Progress Report

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Group-

Thought it might be time for a progress report. We've been chelating

my 5-year old since labor day weekend of this year. He started out

at 25 mg. of DMSA every 4 hours. We bumped it up to 50 mg. every 4

hours a few cycles ago. Here's what we've noticed so far:

1. By far the most dramatic change is he's no longer tired.

Although he's kinda a hyper guy - not the bouncing off the

wall type, but fidgety, can't sit still, impulsive, - he

always was tired. He'd lay on the couch to watch tv or videos,

after every meal he'd go lay down on the couch, he'd go up in

his room to lay down. This was every day. And it wasn't as if

he wasn't getting enough sleep at night. He goes to bed around

8:30 and sleeps all the way through to 7:30 or 8:00 in the

morning.

Since we started chelating, this chronic fatigue thing has

totally disappeared. I have not seen him lay down on the couch

once since we began chelation (although I must admit I kinda

miss it sometimes!)

2. His motor planning is better. For example, he could dress himself

prior to chelation, but after he got started, he couldn' quite

finish the job without alot of reminders and prodding from me.

Suddenly, once we began chelation, I'll tell him to go get

dressed and a minute later he's done. Picked out his clothes

and got them all on in the right order. No fuss, no muss.

3. He's dropped a couple of annoying habits. One was he was always

digging his chin into something. Some sorta sensory thing I

guess and grinding his teeth when he did it. Totally stopped

since chelation. He also did this stim thing with pushing

books around. Stopped doing that too.

4. He's more social. He has a younger brother who, although he

liked him being around, he didn't really say anything to him.

He would kinda let me know what he wanted to get across to his

brother, but now I've noticed he'll say things directly to him

now and also to his teenage sister. He also used to move if

his brother came and sat next to him on the couch or someplace

else and now he has no problem being close to him.

5. He hand flaps a lot less. I'm a little reluctant to add this

one because I've seen the flapping vary before, but this is

a pretty long time where it's been way down.

A couple of things I've noticed regarding DMSA. At 25 mgs he had no

side effects. At 50 mgs. he gets more hyper on the 2nd day and that

lasts a couple of days and fades. We just got back the results of

our first urine test and he had high tin. Consequently, our Dr.

advised not to start ALA until we reduce the tin, so we upped his

DMSA to 75 mgs. this weekend to move it out faster. At 75 mgs. he

seems a bit worse than at 50mgs. I actually saw him toewalking

today which he never ever did in his life.

Another interesting thing is his bloodwork. He's had bloodwork done

every so often for the past 2 years or so and his MCV, MCH and MCHC

values were always off. Too high. In addition his BU/CR Ratio was

always way off - once double the high end of the range.

Everytime I asked a Dr. about what that ratio was & why it was always

off I always got a blow-off - Oh, it's nothing. Anyway, on his last

blood test since chelating, that goofy ratio is finally normal as are

the MCV, MCH and MCHC values. Don't know what any of them mean or if

they are significant or not, but I just thought I'd mention it. It

would be great if someone could enlighten me on what those mean.

Finally, what I haven't seen any improvement in is the

hpyer/impulsivity/distractibility component. He is verbal and I

haven't noticed too much in the way in language improvement, but I

wouldn't expect that until we added the ALA.

Lori