Ioncleanse by AMD - month 11

We are 11 months down, now, of using the IonCleanse by AMD.  We have settled into a 3-4x a week at 45 minutes a shot routine, adding more days if we see a need / taking days out if we're too busy to get the footbath in.

I do not see us ever going down to less than 2x a week.  Clearly, Dominic doesn't detox on his own, at all and this machine is making everything else work.

So.  What has month 11 brought to us, aside from a child who multitasks with the best of them:

He made his own lunch out of the blue one day.


His conversational abilities are blossoming, even at school.

We got to play Toothfairy for the very first time - he was cognizant enough of a loose tooth that we were able to get him to bring it to us for a present.  

He ROCKED his first Vision Therapy progress check up.

We've seen a bunch of AMAZING "Moments", all of which are a result of the supplements which are finally working (oh, and an update on the Brain Reward - the stim's have stopped.  We just had to push through them)

And finally - we were able to travel to my parents house for Thanksgiving.  He managed 2 travel days, navigating a small house with 9 noisy people in it for a few days without a meltdown (and i had a hard time with being sensory overloaded, so i'm sure he was struggling), interacted in ways my family has NEVER seen from him and generally did so awesome that this is what I posted on facebook:  "Recovering looks like being able to handle travelling to a super over stimulating environment on the fricking full moon and not having a problem.  BAM."

What an absolutely remarkable trip

Now that I am home and in front of a functional keyboard instead of using my phone, I can rave about how flat out remarkable this trip was for Dominic.

First, the travel days - zero issues.  No eloping, no stimming, no whining.  Followed directions entirely at security on both legs.  Yes, we did put angry birds back on the ipad for the first time since August so that he would have something to do during the waiting and flying, but even with that he did amazing.  He sat perfectly in his seat with no kicking the seat in front of him (the last few times I have flown with him thats been an issue).  He LOVED watching out the window, and handled the turbulence with no issues.   On our flight home, we had a flight attendant who brought all the kids snacks - biscotti and when we told her he was allergic to gluten and couldn't have it, she brought a bag of popcorn... which he is allergic to, but she tried so hard that I'm sending a kudo to her VP.

Then the visit - I've posted some pictures and video's already, but wanted to post the stories too.



My parents have a very small house - and the acoustics are such that its very loud when you put 9 people talking, piano being played, cooking happening, etc.  *I* was having a hard time with the sensory processing part.  We used our tools - sent him outside to play, pulled him into other rooms to do his OT, gave him full access to the ipad, made sure to throw him in the hotel swimming pool for an hour or so each day - and he did great.  There were no melt downs and I didn't see any stimming.  He used his words pretty well once he got comfortable in the environment.  He interacted with his Aunt and Uncle in ways that entirely blew them out of the water.   My parents went to extraordinary lengths to feed the lot of us with a pile of food allergies for Dominic and my sister in law and we made it through the weekend with zero food infractions.

We stayed  at a Best Western with a suite - so he could sleep in a different room and we could stay up a little later.  The funniest part of the whole trip is that he left his little stuffed animals tucked into the sofabed while we were gone and when housekeeping came through, they left them perfectly tucked in.  I am sure they got a huge kick out of it.

Even getting home much later than we anticipated last night due to delayed flights and icy roads, he absolutely held it together and today we are doing laundry, footbaths, and making grocery lists.

I am so incredibly pleased at the progress.  A year ago this kind of trip would have been much harder to accomplish.

Another one of those amazing moments...

Playing the piano with Grandad

Awesome day!!

Started the day exploring grandmother and grandad's house....

Riding the bike

Playing the piano

Carrying around the cat

Spent some time swimming with dad and grandad.  

Hugh out and was silly with aunt Maria and uncle Dennis

And in general had a great day.  

Happy thanksgiving!!

ride the airplane

Headed to family for Thanksgiving.   Flying out of Colorado Springs was way less stress than Denver.   No security line at all.  Totally awesome security lady with an autistic nephew who totally made security a breeze.   Nearly empty airport.   Dominic is happily playing angry birds for the first time since August.   

