The Experience Miracles Podcast

We’ve Been Duped: Toxins Aren’t the Main Cause of Chronic Sickness in Kids

Oct 8, 2024

What Is Subluxation? The Hidden Root Cause Behind Chronic Childhood Illness

Episode 41, Experience Miracles Podcast | Host: Dr. Tony Ebel, DC, CACCP, Pediatric Chiropractor & Founder of PX Docs | Published: October 8, 2024 | Duration: 22 min

Key Takeaways

  • The CDC reports that 40% of children have a chronic illness, but real-world observations suggest the actual rate is far higher, with most chronically ill kids managing multiple simultaneous conditions affecting digestion, immunity, development, and behavior at the same time.
  • Subluxation, nervous system dysfunction caused by physical, chemical, or emotional stress, is the most overlooked root cause of chronic childhood illness, amplifying every other health challenge a child faces, including their sensitivity to toxins.
  • In Dr. Tony Ebel’s clinical experience, 80–90% of children arriving at a PX Docs office have already eliminated gluten, casein, and household toxins, yet they remain sick because Subluxation and Sympathetic Dominance are still active and unaddressed.
  • The Perfect Storm, a combination of high-stress pregnancy, birth interventions (forceps, vacuum, C-section, epidural), and early physical trauma to the brainstem, is the documented trigger of subluxation in 85–90% of cases Dr. Ebel evaluates.
  • INSiGHT Scans detect subluxation and nervous system dysfunction objectively, giving PX Docs practitioners the data to build personalized care plans for children who haven’t responded to diet changes, supplements, therapies, or conventional treatment.

What Is Subluxation and Why Does It Matter for Children’s Health?

Subluxation is a state of nervous system dysfunction in which the body’s stress response system, the Sympathetic “fight or flight” system, becomes stuck in the “on” position. When the spine and nervous system are disrupted by physical stress, emotional stress, or chemical exposure, the entire body pays the price: digestion shuts down, immune function dysregulates, motor development stalls, and the brain’s ability to focus, regulate emotion, and sleep breaks down. Dr. Tony Ebel, DC, CACCP, argues that subluxation is the single most underdiagnosed root cause in the chronic childhood illness epidemic, hiding in plain sight because it’s invisible to standard medical testing.

Unlike the conventional medical model, which attributes most childhood illness to genetics, or the natural health model, which attributes it primarily to toxin exposure, Neurologically-Focused Chiropractic Care positions the nervous system as the master controller of all body function. When a child’s nervous system is in a subluxated, Sympathetic Dominant state, even a perfect diet and a toxin-free home cannot restore full health. The nervous system is what controls how effectively the body detoxifies, absorbs nutrients, fights infection, and regulates development. If the controller is offline, nothing downstream works the way it should.

This is why so many parents who have already made significant lifestyle changes, eliminating gluten and casein, cleaning up their home, adding high-quality supplements, find that their child is still sick. According to Dr. Ebel, subluxation is nearly always the remaining missing link in these cases, and it goes undetected because no conventional or functional medicine workup screens for it.

Why Are So Many Kids Chronically Sick Today? [0:00 – 2:00]

Dr. Tony Ebel: Parents, it’s time someone tells you the truth about what’s really causing our kids to be so chronically sick.

If you look at the CDC’s website, which is always outdated and minimizes the reality of chronic illness in this world, and most importantly, doesn’t even attempt to address what’s really causing it, they say that 40% of kids today have chronic illness. But if you look at the actual research and if you just go out in your community, kids are chronically sick. And they’re not just dealing with one or two things.

The majority of kids with chronic illness have multiple chronic illnesses. Their digestive systems and their immune systems are a mess. Their socialization, their speech, their communication, they have developmental delays. Their focus, their emotional regulation, their behavior is a mess. They’re on antibiotics, inhalers, and medications all the time for frequent respiratory illnesses, allergies, and asthma.

Why can’t kids today handle dairy, gluten, and certain foods or things in the environment? Is it just the environment? That’s what I want to address.

