Business Innovators Radio - How You Know Your Kid Needs a Chiropractor

Episode Date: February 27, 2024

Kids can be a handful. They are always into something or up to something. That’s part of being a kid! But in the midst of all the learning and growing, they are very likely putting their spine under some serious stress. And that stress can impact their health in a big way. That’s where chiropractic comes in.In this episode, Dr. Dan and Angela discuss the importance of getting kids in for a spinal check by a chiropractor from an early age for optimal nervous system function and biomechanical health. They cover the science behind kids’ tendency to ‘self-adjust’, the best age for correcting spinal issues before the spine ‘matures’, and signs for parents to watch for that may warrant a chiropractic check-up. If you have kids of any age, this one is for you!To learn more about this and other hot health topics, follow us on social media and subscribe to our WTH podcast. If you have a specific health question or would like to find out if we can help you with a personal health challenge, check out our office page or contact us at 412-369-0400/ [e-mail] always, our mission is to help you Get Healthy and Stay Healthy for a Lifetime!What the Health?!https://businessinnovatorsradio.com/what-the-health/Source: https://businessinnovatorsradio.com/how-you-know-your-kid-needs-a-chiropractor

Welcome to What the Health, where anything health is fair game as we tackle the trends and bust the myths about health and wellness. Here are your hosts, Dr. Dan and Angela Toro. And welcome to another episode of What the Health I am, Dr. Dan, here with my co-host. Angela, welcome back, everyone. Another episode here. As you guys know, we are here for informational purposes only and no way offering individualized medical advice. Always talk to your trusted health care providers. But today, not really necessarily.

I am the trusted health provider today. We're talking about a cool Cairo case study, chiro adolescent. I keep joking with Aaron and I want to be called the adolescent spinal specialist. Put that acronym into place, Dr. A.S. Exactly. And we call you sometimes. Yes, I get called that many times under people's breath in the office.

We have a good time. way. This was a really cool case that, like you said right before we were ready to jump on, that this dad recognized his teenage son who has a long history of concussion head trauma, does play baseball and, you know, other sports. Snowboarding, yeah. And so, you know, just one of those kids, which we know, a lot of, you know, a lot of young, you know, boys. boys and girls just go all in when they're playing and just, you know, there's no, there's no off switch or power, you know, throttle button. It's just, you know, all in full force. And so over the years, you know, he's had headaches on and off. They seem to be getting

a lot more regular and more severe in the last six months. And is that also noticed that he started doing this thing with his neck where he, you know, kind of throw his neck to the side and basically try cracking his neck and parents. We have all seen this with, you know, young kids. I'm telling you, when I go to, you know, any type of public event and there's, you know, kids around. They're all sitting there. Oh, my gosh, you can't tell you.

I just got done coaching basketball. And there was one or two kids on the team that I noticed. It was like, you know, they're rolling their shoulders back and they're whipping their head side to side. And, you know, it's that is a telltale sign that there is something going on. neurologically and or biomechanically in the spine that kids are trying to self-adjust and self-correct. And, you know, I always talk about this, this idea of proprioception, right? So, proprioception is the concept that your body knows where, you know, where it is in space. and it's very subconscious,

but if you close your eyes and put your left hand above your head, okay, I don't have to look to see that my left hand is above my head. I know that it's there, right? That the reason I know it's there is because there's receptors in the, you know, in the joints, in the tendons of the muscles. And so those receptors that are in there basically send messages up to my brain

telling me that, hey, my arm is above my head. Okay. You know, again, I can close my eyes. I can lift my toes up, push them down, bring my leg up, put it down. I know where my body is in space without having to visually see it.

That's proprioception. Now, proporeception works hand in hand with another neurological message called nociceception. And nociception is not pain, but too much nociception will put your brain over the threshold to start to recognize that there is pain there.

