Gryffin's Tail has moved!

Gryffin's Tail has a new home. It got too hard to mirror to this site. I don't maintain this site anymore.

Subscribe via email will subscribe you to the new site feed. Below is an RSS feed of the new site.

To all my email followers, I've transferred the Feedburner address to the new site so you should start receiving emails again. I didn't know this page stopped mirroring until a day or so ago. I'm sorry you've missed out for the last few months but the good news is that I don't post much so it'll be easy to catch up!

*

*

RSS feed of the new Gryffin's Tail site

*

*

Subscribe via email to the new site

Enter your email address:

Delivered by FeedBurner

*

*

Tweets!

*

*

Tuesday, April 12, 2011

New page for the biomed book!



I didn't upload a page for the biomed book by accident.  What was I thinking?

Here it is.  It's specifically for when you add new supps/med or therapies to keep track of what's going on.  It's very basic but it works.

I'll also update the original post with the new page.

Dr. Helen V. Ratajczak and vaccines



There's an article in The Journal of Immunotoxicology causing quite a stir, to which I say, good.  We need a stir.  Dr. Helen V. Ratajczak wrote a compelling article that I hope you will give a good read to, it's worth the time.

You can download the full article here.  Just one more study we can point to that everyone will likely ignore, unfortunately.  I know, it's rather cynical but I've been on this road too long to wait for miracles.

Sunday, April 10, 2011

Toxic baby food: is anyone really surprised?



Seriously, I'll never understand why this is okay?  It's one thing to get toxins naturally from food - some foods contain toxins - but this is baby food.  BABY FOOD.  We're not talking about getting amounts of cyanide from eating bamboo shoots because it's naturally present in bamboo.

These are toxins introduced to our foods - and our babies.  I'll never understand it.


Arsenic and toxic metals found in baby food

Baby foods used to wean infants off milk have been found to contain "alarming" levels of toxic contaminants including arsenic, lead and cadmium.


Read the rest here.

XMRV and autism



I've been of the opinion that XMRV is going to be hugely important since we found out about it. Kent Heckenlively does a fantastic job of breaking it down.

The Potential Importance of the XMRV Retrovirus to Autism
XMRVBy Kent Heckenlively, Esq.

Although I’ve been a science teacher for the past five years I find that when I’m confronted with new information I want to explain to people I fall back on the strategies I used during the fifteen years I was a lawyer. I hope you'll consider this article in that light, as essentially an opening statement.
Read the rest here on AoA.

Friday, April 8, 2011

New way to subscribe!



If you look to the right, you'll see that there is now a way to subscribe via e-mail.  Hope that helps those that haven't been able to subscribe before!

The biomed book and how to make one.



As a biomed parent, you have to be organized. If you aren't organized, you don't know what's going on. And if there's one thing you want to know, it's what's going on.

You must take notes. Copious notes. I've mentioned this before here. Let me say it again - take lots and lots of notes. Know what's doing what, what is doing nothing and what it interacts or works well with.  Know what your kids symptoms are for yeast, bacteria, ammonia, phenols, etc.

You don't know these things without notes.

I keep a Biomed Book. It's got dividers and tabs and all the great things that will keep your information where you want it, at your fingertips.

Here's a picture.
Doesn't look like much does it? I didn't really put any effort into making it look pretty but hey, it's not decoration, right?

Here are all the pages for my biomed book so you don't even have to make them. I created a Google docs page for this blog so all you need to do is click, go to file, download as, pick one and it's all yours to modify to your needs.  I left an example on some of the pages so you know how I used it but I'm not sure if I did that for all of them.

UPDATE:  I had a bit of a snafu.  I apologize to everyone that tried to download and had to ask permission for the files.  I've changed them all to public so you should not have to ask for anything anymore and you definitely shouldn't need to sign up for anything.  If there are any problems, please comment me.

Cover and divider pages - self explanatory

Dosing schedule - I use this as a daily reference for anyone that needs to know what to give.  Just flip to it and everything is there.

Medicine chart - This is to keep track of all the meds/supplements, costs, why, when, how, etc.  What was stopped, why it was stopped, what you plan to start soon and so on. This also has a lab quick check sheet.  There are certain labs I keep close track of and I don't want to have to go to my labs section and flip through all the labs.  It's now right there for me to scan anytime.  If I'm tracking HHV6 titers, I can just look here and see what they were for the last year and how they moved.

Phone log - Always keep track of your communications with practitioners.

UPDATE #2:  A page I neglected to upload below!


Behavior - adding/removing - Use this to keep track of behavior/changes that occur when you are adding or removing a new supp, med or therapy.

I also use sheet protectors for the dividers and in the front, I have all of our doctor's info.

Whenever you need more lines or want to delete unused lines, it's easy to do so.  If your needs are slightly different or you just think you can do it better - go for it.  The important thing is that it works for you and now you have an idea of how to do it if you didn't already.

Having a book like this will be able to help your spouse in case you're not there and will also be the how-to guide for family members should anything happen to you or your spouse.  Everything anyone needs to know about your biomed protocol is right there.

You can also keep track of all those other things I keep pestering on about, like knowing your child's symptoms, keeping track of what's doing what, what's not doing anything, what needs something else to work and so on.  You get the idea.

If you have any questions, if something doesn't make sense or you just want to know how I filled something out, drop me a comment.

Got Yeast?



I'm repeatedly asked, "How do I know if my child has yeast?"

Well, the short answer is... you don't. At least not until you've learned the signs in your child. Even testing, while recommended, isn't nearly as reliable or cost effective as simply recognizing. But even then, you might be wrong. I know, sad to hear, right?

Let me start by telling you how I learned my son's signs of yeast. I read many accounts of what people said were yeast signs so I was already feeling like my son probably had yeast but I certainly couldn't identify it. Let's face it, it's not like it's going to come out and introduce itself to you in a polite voice that belies the hidden danger it encompasses.

I learned what yeast looks like by watching it die. When you start antifungals, you may see die off symptoms and those die off symptoms are generally the same as the actual symptoms only more extreme. In my son's case, die off was sticking his hands in his mouth, inability to go to sleep, inability to stay asleep, hyperactivity, inattentiveness, inability to focus, slight increase in aggression and whininess. But surprise! Not all of these symptoms are exclusive to yeast. And since die off isn't the most comfortable thing to go through, it's not surprising that you would see some of these symptoms. So now you really need to watch your child and simply learn. I learned that as soon as his hands start going in his mouth, it means yeast. This is something that simply doesn't happen any other time with him so I've easily been able to use it to identify yeast issues. When combined with waking up in the middle of the night for several hours, I then know yeast is really bad.

Night waking sucks.

My biggest suggestion in learning your child's signs is to keep a journal if you can't keep it straight in your head. And you'll also find that I use this suggestion a lot when it comes to learning about your child. Keep a journal of everything from what you have started, when you started it, foods eaten, foods removed, behaviors you see and behaviors you don't. Log everything from "nothing happened" to "the earth shook as s/he said his/her first word". Journals will also help you keep a timeline so when you see something odd creep up, you can go back and see if you or your child did something different, forgot to do something, etc.

I'm veering off course, here, though so let's get back on track. Yeast. Here is a collection of symptoms I've picked up over the years from other parents. Not all children have the same symptoms so just know that these are just possibilities. As with all things biomed, there are rarely any definitive answers for everyone.
 

Gryffin's Tail © 2010

Blogger Templates by Splashy Templates