Day 25: Nutriiveda, SCD, yeast, seizures

[Guest guest]

My daughter Lace, 4, showed autistic symptoms in three stages, each a few

months after vaccinations/antibiotics. She was ART, a donor/surrogate

combination, bottle-fed. By this January she had lost all speech,

consonants, symbolic play and interest in exploring. The first inarguable

autism clue I had was her 6/10/09 serum serotonin test: where normal is

81-349, she scored 16. I started GFCF and DAN! supplements, including some

5HTP, in August 2009 but she seemed only to get worse. In November her

serotonin was in normal range but on 2/4/10 it was down again to 55. The

next chapters have been a bit like Tatanya's. For two weeks (Feb 6 to 20) I

tried a " modified " Specific Carbohydrate Diet (extra meat plus modest

potatoes and whole-grain rice): she perked up well. Around Feb 20 I gave

her a scoop of Nutriiveda in cereal -- and she stopped eating completely.

Nothing. Nada. That lasted about a week. Her appetite then came back and I

gradually added Nutriiveda so that by now I'm giving her the expected two

scoops, skipping lunch, and usually ending the evening with banana yogurt,

Omega 369, 5HTP, zinc picolinate and extra D3. Today is NV day 25. She has

begun eating the Nutriiveda-cereal eagerly. Her health and behavior seem

good but there have been no surges. A couple of words and consonants have

returned, her exploring is better than in January. There's next to no

symbolic play but her babble is sounding more playful. I recorded her babble

several times over the years, including the day before starting Nutriiveda:

her babble today is rather improved over February -- but distinctly worse

than a couple of years ago. Her latest serum serotonin number (3/22/10) was

99. Bottom line: both Nutriiveda and the modified SCD w/ supplements seemed

to help. Both have been associated with good signs. But neither, yet, with

spectacularly good signs.

Prior to, and while giving, Nutriiveda Lace showed many signs of " yeast

mania " , wild kicking, eating book pages, standing on her head, running

nowhere wildly. I got those symptoms reduced but at first foods which

contained Nutriiveda that she would eat had lots of sugar and seemed to make

her mania worse. The manic symptoms, the initial loss of appetite, and

peoples' reports of extra seizures suggest that we're dealing with

mal-adjusted bodies -- that the bodies of kids with metabolic problems have

changed other chemical pathways to compensate. Our kids' bodies may have

learned to live with bad systems and don't know what to do with the first

products of correctly functioning ones. I wonder also if parents seeing

surges have older children, that is, maybe they've given their children lots

of correct diet and supplements to heal systems already, and the children

benefit from a " break-through " boost to some one final important system.

Here are ideas for extra help. A few days ago I started making sure Lace

played in the sun a lot, for the vitamin D; on cloudy days I've also been

giving her two or three tablets of 400 IU vitamin D3 last thing at night,

whereas I give the Nutriiveda in the morning and early afternoon. The

intention is to strengthen her immune system. I'm also continuing the Epsom

salts baths, with filtered water and hand-squeezed orange juice to drink and

a capsule of zinc picolinate after supper -- the idea is to help the removal

of any toxins she's absorbed. I also initially gave her digestive enzymes

and probiotics religiously, to help her heal any digestive problems. My

thought is that these steps help her digestive, immune, and toxin-removal

systems without interfering with Nutriiveda.

All the best -

Tim Stearns