Aidan turned 6 today! He is such a big boy!
We are very encouraged by so many of the things he is doing. We have talked to some of you about the treatments we have been trying and the progress he is making. I thought I would take this opportunity to get everyone on the same page.
In January, we met Dr. Eli Camp. She is a homeopathic doctor who specializes in Autism Spectrum Disorders. She just moved back to Norman from New Hampshire, where she had a thriving clinic, and is setting one up here. I heard about her from another mom at Aidan's school. She does not
prescribe ANY
pharmaceuticals, using only natural and gentle remedies AND she ONLY makes house visits! We called her for a free consultation and then set up our first home visit after feeling that she is EXACTLY what we have been looking for. Her ideas and treatments are just what we have been wanting to do for Aidan, but have not found anyone to guide us.
In an attempt to not make this post too long...here is a basic overview of what we are doing.
Step One: Make his body healthy.
We know that Aidan's immune pathways have been damaged and we suspect it was due to his vaccinations. Mercury has been a suspicion in many vaccinations, but it is also becoming clear that simply bombarding an immature immune system with several diseases at a time is reeking havoc on many children's immune systems. The body's immune system tries to fight off the diseases so that the child is immune, but if it is overloaded, it just can't handle the attack. Aidan had his 15 month shots which included MMR, Hib, and DTaP. If you count up all those diseases you come up with the number 7! It is appalling to me now that I allowed my 15 month old little boy to be given 7 diseases in one fell swoop! (In our state, if you follow the recommended vaccination schedule, a child is supposed to receive 33 vaccinations by the time they turn 5.) This was the beginning of our long journey. It was very shortly after this that he began his "autistic-like behaviors" and his dietary problems began. (Note: The brain has its own immune system and is also affected by these diseases.)
In order to get him healthy, we are maintaining his gluten free casein free diet, switching to all organic fruits, veggies, eggs, and meats, giving him a probiotic to boost his immune system, doubling his multi-vitamin dosage, and adding omega 3/fatty acids to buffer his immune system in the form of strawberry flavored cod fish oil...yummy!
Step Two: Find a homeopathic remedy.This step is REALLY interesting to us. Obviously, Aidan's body is lacking in certain elemental areas and has WAY too much in others. So, we need to balance him out chemically. After observing Aidan and talking to us for three hours about all things Aidan, and doing research for several days on all of his specifics, Dr. Camp came up with using homeopathic zinc as a balancing element. We are trying to find the right dosage amount by giving it to him in increments. When we see a good change in behavior, we know it is working. When he starts to crash, we know it is time to go up to the next increment. He started with 30C of zinc. It took a couple of weeks to kick in. We really were not sure what we were supposed to be looking for. Dr. Camp just told us that "we would KNOW it was working". We were a little skeptical until one day it happened, we KNEW it was working. For 2 full days Aidan did NOT have a running dialog of movie lines. He did a few here and there, but it was not constant by any means. He was attentive to us, our conversations, his sisters, everything around him. He started talking to us more clearly and directly, asking for things in more complete sentences. That is also when his hand-writing changed. It was really amazing. Then after 2 days he started to slip. It took about 2 more days and then he was back to how he usually is. The movie lines are back, the
stimming and non-focusing are also back. However, his writing is still good and some of his requests are still good. We were very discouraged, but we found out in talking to Dr. Camp that this is the cycle we are supposed to be looking for. We have bumped him up to 200C of zinc and we will wait to see the next "high". She said that as we get closer to the right dosage for him, the good times will become increasingly longer than the bad until eventually there will be no more bad times and all good, then we will not have to give him zinc anymore because his body will have what it needed. Also, she said that it may turn out that he does not need zinc, but another element in the same family. (Looking at the periodic table, the other elements around zinc are copper, and nickel.) She said as we bump up his dose it will be obvious if he does need zinc or if we need to change to something very close to it. The way we will know is if he develops any new "bad" or "odd" autistic like symptoms. We know that we are at least in the right element family because of the good things we have seen already.
Below are writing samples for you to see the difference. The "F.H.E." (Family Home Entertainment) was one he was doing in January and is a good example of his typical writing. The "Baby Einstein" was one he started doing in
February after we started his "remedy".
If you can imagine this jump in development in just his handwriting and use that as an analogy of his development in other areas, then you can imagine how excited we are.
Step 3: Get the "bad stuff" out.
This is the next step we are going to be starting in about 2 weeks. We did another urine test for heavy metals and found that his levels are elevated in Mercury, which we already knew, but they are literally off the charts in lead. The reason being that Aidan's immune system is not working properly. We are all exposed to toxins every single day, but normal/healthy immune systems flush them out. Aidan's body has been trapping these harmful heavy metals for years. So in order to get them out of there, we opted for a treatment similar to
chelation, but much more gentle on his system. It can take anywhere from 3 months to a year to get him cleaned out depending on how "stuck" these elements are. So, we will keep you all posted through this process.
Step 4: Food Allergy Panel. Once we balance out his homeopathic remedy and clean out the bad metals, we will do a blood test to determine what other foods may be bothering his system. It is our hope that once his immune system is working properly, he will not have any dietary restrictions, but we have to wait for that.
Step 5: Develop a specific multi-vitamin. This is the last step in which we will do another blood test and determine what EXACTLY Aidan's body needs. There is a lab that designs multi-vitamins based on a person's specific metabolic
deficiencies so we can fine tune his chemistry.
It is our hope and Dr. Camp's goal to get to a point of healing for Aidan. He should not need treatment forever. Once we heal his immune pathways in his body and his brain there is a great chance that we will have our Aidan back
permanently, not just in the short glimpses we get now.
If you want more info on homeopathic medicine and/or Dr. Camp you can check out her site at http://www.normannaturalhealth.com/servicespresentation.html.
