information OVERLOAD!!!!

Wow, this has been information overload week. Let me try to get it all written down for posterity.

1. School Stuff:
We got data charts with lovely graphs in multiple colors of how Dominic is doing on all of his IEP goals. Each goal is broken down into logical steps of getting him there, and the idea is to get him to 4's for each step before the goal is met.

The scoring is:
0 - refusal or no response
1 - 100% adult support / prompts
2 - Moderate adult support / prompts
3 - Minimal adult support / prompts
4 - No adult support / prompts

we have data from probably 3 days per week on average, since school started. Charted.

so
goal #1 Use classroom tools (eg, scissors, glue)
Dominic is at 3's across the board except for gluing, which he's at a 4. Apparently he loves to glue.

goal #2 Drawing basic lines, circles and shapes (prewriting skills)
Dominic is at 2's and 3's

goal #3 Following 2 step directions in routine and 1-2 step directions out of routine
Mastered 1 step non routine the first month, he's got 3's on 2 step in routine and 2's on 2 step out of routine

goal #4: Self help skills requiring crossing midline (coat, backpack, zipping)
He's got 4's on everything except zipping which he's at 2's on.

goal #5 - Sharing knowledge using 1, 2, 3, word phrases
He's at 3's for 1 word phrases and 2's for 2 word phrases.

goal #6 - show understanding of vocabulary (toys, animals clothes, food, common objects)
He's at 3's and 4's on all steps

goal #7 - using basic vocabulary in categories
He's at 2's and 3's

goal #8 - follow routine independently
He's at 3's

goal #9 - use yes/no appropriately
He's at 3's

goal #10 - verbally and physically turn take without prompts
he's at 2.5-3

goal #11 - makes wants and needs known independently
he's at 2's and 3's.

So overall, they're seeing excellent progress since August. They also have seen the huge shift in eye contact since we started Cytoflora, which is exciting. On my to-do list is going to be calling our home school, a different elementary that he's at right now, and arranging to meet with the principal and special ed person in the month of either December or January since they'll be coming to an IEP for him in Feb. We do want to try to choice into our current school, but due to a number of reasons (mostly that the decision won't be made until summer if we fill out an app), the IEP in Feb will be with the home school. So i should meet them


2. Alpine Stuff
We got back October's Alpine report. Dominic continues to make slow and steady progress there. We are clearly seeing generalization between Alpine, outside OT, and am preschool, so thats positive.

Dominic painted a picture at Alpine that's been chosen to be Alpine's greeting card design for their end of year/holiday thank you notes. Its very colorful. And very different than anything he's ever painted before. They're finding out for me what it would cost for us to order a box of them.

i'm sure i'll have more Alpine info after 11-30, thats when our next parent/teacher meeting is.


3. Dr Kucera Followup appt. this morning.

The one that was supposed to be 20min that turned into 3 hrs. Yeah. That one.

Okay, test results in a nutshell -
Lithium, way low. Change supplement and stay on it.
Vit D - back in normal range, maintain current supplementation
Copper - a little high, and way out of balance w/Zinc. Eliminate Copper and increase zinc
Iron - on the low end of normal. Add more red meat, organic only.
Testosterone - normal
Glutathione - low - OSR starting soon

Urine Toxic Metals - way better than the July test, those that are still noticably high are lead, Thallium, and Tungsten.

OAT test - I don't have my copy of this yet, because it should come in the mail tomorrow (i made the lab Fax the doc a copy so we'd have it to discuss). There were 3 puzzlingly high yeast markers - puzzling because they're not the ones that've been high before and becauce they're not the ones that are usually seen as high. So he's got a funky yeast. Also high was oxalic acid, but the particularly puzzling yeast acid would increase oxalic. We have not seen eye poking behavior, so aren't going to consider the low oxalate diet at present.

Decisions -
We're going to start a modified Biofilm protocol tomorrow. This means a complete rearranging of the supplement schedule so that at 4pm every day, Dominic gets a special ezyme called Interfase Plus (which has EDTA in it, a chelator) that will pierce the biofilm. AT the same time, we throw the whole days worth of antifungals at him. We're rearranging his probiotics and prebiotics so that at 10pm when we wake him up to pee (and in theory his tummy is empty) we will give him the cytoflora and the Therabiotic plus. Then at breakfast, he'll get more cytoflora and the Primal defense. Starting with christmas break, on days that he doesn't have AM preschool (so weekends and holidays), we'll do the whole regime at 9am as well as 4pm.

we changed his lithium brand to one thats also got TMG in it. I wanted to try TMG months ago, but Dr Kucera had us wait.

We are starting OSR at Christmas break. We are doing a full Red BLood Cell test first, and I'm to call Dr Kucera if I think Dominics gut is still to fragile to proceed. I hope that the break works, because that would give us 2 weeks to get him going on it without the stress of school / therapy. Dr Kucera agreed with my VERY slow schedule - 1/4 of a capsule every other day for 2 weeks, then 1/2 a capsule EOD for 2 weeks, then a full capsule EOD. and we'll stay EOD.

We will do another urine toxic metals post test mid January (after about a month on OSR), and we will see Dr Kucera Feb 4.

Whew. Did I mention information overload. Its been a long week.

Also, i'm behind on posting photo's and will try to catch up soon.