I have been so busy with getting ready for school that I have not been posting as much as I would like. I wanted to at least give you a quick update on how Sophie is doing. Next week I should have much more time.

The acyclovir is still giving Sophie huge gains! It has been miraculous. She has been using some sentences! Sitting at the pond throwing rock the other day, Sophie said, “Come on Daddy, lets throw rocks!” . She has never said anything like this before. She is putting so many words together and in relative context!

She is still having huge yeast and bacteria issues. She is constipated all of the time as usual. I believe the constipation is caused by clostridia, because the only time the constipation ever dissipated was when she was on vancomycin to treat it. I will be adding another round of this soon, but really I think she will have these bacterial and yeast problems until the metals are removed from her body.

She has also finished a 30 day round of Amphotericin B for yeast. I was less then impressed with it. i think the diflucan did a better job. I will do another round of diflucan with the vancomycin and tons of probiotics and maybe that will give her some relief.

The viral treatment definitely makes yeast worse and I plan to start chelating again soon, so I am praying that the diflucan will be enough to combat the yeast.

That’s my quick update, please excuse any typos!

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After writing about Sophie’s wonderful progress, I have had tons of emails asking questions. I thought I would answer them all here.

What symptoms did your child have that made you want to try Viral Therapy?

I saw Stan Kurtz’s video about his child and I saw many similarities . The main thing was the the way Ethan moved. Viruses sometimes will effect one side of the body. Sophie’s right side seems weaker then her left. It is hard to describe, easier to see. Stan’s video.
She has problems with balance and what Stan referred to as Floppy Child Syndrome, a Atypical gait and one side of her face is different then the other. She just looked a lot like his child and shared many symptoms.

What testing did you do?

None, I just told her doctor that I suspected a viral problem and wanted to try Valtrex, She suggested Acyclovir with is very similar, but comes in a liquid. Sophie can’t take pills and Valtrex only comes in tablet form with a blue coating that you have to wash off.

Does it make yeast flare up?

Yes, definitely, I have only seen her yeast worse with chelation.

Is she on an anti-fungal also?

Yes, she is on ketoconazole currently, and she has also taken diflucan.

Did she have die off symptoms?

Yes, she had low grade fevers, she was lethargic , she cried and seemed achy and had various rashes, but nothing severe. These symptoms come and go. They were more frequent the first month.

How long before you saw improvements?

At right around the one month mark, I started seeing small improvements in her communication. It has just snowballed from there.

I can not tell you how excited I am! Since adding Acyclovir and Virastop Sophie has made great progress. Yesterday we went on a trip to visit her grandparents. When we got there she immediately said “hi grandpa”. I could have cried right there. She also joined in with my other children in calling the dog.

Her yeast has been really flaring up so she also spent a little bit of time spinning in a circle and barking like a puppy. I will take though! This seems like the break through we have been praying about for so long. She just seems so clear and present. Her eye contact is wonderful and she is communicating and it is relevant. WOW!

I have been taking a break from Chelation so I would no if the viral treatment is making a difference, so I know all this is from Acyclovir and Virastop. I really don’t know how much the virastop is helping, but it seems to alleviate some of the negative symptoms when the viruses are dying off.

Chelation has made changes in Sophie, but not this drastic, this quick. I don’t think I have seen her like this since before the autism. I will probably wait another few weeks to resume chelation.

I am so impressed with how Sophie is responding to Acyclovir and virastop. Her communication is definitely improving. She has started repeating us instead of just the TV!

Let me start by telling you about Sophie’s communication before viral treatment. She did a lot of Echolalia (echoing phrases) off tv shows. She also would sometimes ask for things, for instance “some cookies”? She had around 7 or 8 “some ____” phrases that she would say every once in a while, this was fairly rare. That was the extent of her verbal communication.

Since starting viral treatment her communication is blossoming. She is asking for things all day long. She has started to repeat us! She also will sometimes say what we ask her to say. Example, “Sophie say puppy” and she will say “puppy”. She has also has some spontaneous, relevant speech. When going up the stairs she said “go up the stairs, up, down”. These are just a couple of examples, she has said even more than this! The absolute best was the other night when I tucked her in, she said “I love you”. I had heard her tell her dad that one time, but she had never said it to me. What a blessing!

She does have her off days still. Her yeast has been very hard to manage with this treatment. She will also run a slight fever and seem tired. She will cry and she seems to be in pain and I give her Ibuprofen and it seems to help. She also gets rashes, these are sometimes faint red dots and sometimes bumps. The faint red dots show up everywhere and seem to go away pretty quickly, but the bumps are usually, not always, on her bottom and will be there for a few days.

This has been the most one of the two most effective things we have tried. The other is chelation.

Well we have gone through the bad period and we are finally on the other side. Now I can calmly examine what could have triggered this. If you have read the other post A Bad day in Autism Land and yes its my fault and Any Better in Autism Land Today you will remember that Sophie was crying and inconsolable, stimming, teeth grinding and overall very irritable. I was not sure if the problem was yeast, viral die off or a supplement intolerance.

On the second day of her problems I removed all medicines and supplements except her acyclovir and her probiotics. It took 4 days for her to feel better and return to normal. I then started adding back her supplements and then I tried the lysine which is the supplement I was afraid she was not tolerating.

Drum roll please…….. She had no reaction to the lysine! So lysine intolerance was not the problem. This means it was probably viral die off. She has not had a reaction from yeast die off that was ever that severe and we have battle yeast continually from the start of Sophie’s autism, so I don’t think it is the yeast. If this was not a supplement intolerance, this was something new.

I have long suspected viral problems with Sophie, and I am hoping to see some break throughs soon with this treatment. Her yeast is still very bad, I know that yeast flares up when treating viruses, what I don’t know is if yeast only flares if you are damaging the viruses or will it flare up if you are just giving viral medicines?

Sophie has also had the 2 bumps on her head. They are red with sort of a crust over them. I though at first it was yeast or something like cradle cap, but these have not gone away and it has been 6 months. Her doctor didn’t seem to be concerned, but I will bring it up at the next visit. My thoughts are, could this be viral?

I will try to get a picture and post it soon. Sophie doesn’t like me to get anywhere near it so I will have to be sneaky, it must be sore.

Sophie had another low grade fever yesterday. She seemed to have very low energy like she was feeling sick. This has happened frequently this month. She also has had bumps on her bottom that come and go since she started acyclovir which is right around 30 days ago. They look like little pimples, I have never seen these on her before. I think these are good signs.

Her communication has improved in the past couple of weeks. She has actually repeated some things we have asked her to repeat! She has not repeated anyone that isn’t on TV for a couple of years! My husband said “say peanut”, she said “peanut”. He said “say frog” she said “ribbit, ribbit”, but the very best was he said “say I love you” and she said “I love you”. I have been trying to get her to say that for so long!

Today she started spinning and acting drunk, which would indicate yeast, but she has been on ketoconazole for around 3 weeks. I though the ketoconazole along with her new probiotic, Ther-Biotic from Klaire Labs, was doing a great job at managing it. I guess that was just wishful thinking. I know that treating viruses can stir up yeast, just like any other treatment, so we will just continue.

I am feeling hopeful about the viral treatment. I have stopped chelation since we began so I can tell what improvements are coming from the viral treatment. I hate to stop chelation for anything because it has brought the most results.