27. Unlocking Autism: The Vagus Nerve Connection

In this episode of the Experience Miracles podcast, Dr. Tony Ebel discusses the crucial role of the vagus nerve in autism. He explains that autism is a multifactorial, multi-systems disorder rooted in nervous system dysfunction, with the vagus nerve being a key connection between affected bodily systems. 

Dr. Ebel explores how vagus nerve dysfunction can lead to various issues common in autism, such as sleep problems, digestive issues, and sensory difficulties. He argues that addressing vagus nerve function should be a primary focus in autism management, as it can lead to improvements across multiple systems. The podcast presents Neurologically-Focused Chiropractic Care as a method to stimulate and regulate the vagus nerve, potentially offering a drug-free approach to improving autism symptoms. 

The link to the ‘Perfect Storm’ Podcast Episode mentioned in this episode by Dr. Tony

Apple and Spotify

-- 

Follow us on Socials: 

Instagram: @pxdocs

Facebook: Dr. Tony Ebel & The PX Docs Network

Youtube: The PX Docs

For more information, visit PXDocs.com to read informative articles about the power of Neurologically-Focused Chiropractic Care.

Find a PX Doc Office near me: PX DOCS Directory

To watch Dr. Tony's 30 min Perfect Storm Webinar: Click Here

Transcript

Ep 27: Unlocking Autism: The Vagus Nerve Connection

Dr. Tony Ebel: If this sounds like my child, it absolutely must be vagus nerve dysfunction and nervous system dysregulation. And I've got to get them checked. I've got to find out. Welcome to the Experience Miracles podcast where we help parents find hope, answers and drug-free help to overcome your child's chronic health challenges. I'm your host, Dr. Tony Evil, and I'll be sharing my experiences as both a dad and a doctor on every episode. I can take the latest science and neurology of healing and break it down in the most simple and relatable way possible. We'll take on the toughest topics and answer your biggest questions through interviews with other amazing parents and leading experts, leaving you with practical action steps that you can take to help your child heal and thrive.

It's time to expect and experience miracles. Let's get started.

All right, parents, welcome back to the Experience Miracles podcast. In this episode, we will explore the crucial yet often entirely overlooked role of the vagus nerve in autism. More specifically, we're going to be discussing vagus nerve dysfunction and how this one problem sets up a cascade of so many other problems known to contribute to autism.

What we now know unequivocally about autism is that it is a multifactorial, multi-systems disease that is primarily rooted in deep nervous system dysfunction, dysregulation, and what is known as dysautonomia. And the one thing that connects all those factors and all those systems together specifically is what's called the vagus nerve and the autonomic or central nervous system.

Now, multifactorial means there is not one singular cause of autism, but instead there is what we term a perfect storm or toxic load of issues that arises early and often in a child's life and stacks up and adds up to an overwhelmed, off-track, dysregulated, dysfunctional neurophysiological system and eventually leads to an autism spectrum diagnosis.

The more severe and more significant and the earlier children were exposed to these perfect storm stressors and these toxic triggers, the more severe their case. Perhaps level three autism, they will likely end up with. The less severe and significant those triggers were, perhaps they will end up with a level one or level two case, but those children still struggle with sensory, sleep, digestive, and emotional regulation challenges. We will get into exactly what these perfect storm stressors and autism triggers are here in a few minutes. And if you'd like the full deep dive on the entire perfect storm, going granular on every single variable, the role of fertility challenges, stressful pregnancies, birth interventions, early exposure to antibiotics and other medical interventions and so forth, be sure that after you listen to this full episode, scroll all the way up and check out episode number one of the Experience Miracles podcast. That is my full hour deep dive into the perfect storm.

What I want to do with this episode is introduce those three or four core components of the perfect storm that are happening earlier and way more often than parents are told about, not just in the conventional medical system, but even biomedical functional integrative doctors often don't talk about these early, sensitive, crucial periods of stress on nervous system development that is the perfect storm. So I want you to know all about that stuff, so be sure to check out that episode. But this one, we're going to focus entirely on the vagus nerve and its connection to autism, and how essential a role it plays in, one, when it's not functioning well, creating all the different challenges and therefore two, once we get it back online, we're going to talk about how to stimulate, activate and get the vagus nerve back online without drugs.

And when you do that, you will see so much healing because autism is a multi-systems disease and the vagus nerve and the central nervous system connect those systems all together. When you get that one thing, when you get the vagus nerve and the nervous system back online, you don't just get one good thing happening. You get a multitude of benefits. Good things happening. So simply put, we now know that autism is not just a genetic disorder that negatively impacts the brain and brain development. What we do know is it's that multi-systems challenge where not only is the brain and the nervous system involved, but so is the gut, the digestive system, the respiratory and immune system, the inflammatory system, and so on. Endocrine system, motor system, and so much more. Children struggling with autism don't just struggle with speech, socialization, cognition, behavioral and emotional dysregulation, kind of the hallmarks of the diagnosis.

But if you look deeper, they struggle with digestive dysfunction, decreased motility and constipation, repeated respiratory infections and immune system dysregulation, systemic inflammation, endocrine disruption, significant delays with gross and fine motor tone, coordination, missed milestones, sensory processing, overwhelm, overload, you name it. Children with autism struggle with it. Simply put, when it comes to autism, nearly every single foundational biological physiological system is off track, offline and not working as well as it needs to be. And this is where the vagus nerve comes into play. Let's first break down the role that the vagus nerve and autonomic nervous system play and what its primary jobs are.

It's a multifactorial nerve. And then we'll discuss how things like prenatal distress, birth interventions and trauma, emotional trauma, and toxins can negatively affect or injure that vagus nerve and throw it off course. So we'll get a little bit into the perfect storm, and then most importantly, we will say, here's how you find it. Here's how you know if your vagus, if your child's vagus nerve is dysfunctional.

And offline without a doubt, the single most important and overlooked factor in helping your child heal and recover from autism is this. The vagus nerve, getting it back online, getting it functioning optimally, making sure that the nervous system is balanced and regulated.

If you want improvements in gut health, this episode is the conversation you need to hear. If you want to get a hold of your child's inflammation, systemic inflammation, brain inflammation, this is the episode if you want that you need to hear. If you want to get them healthy again, if your child is struggling, not only with all the autism challenges, but they're sick 6-7 days, no matter how many supplements, no matter how many vitamins, no matter how clean your lifestyle gets, they're still sick, congested, struggling, exhausted all the time. This is the episode. The vagus nerve is that key that honestly is the master key. It's the key that doesn't just unlock one or two doors to drug-free healing for your child. The vagus nerve and the nervous system are the best master key that unlocks so much healing. You're going to see when we talk about this multifactorial onslaught of stress early and often in a kiddo's life.

Guess what? It overwhelms and gets offline first, the vagus nerve and the nervous system, then the gut. Then the immune system, then the motor system, and therefore, guess what happens when you get the vagus nerve back online, you're going to see improvements in sleep, you're going to see improvements in digestive motility and trying new foods, you're going to see improvements in immune system resilience, you're going to see improvements in your child being able to relax and regulate and perceive and follow directions and make transitions and fall asleep and stay asleep, the vagus nerve is the key.

Thankfully, in today's world, and we'll review some of this in this episode, there is more research coming out, connecting the vagus nerve to a multitude of different chronic health conditions in kids and actually in adults as well. And that's the story with autism. If you're talking about gut stuff, you're talking about autism. If you're talking about inflammation, you're talking about autism. If you're talking about gross and fine motor and sensory processing challenges, you're talking about autism. If you're talking about brain-based stuff, struggles with socialization, communication, behavioral and emotional regulation, and just cognitive development, you're talking about autism.

It's the same if you're talking about the nervous system and the vagus nerve. You can have a vagus nerve conversation for hours on end. All about the vagus nerve and the gut and the microbiome. If you're talking about the vagus nerve, you could have days of conversation all about how the vagus nerve regulates and modulates immune system function and inflammation.

