The Experience Miracles Podcast

How the Vagus Nerve Supercharges Immune Function and Recovery

Dec 17, 2024

Why Your Child Keeps Getting Sick: The Vagus Nerve and Immune System Connection

Episode 61 — Experience Miracles Podcast | Host: Dr. Tony Ebel, DC, CACCP — Pediatric Chiropractor & Founder of PX Docs | Published: December 17, 2024 | Duration: ~54 min

Key Takeaways

  • The vagus nerve is the master regulator of the immune system — it detects inflammation, coordinates the body’s immune response, governs fever and mucus production, and signals infections to be cleared. When the vagus nerve is suppressed due to subluxation, children become trapped in an incomplete inflammatory cycle they cannot break out of on their own.

  • Birth trauma from C-sections, vacuum extraction, and forceps commonly causes subluxation at the C2 vertebra — the location of the Nucleus Tractus Solitarius (NTS), the brainstem’s neuroimmune relay center. This means many chronically sick children have had compromised vagus nerve function since birth, before any diet or lifestyle factor ever came into play.

  • Children stuck in vagus nerve dysfunction trigger immune responses but cannot complete them — pathogens get in more easily and cannot be cleared. No amount of diet changes, supplements, or detox protocols can fully resolve this if the underlying nervous system interference goes unaddressed.

  • Standard lab work — even comprehensive functional medicine panels measuring cytokines, TNF, interleukins, and heavy metals — cannot directly detect vagus nerve dysfunction. INSiGHT Scans, including thermal and HRV technology, are required to measure neurological function and determine how dysregulated the system actually is.

  • Neurologically-Focused Chiropractic Care — at the right technique, frequency, and duration — is the most direct path to restoring vagus nerve function. Cold exposure, outdoor activity, stress reduction, and an anti-inflammatory diet all support the process, but chiropractic is the primary activator.

How Does the Vagus Nerve Control the Immune System?

The vagus nerve is the master regulator of the immune system — a role most parents, and many healthcare providers, don’t know it plays. When functioning properly, it continuously monitors the body for inflammation, coordinates the inflammatory cascade that fights off pathogens, regulates fever and mucus production, and signals the body to clear infections completely. When it’s suppressed due to subluxation — most often rooted in birth trauma — this entire immune regulation system breaks down.

Children born after difficult deliveries involving C-sections, vacuum extraction, or forceps commonly develop subluxation at the C2 vertebra, where the Nucleus Tractus Solitarius (NTS) — the brainstem’s neuroimmune relay center — is located. This disrupts the vagus nerve’s sensory signaling, triggers Sympathetic Dominance, and leaves the immune system unable to complete its full inflammatory cycle. The result is kids who are constantly congested, perpetually sick, and unable to fully clear infections — even when their parents have addressed diet, added supplements, and pursued integrative medicine.

For families who have gone deep into biomedical intervention without getting their child all the way well, the missing piece is almost always at the nervous system level. Lab work cannot detect vagus nerve dysfunction — that requires neurological assessment via tools like INSiGHT Scans. Addressing the root cause through Neurologically-Focused Chiropractic Care activates the vagus nerve’s full immune regulation capacity and allows the body to do what it was designed to do: fight off illness and recover completely.

Winter Illness Isn’t a Given — Here’s Why [00:00:00 – 00:08:00]

Dr. Tony Ebel, DC, CACCP: We are releasing this one right around Christmas — a blessed, amazing, celebratory season that also supposedly means tons of sickness, colds, flu, walking pneumonia, chest congestion, viruses, and bacteria.

I never like it when people use absolutes. I don’t like throwing the baby out with the bathwater and saying, “Oh, it’s winter — we’re all going to get sick.” In chiropractic, we call it life without fear. We believe we’re made to be healthy, even in winter. When we tap into and regulate our nervous systems, immune systems, gut, microbiome, household, lifestyle, and mindset — when all of those things are tuned in and healthy — we don’t buy into the “tis the season” narrative.

