Beautiful Son

A few weeks ago, during one of my Autism Google-a-thons, I came across a trailer for the documentary, Beautiful Son.  As soon as I watched the preview, I was dying to see the documentary in its entirety. I searched Netflix to see if I could rent it. Nope. Searched the public library’s catalog to see if I could check it out. Nope. So I bit the bullet and bought a copy online from the film’s website. It was well worth it!

Don and Julianna King did a wonderful job telling the story of their beautiful son, Beau along with what so many of us in the Autism community have experienced and seen in our own children first hand. Watching home video from the first years of their son Beau’s life was like reliving Aidan’s first two years. I could relate to their experience 100% and it made me want to take everyone in Aidan’s life and say, “I need you to watch this documentary. This is what happened to us, and this is what we are up against.”

Beautiful Son helped me heal a piece of my heart that was broken the day we received Aidan’s diagnosis. I can’t put it into words, but something about the way the King’s delivered their own story alongside so many others made me feel at peace. It was the first time that I could breathe without feeling like I might drown. It was the first time I was able to look at our situation and honestly say that even if Aidan never loses his Autism diagnosis, it’s ok. I know that our family is giving the fight of our lives like so many others, and Aidan will have the best possible life he can have.  I wish more people knew about this movie! I plan to share it with all of my warrior friends!

http://beautifulson.com/

Nutritional and Metabolic Status of Children with Autism vs. Neurotypical Children, and the Association with Autism Severity

"The autism group had many statistically significant differences in their nutritional and metabolic status, including biomarkers indicative of vitamin insufficiency, increased oxidative stress, reduced capacity for energy transport, sulfation and detoxification. Several of the biomarker groups were significantly associated with variations in the severity of autism. These nutritional and metabolic differences are generally in agreement with other published results and are likely amenable to nutritional supplementation."  Click (here) for the full study

Bacteria rears its ugly head

Oh how I hate you evil bacteria. You have messed up my kid’s head too many times and it is driving me crazy to keep you under control. I am beginning to realize that my kiddo really can’t eat any rice, bread, pasta, etc. I think it is the only way to keep this under control while we chelate.

For the last few months I have stayed on top of giving Aidan natural antibacterials and tons of probiotics, while cutting back on his carb intake (but not eliminating it completely) this no longer seems to be working.

A few months ago, it was attack of the killer Aidan. He scratched up my throat, screamed in my face, and could not be calmed. Once I put goldenseal back into the rotation and upped the Culturelle, he was back to normal…until now. I had to take him off of all of his supplements including all natural antifungals and antibacterials for an entire week in order to complete a new urine analysis and stool analysis. He seemed fine all week but for the last two days he became extremely ADD like. I could not keep his focus on any one thing, and he was perseverating on certain phrases. That was when I started to suspect bacteria, but this morning it was confirmed. From the moment he woke up he was “stuck” on a few different phrases and became aggressive with me over the smallest things. Last night when picking my car up from the shop, he had a complete meltdown because he wanted to get in the car parked next to ours. It took me about fifteen minutes to get him into our car. I tried to explain over and over that we would be riding in our car and that the other car did not belong to us. Of course explaining did not help and he was screaming and crying so hard he could barely breathe. I finally wrestled him into the car and he stopped crying about two minutes into the drive home. Like I said, I HATE YOU BACTERIA!!! Even two weeks ago, I know this wouldn’t have happened.

The thing that makes this so hard is seeing your kid when things like this are not effecting his body, and then watching it take hold of him. It is an awful feeling. Unfortunately it is an experience that you can’t really explain to others because while you have done the research and seen the specific changes in your child when treating things like bacteria, no one else would ever believe that bacteria could effect your child’s behavior that dramatically. But it does!

Seventy percent of our immune system is found in the gut. When we interrupt that delicate balance, it shows up physically and mentally. The analogy I have always loved talks about how we feel after we have a beer or a glass of wine, different, right? I know people who can get downright evil if they have had too much to drink.

Everyone keeps telling me that by round 50 of chelation, bacteria and yeast should be a bit more under control, but it can’t come soon enough!! We are currently in the middle of round 19, and 50 sounds so far away! Looking at the bright side, his gut would not go through these periods of imbalance if we were not moving metals.

Back to increasing the antibacterials and removing all grains this time around. Wish us luck!

Got a fever? Don’t use Tylenol.

The other day I received a call from Aidan’s day camp to inform me that he had a fever and fell asleep in the middle of circle time. When I arrived, I heard him whimper, “Mommy is here.”  It was so pitiful. He could barely sit up and was on fire when I touched his forehead. When we got home, I checked his temperature and it had reached 102 degrees. So, I drew a cool bath, put him in, and took his temperature again 15 minutes later. It had gone down to 101.4.  Then, I wet a pair of cotton socks, and put them on his feet for 5 minutes (this was all he would tolerate). That brought his temperature down to 100.7.

So why didn’t I just give him Tylenol? Well, I found out for the first time about a year ago that Tylenol depletes glutathione. Glutathione is a crucial antioxidant that defends the body from toxins (mercury, lead!), disease, viruses, pollutants, radiation and oxidative stress. A deficiency in glutathione can cause a lack of coordination, mental disorders, tremors, difficulty maintaining balance, and has been linked to several degenerative disorders (Multiple Sclerosis, Alzheimer’s, Parkinson’s).

Giving Tylenol after measles-mumps-rubella vaccination has also been associated with a much greater risk of autism. Click (HERE) for a link of the study and (HERE) for an interesting article about the findings.

When I gained this valuable piece of new information, I felt like the wind had been knocked out of me. I (along with tons of other mothers) was a total Tylenol abuser, from Aidan’s infancy through the age of 3. Our pediatrician would recommend we give it to him with EVERY round of vaccines, and every time he got even a mild fever due to teething, I would give Tylenol. I thought that I was being a good Mommy when in reality I was killing Aidan’s chance at building a stronger immune system. I made his immune system vulnerable to any viruses, infections, and heavy metals he would need to fight off in the future. I feel this played a huge role in Aidan ultimately being diagnosed with Autism. 

I need to start a list on this blog called, “The things I would NEVER do the second time around!”

Here is a great presentation from the AutismOne conference on the role of glutathione in Autism and brain injuries

Video streaming by Ustream

Here is a short video by Holly Riley (Chapter Co-coordinator of TACA) talking about vaccines and the use of Tylenol. When I watched this video, I nodded my head in agreement the ENTIRE time so I had to share…