Our Approach with Spectrum Children. Chiropractic’s role in ADHD, OCD, Anxiety, Depression, and Autism.
Being a parent of a child who struggles with spectrum or sensory processing disorder/sensory disorder can be frustrating and challenging. Many moms and dads are met with multiple doctor’s visit, and for many the best they have to hope for is to get a diagnosis that helps them get insurance coverage for their child, medications that don’t work very well or no medications are indicated, and to swallow the reality that life will be different for your child. This leaves many parents to turn into advocate warriors for their children and to look towards other sources of help outside of traditional western medicine. Luckily, it is well known that therapies such as physical therapy, speech therapy, occupational therapy, nutritional therapy and rehab medicine are starting to fill in the gaps in this ever-expanding issue. There is one more intervention that helps reconnect our children’s nervous system at a very deep level. That is pediatric chiropractic. If you haven’t already, see our sensory processing disorder page here where we explain the neurology behind sensory process and spectrum disorders in detail in relation to chiropractic.
What we would like to do in this blog post is to explain CJ Chiropractic’s approach to sensory processing disorder’s, spectrum disorders, and others such as OCD and even anxiety and depression.
Every clinic is different and level of expertise is also different. We believe that we have come up with a comprehensive approach to children with these issues and have seen great clinical outcomes for 7 years now. There are areas where we work with other providers to get more detailed advice and care in their specific fields. We hope you find our process hope inspiring!
Neuro-Scans
Neuro-scans are a big part of our evaluation for all of our patients but is extremely helpful in evaluating a child with sensory-processing or spectrum conditions. They are a non-intrusive exam and gives our doctors a ton of data in how their nervous system is functioning and how to help! There are 3 different tests that we perform in our office.
Heart Rate Variability (HRV)
This is the first neuro-scan we perform in our office after our doctors go through a detailed history of your child or yourself. This scan measures the length of time from one heartbeat to the next heartbeat. Many are surprised that your heartbeat is not symmetrical, but rather varies from beat to beat to adapt to your environment. This is extremely valuable as if this was not the case, as we would go to stand up and start walking, our heart wouldn’t naturally speed up its output to match the demand of oxygen that the body needs. In fact the more variable within a specific range (measured from studies) the healthier a person is. This detects any imbalance in the autonomic nervous system and how much reserve energy/activity the nervous system has available to adapt to their environment. The Cleveland Clinic explains HRV nicely here.
Children who struggle with sensory processing or spectrum disorders often have low HRV scores. This makes sense as many of the symptoms of children with these conditions are impulsivity, big emotional responses without good emotional regulation, gut and immune system challenges, and social emotional challenges. All of these symptoms can be contributed to an imbalanced autonomic nervous system (namely decreased Vagus N function = rest, digest, social-emotional nerve). We use these findings to measure how adaptable a child is and their ability to heal and respond to care. Many parents can get rapped up in doing so many therapies and nutritional supplements, which are all good, but their child doesn’t have the energy to respond or take all of this good therapy and use it effectively. This is a big finding in our office and helps coordinate what is the best course of action for each child individually.
Thermography
Thermography has been used in chiropractic for a very long time. The technology to capture this data has vastly improved over the decades. Thermography allows us to capture infrared heat that is coming off of the body. Temperature regulation is one of the basic functions that the autonomic nervous system is in charge of as we are warm blooded humans. The way temperature regulation happens is by Vaso-dilation (making the blood vessels bigger) or by Vaso-constriction (making the blood vessels smaller).
We talk a lot about how chiropractic subluxations can cause disruption in the sensory nervous system on our main page Sensory Processing Disorder. This disruption in the sensory system makes it difficult for our autonomic nervous system to coordinate temperature regulation well. For this reason, thermography detects incoordination of the autonomic nervous system at a local level along the neuro-spinal system. This is a big red flag that there is interference in the sensory system around this area. Not only this, but the same nerve root that regulates local temperature regulation of the skin travels further to other organ systems associated with the spinal level that it is coming from. This explains why a child’s gut, immune system, sugar regulation, lung function and liver and kidney function could be less than optimal depending on where the autonomic nervous system incoordination is located.
