Almost Autism:Recovery for Kids, Support & Community for Moms
My older son got sick a lot, especially after he started preschool when he was 3.
He would go to preschool for a week then be out the whole next week because he was sick; the preschool didn’t want kids coming in who were sneezing and coughing.
When he was 4 years old, he had a severe asthmatic episode after we went to Los Angeles to visit my husband’s family. [Read more…]
Gut dysbiosis — this topic is the motherlode. It’s one of the two core (in my opinion) reasons for the explosion of chronic childhood illnesses we see today.
First, let’s discuss the numbers behind this epidemic: How many kids did you know when you were growing up that had autism, ADHD, acid reflux, allergies, asthma, developmental delays and/or mental health issues? [Read more…]
My older son with sensory processing disorder (SPD) benefited greatly from going to a land-based occupational therapist (OT) for six months. I asked her what we should do about him learning to swim, given that he had such a bad experience with it when he was 2 years old.
You might remember that he was so overwhelmed by the lights, sounds, the way the water felt, and his gravitational insecurity in the water that one day after class he came home and wiped down half the kitchen to relieve his stress. That’s a pretty strong reaction from a toddler. [Read more…]
Believe it or not, acid reflux medication dangers are real, and these medications do major harm to your body. Shocking, right?
It’s true. All of those medications (Prevacid, Nexium, Zantac, Prilosec, omeprazole, even Tums) reduce stomach acid, which is what they are designed to do.
The problem is that acid reflux is actually caused by TOO LITTLE stomach acid, not too much. Counter-intuitive, right? So what happens when you have too little stomach acid? For starters, you can’t properly digest food, leading to nutritional deficiencies, particularly magnesium, calcium and vitamin B12.
A magnesium deficiency is linked to:
A calcium deficiency is linked to:
A vitamin B12 deficiency is linked to multiple neurological disorders, including
Not only do acid reducers cause nutritional deficiencies, but they also take away an important component of our immune system. Stomach acid is used to kill nasty bugs, viruses, parasites and bacteria. Without enough stomach acid, guess what happens? That’s right – infection.
By prescribing proton-pump inhibitors (PPIs), doctors are putting their patients at a higher risk for infections like pneumonia and gastroenteritis, as well as getting more colds and stomach bugs.
In addition, by taking acid-reflux drugs, you’re more likely to get sick more often because your immune system can’t fight off these offenders. It also makes the rest of the gastrointestinal tract susceptible to bacterial overgrowth.
Is it worth taking acid-reflux medication? I don’t think so, and I can tell you that, as a mom, I was furious at the doctors who prescribed them to my boys for their acid reflux after I found out how truly dangerous these drugs are.
My sons have had eczema their whole lives. It has ranged from cradle cap (did you know that was a form of eczema?) to itchy bumps in the creases of the knees and elbows to full-blown bloody red rashes on the arms and legs.
Pediatricians, as usual (sorry!), were useless in treating eczema. Their standard advice was to “put a little cortisone cream on it”. I did try that a few times at first with my older son, but I quickly grew worried about the effects of it on his already-poor immune system. [Read more…]
“Failure to thrive” is when your child’s weight percentile falls to the 3rd percentile or below or when it crosses 2 or more major percentile curves. When either of these (or both, as in the case of my older son) happens, it’s an indication that the child is not growing as he or she should be.
I could scream every time someone tells me that I’m not that big or my husband’s not that big, so my sons’ failure to thrive is something I shouldn’t worry about. Or how about when I’m told to stop comparing my kids to fat American kids? [Read more…]
Because of my son’s failure to thrive, our pediatrician sent us to see Vicki Kobliner, a holistic nutritionist, who’s also on the board of Epidemic Answers with me.
Given that Crane Man has constant fatigue and stomach pain, poor growth, mild sensory issues and developmental delays, Vicki suggested having preliminary tests for mitochondrial dysfunction done. [Read more…]
Yet another study shows that C sections and feeding your baby formula instead of breastmilk can change your baby’s gut flora for the worse, leading to gut dysbiosis.
The study’s lead author, Meghan Azad, says that, “Infants born by cesarean delivery are at increased risk of asthma, obesity and type 1 diabetes, whereas breastfeeding is variably protective against these and other disorders.”
I would go further and explain to you that many neurological disorders (autism, PDD-NOS, ADHD, Sensory Processing Disorder, Lyme, depression, schizophrenia, bipolar disorder, multiple sclerosis, etc.), digestive disorders (acid reflux, colic, colitis, Crohn’s, celiac, etc.) and/or autoimmune diseases (rheumatoid arthritis, fibromyalgia, lupus, etc.) have gut dysbiosis as a core, underlying future.
Methylation is a subject that keeps coming up again and again for my sons and myself. It’s one of those all-encompassing issues like toxicity or gut dysbiosis because so many diseases and conditions are linked, directly or indirectly, to it or rather, a lack of it.
What is methylation? It’s the chemical process of donating a methyl group (CH3) to a molecule or compound. This doesn’t sound like much, but this little group is very important to how our bodies function, as I’m finding out.
It not only helps with energy production and builds immune cells and neurotransmitters, but it also processes hormones, detoxifies our bodies, puts protective myelin sheath on our nerves, and can be responsible for epigenetic gene regulation.
Because of its association with all of these essential processes, an inability to methylate is linked to a whole host of diseases and conditions. Methylation defects are linked to: [Read more…]
Almost autism
Sensory Processing Disorder
Autism
ADHD
PANS
PANDAS
OCD
Lyme disease
I have recovered my sons’ health with... [Read More …]
