The Experience Miracles Podcast

Empowered parents w/ Jacqui Jakubowicz: We believe moms here!

Jan 30, 2024

Healing the Perfect Storm: Community, Care Plans, and Drug-Free Hope for Autism and Sensory Families

Episode 5 — Experience Miracles Podcast | Host: Dr. Tony Ebel, DC, CACCP — Pediatric Chiropractor & Founder of PX Docs | Published: January 30, 2023 Guest: Jacqui Jakubowicz — Chief Heart Officer, PX Docs & PWC Chiropractic

Key Takeaways

  • Jacqui Jakubowicz’s son Logan presented with sensory processing challenges, absent pain sensation, and no independent bowel/bladder control at age 5. After beginning Neurologically-Focused Chiropractic Care, he is now 14, fully mainstreamed in school, on high honor roll, playing sports, and self-advocating — outcomes his family never imagined possible.
  • The single most important factor in a child’s healing outcomes is following the complete care plan — the prescribed frequency and duration of adjustments. Neuroplasticity, the science of neurological healing, depends entirely on repetition over time; there are no shortcuts and no cookie-cutter substitutes.
  • 80% of special needs parents face divorce — a direct result of the chronic stress a Perfect Storm child places on the entire family unit. Healing must happen in community, not isolation, which is why the PX Docs model intentionally builds care advocacy and connection into the clinical environment.
  • When parents have been dismissed or disbelieved by mainstream medicine, what they need most is a provider who will say “we believe moms here” — affirming their lived experience without requiring them to justify or prove it.
  • The Neurological Intensive Program at PWC Chiropractic is a rigorous two-week program for the toughest neurological cases: TBI, intractable seizures, severe autism, and nonverbal children who have exhausted other approaches.

What Does Healing Look Like for a Perfect Storm Child?

Children diagnosed with autism, sensory processing disorder, or ADHD frequently share a common root cause: nervous system dysregulation — specifically, a nervous system locked in Sympathetic Dominance that cannot regulate digestion, sleep, motor tone, or emotional response. When Logan Jakubowicz was five years old, his family was exhausted. He wasn’t potty-trained, wasn’t feeling pain, had no consistent eye contact, and was having meltdown after meltdown. His family had tried dietary interventions (gluten-free, dairy-free), a contained classroom, speech therapy, OT, and social-emotional therapy. None of it moved the needle the way they hoped.

What changed was Neurologically-Focused Chiropractic Care — specifically, a care plan built around Logan’s INSiGHT Scan results that identified exactly where his nervous system was Subluxated and stuck in stress patterns. Unlike the cookie-cutter approaches the family had encountered before, this plan correlated directly to Logan’s individual neurology. Nine years later, Logan is 14, fully mainstreamed in school, on the high honor roll, participating in sports, and calmly self-advocating for his own needs.

What made the difference wasn’t just the chiropractic adjustments. According to Jacqui Jakubowicz, Chief Heart Officer at PX Docs and PWC Chiropractic, healing also required community — a team that said “we believe moms here,” that affirmed parents’ lived experience, and that stayed alongside the family through every plateau and breakthrough. This episode explores her family’s story, her role in guiding other families through the storm, and what parents need to know about finding the right doctor and staying the course.

How Logan’s Family Found Neurologically-Focused Chiropractic [0:01 – 9:54]

Dr. Tony Ebel, DC, CACCP: Welcome to the Experience Miracles podcast — hope, answers, and drug-free help. I have one of my favorite humans sitting alongside me today. Jacqui is a rockstar wife and mom with three brilliant boys. She has come through the storm for her boys and earned herself a position of real impact on our team. Her official title is Chief Heart Officer. We’re going to go through her story, her boys’ story, and her purpose and role in all of this. If we go back to the beginning — when chiropractic entered your lives with Logan — how did it start?

Jacqui Jakubowicz: Chiropractic entered our lives when Logan was five years old. My husband heard an ad on the radio for the Perfect Storm workshop. Something tugged at his heart, and he knew it was something we needed to explore. He told me he felt it would be a great option for Logan and he wanted to go.

Interestingly, we actually missed almost every other presenter except the one right before Dr. Tony. We almost didn’t go at all. But we went. And that day truly changed our lives. When we started hearing this man talking about the science behind the Perfect Storm, it was the very first time I felt like I was encountering a provider who actually understood what we were facing with my son.

Dr. Tony Ebel: Prior to needing that workshop and a different kind of doctor, you had been in the thick of the storm for years. You had been doing the standard things — good things — but they hadn’t gotten you where Logan needed to be.

