Dylan

Dylan before Autism



Dylan After Autism


Dylan During Recovery



Our son Dylan was a planned pregnancy. Before getting pregnant I had some medical issues: endometriosis, cervical pre-cancer, thyroid cancer, and P.S.V.T’s (Paroxysmal Supraventricular Tachycardia) which was triggered from my thyroid issues. I would have more than ten surgeries before becoming a Mom.
I knew that having a child may be a struggle for me, but my desire was very strong. We finally found out we were having a child on Thanksgiving morning 2004! It was a “high risk” pregnancy and I had to prepare by coming off medications and each trimester I had some sort of complication; Placenta Abruption, elevated heart rate & passing out, the flu for the first time in my life and was in the hospital, contractions or dehydration so I was on bed rest most of my pregnancy until his C-section delivery on Aug. 1, 2005.
When Dylan was born it was totally miraculous! He was the most gorgeous baby ever!! Had so much color and weighed 8.5 lbs. His health by the Apgar scores was perfect. When I think about the hepatitis B shot my son received in the nursery, it makes me sick to know how his behavior changed overnight. Dylan was always a fussy baby, crying uncontrollably for hours, but he did not show this behavior during his first day of life; that day I breastfeed him and he was so quiet, tranquil and would only sleep right on my chest. Each time they would bring Dylan to me for a feeding I could hear him screaming/crying all the way up the hallway and I would say “Is that Dylan” and the nurse would say “oh yes, that’s Dylan”. This continued during my boy's first months of life and the pediatrician said that was colic. Then, when he was 5 months we went to the gastroenterologist for the first time and he said he had acid reflux and prescribed zantac.
Dylan would soon be up for his next shots – 2 months; Hep B, DTaP, HIB, IPV, Prevnar. This is when I noticed the reactions. At this point, the sleeping stopped. Almost completely, he would sleep in 1-2 hour intervals. After each round of shots he got he would get a low grade fever, rash, high pitched screaming, projectile vomiting – he would eat and within seconds he would projectile vomit, his weight would not get above the 10 percentile, he would become irritable, and get nodules at the injection sites. I would call the Drs. Office tell them how he reacted and they would say “give him Tylenol and then 1 hr. prior to his next shots, give him Tylenol”. I had this horrible feeling, I felt bad for Dylan and also I felt guilt because I let this pediatrician do this to my son. I trusted someone who was supposed to care for my child's health and never imagined all this.
He never would just get (1) shot, sometimes there w 2 and sometimes he would get 5 in one visit. Never realizing what I – his MOM - was doing to my child. I would hold him and pace the floor back and forth trying to get him to sleep. Still, our child would be up all night long screaming & crying every night. I used to call my husband’s Aunt and my Mom and ask what to do? I would call the Dr.’s on call, and they would say “put him on the dryer, or drive him around, he is probably Colic”.
From 3 months to 1 yr. Dylan would have RSV (Respiratory syncytial virus) – a severe lower respiratory virus, pneumonia, bronchitis, lots of ear infections, Coxsackie virus, numerous URI’s & ER visits due to breathing issues and dehydration. He would have lots of testing done from blood work to upper barium, at 2 ½ he had a surgical procedure to rule out celiac and take biopsies of his ileum for food allergies and also to see if in fact he had reflux. It turned out he did not have reflux. He had severe constipation one day and terrible diarrhea the next. But still kept up with his 4 month shots; Hep B, DTaP, HIB, IPV, and Prevnar. This type of health continued with RSV 3 more times, two more ear infections, severe sinus infection 2’xs, pneumonia 2’xs, and many URI’s to present. Even though Dylan was in the Drs. Office with some kind of illness about every other day and sometimes with a fever, we still listened to the professionals and continued to get his shots on schedule.
Then came the flu shot at 6 months old. Dylan would have the flu shot 3x’s in 2 months. Two shots in one day along with Prevnar and DTaP, and then another flu shot we switched offices a month later and no one saw the records. All filled with Mercury. This went on until he was up to date on all shots to age 3 with Hep B, Hep A 2x, MMR, Varicella. And later we found out the Prevnar shot never took, his titers were low and that was part of the reason he was so sick. They re-injected him with the Pneumovax Vaccine in 2008!! And still sick.