He has been so excited about riding the airplane that he keeps looking up and excitedly pointing at the planes.  He has entirely rocked the first leg of this trip

Oh and he is carrying his weight.  Lol. 

Ya'll gave a fantastic Thanksgiving and we will Post updates as we can.  

ride the airplane

Headed to family for Thanksgiving.   Flying out of Colorado Springs was way less stress than Denver.   No security line at all.  Totally awesome security lady with an autistic nephew who totally made security a breeze.   Nearly empty airport.   Dominic is happily playing angry birds for the first time since August.   

He has been so excited about riding the airplane that he keeps looking up and excitedly pointing at the planes.  He has entirely rocked the first leg of this trip

Oh and he is carrying his weight.  Lol. 

Ya'll gave a fantastic Thanksgiving and we will Post updates as we can.  

Methyl B day 3ish update

We have had a bunch of awesome

Moments the last couple of days - writing them to document because they are totally related to the methyl b's.

- we finished return of the Jedi yesterday afternoon, and at the celebratory Ewok dance party at the end of the movie Dominic stood up and danced right along with them.  It was adorable 

- he randomly decided to serenade me after supper last night. This is a first because he has only ever attempted to sing when a movie was on in the background in which there was singing. There was no movie last night. All he is singing is la la la, and it's just plain adorable. Please pardon the Apple.

- today we had a relaxed lunch in which we all just kind of eat leftovers hanging around in the living room.  When daddy finished his last bite and wiped his mouth, Dominic looked up from his plate said "sink sink" stood up and took his father's plate to the sink throwing the napkin in the trashcan on his way. This was completely unrequested and spontaneous. 

- later this afternoon I had a massive headache and was laying down in bed with a cold cloth on my forehead, and Dominic crawled in bed with me and proceeded to hold my hand for a half an hour saying "mommy sick mommy sick". The awareness was staggering.

Methlyated B Vitamins... Day 1 ish report.

Brief review - Dominic is a triple heterozygous MTHFR mutation kid (among other major genetic mutations that mean he doesn't detox on his own).  That means that his cells need methylated B vitamins to work.  A long time ago in a galaxy far away, the very first thing the DAN doctor did was put him on mB12 shots, and we did that for a few years, thoroughly needle-traumatizing him probably for the rest of his life.

We stopped.  We did oral for a while.  Then we stopped entirely.  We never saw much of anything at all. 

When we started seeing Dr Kara last spring, and truly looked at ALL his genetics, she told us that her protocol is to support all the underlying parts of the kreb cycle and get them moving well, address gut, get detox happening, give NON methylated B's just to get some b's in there, and do that for at least 6 months before introducing the methylated B's.  We wanted all moving parts well lubricated and moving before we introduced the potential game changer.  We also wanted him stable.

He's been stable and doing great.   We introduced Methylated B Complex plus yesterday morning.

Here's the note that came home from school yesterday.   Good Sign, I'd say:

He's got a standing 5pm Friday OT appointment and he's had a really hard time with it since the time changed - basically telling the therapist he was all done, needed to go home and go to bed.   He doesn't have that issue on Wednesdays, but we are a 4pm appt on Wednesdays so the dark outside thing isn't an issue.  Yesterday, he did NOT have a bad OT session, he had an amazing OT session and colored this for the fridge:

So this morning we had a lazy Saturday - I got back in bed and read a book after I did my treadmill and Dominic hung out and chilled.  He got himself dressed.  He brought me a hairbrush and asked for help getting his cowlick under control.  (Mommy, Brush Hair, help me).  BUT - here's the funny thing. I had just gotten dressed when the doorbell rang, so I was on my way upstairs to turn off the security alarm and open the door, and he already was unlocking the door when i got there.  The other interesting twist is the apple.

He loves apples.  Its a good thing he's not allergic to them.

