A scar cream that really works.

Try using the scar cream, Mederma.

Reddish scars, whether they are from stretch marks, acne, or burns, will heal quicker than colorless scars.

You apply it to recent scars three to four times a day for two months and four times a day to old scars for up to six months.

I had heard that most of the creams and lotions didn't really work--just made your skin smoother/softer, so I didn' t try any other treatments than this one, which was recomended by our Doctor. But this one actually worked.

My son has had 16 operations. We used to think that scars were a way of life--so he wore them as a badge of courage. But when I went to a dermatologist myself to check for melanoma, I asked her what might help my son, and she suggested Mederma. That was several years ago, and you can't see the scars now without him actually pointing them out.

Its a clear gel, doesn't stain clothing, and is pretty much odorless. Some day I will start putting it all over my body......LOL

The cool thing about it is it is a refined and tested version of an old folk remedy, Allium. Which is the onion. I guess you could put onion juice on the scars to save money--but you would smell like onions!

Delicious, Exotic, Non-alcoholic Party Beverages

Chai is my favorite for fall and winter. You can get a good organic Chai concentrate in a box at my local health food co-op. I serve it half & half with Almond milk. Its usually served hot like coffee. It does have caffeen in it. Its made from tea, and spices and is a little peppery. Mmmmmm!

For summer there is nothing better than fresh-squeezed organic lemons or limes (or both) with turbinado sugar to make lemonaid. Add a sprig of fresh mint or a slice of lime to the top of the glass. Or put a tiny sprig of mint into your ice cube trays before adding the water and freezing. I like to make lemonaide all summer by boiling water, adding the sugar to dissolve it, refrigerating it, then adding the lemon/lime before serving.

For a great easy punch, half-fill a large punch bowl with cold 100% juice of any kind (cranberry blends are good,) add a bottle of seltzer or Sprite for some fizz, and float scoops of a really good sorbet or sherbert on top. Get whatever's the latest fruit juice craze, like pomegranite juice. For more decoration, slice oranges thinly and float them on top.

In the south, sweetened ice tea is a favorite. Make sun tea, 0r make large batches of tea ahead of time and cool it in the fridge, then let people decide on the sweetener themselves, and offer a bowl of fresh lemon slices to put in it.

Green tea is very popular now and very summery and light. You can even put the tea in ice cube trays, and as they freeze, empty them into large zip lock bags. Put the bags in a cooler and either add them to the regular tea or use them in other drinks.

In the winter, make hot tea and add mulling spices to it for a great flavor. Use cinnamon sticks as stirrers. If you have a pot of this on the stove as guests arrive it makes the whole house smell wonderful.

Everyone likes chocolate. At least everyone female I know. Get a really good chocolate and melt it in a double boiler, and add a variety of milks--I prefer Almond milk. Adding a spoonful of coconut milk is excellent. I prever Agave nectar right now as a sweetener (its like honey but not quite as sweet.) But turbinado sugar is good.
For more flavor, add cinnamon, vannilla, nutmeg, allspice, mint or cardamom. Don't forget to have some tiny marshmallows for a garnish.

For any sweet drink, have whipped cream ready for on top. The stuff in cans comes in three flavors now; strawberry, chocolate and vanilla. Unfortunately, these usually have dairy in them, so we have these available for those who can have dairy products.

Also, get some sprinkles. These finishing touches are what makes the drink special for a party.

V8 with some Swedish Bitters, sea salt, a celery stick and an olive is a great drink.

For a party I always buy the little paper umbrellas for the drinks, and I go to Goodwill and get as many real glass drink glasses as I can find. The real glass makes everything taste better than plastic, and even if they don't match--its easier for people to remember which drink is theirs.

If you want to get more complicated, and can afford it, buy or borrow a juicer. Ahead of time, scrub up a lot of fresh locally grown organic fruit and/or vegetables, and stick them in a huge bowl of crushed ice. Have your visitors select the vegetables as you juice them. Be sure to include things like fresh spinach leaves, cucumbers and beets.

Gratitude

Beatitudes
for Friends of Persons With Disabilities


Blessed are you who take time to listen to difficult speech,
For you help me to know that if I persevere I can be understood.

***************

Blessed are you who never bid me to “hurry up”

and take my tasks from me and do them for me,
For often I need time, rather than help.

***************

Blessed are you who stand beside me as I enter new and untried ventures,
For my failures will be outweighed by the times I surprise myself and you.

***************

Blessed are you who understand that it is difficult for me to put my thoughts into words.

***************

Blessed are you who never remind me that today I asked the same question two times.

***************

Blessed are you who respect me and love me just as I am,
And do not wish I would be otherwise.



WEAVE, WEAVE US TOGETHER, TOGETHER IN LOVE.


"God has given each of you some special abilities;

be sure to use them to help each other."
(1Peter 4:7-11)

And God Said...

...No

I asked God to take away my pride.
And God said, "No."
He said it was not for Him to take away, but for me to give up.

I asked God to make my handicapped child whole.
And God said, "No."
He said her spirit was whole, her body was only temporary.

I asked God to grant me patience.
And God said, "No."
He said patience is a by-product of tribulations. It isn't granted, it is earned.

I asked God to give me happiness.
And God said, "No."
He said He gives me blessings, happiness is up to me.

I asked God to spare me pain.
And God said, "No."
He said suffering draws me apart from worldly cares and brings me closer to Him.

I asked God to make my spirit grow.
And God said, "No."
He said I must grow on my own. But He will prune me to make me fruitful.

I asked for all things that I might enjoy life.
And God said, "No."
He said He will give me life, that I may enjoy all things.

I asked God to help me love others, as much as he loves me.
And God said, "Ah, finally you have the idea!"

© Claudia Minden Weisz


"When we look back and wonder how we ever made it through,
we realize it's not because we are clever, but because God has been wise."

--Author Unknown

Quotes to Live By

“Tomorrow is the most important thing in life.
Comes into us at midnight very clean.
It's perfect when it arrives and it puts itself in our hands.
It hopes we've learned something from yesterday.”

-- John Wayne

"When you come to the edge of all the light you know,
and are about to step off into the darkness of the unknown,
faith is knowing one of two things will happen:
there will be something solid to stand on,
or you will be taught how to fly."

-- Barbara J. Winter

"Reflect upon your present blessings,
of which every man has plenty;
not on your past misfortunes,
of which all men have some."

– Charles Dickens

What to do for Sprains, Strains, Backache, Bruises

Boericke & Tafel

Arniflora Arnica Gel

This stuff is the best thing in my medicine cabinet. Next to Tylenol, it is the best thing for a sprained ankle. I once sprained my ankle in the middle of moving our home to a new flat. I was able to finish moving.

This stuff is a clear gel, with no real odor (if you really try, it kinda smells like green tea.) It doesn't stain clothing, and doesn't burn or cause any kind of side effect. I put it on about twice a day by rubbing it into the swollen areas around my ankle. I spent 3 more days packing, and moving and carrying boxes with no trouble.

I have recommended it to a person who had whiplash from a car accident, and it helped within 3 days. I recommended it to someone who had a back injury that was 4 years old, and had recently gotten much worse so that the person couldn't work (lifting 50lbs was part of the job.) That person was able to go back to work within a week.

You can't take it internally or put it on a cut or open wound. But its good for ankle, knee, hip, back and neck strains, sprains and bruises. It seems to help with inflammation, and is somewhat antibacterial, and also promotes healing.

It's non-prescription, and doesn't interfere with other medications you might need.

I was thinking about this when we were watching the Olympics last night. I hope all the athletes have at least tried it or know about it. I have used it for over 20 years, and it has always worked.

Emotional Integrity

Say What You Mean
~
Mean What You Say


A lot of the misunderstandings that happen around people with Autism could be prevented if people could follow this. Both the neuro-typical people and the people with Autism.

The say what you mean part includes:

No sarcasm -- because often even when a person with Autism "gets it" they have a much harder time with decoding sarcasm when anxious or over-stimulated.