Most families do, though. Especially in school communities, church communities, parent groups. It frustrates me that most families around me — not so much in my practice, because we teach this stuff — but at our kids’ school, at their sporting events, in our church community — they just accept it. God designed us to be healthy, not victims. God designed us to be in charge of our health.

It just happened in my household last week. Our oldest daughter, Addison, is 17. After 17 years of being a chiropractic kid — maybe when you’re a teenager, you don’t always knock out everything on the natural, holistic stay-healthy list. Sometimes we let our guard down. We get a little dysregulated and inflamed, and our immune system and vagus nerve get a little more offline. That illness gets in, sets up shop, and makes us feel like crap for a couple of days.

This conversation about supercharging your immune system through the vagus nerve is designed for two purposes that are really one.

Purpose one: prevention. When you deploy what we’re going to cover as regularly and fully as possible, your family’s immune systems are always supercharged — shield up. You don’t avoid illness by staying away from people who are sick. You avoid illness by having a resilient immune system and a well-regulated nervous system, because exposure to germs and viruses does not make us sick. Our inability to overcome them does.

“You don’t avoid illness by staying away from people who are sick. You avoid illness by having a badass immune system, by having a rockin’ nervous system, and making sure that it is on the ready regardless of exposure.”

Purpose two: recovery. There will be times where routines fall apart — vacations, finals, holiday travel, sports tournaments. Even chiropractic wellness families get thrown off track. And for many kids, especially those who’ve been through The Perfect Storm, their immune systems have been suppressed since birth. Their vagus nerves came online already dysregulated. These families need to take everything we’re about to cover and apply it 3x or 10x.

What Is the Vagus Nerve — and Why Is It Your Cheat Code? [00:08:00 – 00:12:00]

The vagus nerve is V-A-G-U-S. It is the most important, intricate nerve in the entire body. And for the purpose of this conversation, it’s your cheat code.

The vagus nerve is deeply connected to inflammation, the microbiome, and Autonomic Nervous System regulation. Whether you’re working with a homeopathic, functional medicine, or integrative practitioner — if they’re improving your microbiome, they’re helping the vagus nerve. If they’re combating inflammation, they’re helping the vagus nerve. If they’re regulating the nervous system, they’re tapping into the vagus nerve. Every positive, health-building approach points back to vagus nerve regulation and function. Every stressful, toxic, chaotic element from The Perfect Storm points toward vagus nerve dysfunction.

“The vagus nerve is going to be our cheat code.”

From a high-level view: the vagus nerve is primarily about the parasympathetic nervous system — our rest, digestion, regulation, healing, recovery, and inflammatory modulation side of the Autonomic Nervous System. The other branch is the sympathetics — fight or flight. The parasympathetics are more important because they’re more suppressed, dysregulated, and shut down in today’s high-stress, toxic world than ever before.

When families go through The Perfect Storm — prenatal stress, difficult labor and delivery, early childhood stressors — the sympathetic nervous system becomes over-stimulated and reactive, while the parasympathetic vagus nerve becomes unregulated, underactive, and suppressed.

Research shows that when the fetal developmental journey, labor, and delivery are highly stressful and inflammatory, we actually suppress and delay the development of the vagus nerve. Many children are born not only with a dysfunctional vagus nerve — they’re born with one that hasn’t fully matured and come online yet.

When Medicine Misses the Root Cause: The Chronic Illness Cycle [00:12:00 – 00:17:00]

Where does the vagus nerve enter the conversation when it comes to chronic illness? The biggest frustration we see through winter is parents saying: “My child is not only susceptible to colds, congestion, mucus, ear infections, sinus infections, and strep infections — and especially if this is a PANDAS family, you have to really listen here — they also keep getting RSV, croup, walking pneumonia, and bronchitis.”

These all fall in the same department. The immune system, respiratory system, and lymphatic system fill up with inflammation and congestion, triggering fever, triggering respiratory distress — which in the medical world triggers medication after medication.

