Toxicity and Pajamas?

Part of Jordan's healing from food allergies and autism involves avoiding any and all chemicals possible so as not to add to the burden his body is already dealing with in trying to clean out his internal environment. This includes air fresheners, fragrances, dryer sheets, normal household cleaners, and on the list goes. And yes, new pajamas.  Why pajamas? Most pajamas are coated with a chemical flame retardant. So, all his life, Jordan has had hand-me-down pajamas that have been washed hundreds of times or a plain undershirt T-shirt and shorts or sweatpants. Not a big deal.

Well, at Costco, again, on display were pajamas I was ready to run right past, like normal, when Jordan spotted some bright blue ones he fell in love with, to my surprise, they were organic and were not treated with flame resistant chemicals, and not outrageously expensive. He was SO excited to get new pajamas, just for him!

 

A Whole Lot of Normal That Hasn't Been

Over Halloween weekend, we went camping...and had a blast!  I realize that may not sound significant to most of you. But for those of you with ASD (autism spectrum disorder) in the family, that can be a pretty major thing depending on the child's particular issues.

We tried it a year and half ago, with disastrous results. It was too much change, too many sounds, too many smells, too many people too close, too much of everything except sameness and his white noise machine, and completely overwhelmed him. This time it was pure adventure and enjoyment! 

 We rode bikes...

...a long ways

We swung on a grapevine

He swung high! (He used to go crazy swinging even an inch or two was absolutely terrifying to him - sensory issues).

...not anymore!

And for dinner...GF free range turkey hot dogs, chips, carrots and smores! In a very rare event (like the first time in his life) we broke the diet rules. We used gluten-free, dairy-free, (and relatively free of toxins) "graham" crackers and chocolate bars, but couldn't find decent marshmallows here (we've found them in the past in MI), so I let him break the rules and eat normal marshmallows, blue food coloring, horrible chemicals and all. Believe me, this will only happen once or twice a year, for camping purposes only, when I don't remember to order others ahead of time...until his body has completely healed! And he did fine, no noticeable effects, but we won't make a habit of it. I know the cumulative effects, and we aren't going there!

Sorry Sweetie, You're Allergic: Explaining Allergies To Children

A very difficult part of food allergies or autism, if you are sticking to a diet, is explaining to the child that they can't eat what someone, or everyone, else is eating. As every child is different, I'm sure ways of explaining and what works will be different as well. I'll share what has worked for us.

For foods that he has an obvious reaction to such as dairy, which results in stomach pains and vomiting, it's not too difficult. "Sorry sweetie, that makes you sick; but this doesn't you may have this."

Foods that may not have such an obvious reaction can be a bit more difficult. For us, gluten is the most difficult to explain. It doesn't make him physically sick, in fact there are no signs of it bothering him, except that after weeks of eating it, he struggles with his speech and his communication abilities greatly diminish. When it is removed from his diet, 3 weeks later he is speaking great again. Because he wants to eat some of the other things that have an obvious reaction, I have explained that we are working to help his body heal, so someday he can eat those things.  When he wants to eat something with gluten (or junk food that he isn't allergic to) in it, instead of explaining that it will make him sick - because one of these days he'll try it and happily tell me that, "It doesn't make me sick!" when he doesn't see any affect from eating it - I explain that, "It isn't good for your body and won't help your body heal."  He often replies, "But, when my body is healed, I'll be able to have it?" Depending on what the item is, makes a difference in my answer. If it's healthy, I'll say, " Yes, when your body has healed, you'll be able to eat it." If it's not healthy, I'll say, "Yes, someday you may be able to eat it, but it still won't be good for you."

It has been my experience that helping him understand that certain foods make him sick or prevent his body from healing has really helped with him wanting foods he can't have and accepting an suitable alternative. I also always keep something he can eat in my purse - a Larabar or dehydrated fruit strip. Even if he can't have what everyone else is having, at least he can have something that he likes very much.

Welcome to Food Allergy 911

This blog is inspired by my son, Jordan, who was allergic to all food, except sweet potato. Doctors were not able to help him. I researched the causes of allergies in order to save his life. Later, we learned he had autism as well. The causes behind allergies and autism are related along with asthma and ADHD. The purpose of this blog is to help others who find themselves with health issues, particularly allergies and autism. Although the principles used to recover from allergies and autism are health principles that are good for everyone. Originally, we made changes in our lives for Jordan, now our whole family practices these health principles, although not as rigidly as Jordan does.