No slang -- people with Autism tend to be way behind their peers in learning slang terms, partly from having spent less time with peers in casual settings, and partly from lack of paying attention to things not in their area of interest.

No innuendo -- "wink, wink" people with Autism often miss the body language that modifies a supposedly "absurd" bit of dialogue, to make it meaningful.

No exaggeration -- Autistic people often don't need the exaggeration to get your point, because they take everything at face value, and very literally. They either "get it" or they don't. Exaggeration only works if you explain your comment as being a metaphor or exaggeration up front.

For instance, when a child says; "I hate you!" when you insist on a chore, you don't take it personal (hopefully.) You know it is just an immature way of exaggerating a point that they are trying to make (extreme frustration.) However, saying a similar thing to an Autistic person will tend to backfire, since it is often used in a very heated, emotional exchange, and this is when the Autistic person is at their worst in decoding what is happening in their world socially.

No Double-Meanings -- Often someone will ask a question or bring up a topic to get a completely different point across. For instance; imagine if you went to visit a friend on the spur of the moment, and they made a comment like: "Gee, I hate it when my relatives drop in unexpectedly without calling first." You might call before coming over the next time. An Autistic person would not get the hint, no matter how obvious it was, because they aren't ever looking for hints, unless they have been specifically taught this, and were calm enough to remember to do it in a variety of social settings.

Of course, all these things listed above are the perfect material for comedians, comedy shows, and close friends who already have their personal vocabularies, and social styles memorized. These are the social things that make life interesting. However, in reality, they are much more fun to watch ("I Love Lucy" or "The Simpsons" comes to mind) than to experience in your own family life.

In fact, all of the above things are what constitutes "drama" in relationships. In a boring relationship, it might spice things up, but a steady diet of drama can deteriorate a relationship when one or both of the members is under stress, tired, is insecure about the relationship or anxious.

At one point, we put these things into a list that was posted on the wall in our house, until the Autistic person grew older and wiser and we were able to teach some of these things to him in a calm setting. We still have the "No Sarcasm" rule, in our house, but it gets broken regularly, when we are having fun on a playful, casual, low stress day.


The Mean What You Say part includes:

Never promise what you can't be sure you can deliver. If you are constantly using threats that you can't follow up on, you are eventually going to make whatever you say irrelevant to people.

If you can't be sure, say so. If you don't know the answer, say so.

This removes the verbal/behavioral "static" that people with Autism have a hard time filtering out. For instance, if Dad always says: "If you don't stop horsing around in the car we aren't going to the movie." But then everyone gets upset because the movie was planned for a week as a reward for doing homework, and the family goes to the movie anyway. What Dad says is then "static" -- irrelevant information, that is simply noisy.

Dad could have said that he would stop the car and not move it until everyone was quiet. This might have been more realistic as to what was eventually going to be followed through on.

Choose carefuly what to say so that everything you say has a practical meaning in the real world, with useful information about what is happening or is going to happen.

If you consistently do this, your words will mean more, and matter more to those you speak to. If you do this inconsistently, then people will always be waiting for the next shoe to drop, so to speak. For instance, if you only act when you have first threatened to act for 3 or 4 times, then no one will start listening to you until the 4 th time you say something. If you only get roused enough to interrupt what you are doing when you are yelling at the top of your voice, then no one will start listening to you until you are yelling at the top of your voice.

Consistency.
Be Extremely consistent. If your words reflect your actions accurately, this helps the Autistic person make better choices about what to do and what not to do, when their behavior is within their control.

Live your Values
If you value something, spell it out, write it down, speak it out loud in concrete terms. Be specific. Then live what you have spelled out. This is better than any lecture, or angry diatribe. Discuss values when you are all calm and focused--not when a situation is tense.

Imagine Who You Want to Be, Then Set Your Intention, And Live to What You Want to Be
Don't react. Act.
Be the person you want to be regardless of what is happening around you, to you, or because of you. If you want to be the kind of person who doesn't scream or yell, then don't. Don't let yourself get egged on into being who you are not. Nobody can force you to behave a certain way. If an Autistic person is loosing it, falling to the floor kicking and screaming it is OK to just stand there and wait for it to end. You don't have to yell to show others you are "taking this seriously." If there is nothing you can do about it, then don't make it worse by doing things just to look like you are trying to do something. You don't have to let guilt make you do stuff. Decide that if it is the right thing to do, you will do it, whether you are feeling guilty or not. Decide this ahead of time.

You don't help a person because of who they are, you help a person because of who you are.
Mother Theresa didn't question the dying people she helped to determine if they had led a deserving life first. She had made a decision to help the dying ahead of time, because she felt that no one should die alone--not because of who they were, but because of who she was.

If the person uses this against you, then that is manipulation, and that is a different situation. This is where you set boundaries and are careful who to help and how to help, and for what reasons.

A good resource for dealing with meltdowns is the book:
"Asperger Syndrome and Difficult Moments, Practical Solutions for Tantrums, Rage and Meltdowns" by Brenda Smith Myles, and Jack Southwick

Raisins Against Arthritis

A home remedy for Arthritis

Do you remember The California Raisins?

Singing/dancing raisins, from a commercial around 1987. Anyone remember those? I have a collection of the toy figures. I think they were from Hardees. Those were some happy raisins. Now, I think I have an idea why......

I have just made this recipe for a friend who is visiting us who has arthritis.

I heard about it several times on NPR when it was mentioned on The People's Pharmacy, and decided I just had to try making it because its so simple, and yet so intriguing.

I used organic bulk golden raisins from Outpost Natural Foods.

I just tasted some and if nothing else, these raisins are delicious! (Yes, the alcohol evaporated!)


Raisins Against Arthritis
-----------------------------------

• Empty one box of golden light raisins into a large shallow container.


• Completely cover the raisins with gin.


• Let stand, uncovered, until the gin evaporates.


• Store them in a closed container.


• Eat nine raisins daily.

~Original source:

credited to Lois L. in the parish newsletter of St. Lucas Lutheran Church in Toledo, Ohio

Reprinted in "The People's Pharmacy" by Joe and Teresa Graedon, Ph.D.

People see results in about a month.

People allergic to sulfites (in the raisins) won't be able to use this remedy.
(In my opinion, this is a guess, it increases methylation, which helps detoxify heavy metals and other toxins.)

Its not expensive, not invasive, involves no habit-forming drugs (the alcohol evaporates,) or surgery, requires no prescription, has no side-effects, no drug interactions, so it might be something to try when the more traditional treatments aren't working well enough.

Other reputedly good folk remedies for Arthritis include:
Rose Hips
Apple Cider Vinegar
100% Emu Oil (as a lotion)

And the supplements Glucosamine and Chondroitin.

I have used the glucosamine and chondroitin supplements myself, for ankle, knee and hip pain. The pain always went away just as I was finishing the bottle of capsules, and didn't return for almost a year, during which I didn't need to take the supplements. (I suppose I could have continued taking them all the time, but I wanted to find out how much I really needed, since supplements can be expensive.)

But the thing that ended up helping me with this kind of pain the most was wearing lace-up shoes (with good arch support in them) every day from the moment I got up until the moment I went to bed. Later, I found that sandals with really high arch supports also worked in the summer, such as Birkenstocks. Now I haven't seemed to need the supplements at all anymore.

Cast Iron

Using cast iron pots and skillets for cooking has been recommened for people with low iron.

Here is a good site that talks about how to use cast iron pots for cooking and how to take care of them, and a site explaining the health benefits.

What's Cooking America
http://whatscookingamerica.net/Information/CastIronPans.htm

Holiday Cook
http://www.holidaycook.com/cast-iron/health-benefits.shtml

Besides helping you to need fewer iron supplements, cast iron pots have additional advantages in that they are extremely economical to buy, are very easy to clean, and can last generations. You can cook over a campfire with them, put them in the oven, and put them on the grill. (Unless you have bought ones with wooden handles.)