Yesterday I showed him how to use my apple corer/slicer tool and told him where it belongs and that he could use it if he wanted to.  So he asked if he could have an apple and I said yes.  A few minutes later I hear "Mommy, Help me", and i came up to find him trying to use the tool (its hard if the apple is large or you don't center it right and his hands weren't strong enough to push it all the way through).

All could be coincidental, who knows.  I'd call them good signs, tho.  :)

Vision Therapy checkup appt

Dominic had his first Vision therapy check-in appointment, after our first 6 weeks.

The doctor told me that he wasn't expecting much improvement.  He was ecstatic with what has changed.

- Dominic was able to do the eye test with letters not pictures.
-Dominic was able to do the eye test one eye at a time instead of both (and he's 20/20 right now, no need for glasses)
-Dominic's convergence insufficiency when originally diagnosed was atn the 6-8" away from his face point.  It is now at the 3" away point.  We want it 1" or less.
-His left eye is stronger than his right (I knew that)
-His compliance and verbal skills were greatly improved - he did amazing with the doctor.

Dr Watt told me he was completely blown away and very very happy with how we're doing.

~~~

I also addressed Skittlegate.  They now have a spot on their intake form for permission to give food reinforcers.

~~~

We have some decisions to make about how long we will continue the vision therapy.  Right now its about time.  We are at an hour a day at home of the OT exercises to integrate his reflexes and 20 min a day of VT.   We are running out of time in the day for him to also play and be a kid.  So there's some balancing that may need to happen.

For now, we'll continue the VT through Christmas and then reevaluate.

Current protocols snapshot

Just to keep track of EVERYTHING because things are going so well for Dominic right now, here is the current snapshot of protocols.  I'm trying to post this quarterly.  I did this last in early August.


1.  Footbaths using an IonCleanse by AMD machine:  We do 45 minutes on Mondays, Tuesdays, Thursdays and Saturdays, more if there's a food infraction or illness.  This has become clearly foundational for us and we will never be without it.

2.  Daily nutritional supplementation (diet remains gluten, dairy and soy free with no artificial anything, and we are now also avoiding the items to which he is IgG sensitive)
Freshly juiced veggies (carrot, celery, cucumber, beet, greens, apples)- 8 oz per day

Blue Ice FCLO - 2 caps 2x  a day
Trace minerals - 2 cap 2x a day
D3/K2 mix 2000 iu - 2 cap  2x a day
Liver / GI Detox  1 cap n2x a day
B complex - 2  caps 1x a day
Magnesium - 2 caps 1x a day
SAM-E  1 caps 1x a day
Restore  2 tsp 10min before food - we do at breakfast and dinner because School can't dose him at lunch.
PEAPure - 1 cap am

Liposomal Glutathione - 2 caps in the AM
Melatonin at bedtime
MAFActive Cream - pea sized amount at bedtime
Brain reward - 1 cap in the am and Variable after school (i am muscle testing for dosage each day and its been either 1 or 2 depending on the day)

3.  Occupational and Speech therapy - 2x a week (1 hour OT and 1/2 an hour Speech at each appt)

4.  Chiropractic - 1x a week

5.  Vision Therapy - 1x a week

6.  Daily reflex integration exercises from the OT (3x a day is our goal, some days we don't get there) and daily vision exercises from the VT. 

Coming Soon:

-Methylated B Vitamins - .  we start these tomorrow, actually.  I was waiting to run out of the regular B vitamins before we started these.  So, for the record, we did a solid 7 months of non methylated B vitamins while we supported the underlying pathways to get him ready for the methylated.... which is an entirely different way of going about things than the DAN/MAPS community does and I'm excited to see how he does.

