Will I write a book?

I've been asked several times if I will be writing a book about biomed, our experiences, parenting a child with autism, etc.

The answer to that is a resounding no. There are so many books out there right now on all these topics that I simply don't have anything new to offer that hasn't already been said. My blog is really just more of a reference for what's already available.  I didn't come up with any of this on my own.

(Okay, the protein popsicles were mine.)

The only thing that I have to say that's even remotely different is to simply use some common sense in your endeavors with your child. I really don't think I could write a whole book on that topic. No one wants to be pounded over the head with how silly they are, anyway.  It would likely come off quite snarky, talking about common sense tends to do that to people. Being a relatively snarky person already, it wouldn't help me.  Who uses common sense all the time, anyway?

Lend4Health

If you are need of financial help for the treatment of your child, check out Lend4Health.

Lend4Health is a non-profit project that facilitates community-funded, interest-free micro-loans as a creative funding option for individuals and groups seeking optimal health. Currently, Lend4Health is facilitating loans for the "biomedical" treatment of children and adults with autism spectrum and related disorders.

If you aren't in need of help, please consider donating to a loan.  I know the recession is hard for everyone, but if you've been fortunate enough to not have been hit too hard, you might be able to help someone that was. 

Social Thinking

My son recently started a social skills group and this is the program they use.  I have to say, I love it.  It's really been a great tool.  Not only does it help to teach appropriate social skills, but it also does it in a way that doesn't make them feel inadequate.

Right now, we are using the Superflex curriculum.


Now when my son has a rough time with not getting his way, I simply have to tell him, "Has Rock Brain taken over your brain?" as opposed to, "You can't always get your way!"  He knows what it means, he knows that when Rock Brain has taken over, he uses his Superflex strategies to defeat Rock Brain.  (It helps that he's a boy and loves superheroes.)  This takes the blame off of him (who wants to change when you feel like you can't do anything about it?), doesn't make him feel like he can't do anything right and allows him to regroup, understand that he's being stuck on his way or the highway and figures out how to overcome the challenge.

Even when he's in the right, he now understands better that how you express it is going to affect how people react.  It certainly works a lot better than telling him these things in plain words.  Kids start to tune that stuff out until you say it in terms they care about.

When he's throwing a temper tantrum over something silly, instead of yelling at him, I say, "rubber chicken" and he instantly knows what it mean.  It means he's not behaving well and he's getting a rubber chicken for his bad behavior.  They even have rubber chickens if you need the actual chicken.

Check them out here.

Be innovative. Be a questioner. Be a thinker./Safe Minds Special Weekend Edition

Before getting into the actual post below from Safe Minds, I just wanted to add that while Kathleen Sebelius may think that public health officials should be given more weight by the press than those who question vaccines, that's not the way life works, nor should it be. 


If you want to teach your children to never question anyone or anything, Ms. Sebelius, go right ahead.  But in my  house, I want to raise thinkers.  Without people questioning, we wouldn't have all the great science we have.  Your TV wouldn't be flat and hanging on a wall.  Women wouldn't be allowed to vote and you wouldn't be the Secretary of Health and Human Services.  We would still have slaves and indentured servitude, still be riding on horseback (by necessity, not choice), and burning candles to see at night.


Society wouldn't advance, technology wouldn't advance and wait, a minute, healthcare wouldn't advance.  We need people to question.  We need people to ask, "How can we do this better?"  or "Is it really safe?"  


What we really need is for the "public health care officials" to care enough to find out the truth instead of doing every shady thing they can think of to "prove" the questioners wrong by using crappy studies to say, "See!  It's all right here!" Why not put that time and energy and money into really understanding?  Or is that too easy? Who knows, maybe you're right and we're wrong, maybe it's the wrong tree or maybe there are many trees and this is only one.  But something isn't right, autism rates are only getting higher and why doesn't that concern you, Ms. Secretary of Health and Human Services?