I have pots that were my grandmothers, that will probably outlast my grandchildren.

Iron has been found to be low in children with Autism and who have had lead poisoning. When our son was given a sleep study to find out what could help him sleep better, the main lab finding was that he was low in iron. Apparently, low iron can be a part of the cause of restless and twitchy legs at night. Low iron is a main cause of anemia, fatigue and other health problems.

Taking too much iron, on the other hand, is not good either, particularly for men.
Men don't have a regular monthly way of getting rid of it, and it is difficult for the body to remove too much iron without, um, you know (cough), bleeding.

"Many waters cannot quench love, neither can floods drown it."

~ Bible, Song of Solomon 8:7



"The butterfly counts not months but moments, and has time enough."

~Tagore

The Chair
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

A poem about the Power of Positive Thinking

It sits there at the crest of the beach,
on the rise just before the sand dips towards the water's edge.
A lone beach chair, seemingly abandoned.
It's a jaunty chair with its yellow striped canvas seat and sailboats floating on its blue and yellow back support.

It lists just a bit to the left, almost rakishly, as it nestles in the sand, surveying the sea.
It is a chair made just for sitting, and sitting on the sand at that.
It has no legs to get in the way of stretching out, relaxing,
and letting the sun seep into your bones and warm your soul.

It is so unlike another chair I know. A black chair with wheels.
A chair that does not survey the vastness of the ocean with a jaunty air,
but rather a chair that defines a narrower kingdom.

And yet, I think this other chair is a happier chair than the one that sits and stares out to sea,
for it is a chair with wheels that take the place of legs no longer able to propel their owner forth.

This other chair is not made for sitting and looking at the world.
It is a chair built for exploring, for meeting life face to face and tasting of its spirit.

Perhaps this chair should have a seat of yellow and white stripes,
and a back support adorned with sailboats.
A far better statement of its adventurous and joyous possibilities.

~Suzanne Mintz
From The National Family Caregivers Association
http://www.nfcacares.org/improving_caregiving/believe_in_your_family.cfm

About Me!

Hi! My name is David. I am 14 years old, & I'll tell you a little bit about myself.

My favorite video game is Pokemon (I hate the show). My favorite movie is Wall-E. My favorite TV shows are SpongeBob SquarePants, and The Simpsons! When I grow up, I want to be the world's greatest Anime Artist! In case you're wondering, the picture on the left is my very first made-up character, Sara.

Discovery

"When we seek to discover the best in others....we somehow bring out the best in ourselves."

~William Arthur Ward

Men in Sandals

What is your opinion on men wearing sandals?

I like men in sandals. I love seeing guys in sandals at the beach on vacations, and camping.

I think they look innapropriate for at work (unless you are the boss, or you sell sandals for a living!) for dancing, in nightclubs, or in a sit-down restaurant.

But I think people who wear sandals, men or women, have to take care of their feet, and toenails.
Sandals are good for this, actually. They give your feet a break from being confined in shoes with no sunlight and fresh air.

In my humble opinion, I think you can't wear them to death so they are falling apart, except around the house. Get a pair that is a good fit and not super cheap. Put them on in the early spring when you start wearing shorts so you don't have a tan line at the ankles!

Socks with sandals are ok at home, but in public only if you are definitely not single looking to date anyone new. Unfortunately, sandals with socks have a bad rap. I think they are just too comfortable that way. Kinda like wearing sweats and an old t-shirt.

Maybe someday someone will invent a sandal/sock combination that is both comfortable and stylish. Remember when bowling shoes were in style? Nice leather shoes in bright colors, that would last your lifetime. The VW of shoes.

I just bought a pair of Birkenstock's. I love the way I can walk all day in them at the fair, a festival, the farmer's market and my feet don't hurt. I had a pair that were a bright trendy orange/salmon color that I wore to death and lasted almost 3 years.

This time our local Birkenstock store had closed and I could only find 3 styles to pick from at Stan's Bootery (nice store.) So I have the classic hippie style, that my neice called something like "Jesus sandals." But everyone at the Farmer's Market was wearing them......

I'm sad that a German town like Milwaukee lost a store that originated in Germany. I love that Birkenstock's were invented by a woman. As a German woman, I feel a kind of loyalty.

Favorite Soap of All Time

I am very fair skinned, and have sensitive skin. I am also so thin-skinned (in more ways than one) that when I blush, I look like I have a sunburn.

I love Yardley's of London products. I have been using their Aloe soap for about 25 years.

Everybody says I have great skin, and I have had no skin problems the entire time I have used this soap.

This is the best soap in the Universe. I would take it to a desert island with me as a minimal survival essential.

Sweet Summer Aloe & Cucumber Bar Soap by Yardley of London.

I was a rebel and didn't follow the trend to sit out in the sun with mineral oil on my skin in the 70's. (I just gave up trying to tan--I went from no tan to burning with nothing in-between.) I also like to wear hats with a brim and sunglasses that wrap around my eyes. This makes me feel like a celebrity posing as a housewife.

All-purpose flour mix (GFCF)

All-purpose flour mix

Buy some rice flour, tapioca starch and cornstarch (or potato starch)

Mix them in these proportions:

1/2 cup rice flour
1/4 cup tapioca starch
1/4 cup cornstarch or potato starch

Blend and store in the refrigerator and use for any recipe that calls for wheat flour.

Here are some tips for baking with no-wheat flours:
------------------------------------------------------------------------

• Warm up all ingredients to room temperature (for instance the eggs.)
• Use a deep-sided bread pan (3-4 inches high)
• Pre-test your yeast to make sure it is still active before using it.
• Mix the salt into the flour, not directly with the yeast (hurts the yeast)
• Be careful about how much liquid you use, too much and you get a gummy center, too little and it will be crumbly.
• Use a thermometer to check doneness.
• Bread is done when it is 200 degrees inside and sounds hollow when you tap the bottom.
• Remove the loaf from the pan when done and cool it on a rack or it will get soggy.

Anger Management

http://www.angriesout.com/

The website is a favorite resource for things to help both children and adults deal with angry feelings.

Lynne Namka has a great free newsletter that you can sign up for. It is inspirational, about self-growth and is spiritual and theraputic.

Eating Gluten-Free Casein-Free on a Budget

For eating gluten-free on a budget, there are nothing like potatoes!

A bag of potatoes can go a long way and there are a million ways to make them! The easiest is to scrub one, poke two holes in the skin and microwave for 4 minutes. Drizzle extra virgin olive oil on it, add a tablespoon of water and some sea salt. Any cooked vegetable is a good topping.

Beans are very inexpensive. Black beans are easy to digest. Beans go very well with rice. To save money, buy a pressure cooker and make beans from a bag according to the directions on the bag. This is a great source of protein, and very inexpensive. If you cook them right, they will digest easily.

Easy Bean Recipe:
Mash up a cup or two of the cooked beans up with a 1/8 cup lemon/lime, several cloves of crushed garlic, 1/4 cup of sesame paste and sea salt for a great pate. Drizzle with olive oil and paprika before serving. (This is usually called hummus if you make it with chick peas.)

Now that its summer, try going to a Farmer's Market in your area and get just about anything there. The cost is often lower because you are cutting out the grocer. The seller's often have great suggestions and recipes for cooking their produce. Buying locally is also good for the environment, and you get to meet the people who grew your food!

Get an air popcorn popper. (See my previous posting on air popcorn poppers, Friday, July 25, 2008.)

Popcorn is very cheap and you can buy it in bulk, organic, and have it for snacks. Some celiacs can't eat fibery stuff, so be careful that this is something your system can handle.

Sprout mixes are very inexpensive. Making sprouts is easy and cheap!

One of the most inexpensive and versatile vegetables is red or green cabbage. Cabbage keeps a long time in the refrigerator, and is a great flavor enhancer. Sliced thin and mixed with shredded carrots and your favorite salad dressing it makes a nice summer cole slaw. Add a few leaves of cabbage chopped up into any soup or stew for a much fuller flavor. It seems to make everything more savory and more satisfying. Just don't overcook it or it can turn to mush!

