The Early Intervention Your Child Might Need
By Eliza Arnoldus
“Addie doesn’t have enough language,” my mom
says. Addie had just turned two. She probably would eventually
learn language I told myself. Her older brother Tommy was speech-delayed
as a two-year-old as well, he eventually learned language, so I was not worried.
Ted and I have three children, Tommy (9), Anna (6), and Addie (2). In
2008, we lived in southern California, in a city named Irvine. We
lived in a master-planned community called Woodbridge. It had two man-made
lakes and numerous walking paths to various parks and swimming pools. I
grew up here. This was the neighborhood I grew up in. Ted asked me when
we got married where I would like to live, and I said anywhere that is just
like Woodbridge. It proved to be somewhat hard to find a place just like
it. So, we settled there, in a small townhouse in Woodbridge near a pool
and a park. While everything in my life had gone reasonably smooth up to
that point, (other than the shock of having children of course), my life was
about to get a crash course in health and nutrition.
“You need to have her tested by the Regional
Center (California’s children’s services) to see if she qualifies for speech
therapy.” My mom had worked in special education teaching kids to read for over
20 years. She was trained to spot those who needed help early.
I was thinking, “sure, free services couldn’t
hurt, why not.” I called the Regional Center of Orange County. A
very nice woman came to our house ready with toys and such that would help
evaluate whether Addie needed to be tested. We set a date for Addie to be
tested. This was November of 2008. Addie was 27 months old.
Addie was tested and her scores came back very low, which now started to worry
me a little. She was testing low in all areas, but especially in
communication and receptive language. She was over 2 years old, and she
was testing at a 1-year-old level. But early intervention was the key, as
everyone was telling me, and things would be fine. So, she started their
educational therapy at the end of 2008.
The Regional Center sent over a very nice college-age
student named Chelsea (name changed) a few times a week and she started doing
ABA therapy with Addie. Addie was wary at first of this new person coming
to visit her at home. At first, she would hide. Chelsea would coax
her out by playing with blocks or play dough. Eventually, Addie knew the
drill expected of her when Chelsea would come over. She needed to play her
games and she would get rewards. Chelsea had fun rewards for her to earn
like princess stickers, bubbles, and such. She needed to learn and
communicate with us in order to be allowed to play with the fun toys we would
put in front of her. Sometimes, Chelsea and I would hold two ends of a
blanket with her laying in the middle like a swing. She would have to respond
with “more” or “the sign for more” for us to swing her. She did not
always enjoy this ABA therapy though. Sometimes she was not in the mood
to even communicate for rewards. Her moods were hard to forecast.
Little things would make Addie frustrated or
moody. She did not like the family singing together. Whenever we
would sing, she would hold her hands over her ears and yell, “stop!” She
did not like me playing dolls with her or interacting with her much.
Whenever I would try, she would say, “No!” She was affectionate when she wanted
to be, but it was always according to her timetable or mood.
During this time, the regional center caseworker
assigned to Addie also said she wanted to have her tested for Occupational
Therapy. I did not know what occupational therapy meant at first. I
had to look it up. “Occupational
therapists assist children and their caregivers to build skills that enable
them to participate in meaningful occupations. Occupational therapists also
address the psychosocial needs of children and youth to enable them to
participate in meaningful life events. These occupations may include: normal
growth and development, feeding, play, social skills, and education.” (Wikipedia). So, we had her tested and
something strange happened at that appointment. I remember the therapist
tester said, “Addie doesn’t respond to her name.” We sat behind
Addie as she played with some toys or blocks. I called out her
name. She did not respond. I said it again. She did not
respond. I was a little more worried at this point. We had been at
this ABA therapy thing for a few months, and she still did not respond to her
own name. This was disheartening. She qualified for OT services,
and we started going to a clinic for those as well as another speech therapist
clinic down the street.
