The Experience Miracles Podcast

How to Choose the Right Chiropractor: The Difference Matters

Aug 27, 2024

The 3 Types of Chiropractors: Why Neurologically Focused Care Gets Different Results for Kids

Episode 35 — Experience Miracles Podcast | Host: Dr. Tony Ebel, DC, CACCP — Pediatric Chiropractor & Founder of PX Docs | Published: August 27, 2024 | Duration: ~57 min

Key Takeaways

  • There are three distinct types of chiropractic care — standard spinal, functional neurology, and Neurologically-Focused Chiropractic Care — and for children with chronic conditions like autism, ADHD, or epilepsy, the type matters as much as chiropractic itself.
  • Neurologically-Focused Chiropractic Care prioritizes stabilizing the central and autonomic nervous system before introducing any other therapies or interventions, because an overwhelmed nervous system cannot effectively respond to additional treatments.
  • Doing too much too soon — adding detoxes, primitive reflex work, vestibular therapies, or functional neurology interventions before the nervous system is stable — often produces worse results or causes regression in children with chronic neurological conditions.
  • The key phrase from Dr. Tony Ebel’s clinical experience: “Less is more, especially early.” Healing must follow the same sequential developmental hierarchy the nervous system used to build itself.
  • A true Neurologically-Focused Chiropractor measures nervous system function directly with INSiGHT Scans (neurothermal, EMG, and heart rate variability testing) — not primitive reflexes or vestibular testing alone, which are secondary indicators, not primary neurological assessments.

What Are the 3 Types of Chiropractic Care, and Why Does the Difference Matter for Your Child?

Neurologically-Focused Chiropractic Care is a distinct clinical approach that places the function of the central and autonomic nervous system at the center of everything — not just the spine, not the gut microbiome, not primitive reflexes. For children dealing with conditions like autism, ADHD, epilepsy, anxiety, or sensory processing disorder, this distinction is the single most important factor in whether chiropractic care produces meaningful, lasting results.

The three types of chiropractic are standard spinal care (focused on pain and musculoskeletal issues), functional neurology (which adds layers like detox protocols, primitive reflex work, vestibular therapy, and biomedical interventions), and Neurologically-Focused Chiropractic Care (which obsessively focuses on the nervous system first, measuring and improving its function before anything else is introduced). All three generate results in their appropriate context. The problem comes when a child with a deeply dysregulated nervous system receives care designed for a different problem — or when well-intentioned practitioners pile on multiple interventions without respecting the sequence in which healing must happen.

Dr. Tony Ebel’s core argument, drawn from his own clinical evolution across all three types, is this: the neurological developmental hierarchy that governed how your child’s nervous system formed is also the exact sequence in which it must heal. You cannot skip to the advanced layers before stabilizing the foundation. When a child with autism, epilepsy, or severe sensory challenges starts with detox protocols or primitive reflex interventions before the nervous system has reached basic stability, those interventions don’t just fail to help — they can actively destabilize a system that was already overwhelmed.

Introduction: Dr. Tony’s Journey Through All 3 Types of Chiropractic [00:00 – 02:30]

Dr. Tony Ebel: It’s essential to know the differences between the three different types of chiropractic care and the three different types of chiropractors out there. Not because one is better than the other, but for your child, one might be the only one that is really dialed in to the right way to get the most effective, optimal, incredible results for your kiddo.

I’m more excited for this episode than any we’ve done yet because it’s the innards — it’s the details of the work we get to do. It’s going to detail out my journey as a pediatric chiropractor: my journey from a standard chiropractor who was going to work on the spine and soft tissues and sports injuries, to being everything to everyone as a functional neurologist and biomedical interventionist, to where we are now as neurologically focused pediatric chiropractors.

The number one question we get — and it’s not even close — is some version of: How do I know if the chiropractor we’re already seeing is neurologically focused? How do I find one? What’s the difference? And what if we’ve already tried chiropractic and didn’t see results?