Try getting any fruit, or berries in season and making smoothies with them, just put them in a blender with some ice and some rice milk, and add some honey or real maple syrup for sweetness.

Don't forget that nuts, seeds and nut butters are good sources of protein! Make sure they are very fresh. Nuts can go rancid easily.

We have a bowl of cherries on the table right now, next to a bowl of cashews. I slice a sweet red pepper crosswise (the slices look like a flower) and put on a plate with some black olives. It is the best junk food!

Sauteed mushrooms have a savory taste that makes anything have a meaty flavor.

Inexpensive Vegetable Stew:
--------------------------------------
Take all your current vegetables (include an onion or a leek, and a stalk of celery with tops, and a leaf or two of cabbage for flavor) and some potatoes and saute them a little in some olive oil, or roast them in the oven. Cut everything up into chunks before beginning, sautee the harder vegetables first or roast them longer. Start a 1/2 large pot of boiling water. Add a can of black beans. Add the vegetablesand some fresh garlic. Throw in a handful of carrot tops, a few beet tops, some kale or other greens at the last minute. Add some Sea Salt, pepper. Cook until everything is done about 15 minutes. Serve in a bowl with a little gluten-free mayonnaise on top for a garnish.

Don't forget that most Chinese, Japanese, Thai, and Indian foods are mainly gluten-free. Mexican is gluten-free if you get the corn tortillas instead of the flour. You have to call ahead, or call the manufacturer to be certain that there are no additives that contain gluten, however.

Really cheap shopping list:
-----------------------------------
A bag of black beans.
A bag of popcorn.
A sack of potatoes.
A head of red cabbage.
A clump of carrots with tops on.
A bunch of celery.
A head of garlic.
A container of lemon juice.
Iodized Sea Salt.
A can of mixed nuts.
Some honey or real maple syrup.
Extra Virgin olive oil.
The freshest fruit in season.
Any favorite vegetable.

Diction SOS - Teaching an Autistic Person Language and Reading

Diction SOS

When my son was still learning to talk, with only a single word or two, (about age 4) we discovered he was totally fascinated by the alphabet. He couldn't talk, but he did learn the alphabet, and became obsessed with it. Sometimes, we heard, this can be an indication of "Hyperlexia" which is a form of language disorder, but not necessarily Autism, although apparently Autistic persons can have it.

A friend of mine had a son who had lost all his hearing due to an infection. They mortgaged their home to purchase a cochlear implant for him. The cochlear implant people recommended a rehabilitation program for him that included The Association Method for teaching children with language deficiencies. She taught me this method, and I used some of it in teaching my son language. He not only learned to talk better with this, but he also learned to read at the same time. (To this day, he has perfect diction, I think in part because when he was having trouble saying a word we could put it on a card using the phenomes and umlauts and then he would be able to "get it.") He wasn't always understanding what he read, but he at least had learned "the code" of language this way, by memorizing it. To him it was just a puzzle, or a code, not useful for anything yet, but at least we had sort of a "morse code" to start with in reaching him.

Here is a reference to a curriculum that includes this method:

TLDC: Teaching Language-Deficient Children
http://www.proedinc.com/customer/ProductView.aspix?ID=3921

"Theory and Application of the Association Method for Multisensory Teaching"

The gist of this method was putting the 42 English phonemes onto flash cards (umlauts and all) and having him memorize them. He was delighted to learn this "secret code" and thought it was fun. Then we taught him to read by using cursive, color, patterns, and visual repetition.

An Autistic person often can't see what a word unit is because they persist in seeing each individual letter as unique, and not a part of a whole. So by using cursive, the letters of each word are connected and only have a space between each word. The cursive style did not take any extra effort to teach him. It seemed easy for him to read the cursive part. He loved knowing where a word began and ended, and this made it much easier for him to sound out the word. We used different colors to differentiate sounds at first, and then used a different color for each word when doing sentences.

When doing words on a page, we let him pick the colors of bright markers, and wrote them in patterns on a plain peice of paper, for instance in a star pattern, or a step pattern, or in some set of circles, with about 4 repetitions to each page. Then we would point to each "step on the ladder" and say the word together. This made reading much more fun, and he loved the "patterns." We later did the same thing with short sentences, with about 4 - 5 repetitions in different colors on a page. It looked like story diagramming, but with the same sentence repeated instead of different concepts at different positions on the diagram. Each time we did this pointing and saying the sentence. Each word or sentence took about 15 repetitions, over short periods of a few minutes at a time, and perhaps taking a week to finish for him to learn it. Sometimes we put a coin, or a tiny sweet down on each word as we were pointing to it, which he could keep.

I also put words for common things around the house onto flash cards and taped them to the object they named. There was the word "Window" on all of our windows, and "Door" on all of our doors, for instance. I didn't do this all at once, a few items at a time, so he wouldn't get overwhelmed. Sometimes we would go on a treasure hunt and find all the window cards, then take them for a "prize" from the prize box. Then I would put up a different set of cards, like "mirror" for all the mirrors, and "phone" for all the phones.

Getting Enough Sleep for Someone With Autism

Here is another simple remedy for sleeplessness in persons with Autism:

Melatonin

Melatonin is very safe, and actually has some health benefits. Children tolerate it well with few side effects. It sometimes causes grogginess the next morning, but this can be remedied by cutting the usual dose in half.

The tablets generally come in 3 mg doses, which is more than enough for an adult. You can also purchase 1.5 mg doses, but it is a little harder to find this package. Cutting the pill or using half a capsule works fine.

Extended release Melatonin is available, and works well, but is usually a little more expensive. Give the child the dose 20 - 30 minutes before the desired bedtime. Lately, we have been giving it about an hour before bedtime, to avoid the morning grogginess.

It is non-narcotic, (not habit-forming--non addictive) and is available over the counter without a prescription at most regular pharmacies. This will not be like a regular sedative, it doesn't work the same way. It does not prevent the child from awakening to use the bathroom (if he/she is toilet trained.)

My son is very picky about what he will eat or put into his mouth--(well at least food anyway!) and I was worried that he would refuse to take the Melatonin. But after coaxing the first pill into him and a good night's sleep, he accepted the next night's pill easily and now just puts it in his mouth and chews it. As a teen, he sometimes even reminds me that he needs to take one! He used to have dark circles under his eyes all the time, and with a regular good night's sleep he doesn't have this anymore.

So what is Melatonin?
--------------------------
Melatonin is a hormone made by a part of the brain called the pineal gland. Melatonin may help our bodies know when it's time to go to sleep and when it's time to wake up. There are two types of melatonin that may be used in the pills: natural and synthetic (man-made). Natural melatonin is made from the pineal gland of animals. This form could be contaminated with a virus and is therefore not recommended. The synthetic form of melatonin does not carry this risk. If you are not sure if your melatonin is natural or synthetic, ask your doctor or pharmacist before taking it.

Research has shown the effectiveness of Melatonin for this use, and also for use in treating jet lag.


Melatonin Deficiency
---------------------------
"Significant reductions in overall melatonin levels have been seen in Autistic Spectrum Disorders, and disturbed melatonin regulation may underlie sleep disturbances seen in many ASD subjects."

~"Autism, Brain, and Environment" by Richard Lathe 2006

Simple Autism Treatment -- Epsom Salts Bath

Epsom Salts

Pour 2-3 cups Epsom Salts into the warm bathwater.
Have the child/adult soak for about 20 minutes before washing up or adding soap.

If you add bubble bath or something to the water, this can get irritating if you soak in it for that long. We do this about 3 - 4 times per week, but I suppose you could do it every night if you wanted to.