Jacqui: No, they hadn’t. When chiropractic entered our lives, Logan was five. We had done dietary changes — gluten-free, dairy-free. He was in a contained classroom. He was getting speech therapy, OT, and social-emotional therapy. We had done a lot. And none of those things had moved the needle the way we were hoping. We knew more was possible and we were going to relentlessly pursue that.

Some of our biggest day-to-day struggles: Logan was five and not potty-trained. When you have a five-year-old who isn’t potty-trained, the world looks at you funny. They assume you’re a bad parent. But no amount of parenting was going to change that, because his body wasn’t recognizing the physiological cues to go to the bathroom. He also wasn’t feeling pain, wasn’t making eye contact, and wasn’t having normal peer interactions. He had limited communication and he was just really unhappy — meltdown after meltdown, sensory storm after sensory storm. The number one goal every parent has is for their child to be happy and relaxed in their own body. That was the goal we had for Logan.

Dr. Tony Ebel: That is exactly the perspective we take as pediatric chiropractors. We simultaneously keep our eye on the big picture — full, complete, optimal recovery — while also living each day in reality with the family. We say: this sucks, we’ve got you, let’s go to work. That’s it.

Logan’s First Visit: A Plan That Actually Fit [9:55 – 14:55]

Dr. Tony Ebel: At the end of every workshop, information has to become action. You and Lee booked your appointments. You came in, we did a deep dive on Logan’s case history, went through his INSiGHT Scans and exam findings, and made his first adjustment. On the way out of that first visit, there was a certain sign above the door.

Jacqui: I remember looking up and noticing that the door made a cross. Right above it was a sign that said “Expect Miracles.” I just knew God was doing a special work that day. I never felt more on purpose than in that moment. It was a God wink moment — and I expected a miracle. We got a couple, actually.

Dr. Tony Ebel: Logan was five years old with five years of struggle. His sensory system was dysregulated, his digestive and bowel/bladder communication was a mess. He was locked into the storm. We sat across from each other at the end of the day, went through his scans and findings and care plan, and made that first adjustment. What was that night like?

Jacqui: It was the first time I felt like somebody truly understood what we faced. When we saw his scan paired with the actual plan to achieve his restoration — the goals we had for him — the plan actually correlated to him. Everything else we had done before felt cookie-cutter. “This is what you do. Don’t expect much. We’ll see.” I hate “we’ll see,” because we saw nothing.

“When we actually saw his scan paired with the actual plan to achieve his restoration, it felt like the plan correlated to him. Everything else had been cookie-cutter with low expectations.”

That night I was excited and hopeful — and also nervous. When something is unfamiliar, it makes you nervous. But we had a plan, we were moving forward, and I was just excited. I look back on that now and I’m so grateful I had that feeling of starting something new and taking a step forward to change my son’s life.

Helping Nervous Parents Trust the Process [14:56 – 21:23]

Dr. Tony Ebel: The job Jacqui has on our team is connecting with parents at exactly this moment — confusion, excitement, and nervousness all at once. This kind of chiropractic is different. The technology, the scans, the plan — this is not what most parents have encountered before. So when moms and dads are nervous about this new approach, how do you help them through it?

Jacqui: I have such a deep personal understanding of exactly what they’re thinking and feeling, because it’s my lived experience. I speak directly to those feelings. I never pretend they’re not having every single one of the feelings they’re having. I call them to higher ground. I know where you are, I see where you are, I know what your day-to-day is like. I’ve been there. But we have a plan, and I know how to get you from A to B. Let me be your guide alongside this team.

Dr. Tony Ebel: The thing I want parents to demand from their doctors is this: clarity, conviction, and certainty. When every other doctor has said “we’ll see how it goes” or “we don’t know what’s causing this, try these therapies,” and then you walk into a room where the doctor has an entirely different level of confidence — that contrast is what you should insist on. That is the foundation of PX Docs training. It doesn’t exist outside this network, even within chiropractic.

Jacqui: The plan is the special sauce. Parents ask me all the time: what’s the number one factor in determining how successful my child will be? It’s following the care plan. It’s not magic — the magic is in the math. The math is: follow the care plan. That frequency, that duration, those clinical recommendations. That is what creates the outcomes.

“The magic’s in the math. And the math is follow the care plan.”

Dr. Tony Ebel: The science here is neuroplasticity — the science of neurological healing. It depends on exactly two things: frequency and duration. Your doctor’s job is to understand your child’s case history, quantify what they’re up against, and build a plan that is perfectly customized to that child. We use INSiGHT Scans to assess exactly how much Subluxation and Sympathetic Dominance the nervous system is stuck in. No cookie-cutter approach. Run away from doctors who use one.

