Sports, Spines, Concussions, and Success: A Chiropractic Conversation

In this episode of the ICA Sports and Science Fitness Council Podcast, Dr. Hulsebus welcomes special guest Kahla Miller. Kahla shares her personal and family experiences with chiropractic care, including how it has benefited her son Jordan, a high school wrestler. They discuss the importance of regular chiropractic visits, especially for athletes, and how it can improve performance and aid in recovery from injuries. Don't miss their in-depth conversation about the benefits of chiropractic adjustments, the impact of concussions, and the importance of having a care plan for young athletes.

Transcript

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Hello. I'm Dr. Hulsebus and welcome to another edition of the ICA sports and science fitness council podcast. If you listen to these podcasts, you know, I always struggle with that lengthy title, but we're back here today and we have a special guest today coming to join us, Kahla. And Kahla, why don't you go ahead and introduce yourself? Tell us where you live and where you reside and how you came to hear about this podcast. Sure. So my name is Kahla Miller. I live in York County, Pennsylvania. I go to Sigafoose Jackson in York. I've actually known Dr. Kevin since I was about 8 years old. I actually seen him when I was younger for my shoulder injury that I had during softball. My grandparents went there when they first opened up in York. So just always been where we go. My parents go there. My grandparents went there before they passed away. So it only made sense to stick with what they had great results, my stepdad has a slip disc and stuff and it's just, it's always been where we go. So I've Kevin and Selina for a long time. I grew up in my dad and grandpa being a chiropractor and I thought it was weird and I went to school. People didn't go to the chiropractor. Right. I'm so used to that. It was weird to me that you don't go to the chiropractor. And I realized I was one of the minorities back in the 70s. So, It's crazy. Even still, there's a lot of kids that don't, they play contact sports and they're not seeing a chiropractor. We don't go as often as we should. But the football players, the hockey, a lot of people just don't go and it doesn't make sense, you know, the untapped potential there, the healing is amazing. That's kind of why Dr. Jackson thought we should talk. He suggested that maybe you had an incident in your family, maybe that would require a visit to the chiropractor. You want to tell us a little bit about that? yeah. So my son, Jordan he's a wrestler for Trinity high school up in Camp Hill, Pennsylvania, it's a Catholic school. Last year he was a freshman. As a freshman, he started, he got a little start late, started to the game compared to some of these national level wrestlers and stuff. We always just wanted to do what's right by him and he wanted to, he wants to wrestle, division one. So we're like, all right, see, with wrestling and any sport, there's always injuries. We take him to Kevin for an adjustment here and there. And last season, man, I don't know what got into him, but he made a heck of a state run. And we were at Okay. Okay. that? Cause I was expecting one of them to fall over. And I was like, there's no way these guys are coming off here without some sort of, concussion or something like that, So the next day I took Jordan to Kevin and showed him the video and he just, he laughed. He's listen to you. And I'm like, I know I need to My mouth. Okay. Okay. back to back weekends. So we have double a and triple a. So you have sectionals districts, regionals, and then your state tournament. So he actually placed at regionals and qualified for states. And we're like, Holy crap. We didn't expect him to even make it out of there. What are we going to do? He cracked his head. Let's make sure we're doing this right. And Kevin's I want to see him every day until the state tournament, and he adjusted his neck. And I'm telling you to the first adjustment, he was right. His brain. He's I feel good, and then Kevin did like a heat test and, immediately, as soon as the adjustment, the heat evened out across everything, he explained the, sub concussive impacts and, stuff like that. But long story short, Jordan ended up taking, he went into states ranked, I think seated 18th and he ended up taking home seventh place. His freshman year. So That's pretty awesome for a freshman. we were going nuts. Cause you never know. An impact like that, you're not really sure, like you go through practice and everything. And just not sure. Sorry, my dogs. You're just not sure what you're going to get after a kid has an impact like that. But I'll tell you what he came out of there. He knocked out the number, I think it was like the number seven kid first, then it was the number seven. Six kid. Then it was the number eight kid. And we're like, Holy crap. He's placing, Here we go. Here we go. about wrestling, Pennsylvania, is it, We're thick we were, Kevin had him tuned up and was ready to rip. So you talked about shooting for the legs. I had to wrestle in high school because I didn't like wrestling, but I wanted to play defense. And our defensive football coach was a wrestling coach. So you had to wrestle. And shooting, and correct me if I'm wrong, but you see a leg. And you're like going to shoot down and try to grab that leg and wrap up the wrestler. So it's a, it's aggressive move where you're doing a downward angle going right to the leg. And I don't remember ever seeing two people try at the same time to collide like that in my ears. So crazy. Actually, I feel like it's the higher level wrestlers that end up doing that. It happens all over the place, but I feel like the more aggressive the kids are getting and you get into the high school and higher level high school matches and stuff, you're seeing a lot of the timing issues and stuff like that. He actually had his two front teeth knocked out at 1. 