Sports and Chiropractic Care: Insights from Dr. Andrew Jeter

In this episode of the International Chiropractic Association Sports and Fitness Science Council podcast, Dr. Andrew Jeter, father of a Notre Dame football player, shares his experiences and insights on chiropractic care for athletes. Dr. Jeter discusses his son’s sports injuries, the treatments applied, and the importance of chiropractic adjustments. He also talks about the need for a unified network of sports chiropractors and the growth of chiropractic care within athletic programs. Dr. Jeter concludes by encouraging professionals to join associations and pursue continuous education to better serve their patients.

Transcript

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Thanks for joining us for another edition of the International Chiropractic Association Sports and Fitness Science Council podcast. Now, recently we had our annual convention down at Clearwater, Florida, and we had a keynote speaker and I got to meet the keynote speaker and we talked and I asked him to join us today. And that's Dr. Andrew Jeter. Dr. Andrew Jeter. I wanna say hello. Hello. Thank. And I see that you're wearing a Notre Dame shirt there for people who don't know who you are. You want to talk a little bit about why you're wearing a Notre Dame shirt Well, I, I am the father of the kicker that played for the 2024 fighting Irish. and you had a little bit of press about you that came out about your son this year. Correct. You wanna tell our listeners about that? that was a total surprise. You know, the night before or the day before the Georgia game down in Louisiana, son said Hey dad I think Sean McDonough from ESP N's gonna give you a shout out during the broadcast. I'm like, oh. And I'm thinking, okay, what about, I texted him chiropractic question mark and he said, yeah, chiropractic. So I didn't know how that was gonna be received or how it was gonna take place, but it did and, and you know, wow. What a, what a platform for chiropractic Definitely, I was talking about sports being a great ambassador to promote our profession, for and you're definitely a living testimony of that, so, so tell us a little bit what happened with your son. Why they, why they were talking about you, and why they brought you into the spotlight. So during of the season he was playing against the University of Miami and they had switched out the snappers there was a bad snap hold exchange and the ball came s scoring back towards my son Mitch, number 98. he picked up the ball and scrambled to his right and avoided one tackle. And then he, he was trying to, as he was going to the right sideline of Notre Dame, he tried to throw it away because that was to receive the pass was covered. Remember, this is a broken play, and it, when he did, he got hit hard in his left hip area and then immediately catapulted him over onto his right hip, and he went sliding past Coach Freeman out of bounds, about five or six yards deep into the bench. After the game, you know, we kind of talked about it and he really didn't, he didn't want to, you know, take the time to be adjusted because he had some friends up from South Carolina where he used to play. And so he wanted to go out and be, be a, be a college kid, you know. So, except the, the inner right groin kept getting tighter and tighter and tighter. And then during the Stanford game, he was doing a kickoff, it was probably one of the worst kickoffs I've ever seen him do. And see what really happened to him.'cause I was following the ball and my wife said something's wrong with him. And he's on the sideline with his helmet off. And so at halftime he texted us and he said, I think I tore something in my groin. It popped during that kick. And you know, we just were like I don't know. You know, let's let's wait and see. So after the game, we went back to his apartment and we, and we did a somewhat of an evaluation, but he was really, really tender and sore and we couldn't really a whole lot for him. The next day he had an MRI and he had a grade one slash two strain of his growing muscle. The next week the team was in Atlanta for the Georgia Tech game and, I saw that inner thigh and he was bruised basically from his navel to his knee. It was black and blue. I mean, it was the worst bruise I've ever seen. And so you know, we, we stepped into place and, and did what any chiropractor would do and that's trained in sports injuries or any father would do, who's a chiropractor or mother, I should say, as well. And we just started working with him. We started working with the spine and we started working with the extremities and giving him weekly. Adjustments several in a row. He did ultrasound, he did cold laser, he did he did ice, he did Epsom salt bath. He did, I think a shockwave therapy, jacuzzi therapy, hydrotherapy, low weight, high resistance. And you know, this thing went on for about 12 weeks, but he didn't play for a month after that. So that's the, that's the long of it, I guess. I am glad that you were able to get him back on. And you know, myself, I, I torn my bicep 15 years ago and I remember seeing Dr. Dan Murphy and I'm like, Hey dude, what all can I do to this arm to get this back to full speed? I. And, you know, his chiropractors and his for fathers, obviously we wanna use every tool we have and it's, it's really cool that you're able to do all that without a whole bunch of shots and injections and everything else, and help his body heal the natural way. Now one of my closest friends here, his daughter plays division one college basketball. They travel a lot and he's not a chiropractor even though he goes to all the games. Your son was traveling and stuff like that. Were you able to stay with him or did you have to sometimes maybe find a chiropractor places where he was going with the team? I. Well, I, I pretty much brought my table wherever we would go and wherever went. The only game I didn't go to this year was the Southern Cow game out in Los Angeles, and that was over the Thanksgiving holiday weekend. So that presented some other obstacles, but you know, I ended up keeping a table there in South Bend underneath his bed at his apartment. And so you know, probably a quarter of the clinic was was under his bed at the, at the apartment. He, he, he used