Jacqui: In everything we’ve done to support both my perfect storm kids — Logan and Luke — the simplest things always move the needle the most. And the simplest, most beautiful thing in my mind is chiropractic. The body learns through repetition. That’s what makes the care plan so crucial. We’re helping the body relearn and establish a new neurological pattern. That’s it.

Logan at 14: What Full Recovery Actually Looks Like [21:24 – 28:05]

Dr. Tony Ebel: Logan’s healing story. Tell us where he is today.

Jacqui: Logan today is healed to a degree I could never have imagined when he was five. He is 14. Totally mainstreamed in school. Makes eye contact. Communicates — a little too well, honestly. He’s on high honor roll. He’s participating in sports. He has friends. He’s blown every single expectation completely out of the water.

He’s leaning into his gifts as an incredible artist. Instead of conversations being about Logan struggling, they’re now about exemplifying what’s great about him. Just last week he told me he’d decided he wanted to do wrestling. He went to the meeting himself, coordinated everything, got signed up — all on his own initiative. I could never have pictured him being able to participate in a sport at all, let alone take every step to sign himself up.

“Logan today is healed to a degree I could have never imagined when he was five — mainstreamed in school, high honor roll, playing sports, and calmly advocating for himself.”

Dr. Tony Ebel: This is what we want you to have pediatric chiropractic for — not just to eliminate struggles, but to reach the full, thriving expression of how God made them. What Logan has is resiliency. He has the ability to take a breath when he needs one, to make great decisions, to self-advocate. That is the actual goal.

Jacqui: Early on, so much of my mental and emotional energy as his mom was consumed by trying to orchestrate every single day to minimize the trauma he was going to go through. And now he functions, thrives, and absolutely crushes life. When he needs a break, he calmly says “I need a break.” That sounds simple — but you have to understand where we’re coming from. For him to be able to say that calmly and happily — I am so proud of my son and what he has done, powered by chiropractic.

From Perfect Storm Parent to Chief Heart Officer [26:24 – 34:28]

Dr. Tony Ebel: How did you go from being a mom navigating the storm to becoming the crucial heart of this entire team? What drives you?

Jacqui: I think back to the moment I first realized this was a path God was putting me on. It was when I shared my parent testimonial at the very first Perfect Storm workshop I attended as a mom who was somewhat on the other side of the journey. I got a taste of what it felt like to be a hope dealer — and I just knew that everything we had been through had a purpose. The pain had purpose.

That was almost eight years ago. Since then, it has been a passion and a privilege. I still live it — I have two Perfect Storm kids. And so God keeps showing me, at every turn, the opportunity I have to guide, empower, educate, and motivate other parents and chiropractors. I take that deeply to heart and I work relentlessly in my roles because I care about it that much.

Dr. Tony Ebel: One of our favorite principles: you are best equipped to help the person you once were. That is Jacqui. She lived the storm, she came through it, and now she gets to go back for the people still in it. And what I want you to hear, parents, is that healing doesn’t happen in isolation. It happens in community. You need doctors who listen, address the root cause, and go drug-free. And that doctor must be a nervous system focused chiropractor — because the nervous system runs everything. Gut function. Motor tone. Cognition. Emotion. When it’s stuck in Subluxation and Sympathetic Dominance, the amygdala runs unchecked — that’s all emotions — and the prefrontal cortex shuts down. That’s decision-making. You can’t out-therapy a dysregulated nervous system.

“We Believe Moms Here”: Community Is Part of the Treatment [34:29 – 41:41]

Dr. Tony Ebel: Tell me more about what you mean when you say “we believe moms here.”

Jacqui: I think about a specific interaction with a mom in our practice — she’s actually on our team now. She was sharing her experience with her child, and I could see how nervous she was to even say it out loud. When she finished, I looked at her and said: “We believe moms here.”

She told me later that I changed her life that day with those four words.

That’s what we do. If you tell me this is your lived experience with your child — we believe you. You don’t have to justify yourself. You don’t have to prove anything. We affirm that this was your experience. You’re welcome here. You’re supported here.

“We believe moms here. You don’t have to justify yourself to us. We believe your experience and we affirm it.”

One of our care advocates, Jen, often says that 50% of the adjustment happens in the community area with the care advocates. And that is entirely intentional. Our care advocates love on patients, support patients, and advocate with patients. That community space is a healing space.

Dr. Tony Ebel: There’s actual science behind this. Hope dealing is healing — and that is not a feel-good saying. We will have Dr. Dan Sullivan on a future episode to break down the literal science of hope and what it does physiologically. We build our community spaces and clinical experiences intentionally because of it.

