Something Causes Autism: One of those days...

Wednesday, December 8, 2010

One of those days...

Little girl at home with the vomits... Wish she knew to let it out instead of throwing her head back and crying/inhaling... :-( But at least she's learned we're here to comfort her; there was a long time when she didn't understand we were on her side.

The improvement in her ability to relate came only recently, after removing wheat and gluten from the family cupboard. Recently a teacher had said our older son may have ADD (the passive variety). His concentration and focus had been impaired for a while, and he was beginning to lag behind other children academically. (Remember, our son had the mercury-laden Hep B jab at age 2, not as a newborn. Things are never simple.) Without wheat or gluten his concentration and focus did a fast turnaround; a byproduct of this pantry-change was that our girl's eye contact and attention span improved too.

Most people encounter 'gluten free' advice early in ASD diagnosis, as did we. However when we had tried the gluten free (and casein free) diet at the time our girl was first diagnosed (at age 2), she seemed to crash.

As I've said elsewhere, it turns out that our early attempt at dietary intervention had probably ushered in a new set of problems via dissolved aluminium in the packaged rice milk. Chelation with alpha lipoic acid brought an almost immediate recovery of her swallowing reflex, but the detour was long, and it didn't seem a gluten free diet could be helpful.

However my son's more recent school troubles made trying anything worthwhile. Once again I de-glutened the house.

Immediately our son's focus improved massively at school, and our girl became more alert, switched-on and happy. She began choosing to snuggle up to us on the couch, and to initiate tickling and other non-structured play. This is very new and very unexpected. Not all the surprises that come with autism are bad.

It's the small positives that make this journey bearable. Some children advance to normality while for others a rare piercing look, or choosing to lean against a parent for comfort, are just as powerful.

Meanwhile of course there are the low points... Like trying to help a child learn not to inhale vomit.

Something causes autism.

No comments:

Post a Comment

Milli's story

My girl got a mercury-containing version of the Hep B jab when she was only hours old.

We took her home to an environment we now feel to have been laden with heavy metals and pesticides (the latter from prior inhabitants as I never use sprays). The local suburb had a coal smelter. The childcare centres all had treated pine.

She seemed to develop normally, though with a stiff neck but floppy lower body. However she began to use words at an appropriate time and learned to walk (though her gait was stilted). Progress stagnated and then began to go backward from about 14 months on. She was assessed at around two and found to be autistic; from that point after we switched diets to be gluten/casein free her ability to drink and eat began to collapse, she stopped recognising people and spent most of each day and a lot of each night crying and hitting her hands on walls. Words became scrambled and then completely disappeared. One day I looked into her eyes and there was nobody there.

We'd been seeing plenty of doctors, but had lately heard about a 'biomedical' approach, so took her to see a practitioner. A hair test showed aluminium and other heavy metals among the highest the lab had seen. Alas, before we could begin serious treatment she had 4 days refusing food or liquid, and the situation was suddenly dire. The biomedical paediatrician was a 6 hour drive away. We were on our own.

I decided to try one more thing before taking her to hospital, and that was chelation using alpha lipoic acid following protocols in a book called Children With Starving Brains.

I made sure to give a mineral supplement alongside. The local paediatricians refused to take part or oversee, and told me the hair test was 'fringe dweller stuff', so I followed the book.

In two days she could swallow properly for the first time in close to 18 months. We were syringing her vitamin tonic and she went very still and quiet and swallowed each mouthful normally. (It was only at that point that we realised why she hadn't been eating or drinking for so long.) Two weeks later her lopsided gait had normalised. Around that time I was putting her in the car when she took hold of my head, turned it to face her and laughed, looking into my eyes for the first time in ages.

What helped Milli? Aside from chelation with alpha lipoic acid we saw improvements with the following:

- fish oil
- vitamin B-12 injections
- mineral/vitamin tonic Hi Vita in liquid form
- probiotics

When her hair test had first showed the highest percentile for aluminium, I'd had our 2 water sources (bore and tank) and her rice milk tested. Both waters were within safe limits. The rice milk, according to the technician, appeared to have 'hundreds of times higher' levels of aluminium than the safe level for drinking water. It seems likely to me that Milli's 'leaky' gut was unable to seal out aluminium from that source. Naturally after her hair result and the lab test on water and rice milk I removed all tetra packages from the house.

So what causes autism?

I don't know. But it does seem to me inescapable that heavy metals have a part to play, in which case vaccinal mercury from her newborn Hep B jab must remain on the suspect list.

I've since read that mercury depletes B-12 (which makes gut lining). Other demyelating agents may be involved. Unless we stop looking to blame individuals via their genes, we'll never know the causes.