Autism, Asthma, and Toxins…

Some of you know the stories (or at least have heard little bits here and there) about my youngest son, Toby.

He struggles with respiratory illnesses and had been diagnosed with RAD (Reactive Airway Disease) and uncontrolled Asthma (I’ll inject here that Toby was also diagnosed with Sensory Processing Disorder and might have Auditory Processing Disorder as well, but you have to go under general to find that APD out so we aren’t going to do that because the trauma that would occur wouldn’t be worth it). If you haven’t, here is the short story: Every time the boy (now 11) would get sick, it would end him up in the doctors office with around the clock nebulizers, steroids, and antibiotics. And this has been going on since he was 4 weeks old after he contracted RSV. He’s had more documented cases of pneumonia (and maybe some un-caught ones) then most doctors had ever, ever, EVER heard of. Nine times in two years or something screwy like that. And  the worst of them would be in the summer, which made no sense at all. Who gets pneumonia in the middle of July? My kid.

When we moved back to California (he has never lived here. Was born in South Dakota during our military life and we moved to Colorado post military) we had high hopes for good health. The air is much moister here (very dry in SD and CO) and though there are different kinds of allergens running around Northern California, maybe it would be what would “do him good”, because something had to give. But, alas he was not better. In fact, things seemed to escalate to point break! The pediatrician sent us to a pulmonologist last summer and it felt like an uphill battle as we were seen every month or two for something, trying to figure out what was best. They’d switch a med and he would get horribly sick. They’d add it back and move around another, and again he would get sick. However, they couldn’t pinpoint what was making him sick. They did the basic prick/allergy test and he was allergic to NOTHING. The doctor was shocked. How and WHY was this boy getting so sick then?

AND furthermore, all these meds he’s on, he shouldn’t be getting that sick, right?

Yeah.

I really thought it was just germs and the lack of personal hygiene of OTHER people who interacted with my son. Anytime I would hear someone cough I would practically run from the area, fearful that they would give my son some bug that would put him down for 3-4 weeks and cost me $300 or more just to  make him “well” again. So we were pretty proactive about keeping him well. And he didn’t mind wearing the mask, most of the time. During flu season this is what my kid looked like wherever we went. Really. It was that imperative he did not get sick!

New way to think

I don’t even know when the switch in thinking happened but it was sometime after I took Toby off wheat and milk, to gauge his reaction. I honestly thought he was doing much better. So I told his pulmonologist what I’d done and he said, “Why did you do that? If that helped I’d be out of a job.”

Ummm. Say what? Is this doctor not up to date on research? Even years ago I’d heard about milk being an asthma contributor. So.. what?!

Needless to say I ran to facebook and BEGGED my friends for a whole health doctor reference that my insurance would cover. Because I was at my wits end. All these meds my son was on and the fact the pulmonologist had no idea about whole body health had me perplexed. Thankfully someone came through and told me about a local pediatrician who was taking new patients and was a WHOLE HEALTH MD. Which means she prescribes the stuff you need but treats the whole body not just the symptom.

For instance, you have a rash. Instead of giving you rash ointment, she would trying to get to the underlying cause of the rash and while the rash might no go away immediately, when it does go away it will NEVER come back because she has equiped you with the knowledge of WHY you ad it to begin with and gives you the support and tools to see it out the door and never to return. Know what I mean?

New doc, new life

So, here we are at this new doctor and she is ready to turn our lives upside down. Like literally. At first glance, she knew something was wrong with Toby. The color of his skin, his eyes, his belly, just tell-tale signs of gut health issues. So she took blood and put us on a total food make-over : the Elimination Diet. This was a pretty overwhelming prescription, especially when I already had my own allergies to deal with. But darnit, we are going to do it. So off we went on the diet and as we progressed, we saw results immediately!

Then his blood test came back and sure enough he had all the markers of leaky gut (in an 11yo?!?!) including low iron, low vit-d, and multiple other vitamin deficiencies. Ugh. At least we had some answers though right? Right!

Equipped with this knowledge we pressed on and tried to add some new foods back into his diet with some successes and some failures. But then we did an IgE food allergy blood test and it came back with major markers for Rice, Corn, Wheat, Soy and more… so we made sure those were taken out too. All of them.

Now, this whole time, Toby is pretty well. I mean we had a few hiccups here and there, but we didn’t land ourselves in any distress that couldn’t be handled outside our home. So we thought we were doing pretty good. In fact, of the five medications Toby was on, in three short months he was off four of those and still doing 100%!

Say what?! The kid who spent last summer in bed due to pneumonia is well with NO MEDS?! What is this sorcery?? Could it really have been due to his food intact/gut health? Apparently!

NutrEval FMV Amino Acid Test coming right up!

Now, fast forward to two months ago when the doctor recommended we do a test called the NutrEval FMV by Genova. It was an expensive test and I was worried (honestly) that we’d be paying for fluffy information. Heresay, if you will. Because this isn’t completely backed up by medical practitioners yet…and I stress yet. So we did it.

