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Hello everybody. This is Dr. Drew Rubin from ChiroSecure. I want to thank you guys for watching and listening today. Today’s going to be another great episode and what I want to focus on today, as someone who was so fortunate to know Dr. Larry Webster both in the classroom and outside the classroom for several years before his untimely passing in 1997, I gleaned a lot of amazing information from him, very specific information about specific protocols for certain kinds of protocols.
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issues that we’re going to commonly see in a pediatric practice. Very important for me to tell you though, that everything we’re going to talk about today, even though I’m going to talk about certain conditions, He was very clear in making sure we all knew that chiropractic is all about salutogenesis.
It’s all about creating health. So we’re not really working on conditions when we’re working on people, we’re working on kids, we’re working on pregnant mamas, but he happened to notice And that’s what I want to talk about today. So let’s go to the slides. Thank you so much. I, that particular reason I love this particular picture is that bench that you see that little munchkin on.
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She is lying on a bench that Dr. Webster made himself personally and sold it to me personally. In 1993 when they had one of their first major ICPA seminars in Boston that table he brought up from Atlanta. And I was talking to him on a break one day and he said, you need this in your office. And I said, I can’t fit this in my car.
And he said, I don’t care. You’re taking this particular bench with you. So that bench is something that Dr. Webster made himself. And he personally sold it to me. So I had this really big. Beautiful place in my office that is like Webster’s little corner so to speak. But the thing that’s really important, and this is fascinating because yesterday I was talking with some interns and other students.
And they were saying that one of the, some chiropractor that they met was talking to them and saying what you’re gonna do when you’re just a baby or a little kid is you’re gonna take an adult adjustment and you’re gonna put it into a. And this would have made Dr. Webster go bonkers.
Because one of the things he said all the time was, adjusting kids is not, repeat, N O T, not like adjusting little adults. He was very clear on making sure you understood that he was very clear on saying the real key areas that we want to look at with a lot of kiddos is what we, he would call back then he would call top and bottom, right?
Now, today we would call that, parasympathetic, right? But then that really wasn’t the nomenclature and it was top and bottom, but that he was so ahead of his time. Like he probably understood the polyvagal theory before even Steven Porsche’s figured it out. Like he got it. This guy, he was.
I wish he was here. I wish he was here because, he invented the infant toggle headpiece. He invented a Webster technique. He changed the way you do Logan to make it a very quick an adjustment instead of a longer process for your little kiddos. He changed the sustained contact.
He had his own little tweaks on sustained contact. He did so many things. I wish, he passed in 97. God knows what he would have done in the last 20, 30 years if he was still here. It is what it is. There are just, we have to follow in, what does it say? We’re standing on the shoulders of giants with this.
He was a giant. But this is what Webster was really amazing with and what I’m going to talk to you guys about is that he got patterns, right? And once again, like talking about the salutogenic concept, he was very clear in saying we’re not adjusting kids with asthma, kids with their infections.
We’re not curing anything. What we’re doing Is we are seeing patterns and we’re applying certain things to certain patterns, right? But he was very persistent in saying but I want you to understand That we don’t take care of conditions. We’re not a condition based practice So that’s what I really want you to get out because you look at something like this You could say let’s say the right hand one There’s you see there’s two open whites on the so there’s a pattern right?
But you got to recognize that you have to be able to recognize that and some people just know it’s a bunch of colors like a rainbow. Yeah But there’s a pattern at the end and the end is that they’re each one of these things has two white Shapes of some sort and you need to be able to understand that and that’s what this is all about.
So what I did is I took some of what notes that I’d taken in some classes that he had the ICPA classes that I took with him and the I’m this pediatric, class I took with him when I went to life university when his pediatric class that I am so blessed to be teaching now while talk about standing on the shoulders of giants and I created this kind of Because this is how my brain thinks.
My brain is a chart thinker. I see this chart visualized in my brain. And I see charts for Functional Neurology and for Activator. This is just how my brain works, so I’m showing it, in, in that sense. What I’m going to do is I’m going to go over some of these things, these patterns, but understand, once again, we’re not treating like birth trauma or nursing problems or tautoclous.
What we’re doing is we’re noticing a pattern and trying out these pattern interrupts with our adjustments and see what happens. As an example, in birth trauma, you’re going to see a lot of issues, most likely, in the upper cervicals, lower cervicals and upper thoracics. Because if you imagine what’s happening with the traction of the cervical spine and the head because of just a traumatic delivery with someone using their hands regressively, or forceps or vacuum extraction these are the areas we really want to focus on.
Nursing problems, especially look episodes cervically because what dr Webster would say is, Nursing, you have to rotate your head and rotating your head, right? That’s Atlas on axis. So that’s what You need to really look at. With torticollis, you need to look at, based on what’s going on with the torticollis, as to what issue there is.
Now with a little baby, obviously hard to figure this one out. This is with older kids with torticollis. Someone who comes into your office who is a teenager or a preteen or preschooler who can talk. So torticollis, if they have ipsilateral pain, in other words, they are bent to one side and the pain is on that same side, look up a cervical.
