get scanned, get adjusted, and start to enjoy all the benefits of neurologically-focused chiropractic care for yourself! You literally won’t believe how good you can actually feel, even with your busy schedule and all the demands of work life, family life, and so forth. 

Is there anything more overwhelming than jumping into that “Holistic, Crunchy, Natural” Moms Facebook Group and asking for help!?! 

For real, most parents have already been through the medical system ringer of pediatricians, specialists, and 3-5 therapists before they really get online or reach out and look for a different path. And when they do, oftentimes it’s impossible to even get started because there are so many options and recommendations; it’s just flat-out overwhelming and paralyzing. 

This is yet another way your PX Doc will help hugely change your family’s life! Our docs are not just experts in the nervous system and neurological health and healing, but they are wellness doctors too. 

What may surprise you is that in nearly every single case, they’ll teach you this very important, stress-relieving (and time and money-saving) truth – less is more. When your child is really stressed out, sick, and subluxated, it’s important to actually “slow down to speed up,” and the first starting phase is crucial. The PX doc founder, Dr. Tony Ebel, says this, “After running a fully integrated, multi-faceted clinic outside of Chicago for many of his early years in practice, I discovered one key thing that very few doctors of any specialty or approach know about – the order with which we do things matters most. SEQUENCE MATTERS.

Breaking that down a bit means this – the nervous system is the boss. If your child does not have a fully functioning central and autonomic nervous system, then all of these other major systems will be dysfunctional and “offline,” so to speak: 

• Motor System – limiting the benefits of PT, OT, Speech Therapy, etc. 
• Digestive System (Gut) – limiting the benefits of detoxes, diet changes, supplements, etc. 
• Immune System – limiting the benefits of certain vitamins, supplements, essential oils, etc. 
• Mental + Emotional System – limiting the benefits of talk therapy, counseling, etc. 

What’s really exciting is that once your child gets through their Neurological Restoration Plan with your Pediatric Experience Chiropractor, it opens up a whole new pathway to health and healing for your family!