This whole test process was an undertaking in and of itself. Lots of instructions and time frames and one hyper-sensitive kid (SPD). The morning we were going in for the test, I had all of facebook praying for us because I knew it had the potential to be BREAKDOWN CENTRAL to my little man. Last time he gave blood there were blood curdling screams and terror because of his SPD.

Thankfully all the prayers worked and we were in and out of the lab in ten minutes with no tears, no screaming, and only a tiny amount of panic. Hallelujah. Now we just keep doing what we are doing and wait 6 weeks for these results.

Toxic levels of toxins found

Results came in yesterday. And I’m still shocked at what they discovered about my littlest man. The most shocking of news was the level of TOXINS in his body. Everyone has toxins floating around their body but when a COLORED chart shows your son’s levels of toxins very near to the TOXIC RED SECTION, it can make a mom panic.

Arsenic, MTBE, and PLASTIC were found in very high levels in his blood. Plastic was the worst of them.

I’m sure when the doctor shared the results I looked a bit like a ghost. How? What? Are you sure? What? How?

After the initial shock wore off, she explained that plastic is everywhere in our foods. Nearly everything is sold in plastic. Everything is drank through plastic. Everything is stored in plastic. And the list goes on. And on.  And. On.

She also mentioned shampoo is one of the worst offenders because of the phthalates it contains (Good article on Toxic Plastic).

The link to Autism and Asthma

So now what? Now freaking what? I’m putting his food in plastic. I’m allowing him to drink out of plastic cups and water bottles. My ignorance is poisoning him. OH. MY. GOSH. My child is slowly dying in MY CARE.

After a brief panicked mind-spin, the doctor began to give me hope. She said there have been studies that link kids on the autism spectrum (SPD/APD) with high levels of toxins in their bodies.  One article states it like this:

Phthalates, given their extensive use and their persistence, are ubiquitous environmental contaminants. They are EDs (endocrine disruptors) suspected to interfere with neurodevelopment. Therefore they represent interesting candidate risk factors for autism spectrum disorders pathogenesis. (ASN Neuro. 2012 May 30;4(4):223-9. doi: 10.1042/AN20120015.)

She also shared with me that data has pointed to the fact that these toxins are in direct correlation to asthma, as this artical suggests:

During the last decades more than 100 000 new chemicals have been introduced to the environment. Many of these new chemicals and many common consumer products that include these have been shown to be toxic in animal studies and an increasing body of evidence suggests that they are also impacting human health. Among the suspect chemicals, the endocrine disrupting chemicals (EDCs) are of particular concern. One such chemical group is the phthalates, used in soft poly vinyl chloride (PVC) material and in a huge number of consumer products. During the same period of time that the prevalence of these modern chemicals has increased, there has been a remarkable increase in several chronic illnesses, including asthma and allergy in children. In this article we outline the scientific knowledge on phthalate exposure for asthma and airway diseases in children by examining epidemiological and experimental peer review data for potential explanatory mechanisms. Epidemiological data point to a possible correlation between phthalate exposure and asthma and airway diseases in children.  (Bornehag, C. G. and Nanberg, E. (2010), Phthalate exposure and asthma in children. (International Journal of Andrology, 33: 333–345. doi: 10.1111/j.1365-2605.2009.01023.x)

Cure Autism and Asthma? Really?

At this point in our day I  had no idea what to think next. NONE. I mean, we could try to detox him using all the tools she was supplying me and a healthy diet, but can I reverse the damage that has been done? Doc says yes! Not only can we make him healthy but it will help his body to heal itself neurologically. But wait, I thought autism wasn’t curable? Or asthma for that matter?

Again I went to facebook for the freak out moment and got a gem of hope that I will hold fast to:

I did all the things you are doing and more for my son when he was very young and diagnosed on the autistic spectrum. It worked also and he was “cured”…hmmm, I thought that wasn’t possible! Seriously, no issues since. Toxins in our environment bring about these conditions. Your boy is high in plastics, mine was high in arsenic. And all these kids have the same overall issues: breathing problems, gut problems, bowel problems, behavior problems, concentration issues, speech sometimes, etc. These are reactions to the toxins which have wracked havoc to their bodies and also depleted them of all functioning nutrients. I don’t know why more people don’t research and do the hard work. I had to do it in the late 90s and early 2000s when there was little info out there but I found it and did it myself for my child. Congratulations to your family though for doing it! If you haven’t done it already watch the pesticides in the lawn and home, go with natural cleaners in your home, no carpet cleaners, natural bathing products, aluminum is not good, the list goes on and on but he may not be the only one affected (don’t you have some gut issues? IBS even is caused by toxins). and it helps everyone live healthier longer lives. Everyone should research ailments they have ON THEIR OWN and quit masking the problems first and foremost with prescription meds.  (E. M.)

If it had been anyone else sharing this gem of wisdom, I might have had to take it with a grain of salt, but this gal has nothing to gain by blowing hot air. She is passionate about the healing of her son and is genuinely excited for us and our “adventure” of “discovery”.

So yeah. Bye Bye plastic.

 

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