Causes of Allergies and Autism

One of the most frustrating things about the disorders on the Autism Spectrum (anything from ADD, asthma, allergies, sensory integration disorder, pervasive developmental disorder,  to severe autism) is that most all medical information declares that there is no known cause. In regards strictly to Autism, the medical community forcefully says that it is not caused by vaccines (of course the research is paid for by the pharmaceutical companies who want to sell millions of their vaccines), they spend lots of money researching genetics, but all in all, they say they do not know what causes it. Yes, genetics is a cause, but only in about 5% of cases. Well, what about the other 95%? This 95% is why the prevalence of it has exploded to epidemic proportions in recent years. It’s the same reason why allergies and sensory disorders are exploding too.

A few statistics on Autism:

• 1 in 150 children in the US now have Autism
• 4:1 ratio of boys to girls
• 1 in 94 boys in the US have Autism
• Fastest growing developmental disability
• More children will be diagnosed with autism this year than cancer, diabetes, Down’s Syndrome and AIDS combined
• $100 Billion annual costs
• In 10 years the annual costs are projected at 200-400 billion.
• Cost of lifelong care can be reduced by 2/3rds with early intervention
• A family with a child with autism will fund 3 to 5 million dollars of services throughout the lifetime of the child
• Autism receives less than 5% of the research funding of most of the more prevalent childhood disorders
• Approximately 1 million individuals in the US have autism

(From Generation Rescue)

Those are the currently published statistics, and some of those numbers, like the 1:150, are old. The ratio is dropping, and it’s dropping fast.

CAUSES

There are many causes. The contributing factors are different for each child (or at least the 95% of them that isn’t not genetic). But, they all come back to the same thing – toxic overload. Here are the pieces of Jordan’s puzzle that caused his allergies and PDD (pervasive developmental disorder). At least these are the pieces I’ve figured out so far, I could very well find out more in the future. In chronological order (not order of gravity of contribution to his problem).

1. Aluminum & Other Metals (heavy metal toxicity) – Before I knew I was pregnant, I was having horrible abdominal pain every evening and through the night. I figured out it was trapped gas and started taking antacids like crazy. Guess what? Most antacids contain aluminum. Guess what? I was pregnant with Jordan, less than 10 weeks along (but didn’t know it). There was no blood brain barrier in him yet, the metals had free access to every developing cell of his body, including his brain. We’ve all heard about the dangers of lead poisoning, the scares of lead paint, etc. Same thing, aluminum and other metals just don’t get as much media attention.
2. Stress & Poor Nutrition – During the pregnancy we moved and were living with family and in-laws alternately. Very stressful, poor eating habits. Also, with the birth of my first child I had 4th degree tears, causing the worst pain of my life during the following months. I was hardly able to stand or sit because of the pain, had to have surgery 4 months later to correct things, and it took 11 months before I could sit down without pain. To say the least, I was stressed about giving birth again. Stress = raised cortisol levels. Raised cortisol levels during pregnancy, especially the 3rd trimester, not good.
3. Yeast Overgrowth – During pregnancy I had several bouts with yeast infections. This indicated that I had poor gut bacteria and overgrowth of yeast, but I didn’t know that then and only treated the local yeast infection. During the birth process, the baby’s digestive tract is colonized with the gut bacteria from the mother. And, while breastfeeding the baby’s gut bacteria closely resembles the mother’s. Yeast overgrowthin the gut, unchecked, can lead to leaky gut syndrome. With holes in the gut, partially digested foods, proteins particularly (peptides), can enter the bloodstream. These peptides are not recognized by the immune system as food, but resemble foreign invaders such as bacteria or virus. The immune system attacks and you have food allergies. Also these peptides can reach the brain and act as opiates, contributing to some autistic symptoms – how would you act if you were high all the time? Allergies also cause inflammation throughout the body = lots of problems.
4. Hepatitis B Vaccine & Others – Day one of life Jordan had the hepatitis B vaccine. Guess what is in the hepatitis B vaccine? Aluminum! The known toxic dose of aluminum for a baby is 20 micrograms. The amount in the Hep B vaccine? 250 micrograms! At 2 months he was fully vaccinated with the recommended vaccines. The aluminum content? 1,875 micrograms! (from Dr. Robert Sears who gathered the data from the FDA’s data and web site). I know he has issues with other heavy metals too, it’s just not as obvious how he might have gotten them (although they are in the air, water, food, vaccines, etc) Heavy metals also cause yeast overgrowth problems and yeast actually bind onto the metals. So, until you get rid of the metals, you won’t completely get rid of the yeast problems. Metals also cause allergy problems. Also in vaccines: formaldehyde, antifreeze, arsenic.  Obviously, not good things to put in a baby already struggling with so much junk in him. These early vaccines (Hep B on day 1 of life) can also cause an inflammed gut with a result similar to yeast overgrowth were proteins can cross into the blood, resulting in allergies. They also can overload the immune system creating an overactive Th2 response and underactive Th1 response. 
5. Environmental Toxins– we’re surrounded by toxins in our air, water, cleaners, personal care products, food (pesticides, metals, chemicals, excitotoxins), perfumes, air fresheners, etc. With all the other toxins in his body, his little system quickly became overwhelmed and couldn’t clean the junk out like most of us are able to and so it just kept accumulating, wrecking havoc with normal body and brain functions.

