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Hey, welcome to Look to the Children again. It’s March already, which is crazy to believe I’m about to Erik Kowalke. And I have the pleasure of having Dr. John Deyo on with me today. Just want to give a huge shout out to Dr. Stu Hoffman and ChiroSecure and all that. The chiropractic profession and allowing us to do awesome shows like this, and just always be in there for us when we need them in our office.
We have a practice in grand rapids, Michigan, and we see lots of kids and families and have a great time. Anytime we have any questions or need any support from the malpractice side, ChiroSecure is the place to go and they’d get back to us so quick and always have been super helpful with everything.
But this show is dedicated to family practices and practices that see lots of kids and chiropractors that want to see kids or want to get better at seeing kids or more efficient and seeing kids. And I’d like to keep this to 15, 20 minutes and give you some practical, real world advice that you can take in back to your practice this afternoon or next week, and implement right away to see more kids and families.
We just love knowing that every time we remove nerve interference on a child or a kid, they’re grown up to become a healthy, happy adult. And in a times like we are in a world that we live in now there’s no greater reward than knowing that we’re helping kids live healthier, happier life, and in turn their families and people that they know as well.
Without further ado, Dr. John Deyo, I’m gonna let you introduce yourself. And then I got some really cool questions. We’re going to go interview style today. And yeah, let’s get at it. So who are you, where do you go to school? How long
have you been in practice? Awesome. I’ve been practicing for about five years now and the grand rapids area primarily and graduated from Palmer back in 2017.
Really just gotten to the chiropractic field, hoping to work with athletes and full families and, lo and behold found a, just a true calling, working with kids in full families and just really enjoying
it. Yeah, so we worked together higher healthcare practice in grand rapids. And so about how many kids a week are you using?
I’d
say in our clinic, we’ll have anywhere between two to 300 kids come in and in a certain week. It’s one of the blessings of being in grand rapids, where we have a lot of large families. So being able to create a big impact into the community and help those families out that’s one of our major goals.
Yeah. And one of the things that I think is really cool about our clinic and our demographic is we have families that have been coming for 10 years plus into our clinic. We’re first question I want to ask you is when you, a new family starts or we’re connecting with a new family, what are some go-to things that you bring up, or how do you steer the conversation towards lifetime wellness care or chiropractic care for asymptomatic kids?
I think from a lot of the docs I here. That’s kind of something that you all struggle with is how do we communicate the value of chiropractic to an asymptomatic child when we’re checking for nerve interference and subluxation? So a lot of the times they’ll present symptomatic or they’ll come with a family.
So how do you bridge the gap between symptoms? Care for kids and asymptomatic based care for. Yeah. A lot of
times I try to establish what the goals are for that parent and what the goal is for the kid. If they’re asymptomatic and they just want to live a healthy, drug fi life and be able to function on a high level, that’s what we’re going to communicate and connect with.
But with establishing those goals, it’s for one finding out what is most important to. And then talking about the world of preventative care versus reactive care. And so in preventative, we want to get ahead of those aches and pains and those bumps and bruises that might come up. But also we want to let you let them know that their body has an amazing ability to adapt, especially when it’s functioning and firing on all cylinders.
Bridging that gap and connecting with them as quickly as possible while. Also establishing a rapport and an excitement for just future health and wellbeing rather than being reactive, which is what they’re used to. That’s probably the first step that
I do. Yeah. And what’s cool. Is this isn’t you really, usually just a one time piece of education and then the first time you meet them now they’re sold for life.
It’s a process. So Dr. John is fantastic at table talk and connecting to families and individuals about all of this from a literally a day to day. And so walk me through that process. Let’s say I’m a dad and I just brought in my son because he got hurt playing basketball, when his back was hurting him.
So I’m thinking, two adjustments in his back’s going to be better. And I come in, I see his x-rays. I’m like, okay, I commit to an initial version of care, but I’m still I’m not getting adjusted, just he’s getting adjusted and what are just some normal conversations you’re having when you’re adjusting.