Over a couple months, Addie did
not seem to be learning language to me. In fact, she seemed to be getting
worse. I saw a growing gap between her and the children we interacted
with that were her age. A little twinge of pain tugged at me every time a
younger child would communicate with their parent in sentences or any words at
all. I couldn’t understand how my baby,
who was perfectly normal at birth, was now struggling to learn. I couldn’t understand
how I could not go anywhere without her buckled down in a stroller. She
had no fear of running away from me. There was one way I could take her
places, in a stroller with a sippy cup of milk. Otherwise, I could look
away for a second and she would be gone, and I would be searching the roads and
parking lots until I would find her. One day, we were at the park with a
playgroup, and I was watching her go up and down the slide. I looked away
only for a few moments, looked back and she was not there anymore. I went
closer to the slide looking in and around the tunnel portion. She was
gone. I looked all around turning 360 degrees. She was
nowhere. The park was down a small hill from a busy road. I
quickly ran up to the road fearful I might find her struck by a car in the
street. She was not there either. She had vanished. So many fears racing
through my head at that moment. I ran all over the park. The
immediate need to find my child before something disastrous happened was
overwhelming. Finally, I ran to the
parking lot. I found her sitting by a car wheel playing with the rocks on
the road.
She gradually seemed to have less
and less of an attention span. I would notice other children her age
coming up to their parents and asking them for things, communicating with them,
understanding the parent’s instructions. I felt this sad envy every time
I saw that. Her cousin Jane was about a year younger and already talking
and communicating with sentences. For some reason, this discouraged me
even more. What happened to my happy little baby daughter that was
developing fine? She would giggle when I would dance with her. She used
to look at cameras and smile. Now she would not look anyone in the eye, let
alone a camera. I asked her ABA therapist if she thought she was
improving. She gave a half-hearted “yeah.”
Occupational therapy started
and this was different because now I would leave Addie at the clinic while they
worked with her. The clinic was set up somewhat like a gym with swings
and sensory pools filled with items and balance beams. Addie loved to
spin in the tire swing apparatus. Her therapist said it helped her focus
to spin and to swing. She would be more receptive after using the
swing. They taught her things like self-feeding and would work on her
speech as well.
Speech therapy was at
ACES. We worked with a very hard-working therapist who wouldn’t let Addie
get away with doing ANYTHING without using some type of communication.
She would see whatever toy Addie wanted to play with and then would not let her
play with it without her using her words. She had a lot of
“parent-directed” toys that required the adult to do something for it to work,
such as blowing a balloon and letting it go, or toys that needed the parent to
turn them on. Addie was basically forced to communicate. I knew
these therapies were helping somewhat but it didn’t change the fact that Addie
didn’t seem to want to communicate.
We continued these therapies
for about six months. Addie was coming up on her 3rd birthday
which meant she would be assessed by the school district now and not the
regional center. I did not really see a difference in her ability to
communicate. I felt like we were not really getting anywhere. What
I also did not see coming was the idea that Addie might be labeled
Autistic. I did not really have a clear understanding of what autism
was. I thought that the main characteristic of autism was that they were
not affectionate to their parents or others. Addie was affectionate on
occasions so for this reason I did not connect the dots.
She was assessed by the school
district in June 2009. At the IEP meeting after the assessment, they told
me that Addie qualified for services under the name of Autism. I think I
went into shock at the meeting, I started crying when I had to talk, I started
shaking and getting the chills. What in the world happened to my
perfect little developing baby? The rest of the meeting was kind of a
blur. They talked about goals that were aimed really low. They wanted
Addie to be able to imitate stacking blocks by the next year. I wanted
her to do pertinent things like ask me to play dolls with her by
tomorrow. I am exaggerating a little bit, but I was not ready for this
news. And I did agree with them that Addie was certainly delayed
developmentally. My mom looked over the assessment they gave
us. She had some other special education teachers she knew look over the
IEP to get their feedback. She didn’t want to tell me at the time, but
her scores were so low she feared mental retardation as well.