So far, those are the pieces of our puzzle. Maybe we’ll find more, maybe not. Everyone’s puzzle will be different. But I’m satisfied that I have a good enough grasp of the causes to know the target for healing.

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Enter Dr. P. – New Doctor for Treating Food Allergies and Autism

As you know, we’ve been waiting for a consultation with a new doctor in Pittsburgh. Well, we had that consultation yesterday – we got moved up on a cancellation! Before I jump into that news, I’ll review. 

RECAP

 I pursued a new doctor to check into alternatives to the protocol Dr. K had Jordan on. Which was:

1. Nutritional Support – Dr. K added a couple supplements to what we were already doing when we first saw him – that’s it
2. Yeast Overgrowth Treatment – we rotated between 3 different ones, including 2 prescription anti-fungals. The prescription anti-fungals made him regress horribly in his speech and behavior. After being on the prescriptions for a month, I took him off to give him a little break and he started speaking more the first day he was off of them and putting 2 words together again. However, it took an entire month and continuing cranial sacral & chiropractic neurology appointments to regain the lost development of the month on anti-fungals.
3. LDA Shots – That’s Low-Dose Antigen for allergies. It requires prescription anti-fungals and a somewhat complicated 17 day protocol. And total, it takes 3 years. Part of the purpose for these is to calm the inflammation in his body and help to reverse the Th1/Th2 immune response. Jordan has an overactive Th2, and an under-active Th1 – opposite of what it should be and needs to be. This step was required before beginning chelation.
4. Chelation – treatment to pull heavy metals out of his body, which he is toxic with.

So, basically, with Jordan’s horrible regression on the prescription anti-fungals and my refusal to continue to give them to him (without first checking out other available options), he couldn’t get the LDA shots, which means he couldn’t get the chelation. This basically means, he wouldn’t get treated, at least not with this protocol. It all hinged on the prescription anti-fungals. Bummer, huh. Well…maybe not.

In my mind, I thought, surely there is a way to treat the yeast with natural anti-fungals. And are the shots really necessary? Isn’t there another way to go about calming inflammation and reversing the confused immune system? Hence, I contacted Dr. P’s office and we’ve been waiting for the appointment. Everything I could find online about him and his protocols, it looked like that’s how he treats these disorders. But I couldn’t tell for sure… 

NEW DOCTOR – WELCOME DR. P!

Are you keeping all these doctor’s straight? That makes: Dr. R., Dr. K., Dr. P, and Dr. B. And I haven’t mentioned Miss T and Miss K. for his therapies. Okay, moving on. The new doctor – Dr. P…

I filled out a lengthy questionnaire, including essays, fully expecting to have to repeat verbally everything I had written when we actually got into the consultation. Not so! I like this doctor already.

The first thing he asked was, “Where are you at with Jordan’s treatment right now?” So I told him what happened with the prescription anti-fungals and told him I had taken Jordan off of that protocol and was giving Jordan a break while we waited to be able to talk with him. (But had kept Jordan on the other supplements and had just put him back on the non-prescription anti-fungal earlier this week.) Dr. P. said, “Great. I don’t like the prescription anti-fungals, many kids don’t react well to them. I don’t use them.” Now I’m really liking this doctor! He affirmed my “against medical advice” decision – whew. And, he does treat the yeast, but he uses alternatives, not prescriptions! And he has about 5 he uses, so if Jordan reacts to a couple there are other options to try. That gives me some peace of mind.