Safe Minds Special Weekend Edition Please forward to all who may be interested. This video has been some months in the making and its release today is highly appropriate given the new allegations regarding Dr. Andrew Wakefield, which we believe to be calculated primarily to  attempt to end the debate over vaccines and autism, rather than having any merit.  Please watch the video and then read the commentary below:   Click above to watch or visit http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=X6K6ayrThjM SafeMinds Commentary This past spring, Secretary of Health and Human Services, Kathleen Sebelius was interviewed by Reader's Digest.  In her interview, she stated that people who question vaccine safety should not be given equal weight by the press, compared to public health officials.  Since the vaccine/autism controversy is back in the news this week, we thought that it was important to help the press understand that they need to do their homework on this issue.  The health of 4 million infants a year in the United States and millions more worldwide is riding on the ability of our press to finally delve into this issue and think critically about it.  Vaccines are a multi-billion dollar industry internationally and for many pharmaceutical companies, it is the fastest -growing segment of their business.  Even the Centers for Disease Control (CDC) make money from licensing of vaccines.  There is also a swiftly revolving door between the CDC, the FDA and the vaccine manufacturers in terms of recruiting.  For example, former CDC director, Julie Gerberding, is now the head of Merck's vaccine division.  Truly unconflicted research in this area is rare and SafeMinds has information obtained through FOIA requests indicating that the CDC has massaged data to its own benefit in the past.  We would truly like to see all journalists investigate this debate and not just follow the party line. SafeMinds has been mischaracterized as an anti-vaccine group.  We are actually a group of concerned citizens who know too much to stay quiet.  The truth is that we actually read the research (not just the abstracts and not just the big journals) and look at the details.  The associations between autism and mercury and autism and vaccines are still open questions.  The majority of the studies that claim to "prove" that autism is not associated with Thimerosal or MMR (the entire rest of the childhood schedule has never even been looked at in this regard) have significant conflicts of interest, havesignificant flaws in their methods and/or do not answer the whole question.  On the other side of this debate, and rarely mentioned by the press, are the biological studies that continue to be published supporting these associations. Ultimately, public health needs to be about both protection from infectious diseases and protection from chronic health conditions.   In order to have informed consent and the greatest possible safety for our children, we must weigh both the risks and the benefits of any medical intervention, including vaccines.  At this point, we largely know the benefits of vaccines, but the research on their potential risks is grossly inadequate.  SafeMinds has been asking for more than 5 years that the government perform a large study of fully-vaccinated children compared to unvaccinated controls to assess their total health and to compare autism rates in the two populations.  The standard response to our request has been silence or the argument that to leave children unvaccinated is "unethical."We feel it is more unethical to inject 4 million infants a year in this country with a vaccine schedule that has not been subjected to a placebo-controlled clinical trial.  This assumption of safety is analogous to arguing that because 10 individual drugs are safe for children, it is therefore safe to give a child all 10 at once.  In addition, the safety and efficacy testing of a new vaccine is often performed only in comparison to a previously approved vaccine, not to a true placebo.  Regarding long-term outcomes, the use of hormone-replacement therapy comes to mind as an example of why it is critical not to assume safety of any widespread treatment without actually following patients over decades.  There is currently no enforced requirement that pediatricians report adverse vaccine reactions and manufacturers bear no financial liability for the safety of vaccines.Vaccine injuries are handled through the Vaccine Injury Compensation Program (VICP) which is grossly dysfunctional.  Long-term safety studies of vaccines for outcomes other than infectious disease have not been completed.  Until these situations are resolved, it is truly impossible for an accurate risk/benefit analysis of vaccines to be made. Please consider educating your readers, your viewers, your families, your friends, your doctors and your legislators about what is going on and please forward this e-mail widely.   Ultimately, we all want the healthiest children possible.

Antiviral Therapy 101, Part 2

Now that you know the gist of the protocol, here are some little tips when embarking on this journey.  Die-off sucks.  Yes, you probably already know but really, it can suck more with antivirals.

Each child reacts differently and some will get little to no die-off and others will think their child has been possessed by the body snatchers.