Here’s a number that needs to stop us: 80% of special needs parents face divorce. Not because their marriage was weak — but because the chronic, relentless stress of raising a Perfect Storm child without adequate support, without community, without a plan, breaks family units. What we want to build is a healed, whole family. That means the child, yes — but also the other siblings, the parents, the marriage. Healing doesn’t happen alone.

The Neurological Intensive Program for the Hardest Cases [41:42 – 50:26]

Dr. Tony Ebel: Over the last few years, God sent us a truly miraculous family — Levi’s family — and that experience inspired us to start our Neurological Intensive Program. This is a dedicated program for the toughest cases. TBI, epilepsy, locked into autism, nonverbal at four years old. We have families traveling from out of the country to come and work with us. Jacqui, those are your favorite families. Why?

Jacqui: Because they’re the hardest. These are people who have been to hell and back. When your child has experienced a TBI from nearly drowning, or has a significant seizure disorder, or is four and nonverbal — I know what your daily life looks like. I know the level of desperation you carry. And I know I am the exact right person to be your guide, because I’ve walked through the storm myself.

What I love most is maintaining the relationship long-term. Checking in with families after they’ve gone home. Hearing the wins — people getting their driver’s licenses, moving into their own apartments, no longer suicidal. Getting a front row seat to that journey over years — there’s nothing like it.

Dr. Tony Ebel: If you have questions about straightforward low back pain and frozen shoulder, I’m not your chiropractor. But if you have intractable seizures and TBI and all the things we’re describing here — find us on Instagram at @pxdocs, or on Facebook, or go to PXDocs.com and send us a DM. That DM goes to Jacqui. She’ll talk with you about the Intensive Program and figure out if it’s the right fit.

To every parent listening right now: stay hopeful. Keep advocating. Trust your gut. And know there are answers. Your child was designed to live an incredible life.

Frequently Asked Questions

What is the Perfect Storm, and why does it cause autism, ADHD, and sensory issues?

The Perfect Storm is Dr. Tony Ebel’s framework describing how prenatal stress, birth trauma (such as forceps delivery, vacuum extraction, or C-section), and early toxin exposure create compounding nervous system dysregulation in children. When the nervous system becomes stuck in Sympathetic Dominance, it affects every body system — digestion, sensory processing, motor tone, and emotional regulation. This dysregulation is the shared root cause behind many cases of autism, ADHD, and sensory processing disorder.

What should I look for in a doctor for my child with autism or sensory challenges?

According to Dr. Tony Ebel, parents should seek a doctor who listens, addresses the root cause rather than symptoms, goes drug-free, and delivers a clear, customized care plan tied to objective nervous system assessments like INSiGHT Scans. A legitimate Neurologically-Focused Chiropractor should deliver clarity and conviction about the plan — not vague “we’ll see” language. Cookie-cutter approaches are a red flag.

Can chiropractic care really help a child with autism or sensory processing disorder?

The science behind chiropractic healing for these children is neuroplasticity — the nervous system’s ability to establish new patterns through repeated input. Dr. Tony Ebel explains that this requires two things: frequency and duration of care. Jacqui Jakubowicz’s son Logan, who couldn’t make eye contact or control his bladder at age 5, is now 14, fully mainstreamed, on high honor roll, and participating in sports after following a complete Neurologically-Focused Chiropractic Care plan.

Why do I keep hearing that community is part of healing for Perfect Storm families?

Healing from nervous system dysregulation is not linear and does not happen overnight. Families navigating the Perfect Storm need more than clinical care — they need a community that affirms their experience, advocates alongside them, and helps them stay the course. The science of hope shows measurable physiological effects of belief and connection. 80% of special needs parents face divorce due to chronic stress, which is exactly why the PX Docs model intentionally builds care advocacy and community into the clinical environment.

What is the Neurological Intensive Program at PWC Chiropractic?

The Neurological Intensive Program is a rigorous two-week program at PWC Chiropractic (outside Chicago), designed for children with the most severe neurological presentations — TBI, intractable seizures, severe autism, and nonverbal children who haven’t responded to other interventions. Families travel from across the country and internationally. After the intensive, PX Docs collaborates with a local PX Docs practitioner for ongoing care. More information is available at premierwellnesschiro.com/the-perfect-storm/.

How do I find a PX Docs practitioner near me?

You can find a Neurologically-Focused Chiropractic Care provider trained in the PX Docs protocols through the PX Docs Directory. Every practitioner listed has been trained in the clinical approach Dr. Tony Ebel uses for Perfect Storm children, including INSiGHT scanning, subluxation-based care planning, and the full spectrum of pediatric neurological cases.

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