35 - Hot Girl Tummy Troubles: A Vagus Nerve Case Study

35 - Hot Girl Tummy Troubles: A Vagus Nerve Case Study

I ended up on my bathroom floor on Father's Day. Cold sweat, room spinning, dry heaving, genuinely wondering if I was dying. Turns out it wasn't a tumor. It was my vagus nerve doing exactly what it's built to do. Heavy RDLs the day before had already loaded my pelvic floor. Then I chugged a cold smoothie too fast on my way out the door, rushed a hard push on the toilet, and ended up in the fetal position for what felt like 30 minutes. My wife, who's delivered three kids naturally (one of them 10 pounds even), just watched and said, "this is so dramatic." In this episode: * Why the posterior chain doesn't stop at the glutes: the fascial line running straight into the pelvic floor, and why heavy RDLs can sensitize it before you ever touch internal work * Why 80% of vagal fibers run body-to-brain, upending the "calm signal comes down from the brain" assumption most of us were taught, and why that flips the whole dysafferentation conversation * The jugular foramen, the occipitomastoid suture, and why this junction is prime cranial territory you should be checking on every patient * Polyvagal basics without the jargon: ventral vagal (safety) vs. dorsal vagal (shutdown/freeze), and why forcing a patient out of freeze can backfire * Why the colicky baby, the shut-down teen, and the adult with unexplained GI issues ("hot girl tummy troubles") are all running the same nervous system pattern I was on that floor This isn't about diagnosing vagal dysfunction. It's about identifying the structural input driving it and fixing what's actually in front of us every day. That's our lane. Know a doc who still thinks the vagus nerve is just a top-down calm switch? Send them this one. 00:00 Fathers Day Floor Story 00:57 Workout Setup And Smoothie 01:48 Bathroom Perfect Storm 04:41 Why It Happened Physiology 06:43 Vagus Nerve Basics 08:06 Anatomy And Jugular Foramen 09:33 Vasovagal Cascade Explained 11:33 Polyvagal Theory And Freeze 12:52 Trauma Shutdown In Patients 17:24 Clinical Takeaways And Cases 20:18 Cranial Work And Training 21:53 Final Recap And Outro

34 - Stop Guessing. Start Feeling. Start Fixing.

Doing the basics extraordinarily well beats chasing advanced technique. Every time. Dr. Anthony breaks down the real reason most chiropractors stall out with cranial work, and it's not what you think. * It's not the technique. Trained associates picked up correction work faster than he did, and he still teaches it. * The real gap is palpatory confidence: knowing what you're feeling is real before you ever apply a correction. * Visual analysis (facial asymmetry, ear height, plagiocephaly) matters for outcome tracking, especially in infants, but in adults it's decades of compensation. It won't tell you what to do right now. * The fix starts with the handholds everyone treats as an afterthought. That's where you actually learn to feel cranial motion. * Includes the Upledger story: two providers rocking a sacrum and occiput for eight hours a day, getting real results, because sometimes the "advanced" answer is just doing the fundamental thing well. * This week's assignment: hands on sacrum and occiput, face down, breathe in and out. Feel the pumping and squeezing (primary motion) versus the rocking and gliding (secondary motion). Notice which side isn't moving. The bottom line: when your hands know what they're feeling, you stop guessing and start fixing what's actually in front of you. Got a doc in your circle white-knuckling their way through cranial technique? Send them this one. 00:00 Stop Guessing Start Fixing 00:16 Podcast Welcome Mission 00:35 Why Cranial Feels Hard 02:27 Palpatory Confidence First 02:37 Limits of Visual Analysis 04:06 Handholds Build Feel 04:41 CSF Flow Palpation Drill 05:46 Rock and Glide Story 08:10 Feel Motion Like a Pro 09:24 This Week Practice Steps 10:36 Train With Me Wrap Up 11:06 Final Thanks Next Episode

