Sophie’s Progress and Autism testing
Date: Thursday October 29, 2009Posted in: Chelation, GF/CF Diet, Personal Stories, Recovery Stories, Supplements, Testing and Test Results
Sophie has been improving but it is hard to measure the change. I use an online test to help me gain perspective, (links below). It is scored 1-100, 100 being more severely effected. Sophie’s score was 67. She had scored 74 in June 2008. The test is divided into sections:
Speech/Language/Communication,
Sociability
Sensory/Cognitive Awareness
Health/Physical/Behavior
Sophie made gains in all areas except for health where there was a bit of decline, mainly because she is now some what destructive, biting objects when frustrated. Also the constant constipation issues brought down her score in that area.
I want to share her improvements. Sophie seems much more present. She isn’t off in her own world anymore. She will look at us, almost always, when we say her name or ask her to look at us. Her singing is back! I hear her precious little voice singing again. She is also counting again and she is back up to 20 where she was when autism took her away from us. She plays with her sisters a lot, granted, she doesn’t share and she controls the game, her sisters adore her and don’t mind a bit. She has relationships with people. We have moved into our parents house and she spends time with different members of the family.
I attribute the improvements to chelation. I am using ALA and DMSA, 100mg, 3 times a day 3 days a week. I also have her on probiotics, tmg, folonic acid, mb12, biotin, vitamin c and miralax daily. I use GSE and Milk thistle when chelating, the GSE for yeast control and the milk thistle to support her liver. You can find most of these things here http://astore.amazon.com/autishar-20
Subscribe to Waking Sophie via RSS
Sophie has been off of the GF/CF diet for a couple of months now. She does received enzymes with every meal. The results are not what I had hoped for. Her lips are constantly chapped and I think she would - how do you put it- “less autistic” if she was still on her diet.
She has not completely reverted to how she was before we began all of this. I see some improvement, she is not sitting on the floor lining up toys all day, but I see a lack of ability to communicate and less eye contact.
I have found some benefits. She has started to try new foods. She had cut her diet down to just a couple of things that she would eat. Her diet hasn’t been good, too much food that lacks much nutritional value, but a bonus, these things taste good. Trying new foods and having them please the pallet has caused her to experiment more! This opens up a whole new world! I am letting her try pretty much anything she wants, with enzymes, and I am adding good foods that are on the diet that taste good too. My goal is to expand her diet then start to cut out the non gf/cf foods again.
So there is some success to her leaving the diet with enzymes. In the long run, by expanding the foods she eats, the diet will be easier and mommy has a well needed rest for gf/cf cooking.
Starting the gf/cf diet is a scary proposition for any mom. Most of the children on the spectrum are very picky eaters anyway and having to think about all the foods you need to replace can be a bit overwhelming.
TACA (Talk About Curing Autism) has a great page about starting the gf/cf diet over the course of 10 weeks, http://gfcf-diet.talkaboutcuringautism.org/index.html. I however did not wean to the diet, I went cold turkey, but with all of the mistakes I made I might as well have done the 10 week program.
It was important for me to remember all of the foods Sophie can have. Start gathering a list of things your child can eat that don’t have gluten and casein. You may be surprised at all of the things you can still feed your child. You can find some great snacks at most health food stores. Sophie’s favorite is Glutino’s pretzels.
(read more…)