Epsom Salts helps in several ways; the magnesium helps them with a type of incomplete digestion that many people with Autism suffer from (yes, small amounts are absorbed into the skin.) The magnesium also helps tone down leg cramps, and numbs the skin slightly so they can sleep better. It is very helpful to take the bath just before bedtime. Autistic persons have very sensitive skin, so the mild numbing is perfect for them. Autistic persons often have trouble settling down to sleep, and an Epsom Salts bath before bed helps with this. I also sometimes use it before we go to a noisy, over-stimulating type event.

Epsom Salts are inexpensive, and you can get them at any place that sells pharmaceuticals. They can be taken internally, in small amounts (will cause loose stools) and so if the person gets some in their mouth, its not toxic. People have used it for constipation for years.

Here is the current rationale for why this helps people with Autism:

Sulfate is used for many functions in the body, including detoxification, maintaining the lining of the gut, and hormone production. Some children with autism have a low level of sulfate in their bodies, due to a variety of reasons including poor absorption in the gut, excess loss in the urine, poor recycling of sulfate by the kidney, or oxidant stress and inflammation can shut down cysteine dioxygenase, which throttles the cysteine -> sulfate route.

Testing:
Blood testing can be used to check for levels of free and total plasma sulfate, and this is probably the more reliable test. Plasma cysteine can also be informative. (Urine testing of free and total sulfate may be useful to look for excessive loss of sulfate, but this is only one of several possible causes of low sulfate in the body, and should not be solely relied on to assess sulfate status).

Alternatively, since Epsom salt baths are very safe, one could simply try them for up to several weeks and look for improvements in behavior and functioning (see below).

Treatment:

Tapan Audhya evaluated many different ways to increase plasma sulfate levels in children with autism who had low levels. The two most effective methods were oral MSM (500-2000 mg depending on size and sulfate level) and Epsom Salt (magnesium sulfate) baths – 2 cups of Epsom salts in warm/hot water, soak for 20 minutes, 2-3x/week. A few children did not tolerate MSM, but Epsom salt baths are generally very well tolerated. (T. Audhya, Role of Sulfation, presentation at Autism/Asperger’s Conference in Anaheim, CA, February 2007.)

Many parents and physicians have anecdotally reported that Epsom salt baths were beneficial to their children. However, there is less experience with MSM for children with autism, and more research is needed.--Source: "Summary of Biomedical Treatments for Autism" by James B. Adams, Ph.D.

Favorite Cooking Websites

http://glutenfreegirl.blogspot.com/2005/08/what-heck-is-gluten-anyway.html

by Shauna James Ahern

has gorgeous pictures and great articles, and its won some awards...

Also, www.savingdinner.com by Leanne Ely has a great plan for always having dinner on the table for your family. You can get ideas from her, also an inexpensive meal planner that includes a shopping list and lets you plan meals without buying a lot of extra stuff you don't need. She helps with setting up a pantry, using a slow cooker, and is on internet radio, also. The planners can be customized to all sorts of specialized dietary needs, also.

I love the show, America's Test Kitchen, and they have a great website, too. Its not just about the recipes, but about the art and science of cooking.

http://www.americastestkitchen.com/

Musing on Sloths

We just watched a movie:

"Ice Age, The Meltdown"

I love that quote where the tiger insists the sloth is a part of the herd because he is "the sticky, gooey stuff that holds this herd together."

That's me in a nutshell. Sticky, gooey, syrupy. Holds this herd together--even though we are each very different. More different than any other family, yet we run together as one herd.

The first time I saw a real sloth, it was hanging onto a branch being carried by two Mosquito Indians in Nicaragua. The sloth was their dinner. He was captured by the men sawing off the branch he was hanging from. No cage or ropes required, he was just hanging on.

The current book I am reading is:

"The Gaslight Effect
learn how to stop letting other people get inside your head, tell you what to think, shake your judgement, sabatoge your self-esteem, make you question your grip on reality."
by Dr. Robin Stern.

It seems a lot of us give other people the power to carry us away, without putting up any resistance. They only have to saw off the branch we are hanging from.

I love the Sloth Song from the movie. I put the song on my playlist. Here's a link:

http://media.imeem.com/m/umgmrzE1th

I want to be dancing and singing like I am living in a melting world about to be flooded and it is my last chance for joy. Care to join me?

Opinion on Cow's Milk and Milk Products

If you are comparing health, and strength eating dairy products and not eating dairy products, you might consider that many dairy products are not just a combination of different nutrients like calcium and proteins.

Dairy products have hormones from the mother cow in them because she had to be pregnant to begin lactation. There are many hormones designed to help a calf to grow, and any mammal's milk is a primary way to pass on immunity to various things. Yet these immune factors might be to things our human system does not get exposed to or is not susceptible to.

A calf grows to nearly a full-size cow in one year. Cow's milk is designed to do that. If you are wanting to grow, perhaps drinking a very large mammal's milk is a way to do it! However, I suspect that we humans as adults are finished growing upward, and end up growing outward!

Milk products might assist someone in regaining lost muscle mass, but I think is unnecessary to maintain it, particularly after adulthood. Our human bodies stop producing the enzymes needed to process milk proteins in adulthood, making milk increasingly harder to digest, and causing other problems.

Milk has residual medicines such as various antibiotics, anti-fungals, and pesticides from "cow dips" that they are dunked into to kill fleas and parasites. These might not be approved for human consumption, yet can be in the milk in residual form.

Milk has residuals of growth hormones and other things given to the cow to make her produce more milk. Also, the cow was bread to be physically capable of producing massive amounts of milk, consuming many extra calories to do this. It is possible that her lactation hormones are very strong and abundant, and could be present in her milk. There are some theories that breast cancer in humans is linked to these factors that milk producers have been using to increase milk production in cows.

Also, if the cow has an infection or inflammation of some kind, there is all of her body's responses to that in the milk. If the cow is stressed, there can be elevated stress hormones such as cortisol and andrenalin. There are many good sources of calcium and vitamin D that don't have all of these "biological additives." After all, we wean the calves from the cows very early so we can take the cow's milk. The calf then grows just fine without it. (Perhaps missing its mother, though.)

Timing

"Do not wait; the time will never be 'just right.'

Start where you stand, and work with whatever tools you may have at your command, and better tools will be found as you go along."

~Napoleon Hill 1883-1970, Author

Who Am I To Be?

“Our greatest fear is not that we are inadequate, but that we are powerful beyond measure. It is our light, not our darkness that frightens us.

We ask ourselves, who am I to be brilliant, gorgeous, handsome, talented and fabulous?

Actually, who are you not to be? You are a child of God.

Your playing small does not serve the world. There is nothing enlightened about shrinking so that other people will not feel insecure around you.

We were born to make manifest the glory of God within us.
It is not just in some; it is in everyone.

And, as we let our own light shine, we unconsciously give other people permission to do the same.
As we are liberated from our fear, our presence automatically liberates others.”

~Nelson Mandela

Anonymous

Risk

To laugh is to risk appearing the fool.
To weep is to risk appearing sentimental.
To reach out for another is to risk involvement.
To expose feelings is to risk exposing your true self.
To place your ideas, your dreams before a crowd is to risk their loss.
To love is to risk not being loved in return.
To live is risk dying.
To hope is to risk despair.
To try is risk failure.
But risks must be taken, because the greatest hazard in life is to risk nothing.
The person who risks nothing, does nothing, has nothing and is nothing.
They may avoid suffering and sorrow, but they cannot learn, feel,change, grow, love, live.
Chained by their certitudes, they are a slave, they have forfeited their freedom.
Only a person who risks is free.

~Anonymous

Saying of the Day

Mile by mile it's a trial;
yard by yard it's hard;
but inch by inch it's a cinch.

Chinese Proverb

"Those who say it cannot be done should not interrupt those who are doing it."