If you're talking about the vagus nerve, you could talk forever about its role in the new emerging neuroscience, that the vagus nerve is not just the rest and digest nerve, but it's our social emotional behavioral regulation. So I'm going to get into it right here and give you the nuts and bolts all about the vagus nerve, because its longest standing nicknames, like if you Google the vagus nerve, well, hopefully you'll land on our website. I know a lot of different terms around the vagus nerve will lead you to pxdocs.com. 'Cause this is just one of those things we're going to write about, talk about and be about until the world is yours. And in this episode, we're really applying that key to healing and drug-free results for autism.

Again, not a treatment, not a cure. This is not medicine. This is root cause care. And you have that discussion. You have the vagus nerve and central nervous system discussion. But the truth of the matter is its two longest standing nicknames are what was commonly called the rest and digest nerve or the great nervous system wandering nerve. Now, the reason that the vagus nerve was first and still is, it's still a great nickname. It's just incomplete. As you'll see, as the episode clicks on here, the vagus nerve, yes, it triggers what's called the parasympathetic response. So our sympathetic nervous system, which we talk about all the time on this podcast, that is the system that is triggered excessively in autism.

That is the fight or flight overwhelm, overload, just protective, hyperactivity, impulsive, stimming, stressed out, can't sleep, can't rest, can't relax, can't digest side of the nervous system. Now, the other side that God gave us is what's called the parasympathetic. Now, the way we're designed is if we did not have a vagus nerve, especially because it's the most important, it's the most pivotal part of the parasympathetic system.

Para means it counterbalances the sympathetic fight or flight system. If we didn't have the vagus nerve, we would all have a heart rate of 180. We would all be wound up and stuck in anxiety. We would all be stuck in what's called primal, fight or flight, just stuck in stress mode. Now that's autism. If you look at day to day, moment to moment, what's happening neurophysiologically with a child with autism is they are stuck in it.

The original description of autism, which unfortunately was made by a psychiatrist, Dr. Kanner, all the way back in the fifties, and that's why it got labeled as a psychiatric genetic brain-based disorder, and still today, 70, 80 years later, average pediatrician and average medical neurologist still sees autism as a genetic brain-based disorder and they miss what is staring them directly in the face that it is a multi-systems neurophysiological disorder. It's more of a body-based, just to split these hairs. It's more of a biology root neurophysiology body-based disorder than a neurophysiological disorder up in the brain. You can write that one down parents and even other providers. Autism doesn't begin in the brain. Autism ends up in the brain and I'll make sense of that on this episode and all the ones we do in this podcast, but it was originally described as locked-in syndrome with the vagus nerve as the key to autism.

Unlock that locked-in fight or flight system. And so what we're going to walk through here is the vagus nerve isn't just the rest and digest. It is also the regulation side of the nervous system. So what we now know, thanks to the work of Dr. Steven Porges, um, I'm outside of Chicago, another great Chicago doctor. There, Dr. Porges, um, the polyvagal theory, which you don't even need to Google that. You don't need to look up any of that. Just know that the vagus nerve doesn't just go down into the gut and to the heart and to the lungs and cause, and trigger rest and digestion. That's why it's nicknamed the vagus, the wandering nerve, by the way, because it actually leaves the brainstem.

I know we're on a podcast. You can't see me kind of shred this out with my hands, but the vagus nerve is actually a cranial nerve. The 10th cranial nerve, the longest out of 12 cranial nerves. And it's one of only two out of those 12 that leave the brainstem. So branches from the brainstem, that upper cervical upper neck area, very crucial, most important part of the entire body, entire nervous system. And it leaves and goes down through the neck and what's called the cervical spine, and it branches out. All throughout the thorax, as low as even slightly below the diaphragm, and it goes all the way deep into the gut. It regulates not just our heart and our lungs, and it helps slow those things down, so remember our vagus nerve is our brake pedal.

It's our rest, digest, and release nerve, but it also goes to the eyes. It goes to the ears and it goes to our social sensory emotional receptors because the vagus nerve is 85 percent sensory. It's primarily parasympathetic, rest, regulate, digest, and it's primarily sensory. So your child who cannot perceive and regulate and really make sense of what's going on outside in their environment because they're so locked in with autism and stuck in fight or flight. Yeah. It's because they're missing vagus nerve tone function. We're going to go through the things that shut down and suppress and injure and get the vagus nerve off track early in life. And once you see that those things do that, you'll see that going forward, getting this rest regulation, digestion, social, emotional connection.

And then also what we now know about the vagus nerve is it very, very, very much connects to the immune system and the endocrine system. And it helps regulate our neurotransmitters such as cortisol and adrenaline and cortisol is a pro-inflammatory neurotransmitter. And then vagus nerve very much connects to the immune system and it regulates inflammation. So if you have even dipped one or two toes into the investigative waters as to what's really causing autism, meaning you've left the conventional pediatrician who dismisses it as "don't worry" when your child is colicky, when your child is constipated, when your child has eczema and chronic ear infections and is missing milestones and gets overwhelmed really easily and is speech delayed and skips crawling or is delayed walking and talking and you go that first one, two, three years and you ask questions about, "Hey, should I be concerned? Does this look like the signs, the early warning signs of autism or neurodevelopmental delays in my child?" Still today, still today, when parents ask those questions of their conventional pediatrician, they are dismissed. They are told, "Ah, don't worry about it. Totally normal. Some kids just develop a little slower."

There's nothing really going on. And even if there was autism, there's nothing you can do about it because it is genetic. There is genetic predisposition. On a different episode, all about autism, I dive deeper into that conversation of genetics versus epigenetics, which is our environmental influence. You can go to that episode and listen to that.

We're going to really stay on track with the vagus nerve here, but those are the signs early on in a child's life of vagus nerve dysfunction. Vagus nerve dysfunction in an infant looks like inability to sleep and soothe. Vagus nerve, because of its rest, that's the sleep and soothe digest. That's why a child with vagus nerve dysfunction or what's called subluxation and nervous system dysregulation. We'll connect those dots in a second. That's a child who's refluxy. That's a child who has gut issues that trigger crying and uncomfortableness. That's a child who's constipated and can't have their digestive motility, absorption, and elimination happening. That's a child whose ears and sinuses and immune system are compromised.

So they get sick all the time and they get antibiotics, which are strongly correlated to this conversation as well. So whatever direction we want to take in this conversation about autism with the multifactorial causes, the middleman is the vagus nerve and the brainstem and the nervous system and whatever direction we want to take to say I want to help my child heal naturally, drug-free from these multi systems that are offline with autism.

I want to get their gut better. You need the vagus nerve online. I want to get their body less inflamed and their immune system stronger. You need the vagus nerve online. I want to see them balance their emotions, their transitions, their sensory, their socialization, their behavior. You need the vagus nerve online.

I could spend hours breaking down the roles, the responsibilities of the vagus nerve. But let's next go into what throws it offline because the next section here of this podcast episode is going to be able to tell you just by going back in your child's case history, and you got to go. And you got to go deeper than any doctor got to go deeper than any doctor, any podcast, anybody ever asked you to do or led you to do. And those are going to be the signs. Those are going to be the signals that you went through with your kiddo that everybody else dismissed and said, don't worry, it's normal. They'll grow out of it. Those are what we call those perfect storm triggers that occur early during the sensitive, and critical periods of brain and nervous system development, and it's the vagus nerve that is the great orchestrator and organizer of all neurodevelopment as well.

So this next section, when you hear these common triggers of vagus nerve dysfunction, nervous system dysregulation, and what we call subluxation, which is our catch-all word chiropractically for this whole conversation, those are the signs. If you've got one of those, two of those, or like most parents I talk to, all of those in sequence, because once you get the first one or two, it goes into this perfect storm in this snowball or cascade and vicious cycle of all the other challenges we've already mentioned.