- Dominic's Chiropractor is getting a test set for the Standard Process PMG's as she believes that the liver PMG might be what his liver needs to heal. Every time she's worked on him for ... well... as long as we've seen her which is coming up on 4 years, his liver has been terribly inflamed.  And we haven't found anything yet that heals it.  She went to a conference and learned more about the PMG's and we're going to see how Dominic tests for them.   There is something that goes along with it that manages histamine response and then we would presumably progress to an adrenal pmg. 
I should know more in a few weeks.

~~~~

Yes, we've dropped Gemini for a bit, sort of accidentally - the credit card expired a few months ago and we never renewed the subscription.  We have discussed starting it back up and we'll see how that goes - right now its a matter of having enough time in day with everything else we are doing.

Snow day!!!

This was out the backdoor around 7am yesterday.  It continued snowing for another 2 or so inches.  School was cancelled Monday night for Tuesday and I worked from home.  This is how the day went down.

I shoveled the driveway at 445am then walked for an hour on my treadmill.  Dominic woke around 630am and moved to our bed to relax in pj's.

When he came upstairs and realized what it looked like outside, he had one request:

After it warmed up enough to go outside and play this is the first thing that he did - body flop into the snow.

Followed by play

I actually got my work done, which is amazing because Daddy was gone until mid morning working a shift at the desk of one of the places he fills in at...

Notes from school

We are now cooking with gas folks.  I reminded staff about the communication book at our IEP last week and whaddya know... they're using it now.

The green ink is from his speech therapist and the black is the school OT.

i love these kinds of notes.

The toothfairy

Dominic is 10.

He's lost 4 baby teeth naturally and had a handful pulled under anesthesia.

He has never been cognizant of the process of losing  the tooth - and most of those that he lost, he came home with a hole, and no tooth.

We've never even entertained the thought of a toothfairy tradition because he simply didn't get the concept.  

The last few days he has had a very loose tooth.   I told him that if he brought me his tooth, the toothfairy would give him a present.  He got very excited. He likes presents. Alot.   I went to ToysRUs the other day and picked up a couple of small little gifts and we're all ready.

I got this in an email from his teacher a few minutes ago....

Well…his tooth came out. There was a dentist here at school and I asked her to look at it cuz it was just hanging by a thread. She wiggled it and out it came. He was so calm with her….It’s in a container in his backpack.

I've wrapped a toy up and i'm all ready to play toothfairy.  Watch for pics and hopefully video.....
Gonna wing it.  He's got to give me the tooth to get the present.....

~~~~

Edited to add!!!!!!!

 

IEP Updates and such...

completely random unrelated photo :)

We had an IEP meeting last Wednesday in which we tweaked Dominics goals, had one added that did NOT please the school, and generally talked about his progress.

They are not happy that the Vision Therapy doc says zero screens.  After all he "should be practicing for his state test".  Kinda don't care about the test.  Seriously.  I want him to be able to read. And if VT is whats going to help that, we're going that way.  On the other hand, finances are tight and we are feeling like Dominic may be hitting the over therapized point with all the at home stuff we have ot do every day (its about an hour and 20min at this point every day) and if we have to drop the VT, we have a solid 10 exercises we could continue on our own when we decided the time was right.  He's got a re-eval next week for us to see what kind of progress we've made.

We lost our favorite para a few weeks ago when she took another job outside the school district.  She'd been with Dominic since Kindegarten and he absolutely adored her.  Very sad to lose her - and since then Dominic's behavior has been getting wonky at school.  Thats because they haven't replaced her supervision, and he's simple been expected to sit still and be quiet and listen in the classroom with no one the help him.  That doesn't work so well.  He is doing things like randomly running around the classroom...  So i made them put full supervision of SPED staff in the IEP.   It wasn't in the draft.  Tsk.

I also, as planned, insisted on a goal around sexual safety.  We are starting with incorporating social stories about appropriate boundaries and touching.  The conversation went something like this

Them: "he doesn't have social work as one of his services"
Me:  "so find somewhere else to put it"
Them "how do we make it educational?"
Me "You called me last year to tell me he kissed a girl on the playground and you are worried about education over inappropriate sexual behavior?"
Them "I just don't know where we can fit it"
Me  "Find a spot"

They finally put it under accommodations.  Rod and I both think they were not pleased that we forced it.