I had many thoughts run through
my mind that day. I had this urge to find out all I could about autism
and what I could do to help Addie. To me, I kind of sensed that her
temper was on edge a lot of the time. Her moods were hard to deal
with. I also knew that diet affected my moods and herbal supplements have
helped my brain feel calm. I thought there must be something I can do to
help nutritionally with Addie. I looked up diets for Autism and
immediately came across the gluten-free/casein-free diet which is basically
wheat-free and dairy-free. When I came across this, I thought about
Addie’s diet. She liked to drink milk, a lot of milk. In fact, milk
was one of the main staples of her diet. Taking away milk would be
difficult but if it wasn’t available, she really didn’t have the communication
skills to ask for it. It was my other kids I had to convince.
Meanwhile, my husband Ted was
in the middle of switching jobs. In fact, the day after Addie was diagnosed
with autism, he left on an airplane to start developing his new shipping
business in Utah. I was now alone during the workweek to figure out this
new challenge for our family. If there was any time in my life I wanted to just
sit down and cry this was the time. I really wanted to move to Utah, but
I realized that Utah does not have as comprehensive of services for early
childhood as the specialized autism program we qualified for in Irvine.
In Irvine, Addie would receive 5 hours a day, 4 days a week, in a special
education class specifically geared towards autism. She would almost have
one on one therapy in this class. In Utah, the best they could offer me
was a large special education preschool class, 3 hours a day, 4 days a week,
not specifically for autism. So, Ted went up to start his business
in Utah and I decided to stay in Irvine just to help Addie stay in the best
program possible. We also had no idea if his new business would generate
any income but I tried not to think about that. Ummm… oh yeah, and just to make
things extra chaotic, I decided to change our whole family’s diet to
gluten-free/casein-free! Talk about big changes all at once!
The first day I took away the
milk and wheat, Addie said her first spontaneous, non-forced, words to me at
the end of the day. We were leaving a pool party and she said, “No, this
way.” I was like, “What?” “Did she just try to communicate with
me?” This gave me two things: hope, that I really could make a difference
by changing her diet and… guilt. Did I really cause her delayed development by
feeding her too much milk? All alone one night with my kids I did sit
down and cry because I wanted to turn back time. My husband was
gone, my daughter had autism, and I had to figure out how to feed my family in
a completely new and foreign way. Luckily, my survival instincts kicked
in and I thought, “You don’t have time to cry and it won’t do any good anyway,
so just keep it together and do your best.”
First of all, nearly everything
has wheat in it. If it does not have wheat in it, it has milk. And
if it does not have those two things it usually has a lot of sugar, which
probably we should stay away from as well. What in the world were we
going to eat? Eggs? What if she had an allergy to those as
well? There was a little girl Addie’s age at church who went to the
same speech therapist who was allergic to eggs. I remember while
grocery shopping one day I almost broke down crying because how was I to know
what to buy? There were lots of different gluten-free/milk-free options
but everything seemed so expensive. Ted was trying to get his new business
running which was not producing a profit at that moment and I was now trying to
buy everything organic with unique ingredients. I nearly tripled our
grocery bill. I needed some type of clear answer if she really was
allergic to different foods or not.
I remember I was at a specialty
grocery store and a kind worker asked me if I needed help. I was so
overwhelmed, and I told her my predicament almost in tears. She gave me the
number of a doctor that specializes in a holistic approach to medicine that
could test Addie’s blood for allergies. That calmed me down for the
moment. I decided to make an appointment. She had a blood panel
done and tested about 50 different foods. The test was called
Comprehensive Food Panel IgG ELISA. The biggest allergens were milk and
wheat. Next were peanuts, oranges, pineapple, and watermelon.
I knew about oranges because every time I fed her orange juice, she would get a
huge rash in her elbow and knee folds. She was somewhat
allergic to about 15 other fruits and vegetables, but not eggs, thank
goodness. These signs pointed somewhat to a citrus allergy.
Citrus however is one of those foods that help you fight off viruses. If
Addie was allergic to citrus, then how could she be strengthened to fight off viruses?