The Genetics Myth, And Why the Medical System Is Still Stuck On It [2:00 – 3:30]

When Dr. Ebel entered practice 15 years ago, most families still believed what he calls “a medical fallacy and a made-up story”, that all disease, chronic illness, and poor health is caused by bad genetics.

Dr. Tony Ebel: The medical system still, literally today, uses the theory that bad health for your kids is bad luck. It’s genetic. There’s nothing you can do about it, it’s chemical imbalances and things just programmed badly. And because it’s bad luck, it’s genetic and there’s nothing you can do about it, you must be reliant on the medical system for life. Your kids are just supposed to take these medications forever.

Parents of this generation are done with that. Even if the genetic theory were true, the medications wear off over time and become less effective, while the side effects are always there. Something more is going on. And now, through the natural health movement, parents are finding more of the truth.

Toxins Are Part of It, But Incomplete on Their Own [3:30 – 6:00]

The natural health movement correctly identifies toxin overload as a contributor to chronic illness. Kids and chemicals don’t mix. Toxins in the food supply, household environment, and even in medications do real damage. Dr. Ebel agrees with this, and extends it.

Dr. Tony Ebel: 80 to 90 percent of kids coming into my practice have already gone gluten-free, casein-free, and removed all the toxins from their diet, their food, their house, their cleaners. But their kids are still sick.

Here’s why the toxin theory is accurate but incomplete: toxins aren’t new to this generation. The industrial revolution that brought chemicals into everyday life was many generations ago, and it was actually worse. Lead paint, asbestos, cigarettes everywhere. There was more toxic exposure to heavier, nastier chemicals a couple of generations ago, yet there was far less chronic illness than we see today.

“It’s not just toxins. It’s stress first.”

So what changed? If toxins have always existed and genetics can’t explain the explosion in chronic illness, what is the real driver? The answer is our nervous systems, specifically, a state called Subluxation.

What Subluxation Actually Is, And What It Looks Like in Kids [6:00 – 10:30]

Dr. Tony Ebel: You never actually even need to say the word subluxation again in your life. But it is so important to your family’s health that you understand that subluxation is real. It is the number one hidden-in-plain-sight problem, root cause, and trigger of chronic health, and even acute challenges, in kids.

Subluxation means this: the Sympathetic fight-or-flight, stress, protection, inflammation, meltdown, tantrum, anxiety, hyperactivity, inability-to-focus-concentrate-relax-or-fall-asleep side of the nervous system, for our kids, is stuck on.

“Subluxation is real and it’s the number one hidden in plain sight problem, root cause, trigger of chronic health and even acute challenges in kids.”

In an infant, subluxation looks like: colic, indigestion, reflux, difficulty nursing, can’t soothe, can’t calm, can’t sleep, arching the back, tense and stiff all the time. When a tiny baby is having too much crying, too much stress, and too much discomfort, parents know something is wrong. But the pediatrician says it’s normal. It’s not normal. They just don’t know how to address the nervous system. They’re still blaming everything on genetics.

A colicky baby doesn’t grow out of colic. They grow into frequent respiratory infections, ear infections, sinus infections, RSV, croup, and bronchitis, and then more antibiotics. They grow into chronically sick and developmentally delayed children.

“A colicky baby doesn’t grow out of colic. They grow into frequent respiratory infections, ear infections, sinus infections, RSV, croup, bronchitis, you name it.”

Because subluxation shifts the nervous system into Sympathetic Dominance, it also disrupts motor development. Kids get off track with motor milestones, going too slow or too fast. Many kids skip crawling entirely, which is a critical organizing and regulating phase of nervous system development.

Subluxation wreaks havoc on the immune system. When a child is stuck in fight-or-flight 24/7, 365 days a year, the stress response system, which is supposed to turn on and then turn back off, never deactivates. That colicky baby grows into the toddler with constant 11-out-of-10 meltdowns who can’t handle transitions, can’t go to Target, can’t make it through preschool. They didn’t grow out of it, and they won’t, because subluxation is still running their nervous system.