There are degrees of severity of incoordination in the autonomic nervous system and can tell us how deep the chiropractic subluxation is rooted into the child’s nervous system. Please refer to our Sensory Processing Disorder page to see the effects of the chiropractic subluxation and how it contributes/cause sensory processing disorders and spectrum disorders.
Electromyography (EMG)
EMG measures the amount of electrical energy coming out of the muscles in a specific area. This is relevant to our chiropractors at CJ Chiropractic and your child because it gives us insight into how efficient, coordinated, and active your child’s nervous system is. This test is not able to use until your child is about 4 years old due to compliance, but patients that we are able to perform this test on and struggle with sensory processing disorders and spectrum disorders tend to show very high energy states.
In a balanced nervous system, the body is extremely effective at holding itself against gravity. However, if chiropractic subluxations are present, the sensory nervous system is load, incorrect, and can be noxious to the brain. Due to a lack of good information and an excess of noisy information, the neuro-motor system is affected. If there is a lot of noise coming into the brain, then there will be a lot of activity that comes out! This is why when your sensory child runs around the room like a crazy kid, they are really trying to release the extra noise in their nervous system and calm their brain down. This is also why screens seem to “calm down” your child’s brain. When in reality, the screen stimulation is matching the speed of your child’s amped up brain. Hense the melt down when the screen turns off. This scan allows our chiropractors to see areas of excess energy and inefficiencies and coordinate their adjustments for your child to bring a state of ease to their nervous system.
2. Chiropractic
Chiropractic adjustments are our bread and butter! There are many ways to practice chiropractic such as sports chiropractic, more of a physical therapist view, personal injury, and many more. All of these types of practices are great! We specialize in a foundation of neurological chiropractic. This specialty training allows us to apply the chiropractic adjustment for the purposes of improving neurological function. This is what excites our doctors, and we enjoy seeing patients’ health change in ways that you would expect to in a functional medicine setting but doing so from a functional neurological standpoint. This includes sensory processing disorders, spectrum disorders, anxiety and depression patients which is one of our highest passion patients.
Take a look at our technique page to see the type of chiropractic adjustments we deliver in our office. You see they are all safe, effective, and gentile. If you feel that your child’s nervous system is wound up (or if you feel like your nervous system is wound up), the chiropractic adjustment is one of the most potent relaxing stimulants for your child’s nervous system.
3. Nutrition
Nutrition is undoubtedly an important part in helping children with sensory processing disorders and spectrum disorders. A healthy rounded diet should be a top priority for any child but especially for these children. What happens if your child only likes mac and cheese and refuses to eat anything you set in front of them due to their condition (we feel you parents!)? This could be due to myo-facial struggles, phycological issues, or other struggles. This is where we work with other doctors and therapists such as physical therapists, occupational therapists, speech therapists, and councilors to practice getting your child to broaden their normal diet.
Nutritional supplements are also very useful to help increase certain nutritional components that help children with sensory processing disorders and spectrum disorders. Our chiropractors look at organ systems that need to improve function to help your child flourish!
Gut- peracetic and yeast infection needs to be addressed and corrected with gut protocols to bring balance to the micro-biome in their gut. Due to decreased vagus nerve tone, gut motility was slowed down which allowed poop to not get out of their body, leading to bad bugs to take over. The gut becomes inflamed and puts a toxic stress on the central nervous system, making their sensory issues worse, and then the nervous system stress further disrupts gut function. And so goes on the cascade.
Histamine- The result of an over active immune system. Children with sensory processing and spectrum disorders often have a hyper-active, systemic immune responses. Essentially, everything is inflamed throughout their body which will also affect the immune system cells located in the brain! Increase in chronic inflammation puts stress on the nervous system and can even cause neuron cells to die. We take care of this with different products, but we really love Antronex and Super EFF from Standard Process.