---Chinese proverb

The Benedictine Code

Be An Instrument of Good

• Learn to enjoy things without owning them.
• Spend time each day with positive thoughts and ideas.
• Own your personal limits.
• Share your talents and time with the community.
• Care for a plant, garden or other living things.
• Learn to live with ambiguity.
• Dress simply and neatly.
• Reject consumption patterns that breed oppression for other people or the earth.
• Find inexpensive ways to celebrate life.
• Exercise regularly.
• Help create an atmosphere that fosters contemplation.
• Develop a deeper appreciation for all creation.
• Let nothing distract you from your main goal – to seek God.
• Learn to eat sensibly and sensitively.
• Make recreation healthy, happy and gadget-free.
• Know the difference between significant travel and self-indulgent travel.
• Live now the way you would honestly like to live.
• Join with others in reshaping institutions in order to bring about a more just global society.
• Seek peace and pursue it.
• Become acquainted with different races and cultures.
• Choose work that is fulfilling and contributes to the well-being of others.
• Recycle whatever you can.
• Purchase goods that are durable, usable and beautiful.
• Make a yearly inventory of your clothes and possessions and develop a habit of giving things away.
• Practice conservation of natural resources.
• Speak from your heart.

~The Benedictines

A good way to live, whatever your faith. I received this code from a friend in 1989, and it has been a good way to live. I haven't always been able to follow all of it, but just in trying, I feel my life has had a soul-satisfying direction and purpose.

Quote of the Day

"Truth does not become more true by virtue of the fact that the entire world agrees with it,
nor less so even if the whole world disagrees with it."

--- Maimonides

Another Supplement for Autism

In addition to the supplement, DMG, mentioned earlier, a similar supplement called TMG can also be used for the same purpose.

Both of these nutrients have the effect of helping the body to detoxify heavy metals through the urine. TMG is trimethylglycine.

Both nutrients increase methylation. They work best when taken with folinic acid and methyl-B-12.Take 125 to 1,000 mg of DMG per day.

Take 175 to 2,000 mg of TMG per day.

Begin with the smaller dose and work up to the larger doses.

We have also used Octocosonol with our son.

Source:

"Healing the New Childhood Epidemics, Autism, ADHD, Asthma and Allergies; The Groundbreaking Program for the 4-A Disorders"
~ by Kenneth Bock, M.D., and Cameron Stauth

Visual Schedules for Helping People with Autism

After much experience trying many things, I intend to post the ones that have really helped and really worked for us in dealing with Life With Autism.

Autism has changed our lives, sometimes for the better. We have had to become more organized, learn more patience, and have more tolerance. The areas where Autism is pronounced, others in the family have had to be even better at, such as learning to be flexible.

In Praise of Dry-Erase Boards
------------------------------------------
I have developed my flexibility by implementing a visual schedule for our sons, as a learning tool and as an anxiety reducer. This began in preschool with the use of little picture icons with velcro attached that the teacher used to explain the day to the children. Later it became a dry-erase board that my son created at summer camp and carried with him. We even put up a huge dry-erase board on the wall in our hallway, to manage the many therapists and schedules for his ABA treatment.

This method is something I would now consider to be essential in helping someone with Autism to regulate themselves and for others to use to help them get through a day that often can include unwelcome changes, deletions, additions and other reasons for flexibility that the Autistic person doesn't seem to have.

I believe that the Autistic person does have some flexibility in them, but it is difficult to see this because of the sensory and other brain issues that make being flexible harder for them to do in real time.

I think that flexibility has two parts:

1. Anticipation
2. Preparation

Anticipation of an event allows a person to mentally and physically "brace themselves." If you are going to the State Fair on a sunny day, you will want to bring sunglasses, a hat, sunscreen, bug repellant if you are staying late, and perhaps a thin rain poncho, a water bottle and some hand wipes. This is to help you with dealing with the natural elements of the day that you will have less control over in the State Fair grounds than you would at home. If your senses are unusually sensitive, as in Autism, then any situation you have less control over might bring pain, discomfort, and anxiety.

Preparation is the way to deal with anticipation of an event with less anxiety.

Research Shows a person with Autism is less able to recover from Anxiety
If a person has less ability to recover from anxiety, then avoiding the anxiety in the first place is paramount.

The worst possible scenario for anyone is when they can only anticipate pain, surprises, being startled and unprepared, and even worse--anticipating being startled by pain.

What I think every Autistic person wishes others would know:

My theory of what its like to be an average Autistic person away from home (at school, on an outing, in the community, at work) without this kind of help, is that it is a never-ending feeling of anticipating being startled by pain.

Putting a schedule on a dry-erase board allows for changes to be written in as soon as the caregiver or teacher is aware of them, to allow the Autistic person to brace themselves. Any pain can be less by not having it be startling. When you have a hair-trigger sensory system, that doesn't return to normal easily or quickly, being able to prepare can be a life-saver. (The tendency for the entire day to be ruined from one unexpected change is less likely.)

It is a natural human tendency to want control over the things that matter to them. Control isn't just for control's sake. Sometimes people think this is about power, but what is power other than the ability to control the elements of one's day? Research has shown that even very painful events seem less painful if there is a sense of control involved.

Bracing isn't the same as wincing when you know a person is about to pinch you or give you a shot. This is the sense that you know you can handle whatever it is, painful or not. The idea in your head has to be that "I can handle this." In fact, people who cut themselves on purpose do it with the idea that the pain is under their control. Whereas in other areas of their lives, physical or emotional pain is completely out of their control. If you feel that you won't be able to control your reaction to the event, you will be more anxious just from that feeling.

So there is the event, and your reaction to the event. If you know your reaction will make things worse, then you have twice the anxiety, will require twice the control over yourself, than if you are comfortable with the feeling that you can handle this event.

If your senses aren't reliable, and your ability to control your reactions during events as they are happening is minimal, then your anxiety level can soar.

Anything you can do to anticipate and prepare in a functional way will help reduce anxiety for someone unable to do this for themselves.

In Praise of PRIMING
---------------------------------
We do something called "priming."

Priming can be doing a "dry run" of something where a person's behavior is important.
It can be role-playing.
It can be taking a tour.
It includes reading about something in a book,
seeing something in a video,
writing a story about it,
journaling it,
taking pictures,
singing a song about it,
putting it on a calendar,
on a To Do list,
on a Schedule.

Everyone does this. But people with Autism really need this. They can't just do it in their heads, or hope to adjust as things happen in the moment. They need more time, and in the moment, there is no extra time. Planning ahead is all they have.


In Praise of TIMERS
-------------------------------
We also make good use of a Timer.
We started by timing everything we do. Mom did this mostly, then we timed important things like chores. This makes arguing about them much more realistic. :D

Autistic persons are often "Lost In Time." They have a very hard time telling time, and sensing the passing of time, and estimating time, because time is a rather abstract concept, and abstract reasoning is often not their strong point.

We made an investment in a professional-looking stopwatch and a book about stopwatches.
Once we knew how long things really took, we could set the timer, and say we were leaving in 15 minutes, and REALLY MEAN fifteen minutes! What a relief.

The timer became a "self-regulating" mechanism. The timer also takes all the heat off Mom, because Mom can blame the timer for many things she used to get blamed for. Like periods of waiting. Autistic persons hate unplanned waits. They have very few resources for entertaining themselves while doing un-planned waiting.

Mom never takes advantage of this sytem by cheating and changing the timer when no-one is looking. I thought you were thinking that! But that is really counter-productive, because the goal is to teach the Autistic person what "fifteen minutes" feels like. Not to make his senses and internal sense of life experiences even less reliable.

A lot of these ideas came from and are described in the book:
"Activity Schedules for Children with Autism: Teaching Independent Behavior" by Lynn E., Ph.D. McClannahan , Patricia J., Ph.D. Krantz

The No Yeast Diet

The Anti-Yeast Diet

* Eliminate all yeast, and all foods that contain yeast or are made from yeast.
** Limit or eliminate foods that stimulate the growth of yeast.
***Eliminate foods that have other types of molds or fungus (fermented and aged foods.)