The Doctor also
prescribed a lotion containing glutathione. Glutathione is the thing in
your body that gloms on to toxins and kills them and takes them out of the
body. I was supposed to rub it on her back. That seemed like worth a try.
We only used this a few times though.
The same day that I found out
about the GF/CF diet, I also was looking on the internet with my mom. She
opened a website that had blood samples of typical developing children and
blood samples of children on the autism spectrum. The samples of typical
developing children showed red blood cells that were bouncing off one another,
they had the theta-factor around each erythrocyte. In other words, they
were carrying oxygen and could flow through the veins easily. The blood
samples of the children on the autism spectrum showed erythrocytes that were
clumped together, they couldn’t flow easily because they were all stuck
together. There was also a lack of oxygen on the surface of the red blood
cells. Now, I am not a doctor, nor do I have access to large sample
groups of children so I can test if this website really was accurate. I
no longer can find the website either. It just sort of vanished which is
strange to me. I am just a mom, willing to try anything (of course not
quite everything because safety is an issue) to help her daughter have a
healthy shot at life. So, I researched how to get more oxygen into
one’s blood. I learned that people with more oxygen in their blood have a
more alkaline blood ph rather than acidic. So, eating foods that would
promote an alkaline blood ph would seem to be the goal at this point.
Pretty simple right? Well not exactly now that it seemed she could not
tolerate various foods that would help alkalize her blood. I bought some
ph strips to test her urine on. They came back acidic.
The summer of 2009 we vacationed
at my grandmother’s home in Salt Lake City. My mom helped me research
programs in Utah that treated children on the spectrum. We came across
The Children’s Center where we made an appointment to see one of the
psychologists there. She diagnosed Addie as being PDD-NOS (Pervasive
Development Disorder Not Otherwise Specified). It seemed with the diet
change was helping Addie improve. I didn’t want her to plateau
though. I wanted her to be able to continue improving so she could catch
up with her peers. We also visited the Pingree School for Autism Spectrum
children. The tuition seemed astronomical at $25,000 dollars a year plus
there was a two-year waiting list. While we were there, I remember that
the only thing Addie wanted to do was lay near the door and watch it open and
close. Although the diet was helping, she needed more than just a diet
change it seemed.
The frustration with finding a
healthy diet for Addie was weighing on my mind. I knew when she was about
9 months old, she had had a yeast rash from eating some frosting. I
wondered if she might have a yeast problem that was causing all these
allergies. Yeast tends to grow in an acidic environment and crowds out
the healthy flora that is supposed to be in the gut. I found some good pro-biotics
online from a company on www. Thecandidayeastanswer.com. I saw a
good change in alertness and attentiveness with this. But was it helping
enough?
At church in California, I met
a woman whose son was also on the Spectrum. She was giving him some
enzymes to help him digest his food and to combat too much yeast in the
body. I talked with her about the dietary changes she made and the
progress she saw in her son. I decided to give the enzymes she suggested
a try. I noticed a change in her bowel movements. And I noticed she
was able to focus more during her various therapies. I bought some books
to read, Enzymes for Autism, Nourishing Hope, A Child’s Journey Out of
Autism. All were very good reads and very informative on simple
dietary changes that help children be able to have healthier bodies and
digestive function.
There was so much I
wanted to learn about digestion and how to make it easier for Addie. You
need the omega- 3 fats to create brain cells. I learned that you need
bile to digest fats. You need the amino acid taurine and vitamin B-5 to
make bile. The body was a complex machine I was trying to learn
more about. There was also a problem with foods that contain something
called phenols. Apparently, phenols are a big problem for kids with ADHD
and ASD. Many children on the spectrum can’t process phenols and so they
interfere with their ability to be calm. Unfortunately, phenols are also
compounds that detoxify the body and typically come from antioxidants.