We will do a transitional IEP in the spring when we have sorted out what middle school he will go to.   Its important to us that he be able to have at least some of his peers with him at his new middle school, and many of the children at this elementary school will go to a different middle school that he will based upon address.   The downside would be no transportation.   Daddy is going to go visit with both schools SPED departments after Thanksgiving to see if we can get a feeling about either.    Even if we do try to choice into the one that many of his peers will be at, its not a given because they will only take Dominic if they have staffing.  So we may be stuck at the other one.  Which isn't a horrible thing.  His BFF in boyscouts will not be going to either as that family is moving potentially out of district.  So we'll see how that goes.

Couple of fun little video's

So, Dominic learned how to swing a couple of months ago and he's now learned how to jump off the swing which he thinks is hilarious.  We have shortened the swing significantly so that he doesn't go *that* high and is less likely to, oh, break a bone.   Lately when I tell him its time to come inside, he runs to the swing set, gets going and yells 1 - 2 - 3 - JUMP.  The other evening I caught him doing it without the count and it was just adorable.

We're also attempting to break him of this habit - but I couldn't resist recording it for posterity.  Its safe to say he liked the dinner I made for him:

Who wants help with Menu Planning?

So for my contribution to #TMRNATIONTV, I'm working on a series of video segments  that are menu planning around specific food allergies.  I feel like I can pretty much feed anyone at this point, given all the tweaks we've had to do with Dominic's food allergies, so I'd like to invite you to send to ME your child's food allergies and I will work up a menu plan, video it, and post it on #TMRNATIONTV

You can email TeamTMRJuicyFruit@gmail.com with the allergies, and also include for me any true preference - like your kid can't handle texture xyz, or won't eat anything red, and I'll do my best to get a weeks worth of meals planned for you.

So excited to get started on this project!!! 

So... I've been keeping a secret.

And I've been struggling with if I should share it or not.

Why?

Because I worry that someone will do it just because its working for Dominic and it won't work for their kid.

I had dinner with two fellow TMR's and some of my friends from AMD in Denver last week when I was up there for business and shared my concerns.  They told me to share it anyway, because it might help one other child.   They are right, of course.   And you all know that every child is different and you all are responsible for knowing your own and how they present symptomatically.

A long time ago, we did neurotransmitter testing on Dominic and his neurotransmitters were WAY out of balance.  I went back and found the original testing and his Dopamine was out of the ballpark high.  At that time the DAN doctor we were seeing had us buy a bunch of really expensive supplements that I'm not sure did anything but drain the bank account. Here is a REALLY good article I found about kids with Autism and disregulated neurotransmitters.  Go read it.  Its really interesting.

About 2 months ago, my fellow TMR Mama, Sugah, started researching dopamine balancing supplements.  Her kids are recovered to the point that they are chasing the last of the focus issues and for her it made sense to look at neurotransmitters.  The product set she found, I told you all about a few weeks ago in the context of using it on myself.   And I have been using it on myself and I love it for me. I am feeling way fewer cravings and I've lost 13 pounds in the first month on it.   What I didn't tell you is that about a week after I started it on myself, I muscled tested Dominic and had his chiropractor muscle test him for the Brain Reward product.  He muscle tested strongly for it.  Dr Kara didn't like it and told me not to do it.  My gut said to try it anyway.  I've learned over the last 7 years to listen to my gut. So I put him on it.  I have not put him on the Prodovite because its not really autism-ready - actually neither product is.  Both were designed for the adult addiction recovery world.  Both are touted to significantly reduce stress (helps adrenals which we constantly struggle with) and go from fight/flight mode into rest/digest. 

However.
All these amazing things that have been happening the last month - the fire station trip, the conversations at the zoo, the random making his own lunch, the emergence of pride, the progress with his occupational therapy exercises - they have been happening with this supplement on board.  And this is the only supplement change we've made in in a couple of months. 

Not going to lie - we've seen an increase in self stimulatory behaviors as well, and we've been toggling the dosage around to find the sweet spot.  This is why I was so hesitant to tell you all about it - its not been the smoothest of rides.     But I'll take more stimming if it comes with true conversations and the awesome interactions we are starting to see.