Dylan held his head up at 3 months. He was eating “normally”, although there were things I at this time I noticed say that was odd for me, was that Dylan never liked to be dirty, he never liked to have food on his face, or walk or lay in the grass or sand with bare feet. He would cry and have terrible bellyaches, I would pick him up to comfort him and he would just arch his back and just about fall out of my arms. He wanted to be comforted but not want to be held. It was heartbreaking to know your child is in pain, but not be able to comfort him. He would be up all night long crying and vomiting with pain and discomfort but for the longest time we had not idea what the cause was. Eventually we learned, we had to give suppositories to relieve his pain. He had dark circles under his eyes, extremely pale in color, as much as we would go to the beach and our ethnicity was Italian, he would never be able to get a tan over the years.
As time went on I would see Dylan line up everything he possibly could, take everything apart that came apart, spin all the wheels or anything that spun, and would and still does toe walk. In fact, I remember the first time I saw Jenny McCarthy on Oprah talking about her son Evan and Autism. My Aunt, (my husbands Aunt) called and told me to turn it off! But Dylan still managed to hold his head up by 3 months, started talking – he had a vocabulary of about 10 words by the time he was 1 yr. and then he skipped crawling and went right to walking by 10 months!! So I figured he was ok, even though in the back of my mind I knew there was something ‘off’. Then time for the MMR shot that was 14 months old – by the time he was 18 months old the words began to diminish. Then at his 2yr. check had no words at all. The Dr. said “I believe your son has Autism”. Even though I had a “clue” no parent is ready for those words. We went to a Neurologist at CHOP for a series of tests, and then a Development Pediatrician for 6 hours in two visits – testing – both concluding the same result – Autism. The Final Diagnosis on Sept. 21, 2007
That is the day our lives changed forever.
After digesting the diagnosis, I remembered reading Jenny McCarthy’s book "Louder than Words" and in it was an organization TACAnow.org (Talk about Curing Autism) I went on the website for some information. That group was and is my support system from that day to this day for everything I need help with. They saved me from complete insanity.
The next thing I did was call Early Intervention and start my son with services within a few weeks. From the time he was in the system we had to do nothing but fight. Everyday was emails, phone calls, advocates, logs etc. To get what my child needed to recover and deserved by law.
In June of 2008 Dylan went back to the Dev. Pediatrician and she said he regressed. Dylan was having major meltdowns – almost daily, he was self injurious, he was hitting me, and his eye contact has diminished along with his attention – focus. We had lost hope at that visit. I came home got back on my TACA board and decided that this was the day I was going to make the DAN appt. (Defeat Autism Now) and start the diet that so many people had talked about and had success with. And I did. I went cold turkey! I went and bought a bunch of foods and started it. Financially this would become a strain for us, but when we saw how much this would help Dylan, it was something we would have to keep in our budget. Insurance doesn’t pay for the DAN Dr.
I called Dr. Prociuk in West Chester and made an appt. for that next week. From that point on we were GFCF and EF (Gluten=Wheat, Casein=Dairy, Egg free). We later did testing and found out he was allergic to Egg, Dairy and intolerance to Wheat. It took us about 4 months to see a difference in Dylan. Today, at 3 ½ we see a big difference in Dylan. Stimming is less, (flapping, spinning, hitting self etc) his focus is so much better, and his eye contact is there on and off.
We then started the biomedical’s (supplements & enzymes) through the DAN Dr. we have or are using; zeolite (detoxify heavy metals), tri-enza (enzyme for his digestive system), Probiotics (theralac for gut issues), MB12 shots (increase speech), spectrum support (vitamins & minerals), cod liver oil (focus), melatonin (sleep), P-5-P (pyridoxal 5- Phosphate) with Magnesium Glycinate (bowels), vitamin D3, Epsom salts & baking soda baths, Enhansa, Gaba with Niacinamide & Inisitol, Charcoal (as needed), Elderberry (boosts immune) Homeopathic remedies as needed.