Protomorphagens (PMG): PMG’s used to be called organ therapy or oral therapy by naturopaths. PMG’s are little nuclear proteins that your body tissues release into the surrounding fluids. This is increased when a tissue is injured or inflamed. If too much of this PMG protein is released, the immune system will start to create antibodies for the PMG. This can cause an auto-immune response to the tissue that is in question. By consuming PMG’s, the antibodies will bind with the ingested PMG instead of the organ that we are trying to heal. This is a big game changer in a nutritional protocol that we provide for our kids with sensory processing and spectrum disorders by providing Neurotrophin PMG or Neuroplex by Standard Process. Click here for more information about PMG’s from Dr. Royal Lee, founder of the Standard Process Company.
Other specific recommendations. Healing with a provider is a relationship. Every child is different and things change over time. Once one system heals and starts to function better, another system is ready to be worked on until the body as a whole finds homeostasis/balance. The beauty of working with a chiropractor with a care plan is that we are able to evaluate and adjust your child’s care plan on the fly as their body and health state changes over time.
Primitive Reflexes
Primitive reflexes are present when your child is a newborn. These are essential for your kids survival as they allow them to now be able to roll over and suffocate tummy down, be able to hang on to mom by flexing their hands and feet, stimulate feeding behavior when they feel like they are close to mom, amongst other things. As your child matures and their nervous system is ready to move on to more sophisticated activities such as rolling, crawling, and walking; these primitive reflexes need to be exhausted out. As primitive reflexes go away, it also gives access to higher brain centers. This is why gross motor function is the cornerstone of further fine motor, speech, and cognitive development. In fact, so much so that a delay in gross motor function will delay the development of other neurological functions!
With injury, such as birth injury, sickness, certain shots…, or normal childhood injuries, it can reinstate primitive reflexes. When primitive reflexes are active it will lock a child’s nervous system into a more “baby like” state. Hind brain activity is dominate which leads to more impulsivity, heightened emotions, and decreases their ability to think with more cognitive brain centers. So yes you are not crazy parents when you feel like you are talking to a brick wall with your kids if this is happening. Your child is looking for their next need or threat, and not really thinking about “why did that happen” or “why did I feel that way” when your trying to reason with them.
We test and guide parents to stimulate existing primitive reflexes at home to help exhaust these reflexes out and help unlock their child’s higher cognitive abilities.
4. Follow-up and Refer When Needed
Health is a journey and sometimes a marathon. Our society is trained to believe that if you can get a diagnosis then you can do “x” treatment and see almost immediate effects. As we have come to learn, this is far from the truth. The innovation of western medicine is awe inspiring, that in extreme cases, pharmaceuticals can drastically change the symptomatic expression of a dis-ease process. This has saved many lives as many diseases can kill or permanently injure the body due to its drastic response to the dis-ease process. However, rarely do pharmaceuticals treat or fix anything. It’s the patient’s body that heals, and pharmaceuticals can be a tool to keep an overreaction process at bay until the body gains momentum in the healing process.
True healing, fixing the root cause of dis-ease, is a process. It doesn’t happen overnight, and this is apparent with children struggling with sensory processing disorder or spectrum disorders. As of right now, there are few options in western medicine for spectrum disorders and sensory processing disorders. This leaves parents frustrated and why you are reading a blog on a chiropractor’s website about your child’s struggles. Take heart! There is hope for your child. These struggles can be improved, and your child can live a good, full filling life. It is our mission to help children and their families thrive and we are honored to help children with these struggles as it makes a huge impact in your family. With the approach we use in our office, our hope is to be able to guide parents in decision making and do the most impactful thing for your child, have the perfect referral when indicated and at the right time. Your child’s journey is a marathon, and we know that.
Thank you for visiting us and reading our 4th blog. If you have any questions for our chiropractors here at CJ Chiropractic, please feel free to call us at 719-445-0806 or to fill out our contact us page and we will get back to you. Check out our other blogs below!