Its an MLM.  Full transparency here guys - its expensive.  I don't know how long we'll be able to afford it, but for now we're going for it.   If you want to try it, you register as a member and get the 25% off retail and you don't have to pay a yearly membership fee.  My number, should you be inclined to try it is 818625.  If you do sign up, send me an email at domsjourney at gmail dot com as there's a facebook group for those of us in Sugah's downline where we are comparing experiences as we learn to use this product for our kids.

Zoo part 3 - Practicing our Conversation

This is a carry-on to yesterday's post because I didn't want to crash everyone's computers with a huge number of videos to load.

These are actual conversations, folks.  I'm asking questions and he is answering!  I am so excited to see this coming out, it feels like its taken decades of work to get here.  And here we are.

This is in that interesting art / animal exhibit, and its a baby alligator in a pool.  Dominic nails it. 

 

This is that same exhibit, only its a pair of small turtles.  Dominic loves turtles.

The moose.  Dominic loves the moose.

I wasn't able to get a video of it because I was almost out of battery, but when we stopped at the loft (an interactive exhibit), the chinchilla was exercising.  They had it in a giant clear ball and it was rolling all over the exercise yard.  Dominic was ENTHRALLED.  And he very clearly asked the zoo volunteer if he could pet her, and unfortunately the answer was no because chinchilla's can jump 6 feet (who knew?!?), so he very gently patted the ball.  It was beautiful and I wish I'd been able to video it. 

Zoo Part 2 - Using social activities as therapy

Our speech therapists have been working with Dominic to have him describe what he's looking at and answer questions about it.  So I decided to carry that over into our trip to the zoo the other day.  It was just Dominic and I so I had no one else to talk to - might as well encourage him to converse.

There's a bunch of video's, so i'm going to split this into two posts, one today and one tomorrow.  Today's will be the first half of the zoo visit, where he's reluctantly answering my questions and tomorrows will be the second half, before the fatigue set it, where he was answering more and more of them.

I am totally calling this the BEST visit to the zoo Ever.

The zoo recently had lion cubs born.  This is him telling me about the lions. 

Dominic loves the movie series Madagascar.  So of course, all Zebra's are "Marty". Here he is telling me about the zebra's.

And his favorite, the elephants.

Side anecdote - while we were in the elephant house looking at the ones still inside, we took a bathroom break.  I sent him into the mens room and then recruited a pair of responsible looking types to keep an eye on him and make sure he didn't leave while i went into the ladies room.  When I came out they were laughing hysterically because he was telling them all about the elephant peeing on the floor.

Amazing zoo trip - part 1

Yesterday was the PERFECT day to go to the Zoo. It was a little chilly (which I love because I overheat so easily) and very empty compared to a summer weekend.  Dominic and I went to the zoo while Daddy went to teach a class.  Can I just say how nice it is that one adult can handle him in a setting like this now.  HUGE.


First stop, as always, was the giraffes.  We fed them lettuce,  and then Dominic had a moment with this junior sized giraffe. 

Random Selfie in the beautiful blue skied sunny day

This is a relatively new exhibit.  It was only the second time we've seen it, and I have no idea who the random people are.  What amused me vastly was that Dominic went up and stuck his head in the crocodile statue.

Then he decided to ride it.  Because thats what you do with croc's right?

This is part of a really cool combo art / animal exhibition the likes of which I've never seen before

He's having a moment with a reptile of some sort.

He's getting so big. I remember taking his picture at this very spot when he was still in the stroller.  

Much to his disappointment, the otters were NOT out today, but he did go in and look for them.  He was so completely engaged it was awesome.  I actually ran my phone battery almost completely dead taking pictures and videos. (yes, more posts with those videos are coming. and they are awesome)

And we fed the chickens.  I am still lobbying for chickens at home.  I'm losing.  

#TMRNATIONTV

You guys!!!!