If this next section, you go through it, you hear it and you go, my goodness, he is literally talking about my child and our story. You're going to - don't do it. I want to finish this podcast episode here, mom and dad, but I want you to already almost pre-decide to go to the end of the episode for action. When you're done. Now, right now, don't fast forward by saying, if this sounds like my child, it absolutely must be vagus nerve dysfunction and nervous system dysregulation. And I've got to get them checked. I've got to find out. And so when I get to the end of this episode, I'm going to teach you how to find out through what are called these neurological insight scans that we run in our offices as PX docs. It's a very unique set of technology not found anywhere else in healthcare. 

No one else would have this technology because no one else knows the neuroscience of autism as deeply as we do. No one looks this far back and this deep into the nervous system. And so if you don't know that this is what's really foundationally triggering and causing autism, this vagus nerve dysfunction, dysautonomia and nervous system dysregulation, if you don't know about it, you're not going to look for it. And if you're not going to look for it, 'cause you don't know about it, you can't do anything about it.

And so parents, when you get done with this episode, the whole purpose of the Experience Miracles podcast is not information. It's action. It's for you to learn this stuff in the most implementable, actionable way. I'll go nerdy, I'll go deep, and I'll teach you some neuroscience stuff that even other nerds maybe aren't even talking about, but I promise I'll keep it simple. I'm an Iowa farm boy at heart, and like I've been doing this whole episode already, we'll go deep. We'll go into the neuroscience, but we'll use common, simple to understand analogies and metaphors that all lead to action.

And once you get that information turned into action, and the first step from this one is to find out if your child is struggling with vagus nerve dysfunction, that is the first foundational sequential step that will lead to the care that will actually get the vagus nerve back online, get your child's nervous system regulated and functioning once again.

And when you do that, what can you expect? Better sleep, better digestion, better immune function, better motor tone and coordination, better socialization, speech and communication, and behavioral and emotional regulation and sensory processing. Why would helping one thing do all those things? Because the way God designed us is this one nerve is intimately, intricately connected to controlling, modulating and taking care of all those things for your child.

So this conversation right here is the most simple, straightforward, yet expansive and multifactorial conversation we could ever have about autism. The vagus nerve, if you put it up against the microbiome, the vagus nerve is more important because it controls and regulates digestive motility, absorption, elimination, and inflammatory regulation.

The vagus nerve, if you put it up against cognitive behavioral therapies and ABA and biofeedback and neurofeedback and all these other sort of things that are going right at the brain, those are awesome things. Those are wonderful things. The vagus nerve and getting it activated and stimulated will win out because it's that foundational master key.

Like we've been talking about this whole time. I could go on and on. And when I go down that list and I say this vagus nerve activation, nervous system regulation versus X, Y, or Z, please don't hear what I'm not saying. X, Y, Z, A to Z different things that are out there in those Facebook groups, other podcasts, other blogs, other websites as to how to help heal your child with autism. That list is long, that list is exhausting. That list is awesome. And I promise you this, each and everything on that list has its role in this process of helping your child get to the other side of their struggles with autism. But everything on that list, everything on that list will be limited in its potential to do its job and help your child if the vagus nerve and the autonomic nervous system isn't online and doing its job first.

Therefore this whole story here about the vagus nerve being the hidden key, the overlooked factor in helping your child with autism, it isn't the only thing. But it needs to be the first thing, because once you get that nervous system back online, once you get it functioning and moving forward, now the diet changes are going to be easier and work better. Now the supplementation, the detoxification, the parasite cleanse and elimination are going to have more impact. They're going to do a better job because the nervous system needs to control and modulate that job of the gut and of the immune system. Everything you're trying to do to regulate inflammation with your child with autism is going to take and be so much more potent and effective when the nervous system is functional and online.

So it's the same conversation had 17 different ways. The vagus nerve is the most essential part to helping your child heal, recover, and meet their full potential with autism. Okay. So let's just do a quick recap of all the different, absolutely foundational, absolutely autism-related, physiological, biological functions that the vagus nerve controls and regulates.

Okay. We're going to run through this list one more time. So you can see how this one thing can have a multi-functionality, factorial benefit for your child with autism. Number one, sleep. The vast majority of children with autism take two hours to fall asleep instead of a couple of minutes or 20 minutes.

They are so wound up, so stressed out, so sympathetic dominant. They are both wound up and worn out at the same time. And that is the hardest time to fall asleep. And even if they fall asleep, they're restless. They're moving. They're dysregulated. They're not getting good quality sleep. You get the vagus nerve back online. You're going to see improvements in sleep. Number two, respiration. Have you tried to teach your kiddo different coping strategies, deep breath, deep breathing, different things to get through stressful situations? Well, the vagus nerve regulates respiratory function, the vagus nerve controls pulmonary function, diaphragmatic action.

The vagus nerve is essential to providing the body's ability to even take a deep breath and regulate oxygenation in the first place. Number three, digestion. And gut function getting just a little bit deeper because I know so many of you moms out there have gone deep into the gut-brain connection in the microbiome. With the vagus nerve and just the nervous system overall is in charge of when it comes to gut function is number one: absorption. So if the nervous system is stressed out, we call it neurogenic gut issues. So sympathetic dominance, subluxation, dysautonomia, the first place that stress on the nervous system is going to steal energy from your child's physiological systems is actually the gut. The gut is a huge, you'd almost kind of call it, um, energy hog.

Okay. The gut has an essential foundational function to so many different things, obviously. So it takes a lot of energy. It takes a lot of neurological kind of battery power to do absorption. And then if it's doing that job, if the nervous system is online, the vagus nerve specifically, the gut can do a good job of absorbing energy, key nutrients, macronutrients, all those good foods you're trying to get into your kiddo. You need the vagus nerve online to absorb them. Second, if you get them in, it's called assimilation. Assimilation is a nerd word for sending those nutrients to the pieces, parts, and places of the body they are needed for healing and health.

So absorption first, assimilation second, and then this is a big one with autism. This one is massive. The vagus nerve must be online for elimination or in today's world probably better called detoxification. So have you been told that your child's body is riddled? You've done the OAT test, the heavy metal test, all the tests and your child's body has heavy metals, your child's body has parasites, your child's body has all sorts of toxins that it can't get out and somebody has blamed the liver? They're right.

If somebody has blamed MTHFR and different, you know, kind of just different physiological functions that are involved in detoxification and elimination, they are barking up the right tree, but they're getting to the trunk, not the roots. The vagus nerve, if you even think of it, I say this all the time. If you even think about kind of like what an anatomical textbook, what it would look like to see all these sensory nerve endings coming down from the brainstem, remember the vagus nerve is this long branching, just kind of, um, just upside down tree. It looks like it's like you literally can see the roots and that's what the vagus nerve is.

And because it's sensory, it's literally down into the gut, sending signals back up into the brain, but it's also sending motor control signals back down. And so this absorption, assimilation, elimination, and detoxification, it is dependent upon vagus nerve connection. Okay. So that is a big part of digestive motility, absorption, assimilation, and elimination.

The vagus nerve goes into this nucleus called the NTS nucleus and other sort of connections with the immune system, and it regulates inflammation. So number one, sleep. Number two, respiration. Number three, digestion. Number four, immune function and inflammation. And then the other thing that the vagus nerve does foundationally is it controls motor tone and coordination.

So if your child has stimming and spasticity in some areas, they're toe walking, they're jaw clenching all the time, they're biting, they're chewing. They're grasping their hands or moving their hands. That is a sign of hypertonicity. You need the vagus nerve online to get that tension to relax. And then a weak core. A suppressed and exhausted core comes from too much sympathetic dominance. So once you get the vagus nerve and the nervous system regulated again, you will see motor tone and coordination improve along with gut function and inflammation control. And then honestly, just the big picture, those four or five things are what we call the basics of brain development.

They're what we call the neurological soft science and the core components of healing a child with autism. But then it's the big stuff, right? The brain, speech, communication, even seizure control is really dependent upon vagus nerve function, motor tics, vagus nerve, anxiety. Vagus nerve, you name it, the vagus nerve is connected to it from a brain-based conversation as well.