That last question fits right in the same frame as this one: “Do I need to worry about retained primitive reflexes, restricted airways, tongue and oral ties, and all these vestibular and proprioceptive functions?” When I go to those practitioners’ websites, you just keep scrolling to hear about all the different therapies, services, treatments, and interventions they offer. I understand every single one of those bullet points because I’m trained in every one of them. And as you’re about to see, I applied all of them — much to the frustration of my wife and our clinic director B, who watched me go from doing one thing that was getting phenomenal results to doing 70 things, overwhelmed, frustrated, exhausted, and expensive.

Some of you are picking up on this right now because his journey as a chiropractor sounds exactly like your journey as a parent trying to help your child heal from chronic illness.

I understand the differences between the three types of chiropractic care better than anyone I know — because God made me a raging bull who can’t stop learning, and because I applied all three in my own practice. I was in that NICU for six weeks with my son Oliver. I saw his MRIs and his EEGs. I felt every bit of the fear and anxiety of whether he’d deal with seizures his whole life. So when I say I know these differences, I know them with absolute, lived clarity.

Type 1: Standard Spinal Chiropractic Care [00:10 – 14:00]

By far the most common type of chiropractic you’ll see in every community — and all over TikTok, YouTube, and Instagram — is standard spinal chiropractic: back pain, neck pain, musculoskeletal. This is what pretty much every chiropractic school trains graduates to do, and it’s what I graduated ready to do.

My story is this: in high school, I was a farm kid and baseball player. I injured my shoulder repeatedly and had constant pain at 16, 17, 18. I did physical therapy, I did everything else. I ended up in an orthopedic office where they told a 17-year-old named Tony to take two Aleve after games. Then two before practice. Then two more at lunch. Then two in the morning. By my senior season, I was taking eight Aleve every single day — destroying my immune system and digestive system before I was even an adult.

I finally went in for chiropractic care as a junior in college. I found an incredible chiropractor — Dr. Rick Albert — who took x-rays, made adjustments, and it was life-changing. All my pain went away in about eight to twelve visits. I loved it so much I decided to make a career of it.

Standard spinal chiropractic is awesome. It helps so much. If my story had stopped there, that alone would have spared me from the Crohn’s and cancer path I was likely heading down with eight Aleve a day.

But when I look back now, I think: What if they had told me sooner? Because when I started chiropractic care for shoulder pain, I was also flunking out of school. I’ve got what I call a raging bull brain — God made my brain like probably many of your kiddos. I could see 17 paces ahead but really struggled to sit down and focus on the test or the assignment due that day. My nervous system was getting more stressed, more subluxated, more sympathetic dominant. I couldn’t sleep, I couldn’t concentrate. My first chiropractor talked a little about the nervous system and a whole lot about the spine — and that was enough to get me to fall in love with chiropractic. But he didn’t tell me that those adjustments were also massively improving the function of my brain and nervous system. That’s what I want to make sure your family knows.

“What really stinks about the pediatrician and the conventional neurologist is they don’t really dive deep. They can’t really answer any questions. They just keep dismissing or blaming genetics and chemical imbalance.”

So I graduated, started my practice — Premier Wellness Chiropractic — focused on sports injuries, chronic pain, and rehab. I even had a mini CrossFit gym in the clinic. There was no plan whatsoever for autism, epilepsy, cerebral palsy, ADHD, or chronic illness. And then our oldest baby girl, Addison, was born, and everything changed.

Type 2: Functional Neurology Chiropractic Care [00:22 – 28:00]

When Addison was born, I went out for advanced certifications in prenatal and pediatric care — and that’s where I was first exposed to what’s called functional neurology. I thought I was just going to get better at adjusting kids. What I got instead was a three-year deep dive into everything: microbiome, primitive reflexes, prefrontal cortex therapy, neurofeedback, biofeedback, vestibular therapy, neurointegrative exercises, hair analysis, stool samples, labs. All of it.

I went all in. I built one of the first functional neurology centers outside Chicago, in Crystal Lake, Illinois, long before it was cool. I studied Dr. Melillo’s textbook cover to cover — probably five times while Oliver was in the hospital.

And here’s what I found. In the beginning, even before I went into functional neurology, standard chiropractic was already helping kids with ADHD, sensory processing disorder, seizures, and epilepsy — even when we barely talked about the nervous system. Those practitioners who only talk about the spine just don’t know how much they’re influencing the nervous system. I know that because I was one of them in my V1 practice.