Then they go into school, can’t sit, can’t focus, can’t stop moving. The teacher pushes for an ADHD evaluation. The neurologist doesn’t examine the child, there’s no real exam for ADHD. Eight minutes, fill out a form, and the child gets a medication. None of this addresses what’s actually driving the behavior.

What Triggers Subluxation: The Perfect Storm [11:00 – 13:00]

Dr. Tony Ebel: What causes subluxation? We call it The Perfect Storm.

The Perfect Storm is three things, and they happen very early in what are called the sensitive or critical periods of development for kids:

First: A high-stress fertility or pregnancy journey. Maternal stress during pregnancy directly impacts fetal nervous system development.

Second: Birth intervention, forceps, vacuum, epidural, induction, and C-section. These create physical trauma to the Brainstem and the Upper Cervical Spine, which is the most sensitive area of the nervous system. That brainstem area contains the on/off switch for both the gas pedal (the fight-or-flight sympathetic system) and the brake pedal (the Vagus Nerve parasympathetic system).

Third: The Three Ts, Traumas, Toxins, and Thoughts, the categories of chemical, physical, and emotional stress that continue to compound the problem after birth.

In 85–90% of the children Dr. Ebel takes through a deep-dive case history, he finds a documented birth injury or birth-intervention-induced subluxation to the upper cervical spine and nervous system. This is not a rare edge case, it is the norm.

Vagus Nerve Dysfunction and the Parasympathetic Collapse [13:00 – 16:00]

Dr. Tony Ebel: Subluxation does two things at the same time. It creates too much sympathetic dominance, too much fight-or-flight. But what I haven’t talked about yet: when you have too much sympathetic fight-or-flight, you have too little rest, digestion, relaxation, and regulation. That’s the anti-inflammatory cascade function.

The Parasympathetic system, controlled by what’s called the Vagus Nerve, is the brake pedal. When subluxation disrupts the brainstem, it doesn’t just accelerate the stress response. It simultaneously knocks out the system designed to bring the body back down into rest, repair, and regulation. This is called Dysautonomia, dysfunction of the Autonomic Nervous System.

Dysautonomia and vagus nerve dysfunction are happening in 80–90% of children in the PX Docs network. And these are the children whose gut doesn’t work well, whose immune systems can’t stop being pro-inflammatory, whose motor and sensory systems don’t respond to PT, OT, and speech therapy.

“The nervous system is the mom of the entire family. It controls, it coordinates, and it keeps track of everything.”

When the nervous system is subluxated and shifted into sympathetic mode:

  • The gut doesn’t work well, even with a perfect diet and tons of supplements
  • The immune system doesn’t work well, even after removing all inflammation and toxins and using anti-inflammatory supplements, essential oils, herbs, and homeopathics
  • The motor system doesn’t work well, even after months or years of PT, OT, and speech therapy
  • The brain’s emotional, behavioral, and cognitive function doesn’t work well, despite years of counseling and talk therapy

Underneath every conversation about chronic illness in kids, there is a nervous system that is out of balance, dysregulated, and subluxated. This is what drives autism, ADHD, anxiety, epilepsy, sensory processing dysfunction, motor tics, OCD, seizures, not as separate disorders with separate causes, but as downstream effects of one core nervous system problem.

How INSiGHT Scans Detect What No Other Test Can Find [17:00 – 19:00]

Dr. Tony Ebel: We use technology throughout the entire PX Docs network called the INSiGHT Scans. And the INSiGHT Scans find subluxation, nervous system dysfunction, dysautonomia, and dysregulation.

The scans do three things:

First: They determine whether your child is actually subluxated. Not based on guesswork, based on objective neurological data.

Second: They allow PX Docs practitioners to create pinpoint, customized care plans that are fundamentally different from anything else in healthcare, even in general chiropractic, to address nervous system dysfunction and subluxation with safe, drug-free adjustments.

Third: They quantify the problem. The practitioner knows exactly what they’re working with, how severe the dysregulation is, and can track progress objectively over time.