The vagus nerve controls our resilience. The vagus nerve controls our variability, which is our adaptability. And that is the big picture. That is probably the biggest, nerdiest kind of grandiose part of the neurophysiological conversation we could have with the vagus nerve. But also if you understand that, you understand that that's the key to regulating and kind of harmonizing, orchestrating, and organizing all those other key functions and organ and biological systems. The job of the vagus nerve is vast. The job of the nervous system is massive. It has a lot to organize, a lot to keep together, and therefore with autism, when the nervous system, specifically the vagus nerve, is stressed out, dysregulated, dysfunctional, and subluxated early on, all those jobs get offline.

Because they never got online in the first place. So these developmental delays, these gut dysfunctions, these are all connected to this vagus nerve conversation. So again, to dive deeper into the perfect storm of fertility challenges, fertility, prenatal or maternal distress, the role that birth interventions play and antibiotics and early exposure to toxins and other medical interventions play.

I want you to go listen after this one. We're about done wrapping this one up. Go listen to the whole perfect storm episode. It's episode number one. We'll link it in the show notes to this one. And I also did a whole hour plus deep dive into autism. And the things we're talking about here, I went even deeper.

So if your child does have an autism diagnosis, and we found you first with this episode, and you haven't listened to that one yet, be sure to listen to this one after that as well. So what's going to change? What's the action now that you know about the vagus nerve and its connection to autism and the multi-systems multifactorial challenges that autism is?

I mentioned it earlier. Let me close with it one more time. How do you find it? Number one, if your child's case history, if they went through those perfect storm triggers and they have these multifactorial challenges and so that's one thing. And then there was an "and" and I got another "and" for you.

There's a third "and" here and you've tried it all. You've done the diet changes, you've done OT, you've done PT, you've done speech, you've done ABA, you've done cognitive behavioral therapy, you've done homeopathics, you've done herbals, you've done parasite cleanses, and the list goes on. I'd have to keep you here for an hour to go through, just introductory, go through all the different things that autism Facebook groups and mom blogs and biomedical websites tell you you need to do to get your child better. 

I said it earlier. I'll say it one more time that whole list. I love that list. I know that list well, I'm trained in all that list. I was a functional neurologist biomedical specialist long before anybody knew what the heck that was. I built a whole clinic here outside of Chicago where we didn't just do neurologically focused chiropractic care which is designed more potently and more directly than any other anything else out there to get the vagus nerve back online and restore regulation and function to the nervous system.

Chiropractic does that hands down better than anything else. That doesn't mean there isn't a lot of other things that tap into that system in a kind of sort of secondary tertiary way, but this makes more change to the vagus nerve than anything else. And I know that. Not just because of all my certifications and all my training and all my post-doctorate nerdiness.

I know that because I have cared for tens of thousands of children with autism in our clinic. And I've trained thousands of other chiropractors in these protocols. And this very focused science to apply this one thing, neurologically focused chiropractic, at the highest level by the way. This isn't a regular chiropractic conversation.

This isn't most chiropractors awesomely take care of back pain, neck pain, and spinal challenges. This kind of chiropractic is different. This kind of chiropractor you're looking for with your child with autism is one that knows exactly what I taught on this episode. They know all about the vagus nerve. They know all about the role of the nervous system. They know all about the perfect storm. They can not only talk about this, like we're having this conversation here on this podcast episode, but they can actually find and measure through a deep dive consultation. So that's step one. If this sounds like your kiddo, it very likely, obviously I can't do this on the podcast and go, "Oh yeah, absolutely."

You got to get into an office, the deep dive consultation, the case history, that's step one that moves you forward into action. Go to the website, go to pxdocs.com. We'll link it. It's in our bio. It's on our show notes. It's everywhere. You can ever, anytime we put out content, you're one or two clicks away from our nervous system focus chiropractic directory.

And in those offices is the neurological insight technology. Thermal scans, EMG scans and HRV because they're so very visual and they're so very powerful. It's hard to talk about these things on the podcast, but HRV heart rate variability is the most important one. I want to send you into action with you must get these scans on your child. You got to find out if their vagus nerve is dysfunctional and offline. And to what degree, and then from those scans, from that technology, the most important thing comes after that. You then get your child's personalized, customized care plan. See, when it comes to autism, nervous system dysregulation, and vagus nerve dysfunction, there are patterns within children with certain conditions like autism that we can see in their scans, that we can see in their exam findings.

There are certain patterns, the perfect storm sequence that we see in their case history. But here's what I'll leave you with. The way we take care of your child is exactly that. We take care of your child individually. Uh, and this is a deep dive case history that your PX doc will do that no other doc, they will ask more questions. They will ask deeper questions and they will ask more granular questions than any doctor ever has. And just you sitting along, sitting in there. Maybe it'll be done on Zoom on phone or in person. You will, through that process, the answers we talked about on this podcast specifically for your child's case history will already start to be revealed to you.

You know those ones that have been in there all the time? This podcast episode probably didn't teach you anything you didn't already know. But everybody else in the pediatrician world, conventional, dismissed it, and everybody else in the biomedical, you know, nutritional, functional, awesome, helpful, impactful world, distracted you with microbiome and primitive reflexes and tongue ties and systemic inflammation and heavy metals and parasites.

All good stuff. All tied to vagus nerve dysfunction, dysregulation, and dysautonomia. So the answers just in the consultation will reveal themselves, but then from that, you go to the scans. You go to the Neurological Insights scans, you go to HRV, and you will find out, number one, is my child struggling with this, vagus nerve dysfunction, nervous system dysregulation, and subluxation.

If yes to number one, you'll get number two. How bad? How much? What are we dealing with? And that also goes with exactly where they're subluxated, where these stress patterns are again, beyond the scope of this podcast. And then that reveals number three, and your PX doc will take in all that information from the consultation, from the scans, from the exam.

And they'll be able to sit across from you at what's called a report of findings visit, show you the results, show you these HRV scans, show you the exact degree of vagus nerve dysfunction and dysautonomia your child may be dealing with and they'll give you and your family and your child a very personalized, very customized action plan and care plan and every adjustment we make is designed to get that sucker right back online. Every adjustment we make isn't about spines and bones out of place and tight muscles. This kind of chiropractic directly provides input to the vagus nerve, to the central and autonomic nervous system, and the entire goal and foundational scientific response of our care is to get the nervous system regulated, functioning, and rocking once again. 

What parents of children with autism report in the initial stages of care: better sleep, more poop, trying new foods, stronger immune response, less congestion, easier transitions, easier, smoother regulation of emotions and behavior, calming of stimming, improvements of gross and fine motor coordination and regulation, and the list goes on.

You get this one thing working better, the vagus nerve, you get everything in the body working better as a result. It's not a treatment. And it's not a cure, and that's not what you need inside your child. God gave them everything they need to get the gut, to get the immune system and to get the brain back online.

The vagus nerve is that master key to unlock them all. I'll leave you with that. If this was helpful to you, will you please go to Apple, Spotify, wherever you're listening to this? And if you haven't already, go ahead. Could you please leave us a review if this was helpful, if this was impactful, if this is the first step in transforming your family's life and you know it, will you please leave a review?

So that helps us share this wildly impactful podcast with millions of parents worldwide. Will you please copy the link? Text it to another friend, take this, post it up in an autism Facebook group you might be in so other parents find this pivotal, essential, often so overlooked, kind of right in front of our face, but it's hard to see the forest through the trees with autism.

Conversation about the vagus nerve. Please subscribe, please download, please review, please share, because every share, there's another kid at the end of that text and at the end of that post. And what God put us here, what God put me here to do is to get this information to you. Truthful, impactful, detailed, granular, scientific, yet simple and actionable. That's what this podcast stands for. There's no other one like it because there's nothing else like neurologically focused chiropractic care out there. So please help us share this far and wide. You need more information, more articles, more research. It's on the website pxdocs.com and that is the place you go to find the directory and find your family's nervous system focused chiropractor as well. So they can turn that master key, get that vagus nerve and nervous system rocking for your child once again. And you can start to experience unbelievable, multifactorial healing and improvement for your incredible child.