Then I went into functional neurology, and something happened that I have to be honest with you about: the more we did, the less our results became what we were looking for. The more we added — which sounded and felt like the right answer — it had the opposite effect.

I didn’t just see fewer good results. I actually saw kids get worse. Often when we would work on primitive reflexes and functional neurology interventions first, kids would have a detox response. They would regress.

I want to be really clear: it doesn’t mean those things are bad. It doesn’t mean that for some kids, in a specific sequence, they don’t get great results. But here’s why it backfired: a child with autism, ADHD, or epilepsy already has a nervous system that is overwhelmed. Their sympathetic nervous system is already overloaded. Their vagus nerve function is already severely limited. Their ability to integrate and coordinate even good things is very limited. And so when we added interventions on top of an already destabilized system — without first stabilizing the nervous system — we destabilized them further.

“The more we did all at once, we were doing too much and we got less results. This is all about the sequence, and nobody out there in healthcare understands it as much as we do as neurologically focused chiropractors.”

Why Doing Too Much Too Soon Backfires: The Healing Hierarchy [00:28 – 32:00]

I can’t draw this out on a podcast, but I really want you to understand what’s called the neurological developmental hierarchy sequence — because it’s also the neurological healing and reorganizational sequence.

It starts with the central and autonomic nervous system. First. Not the gut. Not primitive reflexes. Not neurofeedback or brain lasers. Not vestibular machines.

The way God designed the development of the nervous system to unfold in a very specific sequence is exactly how healing needs to happen — even if your child is 7, 17, or 27. The things we work on first are central nervous system basics: sleep and digestion. Not digestion from a probiotic conversation — digestion from a neurogenic conversation. The nervous system controls the gut, not the other way around.

On paper, it seems like a child with autism has so many things wrong — gut issues, immune problems, bad microbiome, retained reflexes, low tone, sensory issues, speech issues, heavy metals — that you’d need to address them all simultaneously. I understand that reasoning completely. But here’s the thing: neurological healing for chronic illness in kids requires a very specific sequence of healing endeavors applied in the right order.

It’s like building a house. You cannot skip the foundation. You have to fix the leaks and the structural damage before you do anything else, or it’ll fall apart no matter how good the work on top is.

In the early initial foundational stages of healing, less things need to be applied, not more. I don’t know a harder or more important lesson to teach to parents or providers, because our hearts get in the way of our heads. We want to do everything at once for our kids. But for a nervous system that is already overwhelmed, doing too much creates more dysregulation, not less.

Type 3: Neurologically Focused Chiropractic Care [00:32 – 38:00]

Neurologically-Focused Chiropractic Care puts its emphasis on achieving neurological — central and autonomic nervous system — stability, resiliency, and adaptability before introducing other therapies and interventions.

When you’re seeing a neurologically focused chiropractor, they are entirely obsessed with one thing instead of partly trained and partly focused on a bunch of things.

One of my favorite questions to answer is the dad question: How can one thing — chiropractic, working on the spine — change all these other things? How can it help my child with autism who has a multitude of issues? Sleep, gut, brain function, everything?

Because the nervous system controls everything else in the body.

A stressed, subluxated, sympathetic-dominant nervous system will struggle with sleep first. Then digestive function — because the gut takes real neurophysiological energy from the nervous system, and when the nervous system is stressed, the gut gets the short end of the stick immediately. Then the immune system. Then the endocrine system. All those downstream systems get shortchanged when the central nervous system is dysregulated.

Primitive reflexes, tongue ties, and restricted airways — they come from subluxation and sympathetic dominance and dysautonomia as well. Primitive reflexes are only retained when sympathetic dominance and nervous system imbalance are retained first. So when you work on A, you don’t have to worry about B.

A lot of practitioners say on their websites that they’re working on the root cause. But if you’re not working on the central and autonomic nervous system — if you’re not addressing dysautonomia, sympathetic dominance, and vagus nerve dysfunction at the level of the brainstem — you’re not actually working on the root cause. That’s what separates Neurologically-Focused Chiropractic from anything else.