And so when we think of, you know, we're sitting in a desk too long, right? Or we're sitting in a chair too long. And it's like, oh, I just feel tight. I feel stiff and you go to get up. And this is where, again, we have these conversations with patients all the time. It's like, after sitting for a long time ago to get up, my knee just aches or my hip or my back or, you know, my neck is real stiff. But then I get up and I start moving around and I feel better.

And it's like, that's the concept of nocception is taking over when you're sitting. seated because you're not moving. And then you get up and then that proprioceptive messaging starts going into the brain. And proprioception inhibits nociception. So this idea of, you know, kids starting to try and swing their neck left and right and crack it, what they do, excuse me, what that's doing is it's temporarily, it's basically adding a rush of proprioceptive messaging up to the brain. Okay.

And it feels good because if your neck is stiff or your shoulders, you're tight, like, you know, it's just a quick sense of relief. And it's like, oh, okay, wow, that feels good. And it, you know, it naturally, you know, when you stretch a muscle really fast, it naturally relaxes afterwards. You know, so all of that is important that this dad recognize like, hey, you're throwing your head around a lot. He's doing it all the time. And the kid admitted in his exam process that, yeah, I probably do that. that, you know, maybe once an hour or something, but it doesn't last very long. You know, it feels good for, you know, a couple minutes, and then I feel like I have to do it again.

And there's the key, right? You feel like you have to, again, it's like it's a jolt. It's a hit, right? Yeah. It's like this, you know, this brain stimulation, you know, this noces or this perperoceptive input that it's like, oh, yeah, that felt good. But then it's like a couple minutes go by and you're right back to it. The challenge is usually the segments that you can actually get to move and make that cracking,

popping sound are segments that are already moving just fine normally, but they're very near segments that are locked up. And so when you have a segment that's locked up and not moving very well, next to a segment that's overmoving, hypermobility, that aberrant, that difference in motion, lots of motion in one segment right next to, you know, a segment that's not moving very well at all, you get this sensation of, you know, your body just doesn't know what to do with it. So it's just like these, you know, weird messages of like, you know, the segment that's locked up is creating this nociceceptive message,

but the segments that are moving are created, you know, this overstimulation of proporeceptive messaging, which is causing, you know, this stiff tight neck and, you know, can be, you know, leading to headaches. And so at the end of the day, without going too deep into that, again, Dad recognized that, hey, my son is throwing his head around a lot, and there's probably something not right about that. And so sure enough, we put this kid under our motion x-ray assessment. And the only way, I mean, the gold standard of assessing biomechanical motion of the spine is a motion x-ray. You know, you can, you know, chiropractors, you know, massage therapists, physical therapists, they're trained to palpate, right? Use your hands to feel different tightness in musculature or feel swelling in a jure.

joint or restrictions. But if you, you know, have one, you know, practitioner and, you know, you go down and you have five practitioners palpate the same person, they may come up with, like, you know, five, four or five different answers on like what area, you know, that they would maybe start working on or, you know, what area might be restricted. And so the inter-examiner reliability of palpation is not nearly as high as you put someone under a motion x-ray. And you even saw it, right? And, you know, Dr. Riley saw it. You know, someone who isn't formally trained, but you've been around it enough that you're like, that doesn't look right. So it's like, you know, and even parents, it's like I can take, you know, 60 seconds to explain what I'm looking

for. And then I show them the x-ray and they're like, yeah, that's not moving. And it's like, you know, so when we put them under the motion x-ray, it was some of the worst hypermobility in the upper cervical spine. Basically, there's, So you have seven segments that make up the cervical spine. The top three were excessively moving. Top three or four were excessively moving. And then as soon as you got from five, six, seven down, they were all very restricted with very, very little motion between those at all.

So again, you know, he was popping and, you know, trying to move his own neck around, but it was causing this hypermobility in the top part of his spine between C1 to C4. but the restriction with, you know, what he was trying to get alleviated, you know, subconsciously, was getting that C5, six, seven moving better. And again, you know, when the segments locked up versus a segment that's moving and you put a force into there, where's the motion going to go to? It's going to go to the area that's moving.

