Our Visit to a Bio-Med Doctor

We received a recommendation to take Nathan to a DAN-Doctor. DAN is the http://www.defeatautismnow.com/ site which is a spin off of the Autism Research Institute. They have special training for those interested in learning more about how to help and treat children with autism.

There were DAN-certified people closer, but it was recommended to us that for our needs, we see a person who was a full MD as well as DAN-certified. We need someone who will use medical testing combined with DAN-testing to give us a full picture.

Prior to going to the doctor, we were able to get a good chunk of the blood work done here at home. Our primary care doctor is working with us and ordered the tests so we could get them done here in-network.

Some of you asked what we had done. We did:

• CBC
• CMP
• Vitamin D
• Vitamin A
• Lipid Panel
• ASO titer
• DNaseB titer
• Thyroid (free T3, free T4, TSH, resverse T3, anti TG ab, anti TPO ab)

We brought home the following kits and will have these done prior to our next appointment. Some of these have to be done fasting and you need the kits because they aren't traditional western medicine.

• Amino Acids (both plasma & urine)
• Organic Acid
• Food Panel
• Essential & Metabolic Fatty Acid
• Hair Analysis

When going over Nathan's history, we mentioned the ear infections and two sets of tubes. He immediately said, "Oh, so Nathan's got a milk allergy?" We said no, we think he's a little lactose intolerant because he tends to avoid milk products. The doctor told us, "No--the number one cause of ear infections in infants is a milk allergy. He's allergic to milk." Then when we did the scratch tests for allergies, he was allergic to milk. If I would have known that, we could have done something about it 7 years ago (or 11 if you think about his brother having two sets of tubes).

Out of the testing that had been done, he discovered a fairly significant deficiency in Vitamin D, a little deficiency in Vitamin A, he's not producing enough Selenium and his cholesterol is too low and he prescribed a type of cholesterol.

To get enough Vit. A & D, he told us to give Nathan Cod Liver Oil daily. This would be from fall through spring each year. He thinks it will help with the depression-type of symptoms and helps other kids who are aggressive to calm them. Especially since Nathan isn't drinking milk, he doesn't get enough A & D when it's winter and he's indoors. We will get a specific type of selenium capsules to give him as well.

He did allergy testing and found Nathan to be allergic to most molds, most household pets (Mom said, "Yes--NO DOGS!!"), most seasonal allergen plants and lots of trees. He started Nathan on allergy shots and we'll get those weekly for now. The goal is to build up Nathan's immunity to the allergens instead of treating the symptoms. Their philosophy is to treat the cause, not the symptoms.

We discovered prior to doing the allergy testing that Nathan's sinus and nasal passages are about 50% blocked and one ear is 'plugged' and one ear has fluid (not infected) in it. We thought he was doing so great and 'normal.' The nurse was so concerned about how bad he was doing and we thought he was great. She thinks in the next 4-6 months of allergy shots, we will start to see a new child in his breathing and energy.

We're taking sort of a shotgun approach to everything we've been learning. We're working on everything at once and trying to maximize the benefits to Nathan. He was scared of the skin tests because the last time we did it (at a local allergy clinic), they did individual scratches. At this office, they have a rack of plastic scratchers that do 8 at one time. He only had to have 6 push scratches since she did two racks at a time (one in each hand). It was over so much faster and he was so brave in his fear. Then to give him an allergy shot was hard. He did so well and we're thankful to their office! Since they work with so many autistic children, they were good at waiting and helping us explain and calm Nathan down.

Nathan got to pick dinner. He was thinking McDonald's (again), but when we mentioned Cracker Barrel, he took us up on that. He & dad got to play checkers without having to take turns with a brother, and he got to pick anything he wanted from the menu. (Biscuits and eggs with some of dad's pancakes.) Mom chose chicken & dumplings (what else?). We agreed that when we go back in two months, we'll go a little earlier so we can stop at the McD this time and play a while. We even wrote down the exit so we're prepared.

More will be coming for us, but we got a running start at it. I'll try to post this weekend about some of the bio-medical findings regarding autism.