If you are looking for a doctor who listens and works to find drug-free, natural health solutions first and foremost… this is for you! I want to help you choose your doctor – the absolute best doctor for your kids and your family.
I will start with this… you DO get to choose. This is something a bit new for this generation of parents with healthcare. Most of us, especially my generation of parents, still go to the pediatrician or practice that we went to as kids. Everything in healthcare for many generations, when it comes to choosing a doctor for our child, has been by default.
Decisions made by default don’t always go how we want them to. The general pediatrician and family medical doctor miss the following three things I’m going to dive into in a pretty big way. It’s led to having more sick and stressed-out kids than ever before.
I want to reiterate you do have a choice. You can take a completely different path for healthcare for your family. You can choose to go after things naturally and drug-free first.
The first choice you would really want to lean into to make sure you get on that sort of path is making the right choice when choosing a doctor for your child and family.
1. DOES YOUR DOCTOR LISTEN AND GET TO THE ROOT CAUSES?
The number one thing you want to look for in a doctor for your family is a doctor who listens intently and does a deep dive with you to find the root cause or causes of why your child is really sick.
Listening intently is not what you always get from traditional doctors. The traditional or westernized system is set up to be a kind of dictator way of healthcare. There isn’t a lot of listening or partnering “with you.”
We partner with parents to dive deep into the case history and ask what they went through during pregnancy, labor, and delivery and if they experienced any birth trauma. You were there when your kiddo was colicky or experienced their first infection, cold, or flu. You were there for the first meltdown or dealt with a gross motor delay. You’ve been with them the whole time! So if a doctor doesn’t know to dive deep with you, that doctor won’t have a chance to get to the root cause, which should be their entire goal. You want a doctor who listens and partners with you instead of just talking and telling you what to do.
2. IS YOUR DOCTOR AN EXPERT IN NEUROLOGY?
Number two, you really want a doctor who understands neurology.
If you look at the different facets of healthcare, a traditional medical doctor on the medical side of the fence knows a lot about chemistry, pharmacology, symptomatology, and pathology. A medical doctor is designed to take care of sickness and illness. They know a lot about symptoms and the expression of that actual neurodevelopment.
I’m not the only one who would interpret things this way. I’ve spent a lot of my life helping out with early intervention, special needs, PTs, and OTs – real experts in neurodevelopment or neuro function. We know that the general, average doctor isn’t an expert in this.
You want your doctor to understand neurodevelopment and the motor milestones for your child and not just from looking at a chart on the wall. The most important thing about motor and developmental milestones that you need to understand is that neurology happens in a specific sequence and order. As a whole, saying they need to hit a milestone by their birthday or age is one of the most dangerous ways to do this because every child is unique, and the information can be wrong. Neurodevelopment, motor, and developmental milestones are less about the calendar and more about if they happened in the correct order.
When you have a doctor who understands developmental neurology, they will know that and help you find out if your kiddo is truly on track. Neurology controls everything; that’s really the key. The nervous system is the boss – the mom of the family. The nervous system controls the gut, motility, absorption, and elimination of detoxification. The nervous system also controls the immune system, modulates inflammation, and controls the hormones, thyroid, endocrine, adrenals, muscles, prefrontal cortex, and hippocampus – so emotions, behavior, cognition, and focus. The nervous system is the boss.
3. IS YOUR DOCTOR OPEN TO COLLABORATING AND WORKING ON A TEAM?
Number three, when you’re choosing a doctor for your child, ask them if they are open-minded to being collaborative and part of a team.
Do they partner with other professionals? God has called me to the work I get to do with what we call Perfect Storm cases which is a lot of tough stuff such as Autism, seizures, special needs, etc. It is crucial in many cases that they have incredible PTs, OTs, speech and language pathologists, psychologists, and an incredible nurse practitioner or pediatrician who is integrated, holistic, and understands neurology and nutrition.
You want a team of healthcare professionals. Then there has to be that one person who acts as the quarterback. You have to have someone who helps keep everything coordinated and organized, and that’s what I would look for in a doctor, too. Do they have experience in doing that and the willingness to be that quarterback-type player? Are they open-minded, empathetic, connected, and collaborated with other providers? Or do they try to control the situation and keep tunnel vision?
Too much healthcare for our kids is in silos instead of threaded and woven together.
Those are the three things to look for in your child and family’s doctor. Do they listen and dive deep with you, partner with you to find the root cause, and get a drug-free, solutions-oriented plan that gets your child healing? Then, do they know neurology and execute that plan to get healing through the nervous system because that’s the root cause of where most children’s illnesses and challenges are coming from? Lastly, do they work well with others and help you have a stronger team to help your child out?
That’s what we love to do – help parents learn things, be able to make good decisions, and then get into the actions to get the results of healthy, happy, vibrant, adaptable, resilient kids. If you are local to San Diego, give us a call today, or check out the PX Docs network to find a pediatric chiropractor who is all about neurology, resiliency, adaptability, and partnering with you. I promise you you’ll have transformative results once you choose the right doctor to help put those plans and actions in place for your family. God bless and be well.