This story is reprinted with permission from Recovered from Autism. Thanks Erica!

Our Story

Kaiden was born July 5, 2001, a healthy 9 pounds, 10 ounces. He scored a 9 and 10 on the APGAR. The next day he developed a small fever and jaundice. I found out later he had a HepB vaccine without my knowledge and against my request. Despite persistent thrush and yeast rashes, my son flourished. He maintained growth in the 95th percentile, began very early babbling sounds, and began sleeping through the night. Except for persistent thrush and yeast, he was the perfect happy, healthy baby.

All H*ll Breaks Loose

At 9 weeks old, he had his first round of vaccines. Something intuitively made me question vaccinating him. I did some research but the internet was not yet what it is today. The day of the appointment, I talked to the doctor about it. We have an extensive history of reactions to vaccines. My brother completely lost his hearing in one ear after a vaccine. He also had severe allergies and asthma. I had a reaction to a tetanus vaccine as a child. In college, I was revaxed with the MMR. I developed symptoms of measles, mumps, and rubella. I was very sick. I then developed severe allergies to everything, Chronic Fatigue Syndrome, IBS, and other immune related problems. However, I never made the connection to the MMR revax until after my son’s ordeal. My oldest daughter also reacted to the MMR and began hitting herself in the face shortly thereafter and then developed sensory integration dysfunction.

The doctor negated my fears and spent 30 minutes convincing me to give my son the shots. I refused the HepB and he agreed it was completely unneccesary for a baby. The doctor emphatically reassured me the shots no longer contained thimerosal. I put my trust in him and held my son down for the shots. I found out later they did include thimerosol (September of 2001).

My son screamed basically non-stop from that moment on. He stopped sucking his thumb, stopped sleeping almost completely, screamed relentlessly, developed all over body hives and eczema, severe reflux and aspirating, and his chronic yeast and thrush worsened.

He ceased all babbling, and plummeted from the 95th percentile to below the 5th to off the chart for weight. He stopped having BMs (having only 3 in 2 months in the time right after his shots!) He developed food intolerances to nearly everything. He began headbanging as soon as he could crawl (at an early 5.5 months).

Confronting the Doctor

After his reaction, I noticed he was very gassy and colicky and figured he had developed a dairy sensitivity as my daughter had also developed this after her first shots. I eliminated all dairy from my diet (he was exclusively nursed) except baked in things. There was slight improvement (4 hours sleep, less crying). But he was still refluxing and aspirating terribly.

After many unhelpful trips to the doctor, I demanded to see a GI specialist. Our ped insisted nothing was wrong because (I kid you not) he said my son was “so good looking there couldn’t possibly be anything wrong with him.” He called him his “movie star baby” and told me I was over-reacting.

Shortly thereafter my son went 14 days without a BM and started spitting up bile. We got our GI referral. In the appointment with our doctor, I demanded to read the package insert for my son’s vaccines. The doctor stormed out of the room and came back in with the DTaP shot insert. He made a big deal of unfolding the insert and began reading the ingredients. He stopped, covered his mouth, nervously giggled, and said, “Oops, I guess it does still contain thimerosal.” He quickly folded the sheet back up, tossed it at me and said, “for what it’s worth” and walked out of the room. We never went back.

We had an Upper GI series and discovered severe reflux and aspirating. Also, at my ped’s recommendation, we had begun giving him rice cereal and mashed bananas to try to help with the reflux. He developed a little red dot hive next to his lip everytime he had the cereal so I stopped it. He also seemed worse when I had chinese food. The GI specialist determined there was soy lethicin in the rice cereal and that he was also sensitive to soy. He was right. I eliminated dairy and soy completely from my diet and he improved - sleeping 6 hours per night - no more crying - but still no babbling.

The GI specialist put him on Pepcid which eliminated the aspirating. However he continued to lose weight and stayed off the weight charts for a year.

A Name for the problem… Autism

Ironically, I had read part of Lisa Lewis’ book, “Special Diets for Special Kids” at the book store looking for casein free recipes and after reading her intro about her son was so freaked out I threw the book down and ran out of the book store terrified as it sounded so much like my baby.