2. Same thing, he went in for a blast double and other kid went for an ankle pick and the, the kid's downward trajectory like this, and then him coming like this, it was just the perfect storm. sure. two front teeth straight back. And I was like, standing there, like catching blood in my hands. And I'm like, Oh. My gosh, I don't even know what to do with this. Somebody help. Wow. had our fair share of, uh, facial and stuff like that. And we always make sure chiropractors the first place we go. it's just, it just makes sense. You can go to your primary care physician, but all they're going to do is give you a note and say you're done for a couple of days and, go through it and there's really no, Adjustments made or, anything like that. And you're, all the research I've done, your neck is a shock absorber, and if you're not fixing that, are you doing? Too about, Dr. Jackson is really big on this too, and last night we talked and it's about the post check. It's like, okay, you do chiropractic care, then you do a post check to make sure you got it because maybe there's something else. And I tell my young chiropractors that when you have a high school or middle school age athlete, there's only one post test you need to do. And that's ask mom, because nobody knows that athlete better than mom. So you said that he gave that first adjustment and you knew he was already getting better. I said, Oh, he passed the mom test because nobody knows the athlete better than mom. it's just, it's cool because I like learning different things and I probably went down the deepest rabbit hole. You can go on the sub concussive impacts because I've never heard of them. And you always hear people say, oh, mild concussion, this or severe concussion that and the further your research, it's just a concussion or a TBI or whatever the case may be. And there's really, you either have a concussion or you don't, or you have a sub concussive impact. It's just, it's crazy how misinformed a lot of people really are, when it comes to this kind of stuff. And like I said, first place we'll always go is the chiropractor, You know, Is you took the bugger on the medical physician and you were, no athletic trainer there told you to go see the chiropractor the next day. No family physician was going to tell you to check with the chiropractor. And it's, it's other moms, it's other dads and other athletes that gets our message out. And that's why we have this Sports and Fitness Science Council podcast. Yeah, by your expressions in your face and your emotions that you knew this was the right thing to do. And you knew that your son got better. And if you ever saw a kid get a concussion anywhere else, you're going to walk up and tell him, I know what to do. And that, sure, for sure. And in wrestling, you're getting bent into pretzels sometimes. And you're knees not supposed to go that way, no, So it just makes sense to have, at least a semi routine visit to put everything back in place. absolutely, absolutely. And I talk a lot about with athletes, how important it is to maybe go in before the season starts a baseline screening. So we know when there is an injury, we have a plan. And I always tell the moms and dads, if you have a plan, you never need it. So let's have a great plan. So, I tell you, as a chiropractor, we love and appreciate you being an advocate out there, telling people what they can do, how to get better, because you never know how many lives you've touched and changed by just telling your story. So I'm so proud and happy to have you on our podcast tonight. So, and I always, I always finish up with asking my guests if they have any final words they'd like to share with us. So I'll give you that stage right now, any final words you have. If all I got to say is if anybody has athletes and you're not seeing the chiropractor, at least semi regularly, you got to get them in there. I think the performance. alone. It just makes all the difference. Your kid feels good. They perform well, know, and everybody talks about square, stay square, it's hard to stay square when you're one hips higher than the other hip or out of whack, so Can't be square when you're crooked. Yep. let them put you back in line. Sounds Been shared the video of this collision. So I'm going to add the, I'm going to edit the video onto the end of this podcast. So if you're listening to this podcast, great. I'm glad you're there listening, but I would love to have you check out the video either on YouTube or Facebook or on the chiropractic website. The ICA page, chiropractic. org. You'll see in the sports council, you'll see all of the podcasts that we've done. So you can find out more information there. And if you like what you're hearing, you like what you're seeing, please subscribe and listen in. And on that note, I'm going to let Kahla enjoy her evening and we are going to call it a night. So thank you again for joining us. We appreciate you. And unless that's it, we're ready to say good night. sure. Absolutely. Have a good night. I appreciate you having me. All right. Thank you. Thanks. Oh, did you hear that? Quick, Jordan, quick. His head to head. Really? Yeah, he's going to have a good one. I did not tell you how many times you can come down by in a place where you are at the hospital for MRIs all the time. Yes. No worries.