Foods to avoid:

FOODS THAT CONTAIN YEAST
---------------------------------------
Breads
Bagels
Pastries
Pretzels
Crackers
Pizza Dough
CakeRolls
Alcohol, especially beer
Cereal

FOODS THAT STIMULATE THE GROWTH OF YEAST &FOODS THAT CONTAIN MOLDS AND FUNGUS
--------------------------------------------------------------
Sugar and other sweets
Honey
Syrup
Corn Syrup
Raisins
Fruit Juices
Cheese
Vinegar
Ketchup
Sauerkraut
Vinegar-based salad dressing
Some barbecue sauces
Sour Cream
Olives
MustardCapers
Tempeh
Cider
Brown Tea (made from fermented leaves)
Mushrooms
Pickles

The Anti-Candida Diet and Autism

I recommend taking a further step with regard to yeast problems with Autism.

We implemented this for several years with our son who improved remarkably during this time, while also receiving other therapy.

Yeast is also called Candida Albicans. Autistic persons can have an impaired immune response to yeast as mentioned in an earlier posting. Enormous amounts of yeast can be in a child's system at a given time. And the threadlike hyphae of the mycelium from the yeast can penetrate the mucous membranes and the lining of the intestine and cause permeability there, which causes further problems with immunity.

Besides simply eliminating yeast from the child's diet, a Doctor can prescribe an ingestible anti-fungal called Nystatin, in a powder form, a drinkable liquid, and a cream for topical application. Keep Nystatin in the refrigerator but do not freeze it.

Nystatin is a polyene antifungal drug to which many molds and yeast infections are sensitive, including Candida. Nystatin has some toxicity associated with it when given intravenously, but it is not absorbed across intact skin or mucous membranes. It is considered a relatively safe drug for treating oral or gastrointestinal fungal infections.

Skin, vaginal, mucosal and esophageal Candida infections usually respond well to treatment with nystatin. Cryptococcus is also sensitive to nystatin. It is used for treating oral thrush. Nystatin is often used as prophylaxis in patients who are at risk for fungal infections, such as AIDS patients with a low CD4+ count and patients receiving chemotherapy. It is prescribed in units, with doses varying from 100,000 (for oral infections) to 1 million (for intestinal ones).

As it is not absorbed from the gut, it is safe for oral use and does not have problems of drug interactions.

The lotion can be applied to the skin, and the powder can be mixed with honey in very small doses at first, and given to the child. The taste is quite bitter, but many Autistic persons like a bitter taste, or don't seem to mind it. Perhaps because it helps them to feel better. It is important to begin with very tiny amounts of the powder, as small as 1/16th of a teaspoon, and work gradually up to a theraputic dose. This is because the yeast will have a "die-off" and the dead yeast and yeast by-products are toxic to the system if all of it dies off at once.

A guide to the diets recommended for Autism is found in this book and several others:

"Feast Without Yeast: 4 Stages to Better Health: A Complete Guide to Implementing Yeast Free, Wheat (Gluten) Free and Milk (Casein) Free Living"
-- by Bruce Semon, Lori Kornblum, and Bernard Rimland (Paperback - Nov 1999)

To go this further step sounds like more work, but I think that killing off a yeast infection that might be irritating the entire sensitive digestive tract of an Autistic child can only help them. Nystatin does not work like an antibiotic. It doesn't kill off the "good bactiera" in the GI tract, only the fungal infection. Nystatin doesn't get absorbed into the bloodstream of the child, so it causes no side effects other than that caused by the dead yeast itself passing out of the child's system.

Its a non-invasive treatment, the drug is not habit-forming, causes no harm to the child, and even if the yeast isn't a very big problem for a particular child, you have nothing to loose by trying this, and everything to gain.

More about Diet and Autism

Some more about Autism and diets.

The things in the last post are not exactly foods themselves, but things added to foods to change them in some way. You are not really eliminating any true foods if all of these are gone from your child's diet. It may seem like there is "nothing left to eat" when you go to the store. But really everything "left" is the actual food itself. You still have all the foods your Grandparents ate and enjoyed and thrived on. All of civilization before 100 years ago, lived just fine on foods that contained no preservatives (other than salt, vinegar and some spices), no high-fructose corn syrup, no artificial dyes (they had beet juice, turmeric, blueberry and some others), and no nitrates. They had "slow-acting" yeast, which worked just fine for making breads and beers. They had refrigeration, freezing, canning, root cellars, drying and heating. All non-chemical ways to keep foods safe to eat.

They had fermentation as a preservative, which is the only thing that is not available on this diet at this point. Fermentation often produced alcohol, which works to preserve the food, or creates acidity which also inhibits bacteria. For a good replacement for vinegar, substitute lemon or lime juice. Alcohol is actually ok on this diet, of course not for youngsters.

So what to eat, and how? Just shop around the outside of the grocery. Buy produce, fresh meats that aren't processed, canned, frozen and dried goods that have no artificial preservatives or dyes. Shop more often, buy smaller amounts and cook them fresher, and more often from scratch. You don't have to cook "fancy" recipes to cook from scratch. In fact, some meals are great without any cooking at all. Try serving a fresh fruit, like grapes, with a bowl of mixed nuts, and some celery, carrot and red pepper sticks on a plate. A baked potato with olive oil and salt is a nice filler.

Good preservative substitutes are:
-------------------------------------------------
citric acid, available as a powder in bulk form,

vitamin E. (Buy as a liquid or empty a capsule into a preparation.)

Alcohol is fine, although not for children, or if used let the alcohol cook off or evaporate.*

Salt is fine. As are garlic and herbs that inhibit bacterial growth.

Also, as mentioned above, freezing, refrigeration, canning, drying, boiling.*

Avoid using rubbing alcohol for external things (obviously not to drink) use Vodka instead. Rubbing alcohol has been seen by some as a cancer-causing agent.
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------

The next things to try to eliminate, as part of an elimination diet that works for Autism about 30% - 50% of the time is the GF/CF diet. This is where we actually eliminate foods that can cause problems for specific types of people. The GFCF diet is not a weight loss diet, although some current weight loss diets have this as a component. Oprah's current 21-Day Cleanse eliminates both gluten and casein, but also eliminates meat. GF/CF stands for gluten-free/casein-free. Gluten is a protein in wheat and some other grains. Casein comes from milk and milk products. (Eggs are ok.)

The gluten-free part of the diet is almost exactly like the diet recommended for celiac patients. Even extremely tiny amounts of gluten can cause a problem, so following a celiac-type diet is going to cover this.

The casein-free part of the diet is similar to what you might do if you are lactose-intolerant, but it is not the lactose that is the real problem here (although lactose might be an additional problem--its not what causes the Autistic-like symptoms.) In other words, choosing lactose-free milk means that you still will have all the casein in the milk. And adding Lactaid to a dairy product only "fixes" the lactose-intolerance, not the casein problem.

So you have to eliminate all milk, and milk products, like cheese, yogurt, buttermilk, ice cream made from milk or cream, butter (unless it is clarified butter, sometimes called "Ghee".)*

In addition, casein is a very common food additive. Read all the labels on the foods that are processed to look for anything that uses casein. You also might have to check your personal care products like shampoo, and makeup for wheat and casein additives. And sometimes, even the gluten-free candies have been made using flour on the preparation boards to keep them from sticking together. So at this point you will have to call manufacturers to be sure they aren't using either gluten or casein in the preparation, even though it is not a listed ingredient. This is where buying whole unprocessed foods comes in very handy. A sack of potatoes is just a sack of potatoes (hopefully) unless, of course it has been sprayed with a chemical at the farm or in the warehouse. This is where organic foods are helpful, but not essential to this diet.

Many people start by eliminating the dairy products first. There are now many good substitutes for milk. Not-so for cheese. Many vegetarian cheeses have casein added to them. Substitute non-hydrogenated oils, nuts and nut-butters for cheeses. Butter can be clarified, but I highly recommend substituting it with organic, extra-virgin olive oil.