As Kaiden got older, typical and severe autistic stims (self-stimulatory behaviors) became more apparent -headbanging 50 times per day, staring into space with no blinking or reaction, licking things, lining things up, raging, etc. He had severe food intolerances, PST (phenol sulfur transferese) deficiency, leaky gut syndrome, hypotonia, and a multitude of other issues (most of which I didn’t recognize until I read Karyn Seroussi’s “Unraveling the Mystery of Autism and PDD” and William Shaw’s “Biological Treatments for Autism and PDD.”

By July of 2002 when my son turned 1 year old - he was still off the weight charts despite eating well. He had chronic eczema, all over body hives, a weepy eye, and all the other issues. I was desparate and knew he was probably autistic because of his classic behaviors. He was headbanging about 50 times per day, had never played with a toy, didn’t interact with his 5 year old sister, and didn’t talk. He stared at the TV for hours at a time (if I let him) without looking away, did not respond to his name, had never pointed, and basically just wandered around the house all day. Despite this, he still smiled easily on his own terms.

At his one year check up his new doctor said, “You know this all equals autism.” I already knew. I went back to the bookstore and bought several books on autism. That day changed my life. I started reading that night and read three books in the next three days. It was like reading my life story. (See links for resources.)

At 13 months, he had started saying some words, calling his sister by name, etc. But by 16 months, he had stopped most of that. I could shout his name 25 times (I counted once) and he would not turn to look at me.

The Diet

In June, just before his first birthday, I took us down to 4 foods (I was still nursing him so I had to follow his diet) for 2 weeks (turkey, asparagus, pears, and sweet potato as my research indicated these were the least likely to be allergenic). Most symptoms rapidly disappeared. I reintroduced one new food at a time every 5 days until we worked our way up to 10 foods. By Thanksgiving he was doing remarkably better. He headbanged maybe 10 times per day, would sit and color for hours at a time (which to me was better than raging) and was a little more “with it.”

We could keep symptoms to a minimum if we ate only these things: rice, potato, pears, beef, chicken, pork, occasionally asparagus and brocolli, and pancakes and waffles made with rice, tapioca, and potato flour.

A Turning Point … Homeopathy

We began homeopathy treatments in November, 2002. By Christmas, he showed minimal behavioral symptoms of autism. But he still had a drunken sailor walk and occaisonal stims. He had about 5 words which were actually stims. However, he played with toys, engaged his sister, pointed to things all over the place and was finally “here!”

I received minimal help from our pediatrician. We had two developmental screens from our child development services and they always happened just after we did a food elimination so he was always improved at the assessments. He was assessed at 1.5 years old after we did the elimination diet and started homeopathy and they said he was probably no longer full blown autistic but was still PDD (Pervasive Developmental Disorder) at a minimum. We were put on the 1+ year wait list to see the developmental pediatrician.

We remortgaged our house to pay for medical bills. We did qualify for free speech, OT, and developmental therapy which the assessment found warranted. We found a DAN doctor who confirmed our suspicions and documented our son had high mercury, high arsenic, leaky gut syndrome, excess yeast, and tetanus titers 3 times what is considered immune after just one shot (they are supposed to receive four). He said our son was “a classic case of autism.”

By February of 2003, I eliminated the last of our highly phenolic foods (peaches) and all corn sources we had reintroduced as he had begun licking things and spinning. That brought us down to 7 foods (rice, potato, chicken, pork, tapioca flour, egg yolks, and pears) - occasionally he could tolerate asparagus and broccoli. Most of his “bad” behaviors disappeared and he began babbling and saying a few words.

Also in February, he developed what we think was a severe case of the “flu” and almost died. He spent two nights in the ER and was basically unconscious for three days. He raged with yeast rash and thrush and a high fever. Amazingly, he awoke from this after 5 days, sat up in my lap and pointed to my eyes, ears, nose, and mouth and said each word! We were flabberghasted! He did it twice. Afterwards, he was dramatically improved and no longer needed the Pepcid he had been on for 15 months. The homeopath and our DAN doctor believe it was a “healing crisis.” Who knows!