They need more sulfate to be able to process the phenols. One book
suggested using Epsom Salt baths (magnesium sulfate) to help with the
process. The first time I gave Addie an Epsom salt bath I found that her
stool was very darkly colored after this bath and that she was finally
processing all these darkly pigmented foods I had been feeding her. There
are also popular diets out there called the Fein-gold diet, the Specific
–Carbohydrate Diet, and various others trying to help with these digestive
issues. But the problem I found though is it is extremely difficult to
control what your child eats not only because they can be picky, but because we
live in a social world where there will be food available to them that is not
on the diet you think would be beneficial to them.
I am also a big believer in
all-natural solutions. It is just intuition I admit. Modern medicine has
made great advancements in our day, but sometimes I feel their protocol should
be the last solution not the first. I have often felt the same benefits
from taking all-natural herbs as from taking antibiotics or other synthetic
medicines.
The other concern I had about
what was causing her development delay was heavy metals or mercury. If
she cannot detoxify her body, then the vaccinations that she had been given
were still in her body wreaking havoc. What if the aluminum in the
vaccines was still in her body? What if there was mercury in those
vaccinations? Did she need chelation? Should I feed her lots of
cilantro? (Cilantro is a natural chelator apparently) I was comparing the
vaccination records of my children. My first child was vaccinated
starting at two months old. I nursed him for 2 years. My second child was
vaccinated starting at two months old. I nursed her for 8 months. Addie
was given the hepatitis B vaccine at two weeks old,
(Why!?) and I only nursed her for six months. I remember reading in my
journal two weeks after Addie’s MMR vaccine at around 18 months…. “Addie
is doing cute things lately like bobbing her head and walking on her tippy
toes.” UMMMMMM…… I am not saying that the MMR caused her autism, but it
seemed to be the nail in the coffin.
Meanwhile, in September 2009, I
would take Addie for walks around the neighborhood parks. One
evening after dinner, I took my kids to the park by myself. I noticed
a woman there with her almost two-year-old son. She was trying to get him
to interact with my children. She also was trying to have him not run
away. She sat him on her lap and began blowing bubbles trying to get him
to imitate her. I was a little bold, but I said, “Is your son
autistic?” She said, “Yes.” I talked with her for as much as I
could before her son was running away too far. I told her about Addie and
all the things I was doing to try and help her. I invited her to my house
to show her all the supplements we were taking. Pro-biotics and Himalayan
salt seemed to be making a big impact. I
think I even gave her some Epsom salts to try a bath on her son. I
gave her my phone number and email address but never heard back from her after
that night.
I also learned about Hyperbaric
Oxygen chambers. They force more oxygen into the bloodstream through
pressure. They have shown good success rates with helping kids on the
spectrum. Kids have started talking after using these machines.
Forcing more oxygen into the blood seemed to be the perfect solution. Oxygen
makes the blood less acidic, a more alkaline environment killing off yeast and
fungus. More oxygen means the blood will be able to clean the body better
and thus processing the vaccinations and whatever other toxins were in her
body. So, I ventured out to try one of these machines. I went
to a showroom-type place where they sell the machines and let you try them
out. Addie and I got inside. The man helping us was outside
controlling the dive or the pressure that we would experience. I suddenly
felt a lot of pressure on my body. I had to clear my ears or else they
would pop. I noticed Addie had a little bit of a runny nose. I
wondered if she would be able to clear her ears. I asked her if she was
okay. She was not letting me know. I remember she got stung
by a bee at the park the other day and it did not even phase her. Her
sensory system was a little off and I knew she did not have a normal sense of
pain. I was getting scared. What if her eardrums popped? I
quickly signaled for the man to let us out. I was a little disappointed
this machine was so hard for us to use and that it cost an arm and a leg at
about $10,000. On the drive home though, Addie seemed extra alert and
attentive to my questions, so I was somewhat encouraged.