Jordan has caught up to his age appropriate level of relating to others, speech ability, his sensory issues are gone, and his gross motor skills and coordination continue to improve. No one would ever guess that he ever had autism. His allergies are still in the process of healing and continue to diminish.

If your looking to overcome autism, allergies, asthma or ADHD or simply looking to live healthier lives, you will find help here.

Autism Recovery - No Progress...Normal???

Jordan progressed an amazing amount between September and the end of December.  January was a different story. Nothing bad, nothing great. But no progress. When progress slows or stops, I start questioning what is different. What we have added to his diet that may be affecting him, what we have forgotten to keep in his diet or regimen of supplements that may be causing it, what point he is at in his treatment – when one issue is resolved, another will often present itself, as we “peel back the layers” of his health issues. So, maybe we’ve resolved some yeast and heavy metal issues and revealed some viral or parasite issue?  All these things go through my mind – repeatedly. And I turn detective again trying to figure it out.

Discovering Stingrays!

We saw his neuro doctor (Dr. R) today, and I came away encouraged. He, obviously, knows way more about the brain and it’s development than I do (most of what I know of the brain, I learned from him).  He saw a couple of things in Jordan that I hadn’t counted as particularly significant, like using imagination as he took a toy lizard, changed his voice, and began a pretend interaction with the toy snake I was holding :)  He also mentioned how the brain will grow and learn, then may step back a bit and go, “Hmm” and let things settle a bit, before advancing again (okay, so that might not be the scientific explanation).

Tonight as I was reflecting on Jordan and his progress, or lack thereof, and was recalling my older, neurotypical son's progress in his first couple years. I remembered how it seemed that he would go through developmental spurts, where he would progress a lot, and then his development seemed to slow for awhile, until he would hit another developmental growth spurt.

Maybe I’m getting a little too used to monitoring every single detail of Jordan’s diet, development, supplements, vitamins, socialness, fussiness, motor control, etc.  Maybe sometimes something doesn’t have to be wrong or need to be changed when development slows a little.  Now I’m not stopping – we’re still consulting with the nutritional and detox doctor again in two weeks and we’ll be doing the new brain exercises for this month from the neuro doctor, and I’ve already redoubled our efforts on his diet and supplements, removing a couple things we had allowed to creep in.  But, I am breathing a little easier and find myself taking a nice big sigh, relaxing, and putting away my detective badge for tonight. Taking a moment, or a few, to enjoy and reflect on how far he’s come. A bad day now is still 1,000 times better than a good day one year ago!

Jordan's PDD-NOS (Autism) Heavy Metal Chelation Update

Jordan has been on OSR for one month now. OSR is an antioxident that is quite potent, but gentle as well, and is specific to chelating (pulling out of the body) heavy metals. It is fat soluable rather than water soluable (all other chelators are water soluable). This allows it to get INTO the cell AND cross the blood brain barrier to get metals out of the brain! The best part – it’s rates a zero on the toxicity scale. So, it’s very safe.

So my son who is ultra sensitive to everything…like put sunscreen on him one day and he’s in meltdown for 2 days, has been on OSR for 4 weeks. The last week got a bit bumpy and he started overreacting (aka meltdown) to things like big brother looking at him cross-eyed, so we took him off the OSR to give his body a break for a week or two before he goes back on it.

A recap of our first month on OSR.
 I didn’t notice any remarkable differences nothing changed from one day to the next. There was no WOW experience…until we got to the end of the month and I looked back. This month he progressed very quickly in his speech and cognition, and evened out in his behavior/emotional reactions significantly. So much so that I’m able to tell others that he’s a normal 2 1/2 year old now (excepting his diet, of course)!!! This month he arrived at his age appropriate level of speech and was “kicked out” of speech therapy!