In the spring of 2003, we gave him his first dose of DTP remedy. The change was phenomenal. His personality really began to shine and he made huge leaps in development. His weepy eye cleared up. His hypotonia went away and his physical strength increased so that he could climb up on the furniture, etc. He would respond to his name on the first try and seemed to understand everything going on around him, although he was still mostly nonverbal.

His own Language and Yeast

Although the diet and homeopathy helped, Kaiden still had issues. His speech was severely delayed as well as disordered. What little words he did use, were made up words other people could not understand. For example, “ticky-tick-ah” meant pears, “bah hip” meant sheep yogurt, “hmmhmm” meant music, “oh” meant yes, etc.

He still had leaky gut problems, and occasional headbanging or spinning if we tried a new food. In July (at 2 years old), we began giving him Culturelle, a probiotic, Lactobacillus LL. The change was dramatic. He had his first formed BM in over 4 months. Within 3 days he was babbling and his language jumped from 9 months to 15 months. He had about 20 words. I also discovered I had my own yeast issues. Because I was still nursing him to try to keep him as healthy as possible, I had to eat what he did. I also began the probiotic with much improvement.

We also began Kirkman’s Super-Nuthera, DMG for speech, and Carlson’s Cod Liver Oil. He also continued with cranial sacral therapy which he had received since birth. We saw good improvement with each. Later we added NoFenol enzyme which allowed him to eat bananas and peaches again. In the fall of 2003, we discovered sheep yogurt. Kaiden tolerated it with no symptoms. It caused considerable yeast die off but further improvement for his gut. Tired of the same old foods, he ate it with every meal for weeks. His physical appearance improved and we saw less and less raging and tantrums from yeast.

A Return to Normal Life

In October of 2003, he was doing very well. He had about 35 words but used mostly sign language to communicate. He learned over 50 signs in 2 days from Signing Time videos. He still had occasional stims, still had rages and headbanging, and ate only 7 foods (rice, potato, pears, chicken, beef, bananas, and sheep yogurt). We discovered he could pick out states on a map, knew all his colors, all his shapes, and was very bright. He weaned himself at 27 months. His only drink was water. The only rice milk he could drink was discontinued and he refused homemade.

Late October, we again dosed him with the DTP remedy. The change in him was absolutely dramatic. Within 3 days he had completely potty trained himself (at 27 months). He went from never having put on a piece of clothing to completely dressing himself every day. He began talking in full sentences. His language jumped up to age appropriate. I lost track counting at 150 words. He stopped almost all stimming, and he just blossomed. With a month, he presented like a normal, happy toddler.

On Christmas, he excitedly ran downstairs and opened all his presents, enjoying every one.. .talking all the time. Just 6 months before at his 2 year birthday he had sat quietly and happily watched his sister open all his presents. At Christmas, not only did he open all of his, but he wanted to open every one else’s as well!

In January 2004, at his assessment with Child Development Services, he no longer qualified for services as he was age appropriate and tested out advanced in many areas. He sleeps 11 hours per night, is incredibly happy, and a true delight.

In Feb. 2004 while driving in the car he told me all about how “bears hibernate in the winter, lions roar in the jungle, and baby kangaroos ride in their mommy’s pouch.” At bedtime, he would sneak out of bed and turn on his light to read books in his bed. Every day he surprises and delights us with new stories and new thoughts and ideas. His speech is extremely articulate and his inflection is heartwarming. He has also become very loving and snuggly. Whereas before he did not like his fingers, toes, and ears touched, today he will happily climb on my lap and snuggle in. One of the happiest days of my life was when he recently held my face in his hands and said, “I love you, Mommy.”

We began GSE sometime in 2004 with tremendous results. This stuff is liquid gold and the whole family benefits from maintenance dosing.

I believe the homeopathy played a significant role in his recovery. It’s hard to tell how much of the initial improvements were from diet or from the homeopathy but I think each played a different role. It has also worked wonders for me and our daughter.