If it’s the, they’re bent to one side, but the pain’s on the opposite side, then look to then check the lower cervicals and upper thoracics. That was his pattern interrupt. So once again, we’re not treating these specific things. We’re looking for patterns and interrupting a pattern. We’re treating, we’re taking care of a person.
We don’t treat anything, right? The only thing that we talk about treats is in the office is on Halloween, right? Trick or treat. Otherwise, there’s no treating. There’s no treatment rooms, right? We’ve completely gotten rid of all that medical terminology. With allergies, this, it was brilliant. He found that there are four kinds of allergies.
That’s what he would talk about in his class. Classes. You get a kiddo with nasal congestion, look upper cervically. You get a kiddo with thyroid issues, look lower cervical or upper thoracic. You get a kiddo with either adrenal issues, very hyperactive and have allergies or have food allergies.
thoracics. And if you have a digestive, a kiddo with a lot of digestion issues, like constipation, diarrhea, et cetera, and they have allergies, look for the lower the lumbars and sacral region. Now, for, and once again, this is very interesting, for asthma he termed this, and I don’t really, I haven’t heard this a lot from other places, but he termed this either wet or dry asthma.
So if someone has wet asthma, in other words, Like you hear me coughing, it’s not asthma, but getting over something. You hear this productive cough, right? Look up the cervical and sacral lumbar area. Excuse me. If you have a dry cough, there’s someone just like cough, cough all the time.
This was me when I was I was an asthmatic. That’s how I got into chiropractic. And once again, my chiropractor didn’t say we’re gonna cure your asthma. What my chiropractor said to me in 1984, he said, Let’s see if those nerves going into your lungs are working the way they’re supposed to. And if they’re not, maybe by adjusting you, maybe your body can heal itself.
And you can guess the end of the story, right? But for me, my big subluxation was T4. That was my big subluxation. So I would tend to add, it’s just me not just the lower cervicals for asthma but also the upper thoracics and the mid to lower thoracic. Maybe T4 is a mid thoracic in his brain. Because I think sometimes people think upper thoracic is just T1 to T3.
So maybe the mid thoracic, but that was mine. It was T4. And my chiropractor way back when he said, understand what we’re doing. We’re not getting rid of your symptoms. That’s not the goal. When I first started care, he said, the goal is to make your body be better. That’s really chiropractic’s goal.
Make the body better. And kids with croup is like a Kind of like bronchitis, but you see there’s a lot of younger kids and they’ll do a lot of coughing and their coughing often sounds like a dog, like a barking dog, like this really deep low cough. Look upper cervicals and upper thoracics.
You get kids who get a lot of UTIs or they’re bedwetters. Check Mitoloa thoracics and lumbars and especially sacrum and especially with bedwetting, S2. That was a big one that Webster used to talk about is S2 as a place for you to really make sure you’re looking at. Dysmenorrhea. So with dysmenorrhea, once again, two different kinds.
If you have more traditional dysmenorrhea, Aware of women as having issues with her cycle. Check that mid to lower thoracic and lumbars and sacrum area. But if you have a person who’s got thyroid issues and the thyroid is contributing potentially to the dysmenorrhea, then look in the lower cervicals and upper thoracics.
Where the thyroid innervation is. This was probably one of the most important ones that Webster ever told us, which has been like a major player for me. We just had a kiddo yesterday who came in, had a raging ear infection, and this is what we’re looking for is he would call it the hidden C two or counter rotation of C one and C two.
So C one’s out on one side and C two’s out on the other side. And often what he would say, Webster would say, is very often what you’ll see is that you’ll adjust one, and then the other one will all of a sudden appear subluxated. Whereas, so like you’re checking, you’re saying, I don’t find C1 and C2 together, and you adjust one of them, and then check, but then check the other one.
And see if that, whoop, all of a sudden it becomes as if it was, that’s why I call it hidden. It was a hidden subluxation and it came out because of your first adjustment. Now, so a lot of times you’ll miss this. And that’s what he would say is that a lot of people would just adjust like C1 and that’s it.
And they wouldn’t recheck C2 afterwards or vice versa. So make sure that you’re always checking and double checking after you’re doing this, especially with kiddos with chronic ear infections. Fever, you’re checking T10. T10 is a major innervation for adrenals. He used to say, if you’ve got a kiddo and they’re having some a fever issue, making sure you’re checking those adrenals because that’s a critical area with those kiddos.
Colds, upper cervicals, of course, because you want to make sure the immune system is doing good, but also make sure you’re checking that mid to lower thoracic, that adrenal area, too, because lots of times kiddos with colds will have fevers or some fevers that will go on and off. Febrile seizures. Luckily, Webster was able to see that there are two areas you need to look at.
Upper cervically, of course, because that’s where all the brain respiratory innervation kind of stuff resides, but also mid to lower thoracics, your T4 ish area, checking the lungs, etc., checking the adrenals those kind of things. A kiddo with tonsil. issues. Make sure you’re checking the lowest cervicals.