33 - Postpartum Jaw Tension Was Never About Stress

Your patient feels incredible after the adjustment. Two days later they're tight again, back on your table three times a week to maintain it. That's not your technique failing. That's a loop you only interrupted at one point. This episode breaks down the actual neurology connecting the jaw and the pelvic floor, and why neither one resolves when you treat it in isolation. What we get into: * The category two pattern: why an unstable pelvis ends with the jaw clamped shut as the terminal anchor * The two brainstem tracts (reticulospinal and lateral vestibulospinal) broadcasting one global tone change down the entire spine and cranium at once * Dysafferentation vs segmental facilitation, and why the decades-long argument over which one matters is the wrong fight. Both run in the same patient at the same time. * The soda bottle: the cleanest way to explain all of this to an exhausted postpartum mom or a skeptical engineer * Why your EDS, hypermobility, and POTS patients hold for a few days and then snap back * The three points you have to work to actually break the loop: lumbosacral, upper cervical and cranial, and the autonomic state Big takeaways: * The jaw is not just downstream. It clamps because the pelvis is unstable, then corrupts the vestibular input organizing the whole compensation. It drives the loop as much as it reflects it. * This is why adjusting the pelvis moves the jaw picture and adjusting the cranium drops pelvic floor tension. You're changing the broadcast running both. * Screen for it on intake. Jaw tension plus any pelvic floor complaint, plus poor sleep, is the triad hiding in plain sight. Your patients have the symptoms. Nobody told them they were connected. Real-world: the dentist who keeps sending you the cases they can't crack. The postpartum mom whose pelvic floor PT has worked for months and can't get the floor to release because nobody looked at the cranium. The kid with jaw tension and bladder urgency who is a category two until proven otherwise. You see these every week. The cranial piece is where most docs stop short. It takes real specificity to change the brainstem involvement. That's what the Foundations of Cranial Adjusting course is built around. Full list of upcoming courses and intensives: thecranialdoc.com/training [http://thecranialdoc.com/training] Share this with a doc who's tired of their adjustments not holding. 00:00 Summer Recording Chaos 01:37 Jaw Pelvis Connection 04:06 Pelvic Tilt Mechanics 05:47 Development Chicken Egg 08:59 Brainstem Tone Pathways 11:41 TMJ Vestibular Feedback 15:21 Part Two Sensory Theory 16:23 Dysafferentation vs Facilitation 24:00 Top Half Jaw Anchor 28:27 Clinical Triad Evaluation 31:59 Treatment Strategy Findings 33:35 Explain It Simply Referrals 36:15 Closing Loop Training

32 - Follow Irreversible Insights

You drove home from that seminar with a full heart and an empty notebook. This episode is about why that keeps happening. We get into: The three C's of leadership: charisma, competence, and content. Most people only have one. Why some speakers sound incredible, then you realize two days later you learned nothing The difference between someone you quote for a week and someone who actually changes how you practice on Monday What an irreversible insight is, and why most people talk too much before they have one Reggie Gold, the great chiropractic debate, and what it looks like when someone introduces an idea the other person has no framework for Why talking to patients about last night's game might be costing you more than you think The honest audit: are you teaching with clarity and competence, or are you just talking because you feel like you should be? This episode is more uncomfortable than tactical. Share it with a doc who needs the audit. 00:00 Irreversible Insight Rule 00:39 Raw Leadership Reflections 02:14 Three Cs Framework 03:37 Charisma Without Substance 06:22 Leaders Who Deliver 07:57 Irreversible Insight Explained 09:44 Why This Podcast Exists 11:41 Audit Your Conversations 13:23 Audit Who You Follow 15:26 Ethics Over Ego 16:06 Closing Thoughts

31 - AI Is Recommending Your Competitor Right Now, and You Don't Even Know It

You built the website. You earned the reviews. You did the local SEO the right way for a decade, and it worked. But your research-heavy parents and complex-case adults aren't starting on Google anymore. They're opening ChatGPT, Perplexity, and Claude and asking, in plain language, "who's the best nervous system chiro near me?" They get a name back. The only question is whether it's yours. This episode breaks down Answer Engine Optimization (AEO), the layer almost nobody in chiropractic has touched yet, and how to find out where you stand today. What we cover: * Why strong Google rankings don't get you into an AI's answer, and what does * The 5 signals that decide whether AI recommends you or the doc down the street * Signal 1: Why the wording of your reviews matters more than how many you have, and how to prompt patients for specific, outcome-rich language AI actually reads * Signal 2: The one I hate admitting. Health directories (Healthgrades, Zocdoc, WebMD) are getting sourced, and a pile of Google reviews alone won't save you * Signal 3: Third-party citations from referral partners (IBCLCs, sleep consultants) as high-trust signals * Signal 4: FAQ content written as real plain-language answers, with proper schema underneath * Signal 5: Schema, and how one plugin can quietly tell AI you're a "product" instead of a medical business The real-world gut check: * A 30-second plugin dropdown that was telling AI site-wide that we sold a product, not care * A competitor with fewer reviews and a worse site who beat me in AI search on three directory listings I didn't have, closed by a VA in one afternoon * The gap between "amazing office, highly recommend" and a review that names the complaint, the visit count, and the result Here's the bottom line: your content is good. Your credibility is real. What's broken is your visibility infrastructure, and that's fixable once you know it's there. The episode ends with a copy-paste Cowork prompt that audits your whole market in about 15 minutes so you know exactly what to fix first. The window where this is an advantage instead of table stakes is open right now. It won't be forever. Run the audit, then reply and tell me what came back. I read every one. And share this with a doc who's still pumping Google reviews thinking that's the whole game. 00:00 AI Answer Land Grab 00:39 Test Your Visibility Now 02:17 Why Google SEO Isn't Enough 04:51 What AEO Means 05:41 Signal 1 Review Language 07:00 Signal 2 Health Directories 08:56 Signals 3 to 5 Trust and Schema 11:21 Real Audit Fixes 13:22 The Opportunity Window 15:29 Run the Cowork Audit Prompt 17:56 Wrap Up and Challenge