In September 2005, Kaiden was almost completely recovered. He attended traditional preschool with no mention of autism. He has many, many friends and is extremely social. He loves striking up a conversation in the grocery store and is a happy, smiling, loving child. He is extremely well behaved and is just a delight to be with. He is learning completely on schedule and is advanced in many areas.

With the help of NAET, which was done in 2005 and 2006, he now eats a regular diet. We saw some minor issues when introducing new foods which evened out after more NAET (acupressure) and continued homeopathy. We continued to deal with yeast as well and even today maintain probiotics (Culturelle) and GSE on a semi-regular basis as needed.

I believe both the food and gut issues were due to the mercury toxicity. Thanks to homeopathy, he no longer requires the No Fenol enzyme.

As of early 2007, I consider him completely cured of autism. He has no food sensitivities or allergies and eats a normal diet. He is advanced in his classroom and scores above average in all social categories on his report cards. He has many friends, is very social, empathic, and bright. Please see the update section for more recent information.

If you have a recovery story to share, please send an email to sarah at wakingsophie.com , replace the at with @

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For this Wednesday, I thought I would do something a little different. I have found many sites that post autism recovery stories so instead of posting one this week, I thought I would post links to the pages that have inspired me. Here are pages and pages of hope: http://featuresblogs.chicagotribune.com/features_julieshealthclub/autism_recovery_stories/index.html

http://www.generationrescue.org/testimonials.php

http://www.gfcfdiet.com/Successstories.htm

http://www.autismrecoveryvideos.org/

http://www.danasview.net/recover.htm

If you have a recovery story that you would like to share, please email me sarah at wakingsophie.com

“Story about My Son Christopher / from Kenneth De Lashmutt

Born October 9, 2001

Christopher was progressing as a normal baby until his first vaccinations.

After his first vaccination he screamed for 12 hours and had a 104 degree fever nearly the entire time. Then he started regressing with developmental delays such as absence of attachment behaviors, speech delay and hyperactivity. As he grew older (2 years old) he started head-banging, hand flapping, unresponsiveness to calling his name, impulsivity, and self biting, and became almost silent and frustrated because he could not communicate. We started searching for answers and after reading about the symptoms and decided that he had some aspects of autism spectrum disorder.

October 27, 2004

We had a psychological, educational, social assessment, speech and language assessment evaluation done by the public school system and we started him in special education pre-school program, where speech therapy and occupational therapy services were provided for him.

December 2004 (entered special education program)

The special-education teachers complained about the head banging and absence of attachment behaviors and were afraid he would hurt himself and said if these conditions do not improve he will have to be removed from the program.

May 11, 2005

IEP; Delays in auditory comprehension and use of language. Needs to improve his skills for approaching learning tasks/activities. Needs to improve his early-literacy skills in areas of fine motor-manipulation and writing.

November 2006 (started Lifewave patches)

I started using the patches in November of 2006 and I applied them once or twice a week. I started seeing results immediately. He became more responsive, reduced head banging and self biting, started expressing his needs, began repetition of words or phrases just spoken by others.

February 2007

Neuropsychological Study http://lifewave-autism.com/neuro_report.pdf

May 2, 2007

Pre-school teacher stated “I believe that part of Christopher’s regression and subsequent autism was the result of receiving vaccines.”

June 2007

IEP; He has improved so much over the last school year that at the last IEP meeting all IEP members recommended that he attend mixed kindergarten class where normal children and mixed with special needs children. He can carry on intelligent conversations no head banging or self biting

Over the summer I increased the usage of the patches to three or four times a week. And the results are very clear. The new kindergarten teacher said that three other adults in the school have commented that they can’t believe that Christopher is the same boy that they knew last spring. He is much calmer, stands in line orderly and quietly, enters the classroom and socializes with other students, begins writing tasks as required.

