Getting Started
From AutismPedia
| Biomed | Labs | Poop Analysis | Treatments | Testimonials | Etiology (Cause) | Links | Acronyms |
| http://tinyurl.com/Autism-GettingStarted |
Contents |
Introduction
This article is written for parents who recently have decided to explore biomedical therapies for their children. This article incorporates insights from parents who have experienced the benefits of biomedical treatments for their children.
Defeat Autism Now! (Philosophy)
The philosophy behind the Defeat Autism Now! (DAN!) program is that parents cannot wait 10 or more years for medical research to perform several gold-standard (double-bind placebo controlled) clinical trials for a large number of medications, which may not be safe, or may be marginally effective.
- Parents need to act NOW!
As parents see positive responses to treatments, these results may be shared with other doctors and parents in the DAN! community. Thus, allowing others families to benefit from the latest findings, while experts attempt to correlate significant gains with current literature.
Experts May Disagree
How might a parent make a decision about which expert's advice to follow?
- Consider Hyperbaric Oxygen Therapy:
- A non-DAN! practitioner, Michael J. Goldberg, M.D., writes that hyperbaric oxygen therapy is a dangerous treatment for a child who is suffering from a large viral load, oxidative stress, and perhaps heavy metals in the connective tissue. Conversely, Defeat Autism Now! practitioners generally advocate for the use of hyperbaric oxygen therapy, albeit at low pressures (e.g. 1.5 ATA).
- How to Decide:
- You will read about it, see the pros and cons, see what parents on the forums say and see what your doc says. I decided it would be ok to do if other things don't work. I never ended up using it. I think it does work for some and not others, depending upon the child's specific condition, pathogens, and the practitioner's ability to know how to use it successfully. Thus, its not easy. Plan on spending a lot of time learning this stuff.[1]
Jumping In
Our children are definitely have too many pathogens and toxins, and impaired digestion, liver and circulation. Thus, its a multi-faceted problem. Start with digestion, liver, and circulation and then move on to pathogens and toxins.
So basically, lets start with digestion. You will learn things to choose from:
- diets
- probiotics
- enzymes
- anti-inflammatories
- things to increase digestive juices, and things to repair the GI tract.
You can choose one or several things to do. You kind of just choose one, research it, ask questions about it, run it through a doc, and then jump in. You then see how things go.
There are many things to choose from, and many ways to recover a child. You need to pick things you understand, believe in, can afford, have access to, etc.
I can not say what is the best thing to do because I think success depends upon the parent's ability to understand how to do that treatment correctly, the conditions within the child, and the practitioner's expertise. Thus, it's not only what you choose, but that you do it correctly. If I were to choose only one thing to do, I would choose Samento. But, I don't have enough information to say that it's the answer at all. I prefer to do many things. I started off by listening to what parents say is making significant improvements and recoveries. I then researched what they did, used my brain to put it all together, and started with one little thing at a time. I then added another little thing, and finally all the little things added up to one big difference.
Thus, don't take anyone's word for anything, take many people's opinions, research websites, etc. and then you will learn things, and you will figure out a plan. When people tell you things, they mean for you to then do your own research before deciding. I would not want anyone to go out and buy something I said is good and use it without learning all about it. They would likely not be successful. You need to know when brand is important, when and how to give, interractions, if it will cause die-off, etc. Therefore you will have to read many websites and ask questions on forums and to your doctor. Then put that information together to decide how to do that treatment successfully.
Heidi N[1]
The Puzzle
Nobody can guarantee their way will recover your child. I have two on the spectrum and my daughter is almost completely recovered. Others would say she is recovered-by diet alone. My son is a bigger puzzle. Diet helped but he still has a way to go. You just have keep going and celebrate every step forward.[2]
Individuality in an Epidemic
If you meet one child with autism all you've done is meet one child with autism. This is such an individual condition. Some autistic children are completely verbal with very poor social skills and some children have great eye contact but no verbal language at all. There are many variations.
Autism reminds me of cancer in a way. Not that autism is cancer but there is no one single treatment for cancer just as there is no one single treatment for autism. There is no single thing called cancer. There is no single thing called autism - I think there are subsets within autism. The treatment for cancer varies depending on what the individuals issues are. Some cancer patients may need surgery. Others may need radiation. Still others may need chemotherapy. Some may only need strong prescription meds. Others may need all of the treatments mentioned.
The same thing with autism. There are children who recover after going on the gfcf diet. Some kids are more heavy metal kids. Others have viral issues. For some doing antifungals for yeast seems to lead to recovery. You have to find the right combination for your child.
We did the gfcf diet. It helped a lot but it didn't lead to recovery. We did HBOT. Nothing much to report there. We tried various supplements and they helped quite a bit. Now we're doing Valtrex with Diflucan and I'm seeing amazing things. We're getting our first big wow's with this treatment. I expect when we do chelation we'll have good results too. The point is to keep going when you see results.
I wish my child was one of those kids you read about where you do one treatment and poof everything is ok but it doesn't work like that. For most of us the road to recovery is long and hard. But it's so worth it. My daughter is only 3 but she's now asking me questions. When she was diagnosed at 2 I never thought that would happen but it has.
There's no guarantee the things I've tried with my daughter will work with your child. His biochemistry is different from my child's. There are no guarantees in life and I'm sure you know that. But I'm one of those people that if I talk to 100 people and 90 of them tell me that nothing can be done for autism but the last 10 people say "yes, I recovered my child and here's how I did it", I'm going to listen to those 10 people and I am going try the things those 10 people did.
Now I'm going to do those things after a lot of research and after careful consideration but my motto is:
nothing ventured nothing gained.
N. Santos[3]
A Biomedical Journal
You have to try different things, do the tests, carefully monitor and log the results you see. Keeping a log and doing regular lab tests showed us the way ahead. I wish there was an easy answer but there isn't.
N. Santos[3]
We're Pioneers
Maybe in the next 20-25 years all this effort most of us are putting into recovering our children through Biomed will lead to an easier clearer road for the next generation of parents.
N. Santos[3]
Common Sense
I have a biomed book that I highly recommend called Autism: Effective Biomedical Treatments. This book is a series of lectures like you would hear at a DAN conference, and the books contributors are all highly respected in the autism/DAN community. These doctors say that you may be able to test for a deficiency, and then supplement it, or for yeast, and then treat it, but the most important test is to try something and then see how well it affects your child. Even these doctors say there is no set protocol because all autistic children are different.
There are a few common sense things you can do to help you wade through all the info to get to what will help your child:
- Many of our children's guts are damaged, therefore cleaning up the diet and/or working to heal the gut is probably a good place to start because adding supplements to a gut that can't absorb them will not give you a good indication of what a particular supplement may do for your child.
- Add or change things one at a time so you can know what is working and what isn't.
- Start with 1/4 the recommended dosage and work your way up. This way if something is going to cause a problem you'll know it before it's a big problem.
- Be aware that some supplements work synergystically with other supplements, so you may want to add one after the other, such as b-6 and magnesium.
- Be aware that sometimes things get worse before they get better. With some supplements and treatments a regression is seen before improvement. Stopping the treatment too soon may mean that your child will miss out on improvement.
- Even though all of our children are different, that doesn't mean you have to totally reinvent the wheel. There are trends in what works for most of our kids and what may only work for a few.
The Autism Research Institute publishes tables of medical, diet and supplemental interventions with percentages that will show you how helpful a particular intervention may be.[4]
