Comments on: “Hope is a very addictive drug”

By: mysonsdad

mysonsdad — Thu, 28 Jun 2007 23:48:00 +0000

Kristina, hard to disagree with your posts. You’re right about, “You don’t know until you try”.

I believe Mark Twain said, ” A man who carries a cat by the tail learns something he can learn in no other way”.

By: Kristina Chew, PhD

Kristina Chew, PhD — Thu, 28 Jun 2007 23:05:11 +0000

Charlie is now brushing his teeth on his own (almost, with supervision) a couple of times a day—-at home and school—-and been eating a bigger variety of things.

You don’t know until you’ve tried? Though some thing we’ve tried I have felt were not the most helpful, or helpful at all.

By: mysonsdad

mysonsdad — Thu, 28 Jun 2007 22:59:12 +0000

Leila, most families are pretty precautious when it comes to battle picking, yet war scars are sometimes inevtiable. Good luck with your approach.

By: Leila

Leila — Thu, 28 Jun 2007 20:41:13 +0000

Mysonsdad, one thing I learned is to pick our battles. Before my son’s diagnosis of autism his diet was very healthy, but then once therapy started, I realized that some sugary treats were a huge reinforcement that helped him learn things extremely fast, and behave better as well. He’s not any more hyper than he was before I increased sugar on his diet, but he certainly is way more verbal and engaged. And I brush his teeth much more frequently too.

By: mysonsdad

mysonsdad — Thu, 28 Jun 2007 10:38:45 +0000

Actually Leila, takes just as much time and energy to eat healthy than it does to eat otherwise.

If nothing more, I do think removing sugar from some of our children’s diets may show positive outcomes. Dr. McCandless book, Children with Starving Brains is one of many interesting reads about this matter.

By: Kristina Chew, PhD

Kristina Chew, PhD — Thu, 28 Jun 2007 05:04:26 +0000

Charlie only started to like to eat anything gummy this year. Think I’ll avoid the TJ ones……

By: Leila

Leila — Thu, 28 Jun 2007 04:46:26 +0000

I haven’t done the diet because my son has no gut issues, and he tested negative for all allergies, negative for yeast overgrowth, etc. So I won’t spend our family’s time, money and energy on GF/CF. The one reaction he seems to have is to artificial dye (a little rash on the face), so I stopped giving him the Flintstones vitamins. He won’t take the gummies, so it’s been hard to find a replacement. The Trader Joe’s vitamins for kids tasted like cement.

By: mysonsdad

mysonsdad — Thu, 28 Jun 2007 00:32:35 +0000

Thanks for your reply Kristina.

By: Kristina Chew, PhD

Kristina Chew, PhD — Wed, 27 Jun 2007 22:43:17 +0000

mysonsdad,

One can read and read about what others do, and then one has to choose the best path for one’s circumstances…… the diet seemed very helpful for a younger Charlie. Of late, with some experimenting here and there, we have not seen any changes—–not that I’m going to order Charlie a pizza and a milkshake (dairy products do seem to be something to avoid for him)! Food generally has a big effect on Charlie.

Charlie takes Zoloft and Risperdal (I’ve written on this here). He started Zoloft for anxiety that seemed related to his self-injurious behaviors, and then the Risperdal when he was really having a lot of difficulties, and to help him in school while we looked for a new placement.

I am going to respond to your final question in another post!

By: mysonsdad

mysonsdad — Wed, 27 Jun 2007 16:13:43 +0000

Excellent topic to bring into the blogsphere.

Laidler makes good points, yet it’s hard to adhere to absolutes given most parents are willing to travel to the ends of the earth for a good therapy.

My wife and I have pursued, for our son, pretty much every known non-drug related approach to address “his” autism. To date, The GF/CF all organic diet has yielded some hopeful results in the area of behavior i.e less flapping, less hyper, less stressful episodes, and there are a few others.
Also, investing more time with him has yielded some very special results. In fact, the more time I spend with him the more I realize that we have much in common. For example, he’s a good athlete much like I was at his age (my wife too was a very good junior athlete).
Maybe it’s important to admit that there will not be a single right solution to autism.

Dr. Chew, hope it’s ok to ask, is Charlie on meds?
Have followed your blog for several months and have read, for example, about Charlie’s progress in school. If you had to sum it all up(if that’s possible), what do you attribute to his progress?