Christopher’s Dad

Kenneth M. DeLashmutt

You can also hear another success story on the NON profit site where they can listen to Ken’s testimony and Another father ’s testimony for his son with ASD….Both are in the testimony section under Audio..scroll down to YAGE..–It’s at the bottom.
Research is also on this website at www.lifewave.com/fundingASDresearch.
All proceeds go to ARI.

If you have a recovery story to share please email me- sarah at wakingsophie.com

This story was sent in by Wendy.

In 1986 I had my first child, a boy. Did everything the doctor told me, vaccinated on the exact date. Of course vaccinations weren’t as much as the schedule we have know. At his last shots he went into convulsions and suffered from seizures that included him stopping breathing and turning blue. These lasted until he was 16 years old. When I had my daughter in 1999 I was nervous about vaccinating so I did lots of research and became this super natural mom and even became a doula (child birth coach).

As I began to research I decided not to vaccinate, a choice that I later realized probably saved my daughters life. As I will truly never know, I can only say I believe with all my heart things would be much worse if I had.

My daughter was… quirky in the fact we thought it was cute she did odd and strange things. Her dad drew her a picture and at age 2 she stared at it for 5 minutes, she then went to her room without the picture and duplicated it in a 2 year old scribble. But the odd thing was the tree’s, rocks, stream, people, clouds… were all in the same place as the picture. She held back on walking, talking then suddenly she took off running. She hated strangers and we just thought she was clingy. She never said a word until she was 13 months then came out these sentences, so we just thought it took her some time to catch up. She suffered from strange rashes we could never explain and one doctor thought she had celiacs. Since we had a rich diet of wheat and whole grains, soy super health mom that I was couldn’t imagine giving up wheat products little did I know where my life would take me.

Then my son was born in 2002. Other than not seeming to alert and I couldn’t get him to smile and he was fussy like his sister I didn’t notice much. Then as he turn close to a year we were concerned in which I insisted to my doctor there was something wrong with my child. I saw other kids his age when mom’s would say “where’s the ball?” and they would look for the ball, point. We saw none of that, he just fussed all the time. This went on until he was 2 and my doctor said “it was because I wore him in the sling that he didn’t know how to walk very well, he was just clumsy, he couldn’t talk because my daughter (the little mommy) mothered him too much…” the list went on.

I went to ESD when I learned he was autistic and pointed me in the direction of how to get him diagnosed. He was very classic in all his symptoms but not the reason’s why. I had a natural home birth, no complications, didn’t vaccinate (don’t get me wrong I do believe whole heartedly that vaccinating can cause autism), had a good diet, never any earaches. But him not talking, flapping his hands, allergies passed off as a cold that somehow lasted almost a year but the doctor never thought twice about that one. He suffered from seizures that would commonly go up to 30 a day. The first I heard it may be autism I called everyone I knew and said ok, if you know anyone with autism give them my phone number. Within one week I found out the diet was more than wheat and was hooked up with 7 families in my area with autism. 2 mom’s so graciously gave us some books to read and my nose dove in them and I was consumed. I was also relieved that I was not a “bad mom, who spoiled my child” I now had a reason for how my children acted. Upon reading about autism I realized my daughter was on the spectrum too.

Was I ever poor and mostly alone with an unsupportive husband, very few friends because my it was hard to take my kids anywhere. I was breastfeeding my youngest so i immediately went on the diet. I wasn’t sure what the diet was so we all ate chicken, rice and veggies and that was the happiest week we had in our lives. The seizures disappeared. For my daughter it wasn’t as dramatic no real changes except she seemed less emotional and more happy.

Finally a diagnoses now for treatment. What? What do you mean there is nothing I can do. That answer was not good enough for me so I began to search for answer and came up with a DAN! doctor, testing which took me a year to pay for but I realize now that should have been the 1st thing to do. We had discovered all the special things we could eat; GFCF cookies, treats, bagels it was a smorgasbord of unhealthy eating and took me some time to realize that you can have an unhealthy good diet too. Now after all this wonderful food and realizing I felt much better off gluten I had to incorporate good foods to a child who would not eat anything but “good tasting bad stuff” We also later found out his allergy list included quite a bit, most of the SCD diet nuts, coconut, honey. He was also allergic to sugar, soy, eggs… oh boy. I slowly put small amounts in other things and sometimes he would he be able to tell if there was a drop of beet juice in his regular juice.

