updates and such

So… what are we doing and why hasn’t there been a blog post in so long? 

Dominic –

-          is doing great will full days at Alpines.  Negative behaviors have dropped in half in June compared to May.  Its just easier on him to be in one place with one set of expectations.  I fully expect negative behaviors to go up again in the Fall.

-          Is loving the iPad.  They’ve now integrated it into his therapy at Alpine, and he really enjoys it.  He’s figured out how to shift between app’s and  its become a useful independent learning tool outside the therapy setting.

-          Was a non responder to the trial we did of Evening Primrose Oil / Grapeseed Extract, so we stopped after 2 weeks

-          Is having fewer instances of randomly dilated eyes (we think this means the adrenal supplements are doing their job)

-          Really enjoys playing in the mud.  And spreading it all over the house.

I have just finished reading the book Unique Healing by Donna Pessin.  Interesting book.  Her entire theory is that an unhealthy bowel doesn’t excrete acids/toxins/etc, and so an unhealthy bowel leads to almost every health issue, including ASD / autoimmune disease / addiction / hormonal imbalances.   [remember, my theory is that the measles shot Dominic got while in a major yeast flare that perforated his gut is the original injury we are dealing with] . She has a fairly aggressive protocol that she says will heal the bowel over time (not a quick fix – we’re talking 15 months +), and I’d like to try it while we continue managing the other symptoms.   We would be able to phase out a number of the current supplements (that are bandaids/crutches) if her theory is correct and her protocol actually does heal the bowel.

The program consists of:

-          Food Grade bentonite Clay (to pull acids and toxins out of the body and facilitate feeling better quickly) [apparently this is a chelator, but doesn’t seem to have the brain fog effects other chelators have had for us. I’m kind of interested to see what it would do to his toxic metals levels]

-          A product called “Bowel Strength”  which contains: berberine sulfate, grapefruit seed extract, gentian root, black walnut hulls, goldenseal, Jamaica quassia bark, sweet wormwood, garlic.  That encourages the growth of good bacteria (she uses this interchangeably with probiotics, but the argument is that at the doses required this product is much more economical than high dose probiotics)

-          High Dose mB12 (Dominic’s already on, she recommends sublingual, but I would rather stay with intramuscular)

I will be bringing this up at our July Dr K appointment (because if he “prescribes” it, then I can write it off our taxes, and also because I do value his opinion on these things).  I have the paperwork to fill out for an appointment with her as well, and will be setting up an introductory phone consultation sometime in the next couple of weeks so we make sure to get dosage right and not make any rookie mistakes.

While I pretty much automatically distrust any program or product that SWEARS it’s the be-all, end-all answer to ALL MALADIES, what this woman is saying is nothing new in the ASD Biomed community.  PH, healing the gut, eliminating acids, etc etc are all core Biomed concepts.  Her way of addressing them is different. For example, in DAN, we just throw supplements at things to try to bring the balance back.  So bandaids instead of healing under lying issues.  This is one thing that we’re really frustrated with  - yeah we’ve made great progress on these supplements, and had some really amazing WOW’s.  But we can’t stop them, or the progress goes away.  And so we’re hemmoraging money every month and really only treading water.  
So if we have the opportunity to heal Dominic’s gut we should try.  (and we’d be able to taper off a number of the other supp’s he’s on, this stuff has antifungals and immune boosters in it, I can probably pull $150/mo of supplements out immediately and replace withn these.  So it would be an even cost at first – then go down as we tapered off of other stuff).  We'll see what comes of it.