Antibiotics for viral infections. Nebulizers. Steroid-based medications. When the ears won’t clear, a referral to an ENT. Tubes. Then tonsils and adenoids — which a mom described to me recently as “amputating part of the immune system.” That description is accurate. Those are not leftover body parts. They are key components of the immune system, and they are enlarged because the immune system is dysregulated in the same way the vagus nerve is.

When they get cut out, all we do is drive the infection and dysregulation further into the body. First come ear infections. Antibiotics destroy the gut and immune system further. Then tubes. The ears look better, but now the child is snoring, congested, speech is changing, sinuses are full, strep keeps recurring. Tonsils and adenoids swell. They get removed. Now the child has bronchitis. Then asthma. Then pneumonia.

That is the business of medicine — pediatrician, ENT, medications. All they’re doing is moving the problem deeper into the body. When all you have is a hammer, that’s all you use. But the body has an intelligent, multi-system function that knows exactly what to do to rid itself of a virus, bacteria, or infection. The vagus nerve is the harmonizer — the play caller that organizes all those systems to work in sequence.

The Inflammatory Cascade: Step-by-Step [00:17:00 – 00:29:00]

Now let’s get into the inflammatory cascade — this is where we get granular.

The vagus nerve is a sensory nerve. The inflammatory cascade, governed by the vagus nerve and the Autonomic Nervous System, starts with Step 1: detection. The vagus nerve constantly monitors the entire body — especially the gut, respiratory system, and lymphatic system — for signs of inflammation, foreign pathogens, bacteria, and viruses. This detection requires the vagus nerve to be fully functional, with zero interference.

Subluxation — especially in the upper cervical and upper thoracic spine — leads to nervous system interference that directly disrupts the vagus nerve’s sensory detection. These afferent signals (incoming neurological input) are the first step in the cascade, and if they’re blocked or weakened, the whole chain breaks down.

When detection happens properly, signals travel to a nucleus in the brainstem near the C2 vertebra — called the Nucleus Tractus Solitarius (NTS). This is the relay air traffic control center for neuroimmune and neuroinflammatory regulation. It integrates information about the body’s internal inflammatory state and communicates with higher brain centers.

This is exactly why chiropractors ask: “How can an adjustment help my child’s immune system?” Because subluxation at C2 — which happens all the time from birth trauma, especially vacuum extraction and C-section births — directly interferes with the NTS nucleus and the inflammatory cascade. We see C2 subluxation constantly in chronically sick, chronically congested children.

“When the neuroimmune system is off track like this, it no longer maintains balance. Because what the vagus nerve wants to do to regulate the immune system is keep it balanced and on the ready always.”

From the brainstem, signals travel up to the hypothalamus, which communicates with the rest of the autonomic and hormonal system — including the HPA axis (hypothalamus, pituitary, adrenal). You may have heard that overactive adrenals create a pro-inflammatory state. That’s true. But the adrenals are often not the root cause — they’re doing exactly what the vagus nerve and NTS are telling them to do. The root is almost always something deeper: vagus nerve dysfunction and dysautonomia.

From the hypothalamus, efferent (outgoing) signals go to the spleen, liver, and other immune-regulating organs: “Kick out inflammatory molecules. Release cytokines — interleukin-1, interleukin-6, TNF.” This is the body mounting its immune response.

Step 3 — the cholinergic anti-inflammatory pathway — is the final control mechanism. After inflammation has done its job, the system asks: has the threat been neutralized? If so, it’s time to fully clear the body of pathogens and end the inflammatory response.

Here’s the problem. If the system gets stuck between step 2 and step 3, the body stays constipated — full of congestion, chronic illness, viruses, and bacteria it can’t expel. This is what happens to so many kids who’ve been through The Perfect Storm, even when their parents have already cleaned up the diet, added supplements, homeopathics, herbal remedies, and essential oils.

They can’t poop, sneeze, cough, or fever their way out of the problem. They’re stuck in a broken inflammatory cascade loop — and the reason is subluxation and vagus nerve dysfunction.