“Primitive reflexes are only retained when sympathetic dominance and nervous system imbalance or subluxation is retained first. So when you work on A, you don’t have to worry about B.”

How to Identify a True Neurologically Focused Chiropractor [00:38 – 43:00]

If you’ve already tried chiropractic and didn’t see results, I want to walk you through a specific checklist before you give up.

Question 1: Were they really neurologically focused in their clinical protocols, or just by name and website?

Look at the communication. Do they explain the nervous system at this granular, vivid level? If they’re not going into it at this depth, it’s because they don’t understand it at this depth. You have to understand it deeply to explain it, articulate it, and apply it. If their nervous system talk is surface-level, that’s your signal.

Question 2: Is their exam and assessment completely rooted in the nervous system?

If someone is measuring only primitive reflexes and vestibular balance testing — those are actually not direct neurological assessments. They’re secondary indicators of primary neurological issues. A chiropractor who is truly nervous-system focused must measure the function of the nervous system directly, using INSiGHT Scans — specifically neurothermal, EMG, and heart rate variability testing. Those scans tell us whether your child is subluxated, whether their nervous system is out of bounds, and to what degree and where. You cannot be a nervous system focused chiropractor by name alone. The clinical protocols and the exam have to reflect it.

Question 3: Are we doing too much?

This is the hardest one, and only you can answer it. I highly encourage you to sit down knee to knee with your PX doctor and say: “Will you look at this list with me? Will you tell me what matters most and what the sequence should be?”

That’s one of the toughest conversations I have in practice — entering a family’s care plan and saying each of these individual things is great, but the sequence and the batting order matter enormously.

“Less Is More”: When to Slow Down and Hit Reset [00:43 – 52:00]

If your mom and dad gut is telling you, “We’re doing too much” — that’s a gift. Now you know. Now you can do something about it.

The action you can take is to slow down to speed up. Real neuroplasticity and neurological reorganization healing can be summarized in one phrase: less is more, especially early.

If I were going to get a tattoo, one arm would say “less is more” and the other would say “especially early in the first phases of care.” Nerdy? Yes. But if you’ve heard this episode, maybe you won’t forget it.

Don’t get dismayed. Get fired up. You’ve found the reason you’ve been spinning your wheels. You finally have the answer. Now go back, hit reset, slow down, and focus on the nervous system first.

When you see a PX doctor — a true neurologically focused chiropractor — they will go beyond just the spine and structure. A standard chiropractor is fantastic but may not be enough for a child with chronic illness and neurological challenges. And if you’ve been in functional neurology care with lots of interventions, it may be time to go backwards to go forwards: start with the nervous system, then sequence everything else in at the right time.

Dr. BJ Palmer, the developer of chiropractic, said it best — it’s not the adjustment that changes people’s lives. It’s the education. The empowerment. The perspective. The lens through which you understand what’s happening in your child’s body.

Through simplicity and a straightforward obsession with getting the nervous system functioning, we can help with everything. We get those adjustments in, get kids out of sympathetic dominance, activate the vagus nerve, and get their nervous system balanced, regulated, and functioning again — and then we can start lining up the rest of the care plan. Every PX Docs practitioner is intentional about forming partnerships with other experts in their community, because once the nervous system is stable, everything else becomes dramatically more effective.

“It works this way. So we work this way.” — Dr. Jason Day, PX Docs Network

Tracking Real Progress: Scans and Neurological Soft Signs [00:52 – 57:00]

For tough cases — autism, epilepsy, deeply chronic neurological conditions — symptoms are often the last thing to change. In the first 90 days, the only measurable changes may be on the scans. And that’s actually a very good sign, because those scans are looking deep under the hood at the nervous system’s actual function.

Medicine only tracks symptoms. We track function. That’s what makes all the difference.