My son and you’re seeing him improve, like how do you start to connect that to wellness care and like lifetime
care? Yeah. So a lot of times, like you said, we addressed the major concern that they first come in with. And then just putting in the idea of, Hey, just like how your son practices basketball on a consistent basis.
We talk about consistency with chiropractic care. And then throughout the entire process with different evaluations where, communicating to that, this mom or dad, whoever’s bringing them in. Hey, it takes time and repetition, just like it takes time and repetition to work on that jump shot.
You don’t just go and make a couple of switches and a couple of banks, and now you’re good. It takes that time. And so we talk about the long game, not just the Hey short game play the next game it’s putting the next season. Play the rest of your life.
Yeah. So maybe mention I think one of the things you’re really gifted at is taking advantage of clues that they give you.
I’m going to give one example and then you can give a couple of examples sending this will really help you guys too. It just makes your table talk dynamic. So it’s not so much Hey, today, we’re going to talk about a subluxation in the vagus nerve, and it’s sometimes that gives you start to you, but I’ll give you this example.
So John was the chiropractor and I was the dad. That’d be like, yeah, he is one of the best three point shooters on the team. And, that’s something that he really specializes in. It’s so great to connect that to performance like today I adjusted his sacrum and his pelvis, and that really helps him line up effectively for the Jumpshot or his upper cervical spine was misaligned and correcting.
That really helps his reflexes and his ability, hand, eye coordination. And I can connect that to, the fact that he likes to play that sport. Cause the dad just mentioned it. So give me some examples. Stuff you’ve seen in the last couple of weeks or examples or scenarios that you’ve been able to tell.
Real life things that they’re going through to the end goal of chiropractic care, improving performance or their lifestyle or something like,
yeah. So a lot of times, especially in the winter months, right now, we get a lot of kids that are into winter sports and sledding, but primarily like skiing and snowboarding.
And so say you have. Young kid that comes in and they’re just having so much hip pain in rotation. And they’re mentioning about what they did this weekend. They went skiing or snowboarding. I like to connect with different things that they do during that. Hey, if you’re on a snowboard and you’re strapped one binding in and you’re walking super easy to the lift and every single time.
No. And so it’s those loaded questions. It incorporates what they’re doing with also knowing those scenarios on what are often awkward and allowing them to know that, Hey, with restriction in the spine with restriction to movement, if we take this away, it’s going to function better.
If you’re functioning better, you’re going to be able to go longer days on the slopes. You’re going to be able to go longer rounds, longer games. It just all about endurance, all about engagement, all about stability.
Yeah. That’s so true because that’s brutal. Okay. So let’s see, are this a little bit towards infants and babies?
You love seeing infants and babies in like first adjustments. And Dr. John has a little baby girl who’s stinking adorable. And so walk me through that process. What do you feel are the top one or two. Main things to educate and communicate when you’re adjusting a newborn brand new for the first time.
Yep. And communicating everything that could happen in that appointment before something does happen. Hey, there’s a very good chance that your baby’s going to cry. They’re going to really relax and go super strict, straight, or they’re going to blow up diapers. So letting them know ahead of time on what could happen so that you’re not having to play catch up.
Oh that’s normal, your baby’s crying or they just blow up diapers and you can build up that excitement by also setting that expectation of Hey, this could happen. That’s probably the number one thing that I do every single visit when I’m working with kids, depending on what the scenario is or what the symptoms are.
Is Hey, this is what could go on during this visit, but I can let you know, is that if I find restriction, that’s fine. If we remove it, that body, that nervous system is going to communicate better and they’re going to function better. Feel better too. So other than that, I’m communicating over the top, just educating, Hey, this C1, Atlas, everything above that Atlas ball and controls everything below that Atlas phone.
And I can tell you that we can’t guarantee what symptoms are going to go away, but if we take pressure off. That brain and body is going to be able to communicate quicker and more efficient, and it’s going to help them function better and develop the way that we want them to.
That’s awesome. So what about if an adult gets adjusted, they feel they judge based on oh, I feel a little bit better, or I felt you do that.
So when you’re adjusting their infant, they can’t really feel what the infant’s feeling. So there is communication that goes on. Between you and the mom on this is how severe the subluxation was or not severe, that subluxation was. So walk me through that process. How do you communicate the severity of what you’re finding from visit to visit on an infant, to a mom or a dad?