The road was rough and getting the kids to take all these biomedical treatments and eat healthy was a challenge in itself. I had to control my children’s environment; what food was offered, make sure they couldn’t get to anything, make sure aware and informed adults were present to stop children from passing candy to my kids. Also changing my diet in not bringing anything into my house that they cannot have, not going out to eat anymore and on long trips (2 hours) to the nearest big town to see a DAN! packing and preparing our own foods is tough.

I look at it like this: it is much easier to work hard and prepare foods, make my own jellies and non dairy yogurts, bake my own breads…. than to put up with the afflictions of autism and know that my child will only get worse not better.

My daughter is recovered. My biggest question was “what does recovered mean?” if you recover from a heart attack you don’t go back to your old lifestyle. After the research on foods that I have done I think that gluten, especially wheat, cow’s milk, and sugar shouldn’t be apart of anyone’s diet. We don’t offer it in our house and we use sugar substitutes like agave, xylitol, stevia… My daughter’s aspergers in managed. She is a completely normal child in every way including socially and doesn’t require any special services from ESD or the school. When she does sneak candy she does have bad days but putting her back on the diet we can manage it strictly by eating right.

For my son who at age 2 1/2 had a comprehension level of an infant, seizures 7-30 times a day, gut issues, allergies symptoms, couldn’t sleep more than 2 hours at a time, diarrhea, unexplained rashes, fits seemed like almost constant, to a normal 4 year old child at 5 years of age. He is catching up quickly, learning to read, making friends, singing songs, loves to count, do his colors and now plays on computer, throws very minimal fits and they pass quickly. He can answer questions and in every way he is normal just a year behind.

We have done the Mb12, vitamins, homeopathic, melatonin, DMG, TMG, minerals, anti yeast, antifungals, antivirals, antibacterials, high does vitamin A, diet… oh boy you name it.

My children’s diet consists of fresh juicing:

my son likes; beet lemonade
beet juice 2
lemon juice 1
agave nectar 1/2 cup
filtered water

another favorite is OJ carrot juice
oranges 3
carrot 1

my daughter likes shrek juice
apples or pears 3
carrot 1
spinach 1/4 cup
bit of parsley

the color comes out greenish brown and when we poured it into a shrek cup we called is shrek juice

cauliflower mash potatoes with garlic

we have tons of recipes that are high nutrition and low sweetner.

As promised, I have found some wonderful recovery stories to share with you. Every Wednesday I will post another Autism Recovery Story. How is that for a mid week pick me up! More proof that you can recover from Autism, it is NOT a life sentence!

If you have a child who has recovered from autism please share it. Send an email to sarah at wakingsophie dot com .

Holly first sent me the chart below, followed by her story that was written for generation rescue and an update.

My Testimonial Originally Written for Generation Rescue
by Holly Riley

Learn more about autism at www.generationrescue.org

Two and a half years ago I read the testimonials on this website and wept. I still do when I need a good cry. Those tears were an overflowing of my hope for my son, Quinn, and all children and families with autism. The stories confirmed for me what I knew in my heart: my son will recover from autism.

We’re almost there. Here’s a bit of our story. I hope that it will help you.

I had a normal pregnancy and delivery. I had a flu shot in the second trimester and a high fever in the third, but nothing extraordinary. Quinn was mildly jaundiced at birth and a big baby (10 pounds, and no, it wasn’t a c-section). I nursed him for 3 months, but couldn’t keep it up once I went back to work. His development was all pretty normal for the first year, and he started stimming around 12-15 months, after his MMR.

