Autism, Cure?

When I last posted, I left it off that we had an evaluation scheduled for February. Liam was two and a few months old. He was not talking while playing, he was not talking at all. He had a few words, but he didn't use them to communicate. He didn't share his joy with me, he just rolled a car over and over and watched the wheels from the vantage point of the floor. He spent quite a good amount of time lying on the floor watching wheels of cars. He did engage a little with his sisters and brother, and me. He liked his dad the best. His dad sings, beautifully. And he has a wonderful pleasant voice, masculine. Liam loved being with his dad. Snuggling, not playing, just being. But, we had to make a huge effort. In every video taken at that time, we are calling, "Liam. Liam. Look here. Smile for me Liam. Liam. Liam, look up." and he doesn't or he glances up and then nothing. If I can figure out how to post a video, I'll post it. But, mostly Liam would play quietly. He would stay in his room, mostly alone. Liam loved anything with buttons, would press them for hours. He was content on very long car drives. He was content to be put to bed. He was content all the time, but rarely joyful or sad. His belly protruded like he was pregnant (not as bad as the starving children in Ethopia, but kind of the same thing.).

His diagnosis was certain. Moderate to High level of autism, or low functioning autism. They gave us folders full of material on how to get him to engage, on what therapies he would need, and what to expect for the next couple of years. We contacted our local school board, and they put us in contact with the speech therapists who would be working with Liam. He was now receiving speech therapy once a week and play therapy once a week. He didn't really mind. He sat there and watched, participated a little for about 30 minutes and learned a very useful phrase. "All Done, Bye" The speech therapists were patient and wonderful. They told me what I could expect, slow progress. they were making up an elaborate system of using velcro cards, with pictures on them. Communication would come slowly. I enforced the lessons for about 15 minutes twice a day, sometimes more. The children, our older children learned how to play with him on his terms, and how to engage him a little. All of this helped, but Liam was still mostly, voluntarily silent. He still played silently.

Liam saw his pediatrician twice before August after his diagnosis. He was rather healthy. They were pushing for us to begin vaccination. My husband is anti-vaccine, and has been since the birth of his first child in 1993. I have been cautious about vaccination. My ex-husband and I vaccianted one vaccine at a time starting at two years old. I planned on doing that with Liam. Liam's father insisted that we use the single-stored dosage vaccine for Polio as Liam's first vaccine. It took the hospital about an hour to get a vial. They keep them for cancer patients, but use the multi-dose packs for healthy children. The doctor didn't suggest anything we could do with lifestyle or diet that might help with the autism. Liam's only health concern was poop. He had loads of it, and it was not 'formed' and it was smelly. The doctor said that was common in Autistic Children like Liam. I remembered this from when my 1996 daughter was little, she had such a protruding stomach.

In August, I came across some material about probiotics while reading Jim Carey's stepson's information. I researched it further, and they were talking about using Diet to cure autism. There was a lot of very negative feedback. I read on. Eliminating wheat, it seemed was helpful to some children with autism, and milk. We couldn't try milk, because Liam was obviously allergic to soy. Without that, he had not milk.

I called a friend of mine who is a massage therapist and her husband is a chiropractor. They are sweet and helpful, and they have good rates. (He helped my stepson with both a severe neck pain and a fear of chiropractors) http://http://www.clearandcalm.com/ . They recommended the clinic in Concord, NH called the Center For Integrative Medicine, and a specific doctor who specializes in children with autism and their stomach problems. I called and made an appointment. They sent me the questionaire. One thing, if you seek treatment for your child with autism, you will answer the same questions so often you want to barf. But, these questions were a little different. They asked about detailed family history, illness history, digestion history.

We, Liam Will and I all went for the appointment. I've never given a more detailed interview to a doctor before. She wrote and took notes, and asked questions for hours! She examined Liam, and more importantly, she watched Liam. She watched him while she asked us a zillion questions about him, his siblings, us, our exes, our parents, our sibilings. She recommended that we take Liam off of Dairy (it is OK, there is Rice Milk, I didn't know that. There is also Almond Milk. Clever vegans.) for two or three weeks, and then take him off of wheat and all gluten products. We made an appointment for three months later when we would do the bloodwork to test for allergins.

Liam didn't care if his bottle had milk or rice milk. We switched, and then realized that Rumunto's Pizza was off the table, literally, until this experiment was done. After 36 hours of being off of dairy...
Liam's Dad comes in to the house after working that day. Normally, his Dad greets him. "Hi, Liam" and Liam looks up, then goes back to his play. That day! After Dad said, Hi, Liam. Liam looked up and said, "Hi, Dad." We were astounded. It was like it was the most normal thing in the world for him to do. He had been speaking now for a bit. No nouns, no verbs, but when we insisted and bugged him, Liam, say Mommy. He would say Ma. He didn't act like he knew what it meant, but he knew that it meant that we would leave him alone. He had just Greeted his dad. Really!

We wanted to start the wheat/glueten right away, but my parents were comming for a visit in a week for a few days, and we decided to wait until they left. This was the end of September 2008. Liam was almost three (December 22).

More later. It is late.