So they have a good idea of how are they doing outside of whether they have symptoms or not symptoms?
So we like to give it scales, especially when. Restriction and the spine 10 out of 10 is complete restriction. It’s not moving. And so we like to actually get the parents involved with that where it’s not just us performing the adjustment on the child, but it’s also getting mom and dad involved.
So a lot of times I like to use a forearm or wrist. And for example, I would take your wrist and then say, feel this right here. Yeah. That’s like a 10 out of 10. Not moving. There’s a lot of restriction. That was a lot of facts. That’d be like a zero. So something that you’re going to hear us talk about every single time that you come in, something that you’re going to hear us talk about every single time is we’re going to be talking about numbers and what we’re seeing and where that restriction is.
And my goal is to see that five or 6, 7, 8, 9, 10 go down to a one eventually zero. And that means that body is communicating at an efficient, functional level. And they’re going to be adapting just the way that you want them
to. Yeah. And if you’ve missed that go back and get that snippet because that.
Creates so much clarity, I think is the right word for the parent and the mom around, what am I doing? Why am I bringing my baby here? And then how are they today versus last time you saw them. And that allows you to continue to make recommendations on watch. Should I see them twice next week or once or in two weeks or in a month or whatever your recommendations are?
It just creates clarity around there. So confusion. I think that’s, if you’re ready, notes, confusion, verse clarity. If you’re creating confusion and they’re not really sure what’s happening or when they should come back or why they should come back. They’re not gonna come back and you’re gonna wonder what.
You saw them one time and they never came back. Even if you would have helped them, they just are confused. They don’t really know what they’re going to do next.
No such thing. As over-communicating with a parent, who’s trusting you with their brand new child. You want to make sure that they know exactly what’s going on, what to expect and you can’t overemphasize over-communicate any of that.
And I didn’t prep him on any of these conversations today, so he’s totally off the cuff. What do you love most about. In the office, seeing families and kids like, give me the number one. What do you love most? What just really fires you up? Number two is what’s a moment or something that’s happened in the last couple of days with an infant.
Or a family that is memorable connected to chiropractic and
just, yeah, what I love every single day is when people come in and they’re so focused on symptom XYZ, but then through the education that we applied through multiple avenues in our office, they come in and they aren’t talking about symptoms anymore.
They’re talking about relationships, they’re talking about. Things that take you from, Hey, Dr. John to now part of their family. And that’s one of the thing that I just absolutely love being is a part of people’s families as they’re growing, as they’re expanding and being able to just give my life experiences with, my one year of experience with being a father and giving that kind of information, just connecting with them.
That’s one of my very favorite things. Also just seeing healthy, happy families turn into healthy, happy communities. One thing that happened here this last week, we’re already towards the end of the week, but we’d get a lot of kids that will come in with certain digestive issues. And my favorite conversation is when we talk about, Hey, how’s little Johnny doing with going to the bathroom and it’s sitting on the bathroom, how’s that going or sitting on the toilet?
How’s that doing? And, with the previous history. Having constipation or wetting the bed. And then they say Hey, since their last adjustment, they’ve been going to the bathroom every single day, very regularly. We’re now they interpret, Hey, going to the chiropractor means I’m going to the bathroom
rather than I don’t want to go get adjusted. I want to go get adjusted there. They’re referring it to function. And that’s probably one of my favorite things that happened here earlier this week. It was just having that little child come in and.
That’s cool. Thank you guys so much.
Hopefully you got something out of that, that you could take back to your practice and just improve the table. Talk your ability to communicate to families and kids and parents about lifetime family, wellness care and subluxation based chiropractic care. That’s really our goal. And our mission is to see as many.
As we can and families, and just improve the health of our community in a big way. And so thanks again to ChiroSecure and Dr. Stu, for all that you do for the chiropractic profession and hosting these shows, don’t miss Dr. Monika Buerger, she hosts the third Thursday of every month. And we’ll be back again the first Thursday in April.
We Look to the Children’s show, have a fantastic week.
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