And so that's exactly what was happening. And so he was just in this vicious cycle of exacerbating the challenge. And again, we were able to pick it up within, you know, 60 seconds to two. minutes of doing this motion x-ray and reading it and, you know, and getting, you know, instantaneous, you know, data on what was going on for real. So, you know, I've really applaud, you know, dad for, you know, recognizing that, hey, something's going on here. And, you know, and interestingly enough, you know, dad was a past patient of ours and he hadn't seen them in, you know, several years. But he's like, you know, I'm going to get in touch with these guys and he brings

a son in and sure enough we'll be able to we'll definitely be able to help with that but i see this so often right because kids are very lucy-usey the technical term right so kids are very you know very mobile um they're not hyper mobile because they're design they're just you know compared to an adult they're hyper mobile they're more mobile than an adult but um you know they their spines typically move very well but um you know i see this where These segments will start to move too much, and there'll be next to segments that are locked up. And without having it properly assessed, then, I mean, it can lead to long-term issues because the spine continues to mature all the way up until about 20 to 24 years of age,

depending on if you're male or female. Females spines and, you know, the muscles and ligaments mature a little bit faster. So, you know, usually by 18 to 20 to 22, you know, their spine and skeletal structure has stopped growing. And so the ligaments have reached their tension, the muscles have reached their tension. And, you know, and then that sets the stage for the rest of their adult life. You know, men tend to be a little bit later, you know, 22, 24, 25. That's when they, you know, officially, you know, will stop growing and reach their final tension. But if you have a misalignment or reach, you know,

restriction, okay? The term we use in the office is subluxation. And it's not corrected before your spine hits that, that maturity phase. Then what happens is now your body starts recognizing the abnormal subluxation as normal for your body. Okay. And I'll ask my co-host, uh, Angela here. Do you think that would take longer or faster to correct? If you would have a with the subluxation. Oh, longer. Exactly. So, you know, your body matures with this abnormal compensation or this abnormal subluxation.

And, you know, you mature with it. Now it's going to take that much longer to correct. So I really applaud this dad. But, you know, again, this is kind of a call to action for parents who watch your kids, you know. And again, I know all of you do, but sometimes we're just going through, you know, life. And we don't even think about it. But, like, you know, another example was a dad brought his son in. He was playing soccer.

And again, same, same idea. His son's a go-getter. He's going to play hard, you know, to slide tackling. And, you know, he just got off the turf. I think he was playing indoor. He just got off the turf after a hard tackle. And he was just like, yeah, you can just see it in his face. Yeah.

Kids will never admit it. Like, oh, yeah, I'm a little sore. I'm fine. I'm going to go back in and play. But it's like, you just see it on their face. Like, something's not right. And so, you know, his dad asked me, you know, dad's also a patient. He's like, hey, should, you know, should I'm, you know, this is a

what happened, do I take them to my, you know, medical doctor or should I bring them in here? And I'm like, bring them in. If I see what's going, if I see something going on, I'm going to, you know, we're going to get corrected. And, you know, again, should correct pretty quickly. You know, you go to the medical doctor. And again, they're not as nearly as well trained when you're talking about this neuromusculous skeletal stuff and the biomechanical alignment of the body. So, you know, their first answer is, well, either, you know, wait it out, take some anti-inflammatories, You wait it out and hopefully it will get better. If that doesn't work, then, you know, maybe go to the physical therapist or that doesn't work.

Or in combination with physical therapist, then maybe you need to do some injections or something. You know, go get a cortisone injection, you know, if you go to the ortho. So, and all of that stuff is needed at different times. But in this case, the kid just got hit hard. His lower back locked up. We unlocked everything through a, you know, a series of two adjustments. And the kid was right back to, you know, playing soccer with the. after those two adjustments.