Dylan still has a battle with not only autism, but medical illness as well. He gets sick quite often and very easily. He has the rosy red cheeks, ears and feet (some of you reading this will understand what that means) He wakes up in puddles of sweat. He suffers from Asthma, eczema, complex partial & febrile seizures, essential tremors, on and off anemia, chronic sinusitis, color blindness, severe sensory processing disorder, Apraxia, and severe OCD. He takes Trileptal, Singulair & Veramyst for these conditions. And he still doesn’t get tan! Dylan has major fear issues and extremely anxious and fidgety, issues we are working on.

Since starting the biomedical’s and GFCFEF diet, we have seen a completely different Dylan. He slowly started making sounds saying about 4-5 words consistently. Then about 6 months later, August 2009 he started to speak. He stills tantrums and has meltdowns but not nearly as much and we have learned how to help him through them. He loves to be cuddled and cuddle me now. He has daily bowel movements and when he goes he is not in pain like before. His eye contact and attention have gotten much better. There is hope and he will recover. J




Emma

Emma Before Autism


Emma After Autism


Emma During Recovery



If you would like to read more about Emmas Recovery Process please follow this link http://bringingemmaback.blogspot.com/

Keely

Keely before Autism


Keely After Autism



Keely During Recovery



Keely began walking at nine months and was saying approximately 10 words when she received her MMR between twelve and thirteen months. Shortly after her vaccine she began her regression. She lost all her speech and began screaming all day and all night. We started biomedical treatments when she was a little over 2. She was officially diagnosed at 2 1/2 years old because it took us a long time to get into the doctor that diagnosed her. We have been doing treatments for a little over a year.

If you would like to learn more about Keely and her recovery process please visit their blog site here.. http://recoveringkeely.blogspot.com/

Benjamin

Benjamin Before Autism


Benjamin After Autism




Benjamin During Recovery


Matthias

Matthias before Autism



Matthias After Autism


Matthias During Recovery


I first started seeing the 'signs' when he was about 12 months old.
He didn't talk or walk yet and he never answered to his name. He was always in his own little world.. I constantly questioned his doctor about it.  But he assured me over and over again he's a boy, they just start talking later give him time. Then after his round of vaccinations after his 12 month birthday Matthias had a high fever of 105 and screamed all night long.... thankfully his fever did go away but he was even worse after that. The eye contact we did have with him was gone, I couldn't get him to look at the camera with out having to stand on my head and pray that I snapped the picture quick enough.... the social interaction he had with us was gone, he just simply disappeared. He was officially diagnosed through early intervention here in Arizona at 32 months old ( 2.5 years). It was heart breaking for me, I knew something was wrong but was never quit sure.

This started our journey through autism and our journey of hope to recovery. The first year after his diagnosis he went to speech, OT and PT sessions weekly and we did see some progress. But not nearly enough, so we took casein out of his diet and with in a month he started talking :) I began to read up on bio medical treatments and what they were all about, and after a year of researching we started doing bio medical interventions.
In March of this year Matthias saw his first DAN doctor, and I can tell you I wish I would have been able to do it much earlier. He has made HUGE progress with bio medical treatments, he went from no verbal skills at all to being able speak in 6 word sentences. Its amazing the progress he has made, and I am ever so thankful to the Lord for giving us the opportunity to do these treatments with him.

Lisa
If you want to read more about Matthias Journey to Recovery visit Our Journey of Hope here :http://myboysmygreatestgiftsinlife.blogspot.com/

Alex

Alex After Autism


Alex During Recovery




When my son Alex was about 1 ½- 2 years old he started showing symptoms of “something”. I visited many doctors during his age of 2 and 3 to find answers on his recurrent infections, screaming, spinning; inability to digest food, noise sensitivity and lack of focus. My son barely slept for the first year and a half of his life.


During this time of chaos as a single mother who was tired of being shuffled from doctor to doctor just to be suggested more drugs……I decided through intuitive guidance to take control over my son’s health and started researching alternative healing/therapies.

At this time which would have been about the year 2002, there was not any knowledge in my community of autism recovery or diet and supplementation. Through my alternative studies I decided to eliminate all gluten and dairy from Alex’ life; also, around his third birthday my chiropractor had suggested I take a look at what vaccinations contain and their unreported side-effects.

During this time I had several a-ha moments, where I knew I was onto something bigger than a “diagnosis” of ADHD, OCD or Autism which is what my son was getting labeled as.

I stopped vaccinating and luckily in my state we have exemption from them. I started a de-tox protocol that included Epsom salt baths, high doses of vitamin C, magnesium, zinc, b-complex; garlic and oregano oil.

I noticed positive changes in my son’s behavior and he no longer suffered from ear infections. I added digestive enzymes & acidophilus at this point.

Like I said earlier, at this time I was using education and intuition, it wasn’t until 2008 I heard of Jenny McCarthy and her story, that’s when I became a rescue angel through generationrescue.org. I saw huge strides around 5 years of age and ever since it’s been constant improvement. Hopefully I can shorten the journey to recovery for other families or maybe even prevent some through education.