Its here!!!!

We are changing the world!!

Please go watch this and see how YOU can help be a part of it - from providing content for our network to subscribing - its FREE, but if you subscribe and support it with 99 cents a month we can help fund so many grants for struggling families.  99 cents a a month is less than a cup of coffee from Denny's.   If you wanted to subscribe for a Starbucks grande Latte a month, that would be  AWESOME too!


I've emailed a number of you today asking you to submit content for us - my personal providers, Dominic's providers - past and present - and I hope you are able to do so.  We want this to not just be about the autism community, but about healthy CHILDREN - not just autism, allergies, asthma, obesity, childhood autoimmune disease - they are all rampant.  If you have something to contribute, we welcome it with open arms.

Integrating our Reflexes / 3 week update

So, for perspective, here is the first post I did about our reflex integration work.   We have done our best to do 5 reps 3 times a day every day, tho there have been a few days where we have only gotten one or two times a day.  I can see a noticeable improvement and thats why I video these things.

And we are still only doing superman and egg, tho we are nearly done with egg.  The goal is to get to the point where he can hold each one for 30 seconds.  At that point we will shift in a different exercise, which our OT is currently working on. 

For superman, note the better form, less arguing and better ability to hold arms and legs straighter.

And for Egg, note that we are doing double duty and working on articulation and counting higher numbers.  and that while we only counted to 40, it was actually more like a minute that he held the egg.

What did you just do????

We had a total "what just happened here" moment last night.

So Dominic was finishing his supper last night and he brought me his empty lunch box (the red and black thing in the picture below).  I told him I would make tomorrow's lunch in a little bit - I was in the middle of something at the moment.

He went into the kitchen and made his own lunch.*  I have never asked him to do this, walked him through it, shown him how, etc.  He just did it. out of the blue, with independence and spontaneity. 

This is a total first - and look at how happy and proud he is about it.

*By "making his lunch",  I mean he put the Tupperware I filled up Sunday into the red and black lunchbox, added an apple and put the whole thing in the fridge

Visual perception skills

So, I've been meaning to write about this for a few weeks and keep falling behind.  Since we started the vision therapy, i asked our OT to incorporate their version of that work into Dominic's care plan.  To do that, she started with this test of visual perceptual skills.  The  papers below are examples of the things the test is looking at.

In the 7 sections, the idea is they are progressive.  The last section is the most advanced.  

What is the most interesting is that he scored very low in the first 4 sections, the basics so to say, and then in Sequential memory and visual closure he scored very high.  It goes back to my hypothesis that the brain injury undid brain development.  Which we are now reconnecting. 

IonCleanse by AMD - Month 10

I should preface this by saying we are not ONLY doing the IonCleanse, we are supplementing Dominic based upon his genetic needs and with a few other things that i'll tell you all about after i'm  a little more comfortable with them.  Just know that we are continuing to tweak supplement protocols, but are NOT changing our cleansing.  The detoxification we get from the footbaths is the foundation upon which Dominic's healing is building.

That said - Month 10 has been FANTASTIC.

Dominic received his bobcat badge at cub scouts.
He did AMAZING at the school field day
He participated in a school fundraiser by making art.
He stopped taking baths and started taking showers out of the blue. 
His emotions are maturing - we are now seeing pride.  Which is awesome.
He now has the fine motor control and strength to use the key to unlock the door.  We have had to set the security system now to chime when the doors open and close.
He was SO excited about a boy scout trip to the fire station that I got an honest to god conversation out of him in which you can literally SEE his brain working to find the words.
And he LOVED the trip to the fire station.
Then  he absolutely rocked a halloween party.


If ever there was a doubt in my mind that the IonCleanse by AMD is pulling toxins out, Skittlegate erased them.   It took a little over a week for us to stop the reaction.  Artificial colors are BAD.

Dominic is absolutely blossoming socially, and maturing.  Verbals are coming - we are starting to see more words strung together and more attempts at words in a situation that is not centered around needs.