This article grabbed me because autistic persons have much the same problem. I know many people who have “autistic” traits, but they are walking around, living their regular lives and don’t need pharmaceuticals. I am also not a fan of labeling because it gets in the way of treatment. I generally refer to my daughters condition as autism. She is specifically diagnosed with Asperger’s. I have found though, that doctors/teachers tend to minimize the autistic aspects of her illness, and focus on her social problems, since “social problems” is the approved definition of Asperger’s. I have to remind them that she is sick, that she has sensory problems. For more on my take on this see here.

This kind of thing makes me crazy. The drug company even admits that it does nothing to treat the disease, and yet they are marketing this thing to treat autism. When our daughter was first diagnosed with Asperger’s we dilligently did everything the neurologist told us to do. She suggested putting her on paxil. It seemed to take the edge off her, but it really only masked her symptoms. It didn’t do anything for her pain, her stomach, or her sleeplessness. After a while it stopped working altogether. The doctor put her on a never ending cycle of ratcheting up her dosages and going to different flavors of Prozac. It never did much of anything. The best thing we ever did was to stop drugging her and start getting to some of the roots of her problems. Some of the roots included the GFCF diet for her stomach, anti-inflammatories for her pain, and melatonin for her sleeplessness. The best thing we ever did was to visit Dr. Bradstreet. I can’t sing his praises enough.

Yes, this one was written and illustrated by the boys….

It looks like the medical community may admit that a vaccine caused neurological problems. This is interesting to me because the people receiving the shots were teens trying to ward off meningitis. The big deal here is that these people could report their reactions- babies can’t- and for some reasons doctors completely discount the observations of a child’s parents. All of my children had horrible reactions to their shots. One of my children has autism. One of them would cry for hours and his leg would swell to the size of a grapefruit. One of them ended up in the hospital, and his doctor says with a smile, it looks like no more pertussis shots for you! No one would ever believe me when I would report their reactions. I am a fairly intelligent, level-headed person. I do not panic in an emergency generally. Yet I was treated by the medical community like a hysterical hypochondriac. When will the madness end? These are children, not interesting cases. Perhaps my children are more sensitve than others, but we are not the only ones. The problem is that vaccines have been incredibly helpful in the past. This is the wrong path to take. We are only trading one problem for another, usually worse and uncurable. We are preventing chicken pox and causing autism. We are preventing meningitis and causing paralysis. Who knows? When the research is done are we going to find that we warded off the flu only to give seniors alzhiemers? Doctors need to find another avenue- they need to give up on vaccines, at least in their current incarnation and method of treatment for something less harmful. Doctors should DO NO HARM. I have avoided vaccinating my youngest (the one who shouldn’t have any more pertussis) and I am worried about him contracting something horrible that there is a vaccine for- but I am more worried about him contracting something that there is no cure for. If you or a family member has a bad reaction to a vaccine, report it. It is going to take alot of people to change things.

News of a massive new study shows some initiative to find root causes for autism, but does it come too late? Now that thimersol has been removed from most vaccines, will it give a distorted picture? My main frustration is that they are only now discussing a study which will take 10 years to complete, in the mean time how many children will suffer from autism? I am much more interested in the people who have practical answers to symptoms now, like the gfcf diet, glutithione, and allergy testing that gives relief now instead of ten years from now when my little girl will be 22. While I feel what they find will be valuable, I can’t help but wonder why so few doctors are doing more practical work that will limit the amount of brain damage suffered by these children in the meantime.
Just to update- Dorothy has been on glutithione for several weeks now, and combined with the supplements prescribed by Dr. Bradstreet, she is doing so much better. She is incredibly calmer, and she sleeps like a baby for the first time in her whole life. She still has bad days, but her bad days now are more like regular days in the past.
What about the contention that it is all a coincidence? The neurologists that we started out with in Dr. Wiznitzer’s office, who by the way, is supposed to be one of the best in the business, uses this argument. He says maybe the child just grew out of it, and decided to grow up. Besides the fact that he totally discounts the observations of the child’s parents, I find it despicable that they do not seem to be interested in studying the things that seem to give relief of symptoms. It almost suggests that they are not interested in being out of a job. From our own observations, we know glutithione really works because we can see her function go down when she goes off it. We ran out and had to wait a few days to receive more in the mail from the compounding pharmacy. In that time she regressed considerably. It seems to be a pretty straight forward case of cause and effect, no matter what the neurologist’s opinion is. They love to describe the level of function, but don’t seem interested in raising it.
Also we found out she was allergic to many different foods. Dr. Bradstreet gave her an interesting allergy test that ran samples of her blood through a machine that introduced certain substances to it to see what her white blood cells would attack. There were over 40 things that set her immune function off. Since we removed these things from her diet she is less sick and has less pain. I am so grateful that there are doctors like doctor Bradstreet that are still interested in using available resources to do what they can to help children feel better now. My daughter is certainly not cured, but I no longer have any use for the doctors who look at her and think of her as a “case ” and not a little girl. Once again, if you have a child with autism, find a DAN! doctor who knows what they are about. We reccomend Doctor Bradstreet:)

Many people who have been on the quest for biomedical options for Autism have come to realize that early ear infections led to overuse of antibiotics for their child which damaged their intestines, which in turn led to a number of troubling conditions which may cause or at the very least contribute to their child’s Autism. Now it looks like their is another reason to steer clear of antibiotics: they can damage your child’s permanent teeth.

(Read on …)

I don’t agree with everything this guy says- but wow. What a case for rising above your challenges and learning to dicsipline yourself instead of using ADHD or Autism as a crutch. ( I mean high functioning, obviously.) I get so tired of the individuals who say that if the rest of the world was more tolerant they could succeed despite their disability. To those people I have to say, grow up. People in my experience are not tolerant of any thing different, whether it is your disability, your skin color, your religion. It seems to me that the people who are the most successful do not spend their time whining about their problems, they just quietly work at them. It’s not that I think Autism isn’t a serious disability, I do, but if a guy with a prosthetic leg can climb Mt. Everest, and blind kids can play video games, it seems to me that those with AS can learn to discipline themselves to get through the day with out a melt down or continue with the task at hand even if you are feeling “all flappy”. It is hard to argue with your own brain, but your brain is only an organ like your lungs and your heart. It is what makes a person a person, your soul, or your spirit, if you will, that is really in charge of your choices. I know this is a very unpopular opinion, but it doesn’t make it less true.