Now, yeah, you’d say upper cervicals for tonsils. Of course, because that’s going to be something that’s, that is innervating all the immune system stuff, but the innervation itself is seen in the lowest cervicals. So making sure, once again, this is pattern, excuse me, pattern recognition. So we’re looking for a pattern.
And if you happen to, let’s say you’re adjusting a kiddo who’s got these chronic tonsil issues and it’s not resolving. Are you checking the lowest cervicals? And that’s really what this is about. Using these charts is the concept is to say, first off, if a kiddo has these things, maybe look at these things.
Or if you’re dealing with a kiddo or is in the midst of this kind of stuff, check and see if the pattern, and maybe sometimes like Webster would say, Even the best of us can miss things. So maybe something needs to be checked that we didn’t think about. So check those lower cervicals for tonsils and adenoid issues.
Colic, upper cervically, of course, makes sense. Vagus nerve to make sure that the whole immune the digestive system is working good. But then also making sure the mid to lower thoracics are going good so the digestive system is working as good as it can. I would hasten to add, just me, this is not Webster, but I was, I’d say Sacrum too is a big one.
With this thing too. We adjusted a little baby the other day who hadn’t pooped in four or five days. This was crazy. First adjustment. This was first adjustment. I did our Logan adjustment, right? Then we did our cranial adjustment. And then as the mom was sitting the little kiddo up, boom, blow out, like I had to go into the bathroom, change, not only change the kid, I had to get, throw out the, they said, do you have a paper, a plastic bag, a Kroger’s bag or something?
Cause they had to put the. Onesie was trashed because of the blowout. So it works. So make sure you’re always checking sacrum when you have a kiddo who’s got any sort of colic, reflux, constipation kind of issues. And join this, of course, lower thoracics to check in the liver area.
Constipation, oh, there it is, constipation upper cervicals and your sacral area there. So see, I knew Webster had it in there somewhere. Diarrhea, though. Diarrhea, he would say, you want to check the sacral area too, of course, but also the mid to lower thoracics to make sure that the innervation into the intestines is going good.
With a child who’s towing in or towing out, But especially towing out because that’s way more common. Make sure you’re checking the IN ileum. Make sure you’re checking the IN ileum. However, also make sure you’re checking for hip dysplasia because I’ve seen a few kids over the years, been in practice now 34 years.
I’ve seen a few kiddos where they have a, they have one foot that’s towing out and and that’s their presentation, and they’re, 12 months to 14 months old, and the issue isn’t an Ion Ilium, it’s actually they have this plastic hip on that side. My suggestion is to do an Ortolani’s test.
Modified. I know it’s usually for newborns, but I’m suggesting you do a modified Ortolani’s test to check and see if they’re, both their hips are opening up evenly or one hip is frozen. Comparison, you can’t get that hip to, to move this way. This is going nicely over here, but this one isn’t.
So make sure you’re checking that. Webster was very big. Making sure you check that headaches you wanna check for sure the epi. Cervical, especially the occiput. Make sure you do eye exam on these kids. That’s what he would set. Suggest. Sometimes these kids with headaches are having trouble reading especially nowadays with how much on their cell phones and on their iPads.
Very important, but also check the lowest cervical and upper thoracics. And another thing he would say is sometimes there’s trigger points in the upper thoracic area in the traps. Also, and sometimes you might need to work on a trigger point in those, for these kids who are getting these chronic headaches.
Because that’s a huge thing that we’ll see and we might see even trigger points on the occiput and along the trap areas. And the last one is for morning sickness. We’ve seen tons and tons of mamas with morning sickness over the years and upper cervicals, of course, once again, vagus nerve, but then also checking the the mid to lower thoracics.
As well. I want to share these things with you, because the ICPA and ChiroSecure, we are very, both these organizations, very committed to kids. Very committed to kids. It is, it, that’s why a ChiroSecure has these great talks, Dr. Monica Berger, Dr. Erik Kowalke myself, others, always committed to kids, which I really appreciate.
I’d speak for the ICPA if you’re interested in learning more about how to take care of kids on the spectrum. That’s my thing. 50 percent of my practice is kids on the spectrum. So I would love to, to see you at one of our seminars. That’d be fabulous. I have over 550 now episodes of, from my podcast, ChiroCast.
So if you’re interested, I’m doing a green book series. The last several weeks I was asked to do a green book series. So almost every week I’ve been. reading a green book selection and then talking about it. So I’d love to hear you or to see you commenting on ChiroCast. And there’s a, and it’s now on YouTube.
I know, so I’m on Amazon, YouTube, SoundCloud, Spotify, all over the place. And ultimately the big thing, why I’m doing what I’m doing is because we got to protect our kiddos and I absolutely thank ChiroSecure for having me on this platform. It is such an honor and a privilege to work for a company that has been my malpractice insurance since I graduated in 1989.
It was the first place I turned and I’ve been there ever since. And they’re loyal to us and I’m loyal to them. So thank you guys for tuning in. If you have any questions about what we talked about please let me know. There’s my email. I’d love to help you in any way I can love to see what ICPA seminars and Life University seminars, and thank you so much and have a great day.
Today’s pediatrics show, Look to the Children, was brought to you by ChiroSecure.
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