So again, it's like, you know, parents look for those signs, you know, and your kids, like if they're just walking funny, if they're... We had another one last night, too, that she called her son, said something popped in gym class. And so it started out. It was like, oh, I don't know if you need to go to the emergency room or so, yeah, it came in. And scan was all flared up. And, you know, he was limping on the way in. and he was 11 year old kid and you adjusted him and it's like he was and he even said he's like well it's not

he's like it's not normal but it feels a lot better like yeah and that's what i asked him i'm like what percentage improvement would you say that is and he's like and again he's a very intelligent kid um so you know again you can't ask those questions you're normal about a normal 11 year old I wouldn't ask that because adults can't even answer that question like what percentage improvement i like oh but yeah he's like oh probably 60 or 70 percent better yeah he was you could see it like he was walking out of here much, much better. So you're talking about a 70% improvement, you know, from a kid who was limping. Yeah. And again, mom, you know, was paying attention and she knew to, hey, bring them in right away. Like, it makes a big difference, parents, when you've got,

you know, when your kids are struggling with something, again, from a chiropractic perspective, we're going to the foundation of the spine and really the intimate relationship of the spine with the nervous system. So if, you know, the nervous system is understress, because the spine is locked up. And if we get the spine unlocked, then the nerve system calms down. Now, muscles start firing more efficiently. Joint start moving better. So just biomechanically, the body's moving better and functioning at a much better level.

And again, there are times, you know, I adjusted one, you know, one young, young adult one adolescent several months ago. And he got a really good, got like 50 to 60 percent improvement with the one adjustment. But, you know, he's still having some nagging pain. Now, again, I told him, his parents told him, you need to take some time off of soccer, dude. And, you know, again, he didn't want to. And he just kept pushing. And he just kept having this nagging pain in the back of his leg.

Finally, he went to a, they went to an ortho or a, you know, sports med doc. And who ordered an MRI. And sure enough, he had a, you know, hamstring tear. And he's like, if you want this to heal, you need to stop playing. And you need to, you need to give it time to heal. And I think they finally decided that the cortisone injection didn't do anything. I think they are going to be doing some PRP injections, which again, I think as a wave of the future, it's finally being accepted more and more, especially for soft tissue injuries.

You know, I really feel, you know, we have a good referral relationship with a lot of, you know, local docs who are doing them. It's starting to be accepted more in mainstream medicine. But, you know, this whole idea of, hey, we're going to take your own blood or platelets and centrifuge it down and then do that and inject it back into a joint or a tendon or a muscle and allow your body to, you know, stimulate a healing response through that. That is just, I mean, that's cutting edge science. Oh, yeah.

That's cutting edge stuff. And I know you had a great experience. Yeah, saved me. Again, at the end of the day, it's not going to, you know, you still have to stop and read. Oh, yeah, you think that. Absolutely. But, but yeah, I mean, you know. what that allows someone to do with their healing response from a from a soft tissue injury is

you know really really just amazing stuff and I know a lot of people are starting to you know research and do that more and more yeah so you know with that being said that you know you still need a good you know you need a good healthy you know moving spine yeah and that's you know that's where we're the expert in trying to help people understand it's like okay yeah you can go get that shoulder injected or you can go get that hip injected but you're you know you're you're your whole pelvis is rotated left to right or your neck is, you know, completely reverse. Like, you know, no injection, no amount of injections is going to fix that. So, you know, let's start there.

And then, you know, whether we, you know, work with another doctor at the same time or switch back and forth, you know, we're able to come up with a customized plan for, you know, you and your family, you know, which is just so nice. But I love working with these kids. Oh, yeah. You know, and again, I love working with all ages, but kids just respond because they're loosey-goosey. Yes. They just respond so well to care. So within a couple of adjustments, we can see massive change and improvement in their, in their

bodies and their overall function, you know, just after a handful of adjustments. So, you know, again, adults just tend to, we have a little bit more life experience. Yeah, a little more wear and tear on the body. So, again, adults are great to work with. But, you know, seeing that stuff in kids, you know, I really wish, you know, I really wish just that everyone would know to bring their, bring their kid to a chiropractor from a very, like, establish your family with a good, you know, family chiropractor. And it's just, it's so interesting to me that like everyone will take their kid to the dentist, right? Oh, your teeth are popping through. Two years old.