There are two ways to track real progress:

  1. INSiGHT Scan improvements. When the scans are moving in the right direction — even if your child’s behavior hasn’t changed yet — you know the nervous system is reorganizing. That reorganization is what eventually produces the symptom changes you’re hoping for. The bigger brain-based symptoms — behavior, seizures, communication, speech — will be the last to come online when healing is happening in the right order, because they were the last to develop in the first place. The sequence of healing mirrors the sequence of development.
  2. Neurological soft signs. These are a list of 5–15 quality-of-life markers that most parents overlook because they’re focused on the big stuff. When your child starts sleeping better, trying new foods, having less sensitivity to haircuts and clothing transitions, having better digestion and easier bowel movements, getting through colds faster with a clearer immune response — those are neurological soft signs. They’re not little things. They’re huge things, because they reflect the foundational layers of the nervous system beginning to regulate.

Once the nervous system reaches what we call neurological stability, resiliency, and adaptability — that neurological line in the sand — everything else becomes available. Diet changes, detoxes, PT, OT, speech therapy, ABA — they all become exponentially more effective once the nervous system is ready to receive and respond to them. Many families find that by the time they reach this point, their child has already met or exceeded every goal they had when they started care.

The first and most potent thing for getting a child’s nervous system to that crucial stability point is Neurologically-Focused Chiropractic adjustments — the neuro-tonal approach, done consistently, in sequence, with function measured at every stage.

So even if you’ve seen a chiropractor before and the job didn’t get done — take this conversation to your next appointment. Ask: “Have we handled the foundational nervous system work? Are we at neurological stability? Are we doing too much? What’s the batting order?”

Every kid counts. Every share counts. Get this episode out to every family you know who needs it.

Frequently Asked Questions

What is neurologically focused chiropractic care, and how is it different from regular chiropractic?

Neurologically-Focused Chiropractic Care targets the central and autonomic nervous system directly, using specific adjustment techniques and neurological scanning to measure and improve nervous system function. Standard chiropractic focuses primarily on the spine and musculoskeletal system. The distinction matters enormously for children with chronic conditions — autism, ADHD, epilepsy, and sensory issues are all rooted in a dysregulated nervous system, so addressing the nervous system directly is more effective than a structural-only approach.

Why didn’t chiropractic help my child the first time we tried it?

According to Dr. Tony Ebel, the most common reasons are: the chiropractor was not truly neurologically focused in their clinical protocols (even if their website implied it), or the family was simultaneously doing too many other interventions — detoxes, primitive reflex work, vestibular therapy — that overwhelmed the child’s already-stressed nervous system. A child with autism or epilepsy has a nervous system that is already overloaded. Adding too much too soon creates more dysregulation, not less.

What are the signs that we’re doing too much with our child’s care?

If your child is experiencing regressions, detox reactions, or worsening behavior despite adding new interventions, that’s a strong signal. Dr. Tony Ebel describes a clear tipping point he observed in his own practice: the more things added to a dysregulated child’s protocol — especially before the nervous system is stable — the worse results became. The solution is to simplify, focus on the nervous system first, and sequence everything else in after neurological stability is established.

What are INSiGHT Scans and why do they matter for my child?

INSiGHT Scans are neurological assessment tools that measure nervous system function through neurothermal imaging, EMG (electromyography), and heart rate variability testing. They tell a neurologically focused chiropractor whether a child’s nervous system is subluxated and out of regulatory balance, to what degree, and where. This is a direct measurement of nervous system function — not a secondary indicator like primitive reflexes. If your chiropractor isn’t scanning the nervous system, they cannot be fully confident they’re addressing it.

What are neurological soft signs, and how do I track my child’s progress?

Neurological soft signs are quality-of-life improvements that show the foundational layers of the nervous system are beginning to regulate. These include: sleeping better, trying new foods, reduced sensitivity to haircuts and clothing, easier digestion, fewer sinus and immune issues, and smoother transitions. Dr. Tony Ebel tracks 5–15 of these signs alongside INSiGHT Scan improvements because for tough neurological cases, the major symptoms (behavior, seizures, communication) are the last to change. The soft signs come first and confirm that healing is moving in the right direction.

How do I find a neurologically focused chiropractor near me?

Look for a PX Docs practitioner in your area. The PX Docs directory connects families with chiropractors who are trained specifically in Neurologically-Focused Chiropractic Care for children, use INSiGHT Scans for assessment, and follow the sequential care protocols Dr. Tony Ebel teaches. You can search by location at PX Docs Directory.

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