I can't wait to hear about your family's miracle story. Because every single day here on this podcast, we absolutely expect and experience miracles.

Raw Version: 

00:00:00] If this sounds like my child, it absolutely must be vagus nerve dysfunction and nervous system dysregulation. And I've got to get them checked. I've got to find out. Welcome to the experience miracles podcast where we help parents find hope answers and drug free help to overcome your child's chronic health challenges I'm your host.

Dr. Tony evil and I'll be sharing my experiences as both a dad and a doctor on every episode I can take the latest science and neurology of healing and break it down in the most simple and relatable way possible We'll take on the toughest topics and answer your biggest questions through interviews with other amazing parents and leading experts leaving you with practical action steps that you can take to help your child heal and thrive.

It's time to expect and experience miracles. Let's get started.

All right, parents, welcome back to the Experience Miracles podcast. In this episode, we will explore the crucial yet often entirely overlooked role of the vagus nerve in autism. More specifically, we're going to be [00:01:00] discussing vagus nerve dysfunction and how this one problem sets up a cascade of so many other problems known to contribute to autism.

to autism. What we now know unequivocally about autism is that is a, it is a multifactorial multi systems disease that is primarily rooted in deep nervous system dysfunction, dysregulation, and what is known as dysautonomia. And the one thing that connects all those factors and all those systems together specifically is what's called the vagus nerve and the autonomic or central nervous system.

Now, multifactorial means there is not One singular cause of autism, but instead there is what we term a perfect storm or toxic load of issues that arises early and often in a child's life and stacks up and adds up to an overwhelmed, off track, dysregulated, dysfunctional neurophysiological system and eventually leads to an autism spectrum diagnosis.

The more severe and more significant and the more Early children were exposed to these perfect storm stressors and these toxic triggers. The more [00:02:00] severe their case, perhaps level three autism, they will likely end up with the less severe and significant those triggers were. Perhaps they will end up with a level one or level two case, but those children still struggle.

sensory, sleep, digestive, just emotional regulation challenges. We will get into exactly what these perfect storm stressors and autism triggers are here in a few minutes. And if you'd like the full deep dive on the entire perfect storm, going granular on every single variable, the role of fertility challenges, stressful pregnancies, birth interventions, early exposure to antibiotics and other medical interventions and so forth.

Be sure that after you listen to this full episode, scroll all the way up and check out. episode number one of the experience miracles podcast. That is my full hour deep dive into the perfect storm. What I want to do with this episode is introduce those three or four core components of the perfect storm that are happening earlier and way more often than parents are told about, not just in the conventional medical system, but even [00:03:00] biomedical functional integrative doctors often don't talk about these.

Early, sensitive, crucial periods of stress on nervous system development that is the perfect storm. So I want you to know all about that stuff, so be sure to check out that episode. But this one, we're going to focus entirely on the vagus nerve and its connection to autism, and how essential a role it plays in, one, When it's not functioning well, creating all the different challenges and therefore too, once we get it back online, we're going to talk about how to stimulate, activate and get the vagus nerve back online with this without drugs.

And when you do that, you will see so much healing because autism is a multi systems disease and the vagus nerve and the central nervous system connects those systems all together. When you get that one thing, when you get the vagus nerve and the nervous system back online, you don't just get one good thing happening.

You get a multitude of benefits. Good things happening. So simply put, we now know that autism is not just a genetic disorder that negatively [00:04:00] impacts the brain and brain development. What we do know is it's that multi systems challenge where not only is the brain and the nervous system involved, but so is the gut.

So the digestive system, the respiratory and immune system, the inflammatory system, and so on. endocrine system, motor system, and so much more children struggling with autism. Don't just struggle with speech, socialization, cognition, cognition, behavioral and emotional dysregulation, kind of the hallmarks of the diagnosis.

But if you look deeper, they struggle with digestive dysfunction, decreased motility and constipation, repeated respiratory infections and immune system dysregulation, systemic inflammation, endocrine disruption, significant delays with gross and fine motor. Tone, coordination, missed milestones, sensory processing, overwhelm, overload, you name it.

Children with autism struggle with it. Simply put, when it comes to autism, nearly every single foundational biological physiological system is off track. offline and not working as well as it needs to be. And this is where the vagus nerve [00:05:00] comes into play. Let's first break down the role that the vagus nerve and autonomic nervous system play and what its primary jobs are.

It's a multifactorial nerve. And then we'll discuss how things like prenatal distress, birth interventions and trauma, emotional trauma, and toxins can negatively affect Effect or injure that vagus nerve and throw it off course. So we'll get a little bit into the perfect storm, and then most importantly, we will say, here's how you find it.

Here's how you know if your vagus, if your child's vagus nerve is dysfunctional. And offline without a doubt, the single most important and overlooked factor in helping your child heal and recover from autism is this. The vagus nerve, getting it back online, getting it functioning optimally, making sure that the nervous system is balanced and regulated.

If you want improvements in gut health, this episode is the conversation you need to hear. If you want to get ahold of your child's inflammation, systemic inflammation, brain inflammation, this is the episode if you want that you need to hear. If you want to get them healthy again, if your child is struggling, not only with all the autism challenges, but they're sick [00:06:00] 65, no matter how many supplements, no matter how many vitamins, No matter how clean your lifestyle gets, they're still sick, congested, struggling, exhausted all the time.

This is the episode. The vagus nerve is that key that honestly is, is the master key. It's the key that doesn't just unlock one or two doors to drug free healing for your child. The vagus nerve and the nervous system are the best. master key that unlocks so much healing. You're going to see when we talk about this multifactorial onslaught of stress early and often in a kiddos life.

Guess what? It overwhelms and gets offline first, the vagus nerve and the nervous system, then the gut. Then the immune system, then the motor system, and therefore, guess what happens when you get the vagus nerve back online, you're going to see improvements in sleep, you're going to see improvements in digestive motility and trying new foods, you're going to see improvements in immune system resilience, you're going to see improvements in your child being able to [00:07:00] relax and regulate and, and perceive and follow directions and make transitions and fall asleep and stay asleep, the vagus nerve is the key.

Thankfully. In today's world, and we'll review some of this in this episode, there is more research coming out, connecting the vagus nerve to a multitude of different chronic health conditions in kids and actually in adults as well. And that's the story with autism. If you're talking about gut stuff, you're talking about autism.

If you're talking about inflammation, you're talking about autism. If you're talking about gross and fine motor and sensory processing challenges, you're talking about autism. If you're talking about brain based stuff, struggles with socialization, communication, behavioral and emotional regulation, and just cognitive development, you're talking about autism.

It's the same if you're talking about the nervous system and the vagus nerve. You can have a vagus nerve conversation for hours on end. All about the vagus nerve and the gut and the microbiome. If you're talking about the [00:08:00] vagus nerve, you could have days of conversation all about how the vagus nerve regulates and modulates immune system function and inflammation.

If you're talking about the vagus nerve, you could talk forever about its role in the new emerging neuroscience, that the vagus nerve is not just the rest and digest nerve, but it's our social emotional behavioral regulation. So I'm going to get into it right here and give you the nuts and bolts all about the Vegas Nerve, because it's longest standing nicknames.

Like if you Google the Vegas Nerve, well, hopefully you'll land on our website. I know a lot of different terms around the Vegas Nerve will lead you to pxdocs. com. Cause this is just one of those things we're going to write about, talk about and be about until the world is yours. And in this episode, we're really applying that key to healing and drug free results for autism.

Again, not a treatment, not a cure. This is not medicine. This is root cause care. And you [00:09:00] have that discussion. You have the vagus nerve and central nervous system discussion. But the truth of the matter is it's two longest standing nicknames are what was commonly called the rest and digest nerve or the great nervous system.

wandering nerve. Now, the reason that the vagus nerve was first and still is, it's still a great nickname. It's just incomplete. As you'll see, as the episode clicks on here, the vagus nerve, yes, it triggers what's called the parasympathetic response. So our sympathetic nervous system, which we talk about all the time on this podcast, that is the system that is triggered excessively in autism.

