As you are planning out your pediatric training for the year, I wanted to tease your brain for a second with a few important questions...

• How is Acupuncture Pediatrics doing in the grand scheme of treating chronic pediatric illness? 
• What is the role of pediatric acupuncturists? 
• Where do we need to expand our tool kit to serve the growing population of unwell kids?

As I reported last week, over my 18-year career pediatric health has only gotten worse. Sadly, chronic illness has skyrocketed and more than half of our kids will have a chronic illness diagnosis by age 16. 

A chronic pediatric illness diagnosis is 4x more likely than it was over 40 years ago. This chart illustrates that change. And this is as of 18 years ago...I bet the percentage has continued to climb.

Source: Almanac of Chronic Disease 2008 Edition: Statistics and Commentary on Chronic Disease and Prevention

Unwellness is the new norm.

But there's nothing normal about it.

Conditions like ADHD, autism, asthma, allergies, anxiety, depression, digestive disorders, eczema, and many more are multi-layered illnesses without a single cause.

Allopathic medicine covers up symptoms. Natural health methods, while taking a different approach, still use supplements as substitutive medicine. It's like trying to plug all the holes with deficient nutrients instead of fixing why all the nutrients are deficient in the first place.

Is Acupuncture Pediatrics lagging behind, too?

In my experience, the focus on zang/fu or 5-Element imbalances is important, but it still does not address the root causes of modern chronic pediatric illness.

The important question to ask is why?

Why are there increasing numbers of children being diagnosed with one or more imbalances such as:

• Lung and Wei Qi Deficiency
• Spleen Qi Deficiency
• Liver Blood Deficiency
• Liver Qi Stagnation
• Liver Fire
• Liver Yin Xu Yang Kang

While some might say these imbalances are caused by immature Kidney, Spleen, Liver, and Lung systems, this does not explain the sudden rise in illness over the last 40-50 years.

Why are babies and children getting so out of balance? They haven't had a lifetime of bad choices and poor habits causing their health problems. And please don't blame the mother. It's not all her fault either.

In my opinion, Acupuncture Pediatrics hasn't been able to keep up. 

We have failed to address the question of why these patterns of imbalance are arising in the first place. This is because the root causes related to chronic pediatric illness are much farther upstream than we realized.

The family health picture has gotten ever more complex. One major reason is that babies are no longer born with clear Qi. Yet, there is no TCM treatment strategy I'm aware of that adequately addresses the high toxic load present in most babies and children.

If Acupuncture Pediatrics is to remain relevant and we are to claim our role in helping kids with chronic pediatric illness we must absolutely learn to address the toxins that are at the root cause.

We must go beyond toxin avoidance and learn how to safely help our patients address and remove toxins as part of their treatment plan.

Toxicity drives deficiency. 

It also causes excess conditions like heat/inflammation. At high enough levels toxicants interfere with growth and development. All of this blocks the body's innate healing mechanisms. It blocks the flow of Qi and impairs the fu organs from separating dirty from clean causing the vicious cycle to begin. 

To build up Qi, we use air, water, food, and herbs. If those elements are polluted with toxins, how can we ever help our patients overcome deficiencies?

There's no way to test for the over 80,000 chemicals released into the environment to date. Half of them are still in use. There's no way to know about every toxic exposure a child has or its origin. Nonetheless, toxins are impacting our kids and making them sick.

Toxins, like gravity, are effecting you whether or not you believe they are.

Here are some signs that toxicity is the real root cause of chronic pediatric illness:

• Even gentle acupuncture makes symptoms worse
• Small doses of herbs or supplements are tolerated poorly
• Rashes and digestive issues
• Food sensitivities and selective eating (down to a few foods) 
• Extreme sensitivity to light, sound, touch, taste, and sensory stimuli
• Neurological and behavioral symptoms
• Mood disorders, anxiety, depression, defiance
• Constipation, pooping 1x/day or less
• Family history of autoimmune and chronic illness
  

Families may already be eating organic, avoiding artificial ingredients, on a GFCF diet, and taking multiple supplements. Yet they aren't seeing the improvements they hoped for.

It wouldn't surprise me if you're seeing this more often than not in your practice. You're probably wondering what's going on and how to help patients already doing all the right things.

The good news is that there are solutions available to us right now.

We don't have to wait 30-40 years for mainstream medicine to catch up. It is fixable today!

When you're thinking about your next training class, I want to let you know about a root cause training series by DetoxRejuveNation™ that will be starting soon.

I will be facilitating the pediatric focus of this training series designed and taught by Sinclair Kennally and Michael Spandel, founders of DetoxRejuveNation™.

Pssst... In case you missed it, I joined their cutting-edge practice as a Pediatric and Family Health Specialist.

We have big plans to help more kids regain their resilience and we are calling all healers with an open mind and a pioneering spirit to join us for our upcoming root cause training series.

Root Cause Training Coming in 2022

February

February 24th & February 28th: Discover the 4 Hidden Stressors™ Zapping Your Energy & How to Reclaim Resilience

March

Rapid Energy Reset™ with 3 Secret Sessions for Practitioners so you can learn how to implement these tools into your practice.

It Starts in the Gut Summit™

Spring/Summer

Rapid Liver Reset™

Rapid Family Reset™

Fall

Root Cause Certification™ for Practitioners

We will post more information and links soon!  I'm so excited about what 2022 has in store for us. I hope you will join me and take part this cutting-edge training series so you can confidently address the root causes of chronic pediatric illness!