Your child’s resilience is limited. They’re more susceptible to getting sick in the first place. And when they do get sick, they can’t get rid of anything. Infections pile on. Even when you’ve shifted everything in your lifestyle, your gut tells you they’re still so sick all the time. Their skin is pale, their eyes have bags, they’re always mucusy and congested. Sometimes it gets worse and qualifies as an infection. But the next week they’re still inflamed, still subluxated, still with a vagus nerve that’s offline. They’re never actually fully healthy.

Fever, Mucus, and the Body’s Healing Intelligence [00:29:00 – 00:35:00]

The vagus nerve regulates fever. I’ll do a whole episode on fever — we’ve been getting a lot of questions about it. Is fever good? Is fever bad? What number is too high? Should we bring it down?

Here’s what I want parents to understand: when kids start getting adjusted, when their nervous system begins functioning better and their vagus nerve comes back online, everything in that inflammatory cascade we just walked through starts working correctly again.

Often, before chiropractic care, the body has been stuck for a long time. Congestion, inflammation, viruses, bacteria, pathogens, toxins, and metals are all trapped inside. When the body gets adjusted and starts working smarter, harder, and better — it gets to work clearing all that out. Many kids need to experience fever and diarrhea after getting adjusted. That is a sign of the body getting better, not worse. We’ve been conditioned by the medical system to think fever is bad. But so often: go fever go. Get that job done.

The vagus nerve also regulates mucus production. Ever wonder how a small child can produce that much snot? When the sympathetic nervous system is overactive and the parasympathetic vagus nerve is suppressed, mucus production becomes dysregulated. Too much is produced, and most importantly, it can’t get out of the body. The child is stuck in a vicious cycle.

Fever, mucus, cough, sneezing, diarrhea, and vomiting — we have these mechanisms because the body knows when to use them to clear what’s bad and get back to full health. What has medicine done? Sold us suppressants for all of them. Fever suppressants, cough suppressants, nasal decongestants. And these don’t just fail to help — they’ve been proven to weaken the body further.

“The adjustment does not clear the sinuses. The adjustment does not clear the airway. The adjustment does not clear the lungs. The adjustment supercharges the vagus nerve — and the body gets rid of the infection.”

Neurologically-Focused Chiropractic Care doesn’t do the job for the body. It supercharges the vagus nerve, gets the whole inflammatory cascade working properly, builds back up the body’s natural defense mechanisms — and then the body takes over. That distinction matters. When medicine says “we’ll do it for you,” the body gets weaker. When chiropractic says “we’ll help your body do it itself,” resilience builds.

Is there a time and place for medication — to bring down a dangerous fever, to use an antibiotic for a severe bacterial infection? Absolutely. Sometimes the fire is burning and the building will go down if you don’t act medically. But that’s the rare exception, not the default. The more often medications are used, the more suppressed the child’s immune system becomes, and the further illness gets trapped in the body.

Cytokines, Lab Work, and the Limits of Biomedical Testing [00:35:00 – 00:44:00]

When the nervous system and vagus nerve are chronically dysregulated, the inflammatory cascade breaks down and the body gets stuck in a perpetual cycle of chronic inflammation — even when diet, lifestyle, and environment are all clean. This leads to excessive cytokine release. It’s called a cytokine storm.

This should have been a central part of the COVID conversation, because we were already living with millions of people whose immune systems, nervous systems, microbiomes, and metabolic function were completely dysregulated. When an engineered virus arrived that the body had never seen, those chronically sick individuals had very little natural defense left. They were already in cytokine storms before the virus arrived.

In the last few years there’s been an explosion of biomedical, natural medicine, and functional medicine. That is a wonderful development. But something is still missing, and I see it all the time.

Families are getting deep-dive lab assessments — 47 vials of blood work, hair analysis, stool analysis. They’re finding heavy metal toxicity, inflammatory markers through the roof, zinc low, serotonin low, magnesium low, vitamin D low. The good stuff is depleted and the bad stuff is elevated.

Their practitioners tell them the right things: clean up the diet, change your lifestyle, add supplements, do binders and detox. They rerun the labs six months later. Then twelve months. Again and again.