When running these scans today, children are more stressed, more out of balance, more subluxated, and more dysregulated than ever, even in families who have already gone gluten-free, casein-free, and toxin-free. The natural wellness lifestyle is absolutely moving in the right direction. But subluxation is what’s left when everything else has been addressed and the child is still struggling.

Finding a PX Docs Practitioner Near You [19:00 – 22:30]

Dr. Tony Ebel: Subluxation is so often, nearly 100% of the time, what we find for families who’ve tried everything and nothing has worked yet. That’s the story of subluxation. Because this problem hides right in plain sight.

Everybody knows the nervous system is boss. Everybody knows that the brainstem and upper cervical spine need to be protected, brain injuries and neck injuries are the worst. But nobody knows that this is exactly what Neurologically-Focused Chiropractic Care addresses.

“Subluxation is the missing link to getting millions of kids healthy again. Because it’s not just genetic, and it’s not just gluten either.”

If you’re not local to a PX Docs office, use the directory at pxdocs.com/directory, enter your city, region, or zip code, and find your local PX Doctor. Your PX Doctor will do a deep-dive case history, unlike any other doctor, looking for real root cause. Not blaming genetics, not blaming toxins alone. Then they’ll run the INSiGHT Scans and walk you through exactly what’s happening in your child’s nervous system, how they can help, and what to expect.

Frequently Asked Questions

What is subluxation in children?

Subluxation is a state of nervous system dysfunction in which the Sympathetic fight-or-flight system becomes stuck “on,” creating chronic stress, inflammation, and dysregulation throughout the body. It’s not a bone out of place in the traditional sense, it’s a nervous system stuck in survival mode. Dr. Tony Ebel describes it as the most common hidden root cause of chronic childhood illness, affecting development, immunity, digestion, behavior, and sleep simultaneously.

What does subluxation look like in a baby or toddler?

In infants, subluxation shows up as colic, reflux, difficulty nursing, inability to soothe or sleep, back arching, and constant tension. These babies grow into toddlers with extreme meltdowns, difficulty with transitions, and delayed motor milestones (many skip crawling entirely). By school age, subluxation often presents as the inability to sit still, focus, regulate emotions, and sleep, frequently misidentified as ADHD or anxiety.

What causes subluxation in children?

Dr. Tony Ebel attributes subluxation to what he calls The Perfect Storm: (1) a high-stress pregnancy, (2) birth interventions such as forceps, vacuum extraction, C-section, epidural, or induction, all of which create physical stress to the Brainstem and Upper Cervical Spine, and (3) ongoing chemical, physical, and emotional stress after birth, summarized as the Three Ts (Traumas, Toxins, and Thoughts). In his clinical experience, 85–90% of children he evaluates have a documented birth intervention that triggered the initial subluxation.

My child has tried everything, diet, supplements, therapies, and nothing is working. What could be missing?

This is the most common scenario Dr. Tony Ebel encounters. When 80–90% of children arrive at a PX Docs office having already eliminated gluten, casein, and toxins but still struggling, Subluxation is almost always the missing piece. When the nervous system is in a subluxated, Sympathetic Dominant state, it impairs the body’s ability to detoxify, absorb nutrients, regulate immunity, and develop normally, regardless of how clean the diet or environment is. Without addressing the nervous system, the other interventions can only partially work.

How do I find out if my child is subluxated?

INSiGHT Scans, the neurological scanning technology used across the PX Docs network, can detect subluxation, dysautonomia, and nervous system dysregulation objectively. A PX Docs practitioner will begin with a deep-dive case history covering birth history, developmental milestones, and the progression of symptoms, then use the scans to confirm and quantify what’s happening in the nervous system. This is how they build customized, data-driven care plans.

How do I find a PX Docs practitioner near me?

Visit the PX Docs Directory and search by city, region, or zip code to find a trained Neurologically-Focused Chiropractic Care practitioner in your area. PX Docs practitioners are specifically trained in pediatric nervous system assessment and care, using INSiGHT Scans and a root-cause approach designed for children with chronic and complex health challenges.

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