A summary would be this…..my son went from being developmentally delayed, ADHD, OCD, or Autistic to a fourth grader who is on the honor roll; very sociable and very well-like by everyone. His awareness of himself and his environment has exceeded beyond my dreams as a recovered child. There is hope but one must stick to a protocol and have faith and patience….you must also learn to listen to your inner guidance system.

I achieved recovery through:

De-tox of vaccine toxins and no longer vaccinate

Supplements/ EFA’S

GFCF diet

Elimination of all preservatives and dyes

Eating organic and non-processed foods

Pure water (filtration system in my home)

No Flouride or Chlorine

Chemical reduction throughout the home (natural shampoos, soaps & cleaning products)

Reiki

Aromatherapy

Noah

Noah Before Autism

Noah at 10 months- chubby, happy baby!

Noah After Autism

Noah at 6yrs old- 3 years after diagnosis- hated loud noise didn't like us singing

Noah During Recovery

This picture is from this past summer..he actually posed in this one for me!


Noah was diagnosed at 3.5 yrs and is now 7 and very close to losing his diagnosis!!
He has changed so much from those early days- no speech, no eye contact, severe meltdowns, no social skills,not playing with toys just lining up, no sleeping- and now he talks A LOT! He reads tremendously, he has a vivid imagination and lots of friends!

Zachy

Zachy Before Autism


Zachy After Autism


Zachy During Recovery




A little after Zachys second birthday, my little boy began to disappear at an alarming rate. He began to grow silent. We didn’t notice exactly when it happened, but eventually, the silence became deafening. His incessant babbling and comments on things happening around and to him stopped, and he no longer laughed.

He stopped playing with his sister. She cried often because she thought he didn’t love her anymore.
The close cuddling and hugs that used to bring him peace and happiness became so uncomfortable that he would fight whoever tried to hold him.

He stopped playing with toys and would only carry things. Weird things that he didn’t play with. He just carried them around and would cry if we tried to take them away. He also stopped playing with his cars. He just lined them up. Perfectly. Not a single car was crooked. And if you tried to take one out of its place, he would scream so loud and for so long that his hair would be wet with sweat.

January 13, 2005…Zachary was diagnosed as moderately retarded with autism. I remember that date because that was the day all my hopes and dreams for my son died. For the next 2 years, I scrambled to keep my boy from disappearing, but I had no hope that his/our life would get much better. We decided to just try to manage what life dealt us

The only way I could see a future for my son was by letting more people know about autism, and hopefully, understand and accept my son. Robert and I refused to hide our boy and his condition. Instead, we willingly talked to anyone who would listen. Even the local paper interviewed us to write about autism and the gratitude we had for the smallest of improvements

Our lives took a drastic turn when my husband suggested I go to an autism conference in Anneheim. I went...full of pessimism, skepticism and doubt. I was angrily resigned to the life we were living now.
Instead of waxing eloquent about how wonderful he was, the guy jumped right into biology, physiology, and bio-chemistry. Pictures of kids with the same distended belly, sickly translucent skin and shadows under their eyes and expressionless faces were shown. Then, pictures of inside their intestines explained what was going on. Red, raw lesions were giving them pain, and because they were voiceless, they curled up, rested their abdomens on pillows, balls, furniture. Just like Zachy.


Then they showed the “after” pictures of the same kids. Pictures of bright eyed, laughing faces with pink healthy cheeks, hugging and playing with other kids, loving their mommies and dancing with their daddies. I stopped writing and just stared at those images. Up there on the big screen, pictures of hope I was told didn’t exist dared me to deny their existence.


Please follow this link to read  the rest of Zachys incredible journey to recovery!!!

Nick

Nick Before Autism
Nick before Autism. Happy. Normal Development. Right on target.



Nick after Autim
Nick in the throws of Autism. Lost his speech, Lost connection. Lost boy.



Nick During Recovery
Nick today. Connected. Fully conversational. Growing each day. He is still cognitively damaged but we see progress and miracles every day.




*Anonymous


The after photo doesn't seem that dramatic but it's honest. The regression was eery, he just stopped smiling that summer-- weird for a kid who could smile at 3 weeks of age and belly laugh at five weeks.