Those numbers barely budge.

They can’t get the labs to change. They can’t get the body to clear inflammation. And the reason is this: blood work and stool analysis are not neurological exams. Lab work — no matter how deep, how comprehensive, how sophisticated — cannot directly detect vagus nerve dysfunction.

“Lab work, no matter how deep, how awesome and how incredible, is not a neurological exam. Neurological function and vagus nerve function cannot be directly, completely detected with lab work.”

Many of those inflammatory markers — cytokines, neurotransmitters — are communication signals that work for the nervous system. They’re downstream effects of vagus nerve dysfunction, not the root cause. To directly measure nervous system and vagus nerve dysfunction, you need INSiGHT Scans — specifically thermal and HRV scans — which are the neurological assessment technology we use in PX Docs offices.

Here’s a real case. A mom came in whose child had been diagnosed with level 2 autism. The child had stimming, social-emotional challenges, speech delays, sensory and motor coordination issues, sleep problems, gut issues, and chronic illness — ear infections, ear tubes, tonsils, adenoids — everything we’ve covered in this episode.

They went the full biomedical and functional route. They completely changed his diet. They were spending $1,200 to $1,500 per month on supplements and detox. His sleep improved somewhat. Some gut and stimming issues came down. But he still gets sick often. Speech hasn’t changed. He still stims. After six months, the labs moved slightly. Technically, he now fits a level 1 autism diagnosis instead of level 2. That’s absolutely worth celebrating.

But here’s the thing: his nervous system, immune system, and vagus nerve are still dysregulated and subluxated. His emergency C-section birth is where this started. His C2 subluxation is why his cytokines, TNF, interleukins, and CRP were through the roof. The labs were the downstream signal. The root is neurological. That’s why this child needs neurologically-focused chiropractic care, and that’s why the supplements alone couldn’t get him all the way there.

How to Supercharge Your Child’s Vagus Nerve and Immune System [00:44:00 – 00:54:00]

So what do we actually do? How do you tap into the vagus nerve and supercharge your child’s immune system so they can avoid these infections and clear them completely when they do show up?

First and most important: high-frequency, neurologically-focused chiropractic care.

I need to be specific here. Many pediatric and family chiropractors — if they’re not trained PX doctors — may under-recommend the frequency of care your chronically sick child actually needs. And some may under-adjust as well, using techniques that are too light to produce the level of nervous system activation required.

For chronically congested, chronically sick children, the technique matters. Neuro-Tonal HVLA manual adjustments are safe and gentle, and they’re the right stimulation level to address chronic vagus nerve dysfunction. The care plan matters too. There will likely need to be high-frequency care for many weeks — and for many kids with significant dysfunction, for many months.

Both variables — technique and frequency — depend on the depth of the child’s neuroimmune vagus nerve dysfunction. That’s why we run INSiGHT Scans. Thermal scans and HRV scans tell us how dysregulated the system is, so we’re not guessing — we’re measuring. A nervous system focused pediatric expert uses technology to assess vagus nerve dysfunction, not just symptoms or postural exams.

When kids stick with it and stay the course, that’s when families experience the miracles. For children whose vagus nerves have been severely shut down, full repair can take years. That’s not a reason to stop — it’s a reason to understand what you’re working with and commit.

Second: lifestyle factors that directly support vagus nerve function.

Slow down. Create calm in your family’s daily and weekly life. Quiet spaces with no TV. Deep breathing. Get outside in nature — walk, play in the woods, go to the park. These are the basics, and the basics are what the vagus nerve needs.

And if you’re recording this in winter and live somewhere cold — good. Cold is actually excellent for the vagus nerve. Cold plunges, cold showers, contrast therapy with saunas — there’s a reason these are trending. God designed us to need exposure to the natural environment, including cold temperatures. When we stay inside in artificial air and heat, we’re not exposing our bodies to the natural inputs that would keep the vagus nerve calibrated. Get outside. Build a snowman. The kids will build resilience in every sense of the word.