Addie was making quick progress
at Pre-school after all my efforts with the dietary changes. They moved
her up from the more severe class to the higher-functioning program. I
was so thrilled! I knew we were getting somewhere. I also
wanted to move to Utah so that I could get my family together and not feel like
a single mom anymore. In November of 2009, I finally felt like Utah’s
programs for special needs could handle my daughter’s case and having our
family all in one place would be beneficial to all of us. My other two
children were constantly complaining about the things I made for
breakfast. They did not like such great recipes as bean flour/beet
pancakes, or cilantro/honey/beans pie. I did not really either, but I was
trying to get our family healthy. The diet was wearing me out. I
knew that, in reality, it would not be a long-term solution. It was too
hard and frustrating controlling everything she ate and spending so much time
cooking on things she would not eat. I had faith that there would be
something out there, that God would lead me to something that would change
things. I did not know what, but I still thought there would be an easier
solution to getting more oxygen in her blood. I thought about
food-grade hydrogen peroxide, but it seemed too dangerous. Accidental
overdose can kill people. I was nervous to even have it in my
house. I was tempted to give it to her so many times, but I knew
that there had to be something safer out there. There had to be something that
would be safe for me to share with other parents of Autistic children.
Thankfully, my faith that God would lead me to something safer kept me from
trying things that seemed dangerous.
Let me elaborate on Himalayan salt for a moment.
I came across pink Himalayan salt.
This salt has many minerals in it including iron which give it a “pink”
color. WATER & SALT: THE ESSENCE OF LIFE By Peter Ferreira and
Dr. Barbara Hendel is a book I recommend on understanding the role of
salt in our bodies. Pink Himalayan salt helps balance the body's ph and
replenishes electrolytes helping the overall energy of the body. I saw a
significant die-off and regression when I gave Addie this salt, which helped me
know that it was working. Later, I noticed an increase in her ability to
pay attention and learn.
Keeping Addie away from sweets during Christmas would
be hard. In fact, controlling Addie’s diet so that the yeast which fed on
sugar would die off and the blood would be more alkaline and able to flow
freely was nearly impossible! I did not want to take her to any social
functions where this food would be offered but she also needed the social
interaction. I did notice that Addie was progressing faster than her
schoolmates and was able to move up to a higher-functioning program. It
seemed though that I was getting just “little bites” of success only leaving me
hungry and impatient for more progress I could be observing. I did want her
to go to social things and interact with other kids, but I feared what foods
might be there that would disrupt any progress she was making.
One day I took Addie out in the stroller for a walk to
the park while the other kids were at school. I remember seeing a father
and his two-year-old son at the park we were passing. I wanted to go to a
park that was further away because I wanted to get more exercise, but something
kept nagging me. I kept getting the feeling that Addie needed to go and
play with that son. I ignored the feeling, but it would not go away. So,
I turned around walked back to the park we passed, and introduced myself to the
man and his son. It turns out it was the same little boy I
had met earlier with his mom at the park one evening. We exchanged phone
numbers and addresses because I wanted to tell them about all the things that
were helping Addie. They had our family over for dinner at their house
one evening and we found strength in each other’s stories. We also commented
to each other how it was strange to know about so many autism cases in our
small community. We often saw much older children at our park clearly with
severe autism. At least now I had the support
of someone going through my same struggles.
I had the idea for a while like a therapy dog might
help Addie start communicating more. She might feel more comfortable
interacting with a pet. In January 2010, my mom found a clipping in the
penny saver advertising standard poodle puppies. We called and asked if
we could come to look at the litter. So, for my birthday we went to Lake
Elsinore and picked out two white standard poodle puppies, a girl and a boy.
Why did I get two? I am not sure. Why did I think I could afford two? I do not
know. I did not realize that having two would make it harder not
easier. We named them Elsie and Toby. Thus, I was thrust into the
world of dog ownership. It was raining the first week I brought them
home. This made the first week even more difficult because they were not
house-trained, and I could not just leave them outside. My kids really did
enjoy them though. I do recommend Standard poodles as a
breed. They are very gentle and love attention. They do need a lot
of grooming, but their hair does not shed so it is good for people with
allergies. Elsie (she is 13 years old as I am writing this) has never bitten
anyone...ever... even other dogs (except for her big brother Toby when they
were play fighting). She even likes to play with cats. She
has however caught a duck in her mouth once, but the breed was meant
for duck hunting. I am not sure if I can chalk this one up as a win
for Addie’s therapy. Mainly because they did make my life somewhat more
complicated in that small little townhouse we were living in. I thought we
would be moving to a big home in Utah before the dogs got too big, but they
grew rather fast. Pretty soon I was living with three children, one with
special needs, and two crazy large poodle puppies all in a small-town house
with just a patio. I really didn’t want to leave the services we were
getting and my hometown with all my friends and family, but we had to move
somewhere larger. I needed to be in the same state as my husband!