I'm sure you are on the edge of your seat, waiting for me to explain what to look for when you start.  You're in luck.

low grade fever
increased stimming
rash (sometimes it travels)
hyperactivity
aggression
whininess
discomfort
increased OCD/anxiety
canker sores/cold sores
fatigue
headache/audio sensitivity

That's all I can think of off the top of my head.

And that's just from the antiviral.  But again, severity is going to depend on the child.  In my son, we only saw the low-grade fever, hyperactivity and his aggression was only raised slightly.  But the whining!  Good Lord, help me.  It was a nightmare.  It really made the die-off seem much worse than it actually was. When you wait so long to hear your child speak, you're willing to listen to anything and never ask them to stop talking.  This was tested in my house.  Turns out, it's not always true.  You're thankful, absolutely.  But it wasn't too far of a leap for me to go from "please talk" to "please stop whining!"

Thank goodness there ways to help get you through (and I don't mean that appletini after the kids are in bed).  A big part of that is to only start the antiviral/antifungal protocol 1 at a time.  You start either the antiviral or the antifungal first, and then you add the other a month later.  If you start the antifungal first, you might be able to get away with starting the antiviral 2 weeks later but not vice versa.  Starting them both at the same time will almost always just compound the die-off (plus you want to know what's doing what.  Don't forget to take copious notes!  This is the perfect time to learn what your child's yeast and viral symptoms look like because those will go through the roof during die-off or they'll disappear.  Either way, you can now trace those behaviors back to their root).  Also, when you start, start at half-dose for a week to ease into it.  It'll help smooth the die-off so it's not so harsh.  And just so there's no confusion, when you start the antiviral, start at half dose and when you add the antifungal, start it at half-dose.  Go to full after a week.  So if you are Rxed 500 mg/3x a day of Valtrex, start at 250 mg 3x/day for a week, then go to 500 mg.  Discuss this with your doctor, of course, don't take my word for it. I don't have any medical acronyms after my name.

Activated charcoal.  There is some debate as to whether you should go with 1 hour after any supplements and 1 hour before any supplements or 2 before and after.  I'd just go with 2 just to be certain.  But that means a total of at least a 4 hour window where you don't give any supplements/medicine (charcoal will absorb it).

Motrin.  A lot of the die off symptoms are simply caused from discomfort.  Aggression, hyperactivity, those types of things.  Like I said, die-off can suck.  How many of you out there have taken an antifungal and felt just awful for the first few days it was working (and I'm going to go out on a limb here and say there are probably more females that have to take it than men)?  Well, the same thing happens to your kids.

Water.  Antivirals clear through the kidneys.  Drink lots of water and that should help with the headaches.

Be patient.  Die-off on the antiviral can take up to a month.  I've even heard of a few that have gone longer.  During this time, you may see gains through the die-off.  Most do but a few don't see gains until die-off is completely gone.  Die-off from an antifungal usually only lasts a week or two.

Probiotic during the antifungal.  Some can have loose stools or constipation from the antifungal.  This usually rectifies itself after die-off is over but probiotics can help during.  But you're probably already giving them anyway.

Be observant.  Watch your child like a hawk because you don't want to blow things off calling them die-off symptoms when it could be a very real reaction to the drug (I've not actually heard of this happening but I can't imagine it's not impossible - I had a severe reaction to Singulair and just about went off the deep end).  Don't be afraid to call your doctor, that's what s/he is there for, so call if you feel you should.  Trust your gut.  If you think it's not die-off (or even if you think it might not be die-off), call your doc.

ACT Today

A friend of mine just e-mailed me about this and thought I would share. They are ACT Today and here is their mission statement:

Our Mission: ACT Today! is a national nonprofit 501(c)(3) organization whose mission is to raise awareness and provide treatment services and support to families to help their children with autism achieve their full potential.


Dr. Bob Sears is their resident pediatrician and guess what? He's a DAN!
Go check them out!

It keeps changing!

How do you like the site?  I know it kept changing this week.  It looked different pretty much every day.  I've been test driving some new looks.  Any opinions on this one?  Should I keep looking?