It's like, all right, let's get them to the dentist. It's like if you knew how amazing, you know, your spine is intricately related to your nervous system. And you started, you know, analyzing that and fixing any of these mild subluxations, these restrictions in the spine and get them taken care of from a very, very early age and check it regularly throughout your life. And regularly could be, you know, could be once a month, it'll be once a quarter. Some people, depending on their lifestyle, you know, if you're going to. ago we've got one kid who comes in and he does bull uh was he a cow wrangling right so yeah what was it called i don't even know what the did they something in the rodeo yeah something rodeo but he

does you know like the cat where he takes the cows down you know or the calf's down so it's like you know yeah you do something like that you might need check a little bit more than once a month because you're beating the crap out of your body um we had a gentleman come in yesterday who's a a trained police officers yeah you know he went full force you know, teaching them grappling techniques and stuff. And they were like 40 hours the one week. And, you know, he was like in massive amounts of pain. And, you know, we got them, you know, probably 70, 80% better after his one adjustment.

And he asked me, which I, you know, really had to like hold my laugh. But he's like, well, what do I do to prevent this? I'm like, don't grab it. I don't know what to tell you. Like, our bodies are not designed to be put in that level of, you know, restriction. especially once again, things do change as we age. And so once you get into your 30s and beyond, like the restriction in your spine and in your joints,

it does start to change. And if you don't take action on a daily weekly basis to keep some good flexibility in there, then yes, it does degenerate. It deteriorates, unfortunately. But that doesn't mean there's not room for improvement. Yeah. Many stories of people well into their face.

50s and 60s, that's when they really take their health into their hands. You know, they've worked their career. They've raised their kids. And now it's like, all right, now it's all me. Yeah. Now I'm going to take care of myself. And again, they really, you see amazing stories of flexibility and strength and, you know, these feats being hit of, you know, people well beyond 60. But they start in their 50s or 60s. They start taking care of themselves. And now they're like, they're getting into the best shape of their life, literally, you know, in the second half or, you know, last third of their life. Yeah. So, you know, there's no time is too late. But again, it would just be so much easier on us if we started from an early age.

And, you know, we imagine, again, I had a mentor to talk to this about with his patients. It's like, imagine we start a baby. They're born into this world. Okay. And they're checked by a chiropractor. Okay. And any sort of, you know, spinal restrictions, we're able to clear up right from day one. And then we check that baby, you know, once a month or, you know, once every other

week or once a quarter throughout their, you know, throughout their life. By the time they hit that spinal maturity at 20 to 24 years of age, what is the health of that child going to be? Pretty darn good chance that they're going to be darn near optimal health. Yeah. But what we unfortunately do is the average person doesn't even start, doesn't even see a chiropractor until they're like, you know, mid 30s or 40s. And, you know, and then we wonder like, why we have all of this, you know, damage to us because it's like we've never invested in it. So yeah, I'll get off my soapbox. But again, you know, it's making sure that you have, you're going to a good practitioner who understands, you know, is able to visualize and read, you know, read X-ray. Hopefully

they're having X-ray because if you're adjusting a spine, you know, should really be looking at it, you know, and having other tools available to be able to show that your body is, in fact, progressing, you know, from visit to visit and, you know, month after month, year after year. So if any of this resonated with you, Angela didn't take a nap. No, I was here. She said that she was going to. I was listening. But yeah, thank you for allowing my soapbox.