Then he went on to explain several other supplements he wants to put Jordan on, what they are, who makes them, what they do, and the order in which to start giving them to Jordan. He asked about Jordan’s diet, said what we are doing sounds great. He emphasized getting good fats in him, using hemp seed oil (has the perfect fat ratio) and nut flours in his diet along with the ghee and hemp milk we were already doing. Does this sound science-fiction yet? I had never even heard of these foods before Jordan. Anyway…

A few of the supplements he is putting Jordan on are specifically to calm the inflammation in his gut & body, help stabilize the cell, and to help switch the Th1/Th2 dominance around. So that replaces the main purpose of the LDA shots!!! No prescription anti-fungals necessary! No shots! No 3 year treatment plan just for shots! No 17 day protocol for each and every shot!

Once Jordan gets established on these supplements and there is time to see how he does on them and make sure he adjusts and isn’t reacting, and then we will start chelating!!! That means getting the heavy metals out of his body, cells, and brain. He is going to use OSR as the chelating agent. It’s new. It is fat soluble instead of water soluble (other chelating agents such as DSMA are water soluble) which means it can get INTO the cell, and get metals and free radicals out of there – very critical. Being fat soluble also means it crosses the blood/brain barrier so it can get the metals out of the brain – also very critical. And it has NO lethal dose value, which means it’s totally non-toxic. Very cool. He may use another agent as well, depends on the heavy metal test I do and the results. Yes, me, I do the test. Since Jordan’s problems started so young, it’s a safe bet that his heavy metals resemble mine fairly closely, with some metals from vaccines added to him.

And the best news of all…this is a doctor who “gets me”. In 2 ways:

1) He jumped right in to exactly where we are at with Jordan’s treatment, no more waiting and going through all the first steps of the dietary measures, cleaning up the home environment, etc yet again.

2) He immediately picked up on the fact that I’ve done tons of research, pay very close attention to Jordan and to what is going on in his body, and know what is going on with his treatment. Dr. P. gave me the guidelines – which supplements/medicines to use, what they do, and what order start giving them to Jordan in – and then “set me free” to proceed with Jordan’s treatment. I get to watch Jordan in order to determine which ones Jordan can tolerate or not, how often to rotate the ones that need to be rotated (within guidelines), determine when Jordan is adjusted to the main supplements to where he would be ready to start chelation, etc. Of course, any questions I have they are available to answer them. But it is such a HUGE relief to know that when I sense something is not right for Jordan – I can stop it or change it! No more waiting for doctor’s orders. And when I see something is really good for him – I can keep it up! No more waiting an entire month for the dr’s appointment to get them to change one little bitty thing (or huge thing as the case may be). No more paying lots of money to not be listened to when I tell them something is very wrong. No more not being able to ask, “This doesn’t seem to be working, is there another way to go about accomplishing this goal?” Yes, I’m VERY excited about this new doctor!

After he went through ALL of these things – and there was A LOT, he asked me if I was overwhelmed with it. Nope! Not a bit! It’s so great to have someone who knows be able to tell me which supplements Jordan needs, which ones are the best, what order to do them in, etc. What a relief! I don’t have to figure that all out on my own. Now the thought of that – all the research, all the intricacies of medical treatment and the tremendous load of responsibility – is overwhelming. And I’ve certainly thought it. I haven’t just thought it, I lived it for the first year and half of Jordan’s life and I don’t want to go back. Maybe that’s why I’m so confident moving forward. It doesn’t overwhelm me or scare me a bit to be this involved in decisions about his treatment. I wouldn’t want it any other way. I know Jordan the best of anyone. Who better to see how he’s responding and adjust accordingly. Sure there will be moment of doubt. Moments, even days, of unknowns as we go through ups and downs and when some supplements/medications work, it may look like a bad reaction instead of the good that it is actually doing. I’ll certainly need wisdom. And the new regimen of supplements, timing them throughout the day – with meals, empty stomach, on food, in drink, through syringe, rub on skin – and tracking them through weeks and months for rotating, starting, stopping, restarting, and dosing changes is daunting. But, that’s okay; we’re up to the challenge! It’s way better than figuring everything out on my own! But still pray for endurance, wisdom, and cooperation from Jordan 🙂  Poor little guy doesn’t always love medicines being mixed into every drink or bowl of food (actually he hates it, but tolerates it as long as he doesn’t have to watch you add it) – although he generally loves drinking anything out of a syringe and having things rubbed on his skin 🙂 Hopefully, nothing we add to his regimen will change that.

I like the new protocol. It addresses what needs to be addressed (same issues as the other treatment protocol), does it with more natural means, and we can begin chelating a lot sooner. We’ll see if it works and if Jordan can tolerate it…

 

P.S. After I receive all the supplements and stuff next week, and have it all organized, I’ll post our new daily regimen.

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