it. He used all of it. And I should say we used massage therapy too. I think I left that out. We used a lot of massage therapy to help the striations of the muscles back in parallel so he could heal. Absolutely. And you find that the the team itself had a team chiropractor, or did you just find that there wasn't a chiropractor there or, I understand it's your son and I know with my kids, I know I'm their best chiropractor. I know my dad was always my best chiropractor. Right. But did you have, did you get to communicate with the team trainers and stuff like that, or you just kind of did your thing? We communicated a little bit with the team chiropractor and the team trainers. Not really over the phone but live. You know, what we did is just fill in the gaps. You know, we would talk basically every day, Hey, what did you do today? We didn't wanna replicate anything, but we just filled in the gaps. and you know, he really wasn't getting extremity chiropractic. So you know, we, we. in that and we dove into that for helping him out. Get that growing back. I personally found out that when I started getting results from the rest of the medical team can't get results. They don't really question you. They're just happy you're getting results. Yeah. you're ran into a lot of that too, but he's getting better. Let him keep doing his thing. So now did you find that the NCAA has a lot of access to chiropractic care or is that something just kind of different team by team or city to city or town to town? I think it's, I think it's team to team town, to town. To be honest with you most division one programs do have a chiropractor involved with their with their team. I know they had one at South Carolina. They had massage therapy, athletic trainers, and of course orthopedist slash primary care doctor would come in periodically. and Notre Dame pretty much had that as well, but, you know, here, here we are working with a local Division two school and they're, they're asking me to come out and help the baseball teams second year in a row. So something's working, you know? Yes. Do you work with a lot of teams in your community now? No, just, just a handful, you know, primarily Catawba College, which like I said, is a division two school here. I was told one time if I gonna work with a lot of professional golfers, I can't live in Northern Illinois. I have to move to Florida, Arizona. Right. always a big part of it too. So we are trying to set up a network here with sports chiropractors that have a background in sports. The, I say sports and fitness. And I think you would agree with me that as a father, with a son of an athlete who does travel, it would be nice to have a network of chiropractors you could easily find, refer somebody to, and I'm, you know, probably find out, and correct me if I'm wrong, but when you start taking care of your son, I'm pretty sure it's three or four of his good buddies also wanted you to just look at them two at the same time. Correct. Yeah. He had two roommates that received benefit as well just by being roommates. So, yeah, So they're probably gonna go back to there. and then they, they brought in friends and so, you know. It expanded. So the night before the national championship the room was pretty full. It was pretty packed. I'm sure. It'd be nice if you had a network, you could find all those guys, chiropractors back in their hometowns that you knew, understood the sports and stuff like that too. Exactly. Yeah. And that way, you know what you're sending them to. You have faith, you have confidence, they're gonna be taken care of. I'm sure you get asked, I think as chiropractic, as we all get asked all the time, Hey, I'm moving to West Virginia. Tell me who I should go see. I'm sure even in the athletic world, that's even bigger than it is for a normal patient. Correct. I. Yeah. There used to be a program called the Care of the Elite Professional Athlete. I think it was called CIPA for short. I know that the ICA has something to do with hockey, professional hockey. Now I. So, yeah, I think, I think there are smaller groups, but it would be helpful if we organized and you know, became a unified body, Yep. And that's one of the things that our council's aiming towards. We've created a friendship with the Pro Hockey Chiropractic Society and the Pro Baseball. Chiropractic society and we're becoming friends with the pro football guys as well. So trying to make that a data pool. But you know, I wanna thank you for your time and joining us here, and then I always toss the mic back to you. If you have any final words you'd like to share with our audience. The, the stage is yours. Well, I'd just like to, to remind everybody that you know, they need to have faith and confidence in the chiropractic adjustment. You know, healing happens from above down inside out. This is BJ Palmer preached, you know 99 years ago when the ICA started. This is our 99th year. If you're not a member of the, i i, if you're member state Association. Associations plural. I encourage you to join. You gotta get involved. You know, that's the only way our profession's gonna grow. can't have too many people out here as islands. You know, we need to be a unified body. So I want to always encourage people to choose hard. That was one of the Notre Dame mantras this year. And tooth hard. By, I mean, you know, go the extra step, go the extra mile, do the patient right. Make sure you go to live CEUs, hands-on training. You know, all those things will help you become a better, more specific doctor. And when all else fails, if you're not getting the results that you want, go back and look at the joint angles of the body part you're you're struggling with.'cause that'll help open, open it up a little bit for you. that's kind of what I've talked about this past two weekends ago in Clearwater. And it was good to see you there. And again, thanks for having me. I appreciate it, and I wish everybody the success, happiness, love, and faith. I love those final words. I couldn't. Neve even more. Thank you so much for joining us, and I know you're a busy person, so I'm gonna let you get on your way. If you liked what you listened to here, hit like, subscribe, follow for more, and we'll see you next on the next podcast. Thank you everybody. Thank you. Bye Bye.