Gluten-free products are available now more than ever. There are many places you can find them, and many regular grocery stores carry a line of gluten-free products. Generally, for starches, we use potatoes and rice. Corn starch can be used to thicken things, instead of flour. Tapioca is OK. Oatmeal is ok, but check to see that it is certified gluten-free (oats are often grown in fields next to wheat and can be combined accidentally.) Popcorn is OK, Corn chips are OK. Salza is OK.

Give this diet about 6 months to see results. Nobody is going to starve. The whole family is on this diet and after an initial adjustment there is no problem finding things to eat and enough to eat. It is more a mind adjustment than a body adjustment. And if you do a little cooking, you don't have to spend any more money than you already do.

Entire cultures of our world live practically gluten free and casein free (until recently if they have become "Westernized".) For example, your local Chinese restaurant has many gluten free, casein free dishes--almost all of the traditional ones are.**

Traditional Mexican food was based mostly on corn flours, and had very little cheese and dairy. Cheese is almost an afterthought, added as a topping, and so it is easy to request dishes to be served without it.

* To make clarified butter, or Ghee, simply warm it until it melts, and then skim off the milk solids that float to the top. What is left looks "clear," hence the name.

** Watch out for "soy sauce" most soy sauces are made from wheat in this country. Buy some Tamari (soy sauce which is actually made from soy) which is labeled gluten-free and bring it with you.

Discussion on Diets and Autism

I know Autistic person's often are very picky eaters, sometimes to the point of it being like an eating disorder. It has been speculated that a small percentage of Anorexics have a form of Autism. However, given this, certain things aggravate the Autism, and if you eliminate them and their brain function improves, it is much easier to get them to stick with the changes because they themselves feel better and think clearer. So give any dietary change some time to work, at least 2 weeks. You can try making any changes gradually over a period of time, so that it doesn't become an "issue" (i.e., the focus of a tantrum.)

People hate diets, I know. And the thought of putting someone already suffering onto any kind of further restriction sounds horrible at first. But if you consider that these suggestions have worked for others, when nothing else has, this might help. Also, eliminating something is cost-free. And if that something is possibly poisonous to your child, even when others can tolerate it, then you are only removing an irritant to their system, like removing an allergen from someone who is allergic. If your child is allergic to cats, it is an easy (but sad) choice to find the cat another home, and it costs nothing to you. Try eliminating one of these things at a time, waiting two weeks, then eliminating another, and keep notes to see how things are going. Don't forget to notify the school or day-care, and enlist your extended family in helping you "test" this, so everyone is on the same page when you start.

List of things to eliminate that might be making the Autistic symptoms worse:
-----------------------------------------------------------
Aspartame; an artificial sweetener in sodas and diet foods. This is a neurotransmitter that exictes the brain and that is why it tastes sweet. It has been shown to cause brain swelling in pilots, migrane headaches and, paradoxically, weight gain.

Nitrates; a preservative which is essentially Salt Peter. Salt peter is a chemical that once was used to keep soldiers from doing you-know-what. Of course it didn't seem to really work, but has been mythologized as some kind of conspiracy additive that soldiers discuss even now. Nitrate is found in almost all processed meats. It keeps the meat pink and changes the flavor. You can find nitrate-free meats in organic food stores.

Yeast and yeast by-products; yeast today is not the same as yeast 100 years ago. Now we have Super Yeast (fast-acting yeast) that has been bread to grow extremely rapidly and virulently. Even though it is baked and cooked, this yeast can proliferate if even a tiny amount remains uncooked. And if the child reacts to the yeast, the yeast by-products (the yeast "poop" and the yeast gas) can irritate the child's digestive tract and make it harder for the child to absorb the vitamins from foods he/she eats. Some people have switched to naturaly made soda breads, and sour dough breads. However, find out how they are made. You don't want a fake sourdough bread made with fast-acting yeast but with a little vinegar or some other additive to add a sour taste. Things to avoid include anything with yeast, but also most fermented things, like vinegar, pickles, etc.

High Fructose Corn Syrup;This sweetener is hard to get rid of since it is in just about everything that comes packaged. It is much sweeter than plain sugar. Try finding things that have plain sugar in them. There are some locally made sodas that do this still. The sugar feeds the yeast and can cause cravings and nutritional deficiencies because of this. Its a vicious circle--the sugar feeds the yeast, and the yeast grows extremely fast, causing sugar cravings. At this point, regular sugar is better because it is less sweet, and is less likely to be allergenic (corn is a very common allergen.)

Food Dyes and Preservatives;My son can actually taste the preservatives that the manufacturers claim to be tasteless. (He was tested in a college research program.) I guess about 10% of people can taste them. Artificial food colorings and preservatives (nitrates are one of them, so you have a good start already) can affect a child's behavior. Preservatives can be fine in very small amounts, but if you eat them with every meal for years at a time, they become irritants to the system, and become allergenic. The allergic response (histamines) can affect the brain of autistic persons.

If this sounds difficult, here is a way to think of it to help motivate you:Preserved food is OLD FOOD. With packaged, preserved food, you are paying extra for old food. Part of the food might look fine, but many vitamins, enzymes and other parts of the food have evaporated, degraded, or been purposely removed to keep the food from looking old when it really is old. With food colorings to "air-brush" the food to make it look like it is new, you don't really even know what it is you are really eating--chemically altered food that would have spoiled long ago.*

Sometimes there is a "withdrawal" effect from eliminating things cold-turkey, and this can happen particularly with Aspartame. So if your child is drinking 5 diet sodas per day, reduce it to 4 diet and offer one regular soda for a few days, then 3 diet and 2 regular, etc. Although, the added sugar might be a problem, the sugar is not your biggest concern at the moment. You can try substituting seltzer water mixed with juice as one of the drinks.

*I am not saying here that all forms of preservation are "bad." I feel refrigeration, freezing, canning (without vinegar), heating, salting, and root-cellar type storage don't pose the same problems.

Supplements for Autism

There are some supplements that have used with children with Autism for over 12 years now, and have had enough success as to be consistently recommended by parents to other parents, and have had some limited research to back them up. A supplement is not a cure. It is not really a drug, since it is not regulated as a drug.

A supplement is generally a natural substance, like a vitamin, that at some point was shown that some Autistic persons' were low in, or improved with taking them.

The three main ones that appear are:
------------------------------------------------------
DMG*
Vitamin B6
Magnesium

*DMG = N, N-Dimethylglycine

I recommend purchasing one package, taking notes on behavior, amount and severity of tantrums and other measures of progress, like progress notes from therapists and school. Provide a single supplement, and give it about 2 weeks to work. A child might act differently at first-sometimes an improvment causes them to be a little more active, but then they settle down. After the package is used, go off the supplement for a week before buying another, and observe if the child gets worse without it. If he/she does, then you have some evidence that this helps them and you can justify the continued expense and trouble of giving it to them.

DMG is generally in a foil packet, as the tablets dissolve very easily in the open air. This makes them easy to give to the child, as they practically dissolve right on the tongue. My son as always seemed to like them and doesn't need to swallow them like a pill--he just chews them.

The dose is about 3 per day to start, for a very young child, age 3, and can be up to 6 per day. As they grow, you can add another tablet gradually.

B6 is given as a separate tablet. We cut them in half at first, and ground them up in a mortar and pestle and added the powder to baby food or honey. As the child gets older a larger dose can be given, but don't give a dose larger than an adult dose without consulting a physician.

Magnesium is given the same way. Start with half the adult dose. I use chelated Magnesium.

Don't consider a multivitamin to be sufficient with these last. An additional multivitamin is also a great idea, and there are some great tasting chewables out there that have no gluten, casein, or dyes in them.

I have heard of some Autistic children improving greatly--going from not speaking at all to speaking in sentences--on these supplements alone. I personally met one family who claimed this was true with their son, whom I also met. This was the deciding factor in getting me to go out and actually purchase them and try them, even though I had heard about them before that.