One week the speech therapist was here and said he didn’t need to continue anymore, because he was basically age-appropriate except for 3 things that he should be added soon at this age, but that most kids struggle with a little more:  1) “I” to his vocabulary 2) something else, I forget what it was 3) colors (but that often they can take substantially longer before they are incorporated in vocabulary). His case manager was here the next week and mentioned the great news as well as the slight concern of the speech therapist and I was like, oh, ya, he’s has 2 of those 3 things now. He uses “I” regularly and appropriately, and whatever the other category of speech was he was all caught up on too. So, the only thing he doesn’t have yet is colors and I’m not worried about that, it’ll come when he’s good and ready…he doesn’t seem to care about colors just yet. It was fun to see those things added so quickly and so thoroughly! One week those things were lacking, the very next week they were so incorporated into his vocabulary I had forgotten they were new!

As far as his behavior and meltdowns, we can pretty much go anywhere and do anything. It’s fun to be out of the house and visiting parks, playgrounds, stores, or the zoo. All things that were unthinkable until the last several months. And now he’s off and running, discovering, and investigating – and running back to tell me about it or drag me over to see it!!!

He’s a normal 2 1/2 year old – with the exception of his diet, supplements, and supersonic hearing. He still has aways to go in his body being fully healed, but he’s getting there slowly but surely and the OSR is speeding him along that path!

Today was Day #2 off of OSR and WOW what a difference this morning. I had an appointment this morning and when I returned (this is important because he’s not much of a morning person, so he had time to wake up while I was out) he would not stop talking! He wanted to tell me about everything I had missed while I was away, ask me about everything – I had stopped at the store on the way home and he wanted to know what EVERYTHING was. A few months ago when the talking was so rare, I never thought I’d tire of his talking, and him being curious and desiring to learn is still a little bit new, and exhilarating. For the barest moment I started to bristle, all that nonstop talking – I was trying to put the groceries away and he was underfoot, pointing to things, asking me about everything, wanting to tell me about his morning, etc – anyway, the moment I started to bristle, I smiled and had the purest most wonderful joy. He was talking – nonstop (except for when patiently awaiting an answer to his question “What’s that?”)! Ten months ago he could not point to something he wanted much less say mama or dada. His only way to communicate was a scream and I had to figure out what it meant. Ten months, and here I am conversing with him – unbelievable. Miraculous. God’s incredible… 1) To choose to bless me this way, the gift of truly being able to know my son, sharing life with him and he with me  2) The healing He has brought to this little one’s brain and body. Yes, I started to bristle, then smiled, slowed down, and wonderfully soaked up the joy of conversing with my 2 year old and helping him learn about the curiosities of the world around him!

Healing Allergies & Autism - Liver Support

 

Quick update on Jordan’s progress. It’s been a month and a half since the new doctor and his new supplements protocol was supposed to start. After being greatly discouraged because NONE of the supplements from the new doctor will enter beyond Jordan’s lips (and it’s two months between appointments), I went searching – on my own again. I came across a supplement called Liver Life.

Liver Life, it is made by BioRay. It is an herbal tincture and is designed to decongest the liver, allowing acids and toxins to drain from the body (opening Phase I and Phase II detoxification pathways). That’s why this is important to do before chelation. It’s not wise to start pulling metals out of the tissues until the body can efficiently eliminate them! BioRay claims Liver Life also helps to regulate the acid/alkaline balance in the body and decrease certain types of allergy reaction.

Jordan has been on it for 2 weeks now. After the 3rd day on it we saw some great improvements. He is more alert, understands more about what is going on around him, follows conversations some, is adding words to his vocabulary more, and in the last couple of days has started adding connecting words!  This is very exciting. When Jordan started on the prescription anti-fungals (he was only on them for a month before I discontinued them) he lost all his connecting words and they haven’t come back. He had been saying things like, “I fell down” or “Here you go, Mommy” as he handed me something, but since the prescription anti-fungals and subsequent regaining of the language he lost while on them, he now says things like, “fall bump head hurts” or “sitting truck” instead of “sitting on the truck.” It’s been 3 months since he’s been totally off anti-fungals and the connector words hadn’t come back. But in the last couple days, I’ve heard “on” “in” and “the”!!! He also has a new twinkle in his eye and has lost some of that sullen puppy dog look he’s had most of his life!  Exciting times here, hopeful with the possibilities for the new supplements. BioRay claims it is all natural. It appears to be effective, and Jordan can’t even taste it in his juice! We’ll see what the new doctor has to say about the new supplement I added next week when we consult – yikes.