Another newbie intro.... (long)

January 29, 2003

I'm a member of many other autism lists but new to this one. I've

joined other lists over the past year in an effort to find any

information that would help my son (5 years old). Most recently my 17

month old daughter has received a diagnosis of " suspected " autism

spectrum disorder. As a general rule, she is fairly social, friendly

but still has few words and they tend to come and go. She also has

some symptoms of sensory impairment and her motor skills developed

somewhat slower than her brother's. She is much more adept at

removing clothes, etc than her brother and frequently strips to

nothing. I've discovered that she will remove her diaper right before

she uses the bathroom but she won't sit on the potty (gee, Why

couldn't one of my kids actually be easy to potty-train?). She also

bites and I'm her usual target!

My son wasn't diagnosed until age 3 1/2 even though I first asked the

pediatrician about autism when he was 2. At 3 1/2, I finally got back

on the computer and searched until I found my own answer, so I

essentially diagnosed him myself (so much for better diagnosis!). He

is obviously an extremely bright child and has symptoms of hyperlexia

even though he doesn't actually " read " (as far as I know). He's

always been somewhat verbal but his language has grown extremely

slowly, so that he is still not what I would call " conversational " He

has extremely poor play skills (but he knows states, countries, the

US presidents and is beginning to tell time and do simple math!).

I felt really badly that we missed all of that valuable early

intervention with my son (thanks, doc!) and was determined my

daughter would get any intervention that she needed. I was familiar

with the CHAT test that is done for early detection of autism and

therefore knew that " not pointing " was a good indicator. My daughter

also doesn't point.

We've spoken to someone locally about a home program as we're really

anxious to get our daughter as much early intervention as possible.

We live in an area that has few resources for families such as ours

and have considered relocating to any other area that has better

resources. We see a ped. neurologist 3 hours away from here and he

has my daughter on GFCF diet + Spectrum Complete Vitamin from

Kirkman's Laboratories. Her appetite seems to have picked up a bit

since we added the vitamins. I already had her casein free and she

rarely received gluten (other than occasional oatmeal) before the

diagnosis.

I'm having a little bit of trouble switching gears now since I've

spent so much of the last year and a half trying to find the magic

key that would unlock our son's future. Over the past year and a half

we have done speech therapy, a little OT (finally starting to get it

through the school system!), a little preschool (typical), GFCF diet

& GFCF/soy free + as allergy-free as possible/rotating diet. Right

now we're attempting Specific Carbohydrate Diet with homemade goat's

milk yogurt. We also did some NAET,AIT x 2, cod liver oil (recently

adding bethanechol), vitamins, enzymes, etc. We recently added TTFD

which is a transdermal form of vitamin B-1 that is supposed to help

remove heavy metals and saw Dr Amy Holmes prior to her retirement.

She placed my son on the MT Promotion protocol from Pfeiffer

Treatment Center. Hair analysis on him at age 4 showed 98%

arsenic/antimony and high aluminum. He also had

allergies/intolerances to 16 foods. A repeat of the test shows that

number is now up to 22 foods. I wish that I could say he was one of

the kids that was a great responder to diet, etc but he wasn't. A

couple of months ago we found a girl who recently received a BS

degree in speech and is waiting to get into grad school. She has

experience with kids with autism and has worked in behavioral

programs. She has been coming for the past month or so twice a week

and spending 2-3 hours at a time working with our son. We've seen as

much benefit from this as anything else that we've tried. I'm trying

to get my son transferred into a district that has a language delay

preschool and have reached the " talk to my lawyer " stage. (ly,

I've had it with medicine, school districts, and politics!!)

I know of no other cases of autism on either sides of our family. I

have a sister who I now realize likely had some sensory problems as a

child and there are bright but quirky people here and there in our

family tree. No one had difficulty learning to talk though. I

suspect that autism is a genetic condition that many have but that

certain toxins/triggers bring out the undesirable symptoms. I also

believe (in contrast to what my ped. said about most autistics being

MR) that it targets the very bright. I'm willing to bet money that

when all is said and done, we will find that Alzheimer's and many of

these auto-immune diseases (MS, lupus, celiac, etc) are different

manifestations of the same root cause--- a reaction to our toxic

world.

I'd better run jump in the shower before my kids are up---I just

wanted to say that I slept so much better last night knowing that the

President wants " Every child to learn and read and SUCCEED " ---NOT!

Vicki

January 29, 2003

Hello Vicki. Welcome aboard. I too agree 1000% that this

president is a joke when it comes to education and this no child left behind

act was just to look good on paper and pass the buck!

I too have two siblings with autism. age 5 just like your

son is severe and nonverbal is more like your daughter she is

mild or PDD-NOS. YOu will find out your the doctor for your children not

licensed doctors LOL I am told many times that my two kids are not

autistic. AS for the youngest one there argueing with a pediatric

neurologist LOL Some people give there kids B6 with magnesium

Charlene

-- Another " newbie " intro.... (long)