In August of 2010, I finally
took a leap of faith and moved to a nice neighborhood in Utah. We needed to
celebrate Addie’s fourth birthday. Addie’s birthday cake was a stack of
gluten-free pancakes with strawberries in between with no sugar.
Fortunately, she was too young to think this wasn’t normal. School started
right away in Utah. Addie was in a very nice preschool that had a mix of
special needs children and typical developing children. This seemed ideal
because now she had examples of typical behaving children that she could
pattern herself after and see what typical social interaction was like.
Addie and I went to tour the school beforehand. The room had just received new
carpet though and the fumes were kind of giving me a headache. I was a
little worried that this would decrease the oxygen in Addie’s blood. I
voiced my concern to Addie’s new teacher. She didn’t think it wasn’t a big deal
and kind of looked at me like I was overreacting. Oh well, hopefully they
will keep the windows open or something I thought. By this point, I was
researching essential oils. They seemed to have an effect but not nearly
the scale that I wanted.
We enjoyed living in a larger
home with a backyard for the poodles to run and play. I continued to pray
that God would lead me to something that would help Addie’s blood. I was
hoping this move to Utah was a good decision and not one I would regret.
A few months went by and another move to a smaller house seemed like a better
fit for our family of five. (I kind of went overboard with renting such a
large place at first) We still had a large yard for our poodles to run
though!
During Christmas 2010, I was at
a party at my in-law’s house when I met one of Ted’s uncles. I told him
all about my journey with Addie and all the dietary supplements I was giving
her and how much progress she was making. He told me how he was using a machine
that separates his red blood cells and gets them to flow better through his
veins. I stopped right there and looked at him. I was so
astonished, I said, “That is exactly what I am looking for.” Apparently,
he had been using it for his kidneys so that he would not have to go on
dialysis. The machine was called the BEMER 3000. It was a pulsed
electromagnetic field. The same type of technology is used in astronaut
suits. Basically, it uses the iron in the blood to help “unstick” the red
blood cells and get them to bounce off one another and freely move through all
the veins. He told me we could come by and try the machine. I went
by one day and both Addie and I tried the machine on level one. You lay
on the mat for 8 minutes while it sends a magnetic field around your
body. You cannot feel anything. At the end of the eight minutes,
you tend to feel more relaxed. Some even fall asleep. Addie seemed
calmer after she tried the machine. The next day I felt a total detox
reaction. I felt completely groggy like I was sick. Toxin’s die-off
gases were being released into my blood creating less oxygen in my blood for
the time being. I also noticed a day or two later, an eczema patch I had
had on my leg for about 3 months was now completely gone. This machine
was definitely doing something.