Third: targeted nutrition and anti-inflammatory support.

Clean proteins, macronutrients, hydration, electrolytes, and an anti-inflammatory diet are essential — especially for chronically sick children. I put these third not because they’re unimportant, but because so many families have already done all of this. The reason it hasn’t gotten their child all the way well is that they haven’t addressed the nervous system first.

All three of these work together. Chiropractic is the catalyst. Lifestyle and nutrition support and amplify what chiropractic makes possible.

If you feel like you’ve exhausted every medical and natural option and your child is still chronically sick — the vagus nerve is your cheat code. Neurologically-focused chiropractic is the solution. Stick with it. Stay the course. Every kid counts.

Frequently Asked Questions

Why does my child keep getting sick even after changing their diet and adding supplements?

When children keep getting sick despite clean diets and supplement protocols, the root cause is almost always vagus nerve dysfunction caused by subluxation. The vagus nerve controls the entire inflammatory cascade — detection of pathogens, mounting the immune response, and clearing infections from the body. When subluxation disrupts this system, children get stuck between steps two and three: they trigger an immune response but cannot complete it. Lab work cannot detect this. Neurological assessment with INSiGHT Scans is required to find and measure the dysfunction.

What does the vagus nerve actually do for the immune system?

The vagus nerve governs four core immune functions: it continuously monitors the body for inflammation and pathogens (step 1 of the inflammatory cascade), coordinates the body’s immune response through the brainstem relay center called the Nucleus Tractus Solitarius (NTS), regulates fever so the body can use it as a healing tool, and governs mucus production so the body can expel pathogens. When the vagus nerve is working properly, the immune system can fight off illness and clear it completely. When it’s suppressed due to subluxation, none of these processes complete correctly.

Can birth trauma cause a weak immune system in children?

Yes. Birth trauma from C-sections, vacuum extraction, and forceps commonly causes subluxation at the C2 vertebra, where the Nucleus Tractus Solitarius — the brainstem’s neuroimmune relay center — is located. This disrupts vagus nerve function at the root level. Many chronically sick children have had compromised vagus nerve and immune function since birth, before diet or lifestyle ever became a factor. According to Dr. Tony Ebel, research shows that high-stress fetal development, labor, and delivery can suppress and delay the maturation of the vagus nerve entirely.

What is a cytokine storm and why does vagus nerve dysfunction cause one?

A cytokine storm is a state of excessive, out-of-control inflammation where the body releases too many cytokines (inflammatory signaling molecules like TNF, interleukin-1, and interleukin-6). When the vagus nerve is dysfunctional, the inflammatory cascade breaks down and the body gets trapped in chronic inflammation — even when diet and lifestyle are clean. The body keeps triggering immune responses it can’t complete, leading to perpetual cytokine overload. This is why children with vagus nerve dysfunction are both more susceptible to getting sick and less able to recover.

Can blood work detect vagus nerve dysfunction?

No. Lab work — including deep functional medicine panels measuring cytokines, heavy metals, TNF, interleukins, and inflammatory markers — is not a neurological exam. Vagus nerve function cannot be directly or completely measured through blood work or stool analysis. Many inflammatory markers found in lab work are downstream effects of vagus nerve dysfunction, not the root cause itself. To directly assess nervous system and vagus nerve function, INSiGHT Scans — specifically thermal scans and HRV (heart rate variability) scans — are required. These are the neurological assessment tools used in PX Docs offices.

How do I find a neurologically-focused chiropractor who can help my child’s immune system?

Look for a PX Docs-trained chiropractor who uses INSiGHT Scans (thermal and HRV technology) to assess nervous system function — not just symptom checklists or postural exams. The care plan should include an initial high-frequency adjustment schedule, and the technique should include Neuro-Tonal HVLA manual adjustments capable of activating the vagus nerve. You can search the PX Docs Directory to find a trained office near you.

Resources & Related Content

Find A PX Doc

Welcome to PX Docs. The place to find Hope. Answers. Hope. for you and your family.