Quinn was diagnosed right after his second birthday. At his 18 month check up he was not speaking at all, and his pediatrician asked me a lot about it. I was concerned, but convinced that it was because he was getting so much Spanish. Children who are exposed to bilingual environments often have slight speech delays, but when they speak they are able to speak both languages fluently. What I didn’t realize is that he didn’t have any receptive language either. He couldn’t respond to “touch your tummy!” or even really play peek-a-boo. Anyway, at 18 months we left the doctor’s office and I had convinced myself and the doctor that we should wait and see—if he wasn’t talking by his birthday, we’d have him assessed for a speech delay. I left with no information about autism or developmental delays at all. He could have been diagnosed at 18 months if only I had known more about autism.

But I didn’t. So he continued to fade away from us. He was sensitive and covered his ears a lot, he retreated into self-stimulatory behavior whenever he could, and he was lost in his own world. It’s so subtle when you don’t know what to look for, isn’t it? A few days before his second birthday, he was still not talking. No words at all. No eye contact at all. No imitation at all. But he was an easy baby, and had very few tantrums. He could entertain himself (i.e. stim on spinning anything and everything) for hours. He was an eloper, and he was oblivious to his peers, but he was generally happy. He was a gentle, sweet baby, and we didn’t realize how lost he was.

I went to the book store to look into speech delays, and on a whim, I picked up a book about autism. After reading the first few pages, I knew. I bypassed the doctor and went right to the State Department of Education and referred him myself for the evaluation for autism. Within three long months, he was diagnosed and early intervention services began.

Food. I have learned that food is medicine or food is poison, and there’s not much in between. He lived on cereal, wheat toast, fruit and milk. I remember being so excited when he finally showed some interest in pizza because he was broadening his food options. He could drink over 50 ounces of milk a day! As we researched autism, we found some websites that claimed that wheat and dairy could be contributing to the disorder.

We stopped cow’s milk and replaced it with rice milk. Taking Quinn off of milk made a huge difference within only a few days—it was like he came out of a fog. He was more social and engaging than he’d ever been. He seemed happier. He started bringing toys to us to play for the first time ever. So our journey into biomedical interventions began. We soon changed his diet to be GF/CF and he continued to improve, though we made the mistake of replacing most of it with rice, so a year later his IGG test for rice was very reactive. After that test, we started a rotation diet and bought a bread machine. I invented four different bread recipes that were not only GF/CF but also free of soy, potato, corn, egg, and all of his 30+ food sensitivities. Believe it or not, we even managed to take a 3 week road trip after starting this crazy rotation diet with home-made bread (we froze the bread and bought a refrigerator for the car, and even brought everything we needed to bake bread on the road). After a year of rotating the home-made bread, labs still show big gut issues, and we’ve cut out all bread, starches and sugars. This summer we started the Specific Carbohydrate Diet (SCD). The whole family is doing the diet with good results. Now I think more about the foods we CAN eat (a variety of meats, vegetables and fruits in moderation) rather than thinking about what we’ve cut out of our lives. I make EVERYTHING we eat from scratch, and my new favorite appliance is my crock pot.

For Quinn, traditional therapies have helped a lot. The traditional therapies include play therapy, behavioral therapy (Applied Behavioral Analysis using Discrete Trial Training), Speech Therapy and Occupational Therapy. These therapies have been intensive totaling 30-45 hours per week. Quinn began preschool at age 2 ½ in a typical preschool with the support of his ABA therapists as his inclusion classroom aide.

The first 18 months of biomedical interventions we saw slow and steady progress, but the past year has been extraordinary. The biomedical therapies have included vitamin, mineral and essential fatty acid supplementation. We have used anti-viral medication along with anti-fungal medications. We have treated bacterial infections in his gut, and we have used several different chelating agents to remove toxic metals. We saw huge gains in his speech mild HBOT (hyperbaric oxygen therapy) which we have done two rounds of (40+ dives each round). Increasing the frequency of his methyl B-12 injections (now given daily) also helped his speech tremendously.

We’ve done alternative therapies with a chiropractor called Network Spinal Analysis (NSA) and Somato Respiratory Integration (SRI). NSA involves gentle touches along the spinal column to direct energy flow in they body to promote healing. SRI is based on breathing techniques that support healing.