* Parents wishes for their childs name to remain anonymous





Ruby

Ruby before Autism


Ruby After Autism



Ruby during Recovery


Ruby is 4 now and was diagnosed with moderate/severe autism at 2.5.

She was a bright eyed baby with a few soft signs of issues, but I just
know in my heart she would have been okay if I hadn't vaccinated her
AND if I hadn't received a flu shot during my second trimester.

Kate

Kate After Autism


Kate During Recovery







She was just fine until her 18month immunization shot and she immediately began to fade away from us after that. She was completely non-verbal until almost 3 years old. She received therapy in our home form the age of 2 till 3. At 3 she entered a developmental delay program at our local public school. She continued on in the program until this year. She became mainstreamed for kindergarten. She is on a special needs cheerleading squad in which she became a National Champion last year!!! When we first started she had a helper and covered her ears and ran and cried the entire time..
now she is totally on her own and loving every minute of it.

We have been taking her to a bio-medical Dr. for about a year now and it has been a GOD send. She is social, verbal, interacting and no more outburst. I can remember leaving baskets full of groceries in the middle of the store and walking out in tears because of her meltdowns. I don't think we ate out at a restaurant for almost 2 years. She is not the same child she was even a year in a half ago. Through love, support, hard work and most importantly prayer, we are going to overcome this thing! I could go on and on for hours about her and her progress, we are blessed beyond measure! I like to say she is the color in my black and white world!

Logan

Logan Before Autism


Logan After Autism



Logan During Recovery



We really started worrying about Logan, our only child, when he turned 2 years old and he still didn’t say a word and had an extremely limited diet. I took him to his well child visit and the Doctor told me that it was my fault that he wasn’t talking because I didn’t work with him enough and I needed to read to him more. I sat in my car and cried for 30 minutes before I could leave. I have a friend whose is personal friends with the Director of Hearts for Hearing in Oklahoma City. I was able to get Logan an appointment to get his hearing checked, but I knew for a fact that he wasn’t having hearing problems. His hearing was fine and Hearts for Hearing referred us to Soonerstart for an evaluation. When he was evaluated, Logan was 26 months old and I was told that he was on the mental level of a 6 month old. We were Devastated! So we began therapy with Soonerstart and they were such a big help. Our therapist was actually the first person to mention autism to us and revealed that Logan has Sensory Integration Disorder. That would explain the limited diet. He only prefers to eat hard and crunchy foods. When Logan was 33 months old we got an appointment with OU Health and Science Center and Logan was diagnosed with severe autism.


I got involved in some local autism support groups and was introduced to the gluten/caesin free diet and was given several names of DAN doctors. I had also read Jenny McCarthy’s book and was very inspired. We began to take Logan to a DAN doctor in Dallas. After several tests, it was revealed that Logan had high levels of lead and mercury in his system. He was also having issues with his gut and yeast in his stomach. Logan was put on 13 supplements and we began chelation therapy. After Logan turned 3 years old and was no longer eligible for Soonerstart services, we began to transition to the Moore Public Schools. Logan began DD3, Developmentally Delayed Preschool for 3 years olds. His teacher was Special Ed teacher for the whole State of Oklahoma 2 years ago.

Right now, Logan is in DD4 and sees an Occupational Therapist once a week. He also has a Speech therapist that he sees twice a week in school. He has made tremendous progress. I cannot attribute it to one specific thing though. I think early intervention is the key to success. Logan can say the alphabet and understands many requests and will answer many questions. We also do sign language that we learned from signing times videos. We are currently seeing a DAN doctor in Tulsa because it is closer. Logan is still doing chelation treatment and on his supplements. Do to his limited diet, it is extremely difficult to keep him gluten free, however he is casein free. One thing that Logan truly enjoys is video games. He has a Leapster 2 that he can take with him when we go to lunch for example and it keeps him occupied. Going to lunch or dinner has always been a big issue for Logan because he could not keep still for 5 minutes. He also loves to get on the computer and go to Nick Jr. website. There are lots of games that he can play and are very educational also.

Kellie

Before Autism


After Autism


Sophia

Before Autism


After Autism


During Recovery


Timmy

Timmy before autism


Timmy after autism


After his hep B his head was growing rapidly and he could no longer come home the next week bc of new feeding issues. He has been delayed since then. He was early but was doing well until the hep b when he had issues latching and he got hydrocephalus which ended up becoming benign by 6 months so we never had to get shunts thank God.