That is the fight or flight Overwhelm, overload, just protective, hyperactivity, impulsive, stimming, stressed out, can't sleep, can't rest, can't relax, can't digest side of the nervous system. Now, the other side that God gave us is what's called the parasympathetic. Now, the way we're designed is if we did not have a vagus nerve, especially because it's the most important, it's the most pivotal part of the parasympathetic system.

[00:10:00] Para means it counterbalances the sympathetic fight or flight system. If we didn't have the vagus nerve, We would all have a heart rate of 180. We would all be wound up and stuck in anxiety. We would all be stuck in what's called primal, fight or flight, just stuck in stress mode. Now that's autism. If you look at day to day, moment to moment, what's happening neurophysiologically with a child with autism is they are stuck in it.

The original description of autism, which unfortunately was made by a psychiatrist, Dr. Kanner, all the way back in the fifties, and that's why it got labeled as a psychiatric genetic brain based disorder, and still today, 70, 80 years later, average pediatrician and average medical neurologist still sees autism as a genetic brain based disorder and they miss what is staring them directly in the face that it is a multi systems neurophysiological.

It's more of a body based just to just split these hairs. It's more of a biology root [00:11:00] neurophysiology body based disorder that in neurophysiological Up in the brain. You can write that one down parents and even other providers. Autism doesn't begin in the brain. Autism ends up in the brain and I'll make sense of that on this episode and all the ones we do in this podcast, but it was originally described as locked in syndrome with a vagus nerve is the key to autism.

Unlock that locked in fight or flight system. And so what we're going to walk through here is the Vegas nerve isn't just the rest and digest. It is also the regulation side of the nervous system. So what we now know, thanks to the work of Dr Steven Porges, um, I'm outside of Chicago, another great Chicago doctor.

There, Dr. Porges, um, the polyvagal theory, which you don't even need to Google that. You don't need to look up any of that. Just know that the vagus nerve doesn't just go down into the gut and to the heart and to the lungs and cause, and trigger rest and digestion. That's why it's nicknamed the vagus, the wandering nerve, by the way, because it actually leaves the brainstem.

I know we're on a podcast. You can't see me kind of [00:12:00] shred this out with my hands, but the vagus nerve is actually a cranial nerve. The 10th. cranial nerve, the longest out of 12 cranial nerves. And it's one of only two out of those 12 that leave the brainstem. So branches from the brainstem, that upper cervical upper neck area, very crucial, most important part of the entire body, entire nervous system.

And it leaves and goes down through the neck and what's called the cervical spine, and it branches out. All throughout the thorax, as low as even slightly below the diaphragm, and it goes all the way deep into the gut. It regulates not just our heart and our lungs, and it helps slow those things down, so remember our vagus nerve is our brake pedal.

It's our rest, digest, and release. nerve, but it also goes to the eyes. It goes to the ears and it goes to our social sensory emotional receptors because the vagus nerve is 85 percent sensory. It's primarily parasympathetic, rest, regulate, digest, and it's [00:13:00] primarily sensory. So your child who cannot perceive and regulate and really make sense of what's going on out going on outside in their environment because they're so locked in with autism and stuck in fight or flight.

Yeah. It's because they're missing Vegas nerve tone function. We're going to go through the things that shut down and suppress and injure and get the Vegas nerve off track early in life. And once you see that those things do that, you'll see that going forward, getting this rest regulation, digestion, social, emotional connection.

And then also what we now know about the vagus nerve is it very, very, very much connects to the immune system and the endocrine system. And it helps regulate our neurotransmitters such as cortisol and adrenaline and cortisol is a pro inflammatory neurotransmitter. And then vagus nerve very much connects to the immune system and it regulates.[00:14:00]

inflammation. So if you have even dipped one or two toes into the investigative waters as to what's really causing autism, meaning you've left the conventional pediatrician who dismisses it as don't when, when your child is colicky, when your child is constipated, when your child has eczema and chronic ear infections and his missing milestones and gets overwhelmed really easily and his speech delayed and skips crawling or is delayed walking and talking and you go that first one, two, three years and you ask questions about, Hey, Should I be concerned?

Is, does this look like the signs, the early warning signs of autism or neurodevelopmental delays in my child? Still today, still today, when parents ask those questions of their conventional pediatrician, they are dismissed. They are told, ah, don't worry about it. Totally normal. Some kids just develop a little slower.

There's nothing really going on. And even if there was autism, there's nothing you can do about it because [00:15:00] it is genetic. There is genetic predisposition. On a different episode, all about autism, I dive deeper into that conversation of genetics versus epigenetics, which is our environmental influence. You can go to that episode and listen to that.

We're going to really stay on track with the vagus nerve here, but those are the signs Early on in a child's life of vagus nerve dysfunction, vagus nerve dysfunction in an infant looks like inability to sleep and soothe vagus nerve because of its rest. That's the sleep and soothe digest. That's why a child with vagus nerve dysfunction or what's called subluxation and nervous system dysregulation.

We'll connect those dots in a second. That's a child who's refluxy. That's a child who has gut issues that trigger crying and uncomfortableness. That's a child who's constipated and can't have their digestive motility, absorption, and elimination happening. That's a child whose ears and sinuses and immune system are compromised.

So they get sick all the time and they get antibiotics, which are strongly correlated to this conversation as well. So whatever direction [00:16:00] we want to take in this conversation about autism with the multifactorial causes, the middleman is the one. is the vagus nerve and the brainstem and the nervous system and whatever direction we want to take to say I want to help my child heal naturally, drug free from these multi systems that are offline with autism.

I want to get their gut better. You need the vagus nerve online. I want to get their body less inflamed and they're immune system stronger. You need the vagus nerve online. I want to see them balance their emotions, their transitions, their sensory, their socialization, their behavior. You need the vagus nerve on line.

I could spend. Hours breaking down the roles, the responsibilities of the Vegas nerve. But let's next go into what throws it offline because the next section here of this podcast episode is going to be able to tell you just by going back in your child's case history, and you got to go. And you [00:17:00] got to go deeper than any doctor, any podcast, anybody ever asked you to do or led you to do.

And those are going to be the signs. Those are going to be the signals that you went through with your kiddo that everybody else dismissed and said, don't worry, it's normal. They'll grow out of it. Those are what we call those perfect storm triggers that occur early during the sensitive, and critical periods of brain and nervous system development, and it's the vagus nerve that is the great orchestrator and organizer of all neurodevelopment as well.

So this next section, when you hear these common triggers of vagus nerve dysfunction, nervous system dysregulation, and what we call subluxation, which is to catch our word chiropractically for this whole conversation, those are the signs. If you've got one of those, two of those, or like most parents I talk to, all of those In sequence, because once you get the first one or two, it goes into this perfect storm in this [00:18:00] snowball or cascade and vicious cycle of all the other challenges we've already mentioned.

If this next section, you go through it, you hear it and you go, my goodness, he is literally talking about my child and our story. You're going to don't do it. I want podcast episode here, mom and dad, but I want you to already almost pre decide to go to the end of the episode in inaction. When you're done.

Now, right now, don't fast forward by saying, if this sounds like my child, it absolutely must be vagus nerve dysfunction and nervous system dysregulation. And I've got to get them checked. I've got to find out. And so when I get to the end of this episode, I'm going to teach you how to find through what are called these neurological insight scans that we run.

in our offices as PX docs. It's a very unique set of technology not found anywhere else in healthcare. No one else would have this technology because no one else knows the neuroscience of autism as deeply as we do. No one looks this far back [00:19:00] and this deep into the nervous system. And so if you don't know that this is what's really foundationally triggering and causing autism, this vagus nerve dysfunction, dysautonomia and nervous system dysregulation, if you don't know about it.