Here’s the some data on his progress:
At Quinn’s initial assessment, they used a variety of tests including the CARS (Child Autism Rating Scale) at age 2 years, 2 months. His score was 36, and he fell in the “Mildly-Moderately Autistic” range. Nine months later, a second psychologist gave him a score of 37 on the CARS confirming his diagnosis and need for intensive therapies to continue.

After a year and a half of intensive therapies of all kinds, at age 3 years, 8 months, his score on the CARS was 27, which actually fell in the “Non-Autistic” range. Four months later his score had again dropped to 21, another significant move in the right direction on the autism scale and far from the Autistic range. Four months after that, the CARS score was 19 (the minimum score for a typical child is 15, so dropping just a few points is still significant). While these scores do not mean that Quinn no longer has autism, they are certainly further documentation of the giant gains he has made.

In one year and a few weeks time, his speech has jumped from an age equivalent of 2 years 6 months to the age equivalent of 5 years 2 months (that’s a 32 month gain in 12 months time, and, by the way, his age at the last assessment was only 4 years 9 months!).

Quinn has gone from a two year old with NO receptive or expressive language at all to a four year old who understands EVERYTHING and can follow multi-step directions (i.e. “Go get your shoes from the garage, put them on and get in the car. It’s time to go!”). He is having conversations with his peers and expressing his wants and needs in complete sentences. He sings spontaneously, inventing songs and singing his favorites with his sister. He is taking a community preschool Spanish class and uses Spanish frequently and appropriately in his play and interactions. His imaginary play is phenomenal! His eye contact is great, and he is doing a lot of social referencing with us and his peers. Most people are shocked when I tell them that he has autism, including professional therapists who don’t know him. He is still a gentle, sweet boy, but now he’s able to interact with us and experience our world.

Some people would say that his recovering is a miracle. Perhaps it is because we would not be here without my deep faith that he would get better. But, the truth is, this miracle is the result of a lot of work. Mixing supplements and medicine and then giving him the doses every few hours. Figuring out what he can eat and shopping for it, preparing it, adapting and inventing recipes, baking and cooking. Orchestrating the insane schedule of therapies around the rest of the family and actually getting him there, on time, several times a day. Learning, going to workshops and support groups, researching on the internet, reading books, documenting his progress and working with his doctor and therapists to adjust his intensive therapies. Letting the housework go. Investing in our son’s future by spending a small fortune to help him heal. Nurturing our marriage. Finding time for myself (occasionally). Educating family, friends and strangers about what we’re doing and why.

If you’re just starting, hang in there. Keep trying and keep learning. Have faith, and work hard. Your child will get better.

UPDATE:

I guess I would add that he’s had 1:1 support since he started school but that was successfully faded 100% this spring. For Kindergarten he will be attending the same Catholic school that our daughter goes to, and he will continue to have some support, but just consultation with the classroom teacher and full time classroom aide (i.e. he no longer has his own aide). We’ll still be busy working on higher cognitive skills and theory of mind in home ABA sessions, but he’s quickly mastering skills and plowing through that curriculum. He’s going to get OT for fine motor support this year too, but making huge gains all the time. We’ll have another IEP in April 2009 (tri-annual so it’s a full evaluation), and I suspect he will no longer qualify for services by then and might even lose the label.

We still have lots of metals to get out (lead and mercury) and gut issues that linger (I’m hoping that getting the metals out will help regulate his immune and GI systems). I don’t know that he’ll ever be supplement free, but we’ve avoided the pharmaceuticals that mainstream medicine would have our kids take (though we’ve used many prescription drugs to treat gut issues and metals).

I’m also working to support families and educators deal with autism. I’m a volunteer for TACA and Generation Rescue (I’m a “Rescue Angel”), and I’m giving teacher workshops on autism and inclusion in the LA area this fall http://secure.aplusworkshops.com/utility/StateSearchResults.aspx?state=California&subject=8&city=All . I’m easing my way back into working, and the company I’m working for is national, so I might be travelling with the teacher workshops in the future. As Quinn gets better, both my husband and I are committed to sharing our experiences to help other families.