I just wanted to share that, you know. No, I wanted you to do because, I mean, again, this just happened. This one wasn't planned. You know, we had planned to do podcasts today and this all just happened. Literally all just yesterday. So it's just, yeah, it's, no, I like when you share stuff when it's fresh and excited about it. And because, again, it's at the end of the day, we always say, It's easier to raise healthy children than to fix the correct sick adults.

So it makes it easier for everybody, like you said, if we start from a young age. And, you know, like I said, it's great that his dad brought him in at 16 and not 26 when, you know, when it's really suffering. Yeah. So, yeah, and again, it's just recognitions. And like I said, you know, parents, okay, so just tell me what to do, Dr. Dan. So, again, if you recognize that your kid, you know, is Winston. like if they're, you know, after a sporting, you know, event or, you know, after practice and they just, you know, you know, you know, you know, you know, you know, you know, you see it on their face. You see it in their energy level. So, you know, if you see that, that would be a good time to get checked. If you, you know, if you see them, yeah, if you see them, you know, trying to whip their neck around. Or like kind of doing the eye.

Yeah. Digging into their own musculature. Or they're, you know, trying to like, you know, move their lower back and, you know, bend and twist and in a forceful way, not stretching. Yeah. are really trying to, you know, move something in the spine. That's a good sign that, hey, you should get something, you know, get that checked out. You know, if you just, you know, you just feel like, you know, compared to other kids, you know, your son or daughter is more sluggish. You know, they're, you know, having attention difficulty in school. They're not sleeping. Like, that's another, you know, neurological, could be a neurological foundational issue that could be, you know, assessed and improved through chiropractic care. So, you know, all of those, you know, And if you just honestly have, you know, have your child stand in front of a mirror, you know,

and without their shirt on, if they're comfortable, depending on what age and they're, comfortable with that. Like, you can look at their shoulder height. You can look at, you know, if their head is rotated one way or another, if they're tilted one way or another. And then simply, I always say, just have them turn to the left all the way with their head and then turn to the right all the way of their head. If you see a, if you can see a noticeable difference left or right, or they can feel like, oh, yeah, have, you know, it's a lot harder to go to the left than the right.

Like, that is an obvious sign that, you know, that there is something restricted in that spine that could really be improved through, through chiropractic adjustments. So, you know, again, at the end of the day, we also have a lot of the signs in our book, you know, designed to heal. So if, you know, if you don't have a copy and would like a copy, you know, please reach out to us. We will get, get you one of those. There's a lot of good signs, you know, that we have, you know, parents look for in their kids. on when is a good time.

But at the end of the day, if you have a spine, anytime, anytime. Yeah, anytime. Yeah, any time. Yeah. You have a spine. Anytime is good. You know, just like, you know, you have teeth.

And, you know, you go to the dentist before you have cavities and start to hurt. Yeah. You don't wait until they're falling out. Exactly. So it's like, even if you're not in pain, like, hey, never been no chiropractor before. My kids never been in a chiropractor before. But I've always wondered about this. Could this be, you know, related to the spine and the nervous system?

And, you know, if you go to, you know, an honest, good, you know, practitioner, they're going to let you know if they can help. And if they can't, hopefully they'll do everything in their power to find you the right fit. So that's my Dr. Dan, you know, adolescent spinal specialist. Yes. Get your kids adjusted. Get your kids checked and adjusted when necessary. So with that being said, I'm Dr. Dan with my co-host.

Angela, you guys are interested in looking at more information or making an appointment, check out our website, Toro, T-U-R-O-Family Chiropractic.com. we have a ton of content on there. Like we always say we give out too much content, but we'd rather people have it than not. And there's an entire section on with kids and the different conditions that they might be dealing with. So again, if you need some more,

if you're that kind of research-minded, please check it out. There's so much information on there. Absolutely. And we will see you next time. Yes. Thanks, guys. You've been listening to What the Health with Dr. Dan and Angie.

Adela Toro, brought to you by Toro family chiropractic. To learn more about the resources mentioned on today's show or listen to past episodes, visit www.com.com.