You're not going to look for it. And if you're not going to look for it, cause you don't know about it, you can't do anything about it. And so parents, when you get done with this episode, the whole purpose of the experience miracles podcast is not information. It's action. It's for you to learn this stuff in the most implementable.

actionable way. I'll go nerdy, I'll go deep, and I'll teach you some neuroscience stuff that even other nerds maybe aren't even talking about, but I promise I'll keep it simple. I'm an Iowa farm boy at heart, and like I've been doing this whole episode already, we'll go deep. We'll go into the neuroscience, but we'll use common, simple to understand analogies and metaphors that all lead to action.

And once you get that information turned into action, and the first step from this one is to find out if [00:20:00] your child is struggling with vagus nerve dysfunction, that is the first step. foundational sequential step that will lead to the care that will actually get the vagus nerve back online, get your child's nervous system regulated and functioning once again.

And when you do that, what can you expect? Better sleep, better digestion, better immune function, better motor tone and coordination, better socialization, speech and communication, any behavioral and emotional regulation and sensory processing. Why would helping one thing Do all those things because the way God designed us is this one nerve is intimately, intricately connected to controlling, modulating and taking care of all those things for your child.

So this conversation right here is the most simple, straightforward, yet expansive and multifactorial conversation we could ever have. ever have about autism. The vagus nerve, if you put it up against the microbiome, the vagus nerve is more important because it controls and regulates digestive motility, absorption, elimination, and inflammatory regulation.

The [00:21:00] vagus nerve, if you put it up against cognitive behavioral therapies and ABA and biofeedback and neurofeedback and all these other sort of things that are going right at the brain, those are awesome things. Those are wonderful things. The vagus nerve and getting it out. activated and simulated will win out because it's that foundational master key.

Like we've been talking about this whole time. I could go on and on. And when I go down that list and I say this Vegas nerve activation, nervous system regulation versus X, Y, or Z, please don't hear what I'm not saying X, Y, Z, A to Z different things that are out there in those Facebook groups, other podcasts, other blogs, other websites as to how to help heal your child with autism.

That list is long, That list is exhausting. That list is awesome. And I promise you this, each and everything on that list has its role in this process of helping your child get to the other side of their struggles with autism. But everything on that list, everything on that [00:22:00] list will be limited in its potential to do its job and help your child.

If the vagus nerve and the autonomic nervous system isn't online and doing its job first, therefore this whole story here about the vagus nerve being the hidden key, the overlooked factor in helping your child with autism, it isn't the only thing. But it needs to be the first thing, because once you get that nervous system back online, once you get it functioning and moving forward, now the diet changes are going to be easier and work better.

Now the supplementation, the detoxification, the parasite cleanse and elimination are going to have more impact. Activation. They're going to do a better job because the nervous system needs to control and modulate that job of the gut and of the immune system. Everything you're trying to do to regulate inflammation with your child with autism is going to take and be so much more potent and effective when the nervous system is functional and online.

So it's the same conversation had 17 different ways. [00:23:00] The vagus nerve is the most essential part to helping your child heal, recover, and meet their full potential with autism. Okay. So let's just do a quick recap of all the different, absolutely foundational, absolutely autism related, physiological, biological functions that the vagus nerve controls and regulates.

Okay. We're going to run through this list one more time. So you can see how this one thing can have a multi functionality. Factorial benefit for your child with autism. Number one, sleep. The vast majority of children with autism take two hours to fall asleep instead of a couple of minutes or 20 minutes.

They are so wound up, so stressed out, so sympathetic dominant. They are both wound up and worn out at the same time. And that is the hardest time to fall asleep. And even if they fall asleep, They're restless. They're moving. They're dysregulated. They're not getting good quality sleep. You get the vagus nerve back online.

You're going to see improvements in sleep. Number two, respiration. Have you tried to teach your kiddo different coping strategies, [00:24:00] deep breath, deep breathing, different things to get through stressful situations? Well, the vagus nerve regulates. Respiratory function, the vagus nerve controls pulmonary function, diaphragmatic action.

The vagus nerve is essential to providing the body's ability to even take a deep breath and regulate oxygenation in the first place. Number three, digestion. And gut function getting just a little bit deeper because I know so many of you moms out there have gone deep into the gut brain connection in the microbiome with the vagus nerve and just the nervous system overall is in charge of when it comes to gut function is number one.

Absorption. So if the nervous system is stressed out, we call it neurogenic gut issues. So sympathetic dominance, subluxation, dysautonomia, the first place that stress on the nervous system is going to steal energy from your child's physiological systems is actually the gut. The gut is a huge, you'd almost kind of call it, um, energy hog.

Okay. [00:25:00] The gut has a essential foundational function to so many different things, obviously. So it takes a lot of energy. It takes a lot of neurological kind of battery power to do absorption. And then if it's doing that job, if the nervous system is online, the vagus nerve specifically, the gut can do a good job of absorbing energy.

key nutrients, macronutrients, all those good foods you're trying to get into your kiddo. You need the vagus nerve online to absorb them. Second, if you get them in, it's called assimilation. Assimilation is a nerd word for sending those nutrients to the pieces, parts, and places of the body they are needed for healing and health.

So absorption first, assimilation second, and then this is a big one with autism. This one is massive. The vagus nerve. Must be online for elimination or in today's world probably better called detoxification So have you been told that your child's body is riddled? You've done the oat test the heavy metal test all the tests and your child's body has [00:26:00] heavy metals your child's body has Parasites your child's body has all sorts of toxins that it can't get out and somebody has blamed the liver They're right.

If somebody has blamed MTHFR and different, you know, kind of just, just different physiological functions that are involved in detoxification and elimination, they are barking up the right tree, but they're getting to the trunk, not the roots. The vagus nerve, if you even think of it, I say this all the time.

If you even think about kind of like what an anatomical textbook, what it would look like to see all these sensory nerve endings coming down from the brainstem, remember the vagus nerve is this long branching, just kind of, um, just upside down tree. It looks like it's like you literally can see the roots and that's what the vagus nerve is.

And because it's sensory, it's literally down into the gut, sending signals back up into the brain. but it's also sending motor control signals back down. And so this absorption, [00:27:00] assimilation, elimination, and detoxification, it is dependent upon vagus nerve connection. Okay. So that is a big part of digestive motility, absorption, assimilation, and elimination.

The vagus nerve goes into this nucleus called the NTS nucleus and other sort of connections with the immune system, and it regulates inflammation. So number one, sleep. Number two, respiration. Number three, digestion. Number four, immune function and inflammation. And then the other thing that the vagus nerve does foundationally is it controls motor tone and coordination.

So if your child has stimming and spasticity in some areas, they're toe walking, they're jaw clenching all the time, they're biting, they're chewing. They're grasping their hands or moving their hands. That is a sign of hypertonicity. You need the vagus nerve online to get that tension to relax. And then a weak core.

A suppressed and exhausted core comes from too much sympathetic dominance. So once you get the vagus nerve and the nervous system regulated again, you will see motor tone and coordination improve. [00:28:00] improve along with gut function and inflammation control. And then honestly, just the big picture, those four or five things are what we call the basics of brain development.

They're what we call the neurological soft science and the core components of healing a child with autism. But then it's the big stuff, right? The brain, speech, communication, even seizure control is really dependent upon vagus nerve function, motor tics, vagus nerve, anxiety. Vegas nerve, you name it, the Vegas nerve is connected to it from a brain based conversation as well.

The Vegas nerve controls our resilience. The Vegas nerve controls our variability, which is our adaptability. And that is the big picture. That is probably the biggest, nerdiest kind of grandiose part of the neurophysiological conversation we could have with the Vegas nerve. But also if you understand that, you understand that that's the key.

to regulating and kind of harmonizing, orchestrating, [00:29:00] and organizing all those other key functions and organ and biological systems. The job of the vagus nerve is vast. The job of the nervous system is Massive. It has a lot to organize, a lot to keep together, and therefore with autism, when the nervous system, specifically the vagus nerve, is stressed out, dysregulated, dysfunctional, and subluxated early on, all those jobs get offline.