For my birthday, Ted surprised
me by buying the machine. It cost more than Ted’s car at $4,000 but we
were miraculously able to afford it. I started Addie on a program
of 8 min twice a day at level one. We stopped being so strict with her
diet. I gradually increased the levels each week until we got to level
10. Addie was so much calmer. She used the machine for 3 months
twice a day eight minutes at a time. Something was changing. She used the
mat from late January to the beginning of May so about 3 months. In May,
I headed down to California with Addie for my cousin’s wedding. I brought
the BEMER 3000 and was able to share it with my friend who had a son with
autism. I asked her how it was going after he used the mat for the first
time. She said that she didn’t know and that he had had a seizure. I
wondered if it was a toxin-die-off reaction. Luckily, he was okay. (Fast
forward 8 years later and He is a typical 6th grader who loves
basketball and socializing with friends). I knew that Addie’s success with
this new therapy had to be shared. In a few months, she would be headed
to kindergarten. I was still a little worried about her ability to pay
attention in kindergarten and want to participate but she definitely was
changing. Here are some blog entries I wrote around that time:
Friday, March 18, 2011 (Addie is 4 years old)
Well, Addie has shown tremendous growth in the past month. Plus
considering she is totally off the diet except for some probiotics I still give
her every morning. On Feb. 22, she gave her first talk in Primary (Sunday
School) in front of all the kids and she did awesome. We are in a new ward and
I haven't needed to tell anyone about her previous diagnosis. She did just as
well as the other kids her age and we were so proud of her. Addie can now write
her name and her preschool teacher says she is making strides with her social
goals as well. We asked her yesterday who her friend is at preschool, and she
said "Grace." I was shocked on so many levels. First of all, she
hardly ever answers hard questions, second of all she has typically a bad
memory, and third of all she usually plays by herself at school. So, I am
thrilled with this progress she is making! Yesterday we had friends over, and I
told Addie to take the girls to her room to show them her Barbies and she did,
and apparently, they had fun playing. I think she is acting more and more
typical each day. So, it has been about 2 months of using the BEMER and the
progress has been gradual, but the progress definitely is there, and I am
excited about it! I am so thankful for this miracle!
Tuesday,
January 10, 2012 (Addie is 5 ½ years old)
Addie has been going to Kindergarten since August and is doing
great! She doesn't need an aide and is learning how to read. Yesterday she
sounded out her first word to me and to her teacher! I asked her what she does
at school, and she said, "I sit at my desk and do my work and write
letters on papers." Right now, we have three neighborhood kids over that
she is playing barbies with. I can't believe how far she has come!
I lent out
my BEMER mat to a few other children on the spectrum. All showed rapid
gains in development after using the mat. I have always worried that kids
might have a negative reaction like my friend’s son did but so far, they all
did fine. I would like to open a place where kids on the spectrum can use
the mats but alas, I am not a doctor and worry that I may be in over my
head. I know that using the machine needs to be under the care of a
physician for kids on the spectrum. You can
buy a PEMF device without a prescription so anyone can use one if they really
wanted to. Maybe I just need a lawyer,
not a doctor!
Around the time Addie was in fifth grade in
2016, the school district wanted to evaluate her again. They wanted to
know if her IEP should still be qualified under Autism. After all the
tests and surveys, they determined that she no longer would receive services
under the reason of “autism” but now, it was just under the term “specific
learning disability.” I knew she was doing well but she kept improving!
We put her in volleyball lessons and electric guitar lessons. She continued to
progress.
Journal entry from August 2021… “Addie is going
into tenth grade now. She is a typical moody teenager. She has graduated
out of all of her IEPs the last of which was just speech. She is almost
15 years old and loves drawing digital art, running on the cross-country team,
and playing her electrical guitar. She has come a long way from being
non-verbal and not knowing her name. She jokes with me; she sends me funny
Instagram posts. She wants to go into film production as a career.
I often come across children that never receive intervention in a bio-medical
sense. I have offered my machine to anyone who believes it could help
their child. I often think if people just knew about this machine and tried it,
it could make a big difference in the lives of many of these children. I have
called many autism research groups but they wouldn’t take me seriously.
I almost went back to school just to get a master's in neuroscience
so I could create medical studies on the BEMER. I just may if writing
this book doesn’t help spread the word enough. “
I don’t really know what else to say. This
machine changed the trajectory of my daughter’s life. She once was severely developmentally delayed
and now she jokes around with me and has great communication skills. She is still an introvert but then again so
am I. I hope this gives hope to many
people out there who are in the same situation.
I can’t say that this is a cure for autism, but I believe if doctors
knew what a difference it made in my daughter’s life they would be willing to recommend
it. It just may be the intervention that
your child needs.
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