Because they never got online in the first place. So these developmental delays, these gut dysfunctions, these are all connected to this vagus nerve conversation. So again, to dive deeper into the perfect storm of fertility challenges, fertility, prenatal or maternal distress, the rule that birth interventions play and antibiotics and early exposure to toxins and other medical interventions play.

I want you to go listen after this one. We're about done wrapping this one up. Go listen to the whole perfect [00:30:00] storm. episode. It's episode number one. We'll link it in the show notes to this one. And I also did a whole hour plus deep dive into autism. And the things we're talking about here, I went even deeper.

So if your child does have an autism diagnosis, and we found you first with this episode, and you haven't listened to that one yet, be sure to listen to this one after that as well. So what's going to change? What's the action now that you know about the vagus nerve and its connection to autism and the multi systems multifactorial challenges that autism is.

I mentioned it earlier. Let me close with it one more time. How do you find it? Number one, if your child's case history, if they went through those perfect storm triggers and they have these multifactorial challenges and so that's one thing. And then there was an end and I got another end for you.

There's a third and here and you've tried it all. You've done the diet changes, you've done OT, you've done PT, you've done speech, you've done ABA, you've done cognitive behavioral therapy, you've done homeopathics, you've done herbals, you've done parasite and cleanses, [00:31:00] and the list goes on. I'd have to keep you here for an hour to go through, just introductory, go through all the different things that does autism, Facebooks.

Facebook groups and mom blogs and biomedical websites tell you you need to do to get your child better. I said it earlier. I'll say it one more time that whole list. I love that list. I know that list Well, i'm trained in all that list I was a functional neurologist biomedical specialist long before anybody knew what the heck that was I built a whole clinic here outside of chicago where we didn't just do neurologically focused chiropractic care Which is designed more potently and more directly than any other anything else out there to get the vagus nerve back online and restore regulation and function to the nervous system.

Chiropractic does that hands down better than anything else. That doesn't mean there isn't a lot of other things that tap into that system in a kind of sort of secondary tertiary way, but this makes more change to the vagus nerve than anything else. [00:32:00] And I know that. Not just because of all my certifications and all my training and all my post doctorate nerdiness.

I know that because I have cared for tens of thousands of children with autism in our clinic. And I've trained thousands of other chiropractors in these protocols. And this very focused science to apply this one thing, neurologically focused chiropractic, at the highest level by the way. This isn't a regular chiropractic conversation.

This isn't most chiropractors awesomely take care of back pain, neck pain, and spinal challenges. This kind of chiropractic is different. This kind of chiropractor you're looking for with your child with autism is one that knows exactly what I taught on this episode. They know all about the vagus nerve.

They know all about the role of the nervous system. They know all about the perfect storm. They can not only talk about this, like we're having this conversation here on this podcast episode, but they can actually find. And measure through a deep dive consultation. So that's step one. If this sounds [00:33:00] like your kiddo, it very likely, obviously I can't do this on the podcast and go, Oh yeah, absolutely.

You got to get into an office, the deep dive consultation, the case history, that's step one that moves you forward into action. Go to the website, go to pxdocs. com. We'll link it. It's, it's, it's in our bio. It's on our show notes. It's everywhere. You can ever, anytime we put out content, you're one or two clicks away from our nervous system focus chiropractic directory.

And in those offices is the neurological insight technology. thermal scans, EMG scans and HRV because they're so very visual and they're so very powerful. It's hard to talk about these things on the podcast, but HRV heart rate variability is the most important one. I want to send you into action with you must.

Get these scans on your child. You got to find out if their vagus nerve is dysfunctional and offline. And to what degree, and then from those scans, from that technology, the most [00:34:00] important thing comes after that. You then get your child's. Personalized, customized care plan. See, when it comes to autism, nervous system dysregulation, and vagus nerve dysfunction, there is patterns within children with certain conditions like autism that we can see in their scans, that we can see in their exam findings.

There is certain patterns, the perfect storm sequence that we see in their case history. But here's what I'll leave you with. The way we take care of your child is exactly that. We take care of your child individually. Uh, and this is a deep dive case history that your PX doc will do that no other doc, they will ask more questions.

They will ask deeper questions and they will ask more granular questions than any doctor ever has. And just you sitting along, sitting in there. Maybe it'll be done on zoom on phone or in person. You will. Through that process, the answers we talked about on this podcast specifically for your child's case history will already start to be revealed to you.

You know [00:35:00] those ones that have been in there all the time? This podcast episode probably didn't teach you anything you didn't already know. But everybody else in the pediatrician world, conventional, dismissed it, and everybody else in the biomedical, you know, nutritional, functional, awesome, helpful, impactful world, distracted you with microbiome and primitive reflexes and tongue ties and, and systemic inflammation and heavy metals and parasites.

All good stuff. All tied to vagus nerve dysfunction, dysregulation, and dysautonomia. So the answers just in the consultation will reveal themselves, but then from that, you go to the scans. You go to the Neurological Insights scans, you go to HRV, and you will find out, number one, is my child struggling with this, vagus nerve dysfunction, nervous system dysregulation, and subluxation.

If yes to number one, you'll get number two. How bad? How much? What are we dealing with? And that also goes with exactly where they're subluxated, where these [00:36:00] stress patterns are again, beyond the scope of this podcast. And then that reveals number three, and your PX doc will take in all that information from the consultation, from the scans, from the exam.

And they'll be able to sit across from you at what's called a report of findings, visit, show you the results, show you these HRV scans, show you the exact degree. of vagus nerve dysfunction and dysautonomia your child may be dealing with and they'll give you and your family and your child a very personalized, very customized action plan and care plan and every adjustment we make is designed to get that sucker right.

back online. Every adjustment we make isn't about spines and bones out of place and tight muscles. This kind of chiropractic directly provides input to the vagus nerve, to the central and autonomic nervous system, and the entire goal and foundational scientific response of our care is to get the nervous system regulated, functioning, and rocking once again.[00:37:00]

What parents of children with autism report in the initial stages of care, better sleep. more poop, trying new foods, um, stronger immune response, less congestion, easier transitions, easier, smoother regulation of emotions and behavior, calming of stimming, improvements of gross and fine motor coordination and regulation, and the list goes on.

You get this one thing working better, the vagus nerve, you get everything in the body working better as a result. It's not a treatment. And it's not a cure, and that's not what you need inside your child. God gave them everything they need to get the gut, to get the immune system and to get the brain back online.

The vagus nerve is that master key to unlock them all. I'll leave you with that. If this was helpful to you, will you please go to Apple, Spotify, wherever you're listening to this? And if you haven't already, go ahead. Could you please leave us a review if this was [00:38:00] helpful, if this was impactful, if this is the first step in transforming your family's life and you know it, will you please leave a review?

So that helps us share this wildly impactful podcast with millions of parents worldwide. Will you please copy the link? Texted to another friend, take this, post it up in an autism Facebook group you might be in so other parents find this pivotal, essential, often so overlooked, kind of right in front of our face, but it's hard to see the forest through the trees with autism.

Conversation about the vagus nerve. Please subscribe, please download, please review, please share, because every share, there's another kid. at the end of that text and at the end of that post. And what God put us here, what God put me here to do is to get this information to you. Truthful, impactful, detailed, granular, scientific.

yet simple and actionable. That's what this podcast stands for. There's no other one like it because there's nothing else like neurologically focused chiropractic care out there. [00:39:00] So please help us share this far and wide. You need more information, more articles, more research. It's on the website pxdocs.

com and that is the place you go to find the directory and find your family's nervous system focused chiropractor as well. So they can turn that master key, get that vagus nerve and nervous system rocking for your child once again. And you can start to experience unbelievable, multifactorial healing and improvement for your incredible child.

I can't wait to hear about your family's miracle story. Because every single day here on this podcast, we absolutely expect and experience miracle