In the middle of detox

We are on week 4 of detox from vaccines. It has all been very interesting. The kids are taking a homeopathic called Thuja per our naturopath's advice. They go through the "reverse order of symptoms", which basically means that they exhibit every symptom and illness they have had since they were babies.

The first week they both had this awful green snot, that stuck to everything. I guess that was their systems getting rid of the bacteria. The second week Elle developed her milk allergy again. Justin had this nasty poop that looked like it had little black worms or dirt in it. It was gross. The third week Elle developed her bronchitis/croupy cough and Justin just kept pooping more and more. I guess his bowel is recovering.

The fourth week Justin grew I swear what looked like an inch. He has been growing and developing, but at a slower pace because his bowel has been unable to absorb and use nutrients as it should, due to the gluten allergy. He's been on the diet since he was 12 months, but I didn't get on the diet until he was about 14 months. We slip up sometimes, and he is still sensitive to gluten, but he is doing better now with the detox.

I think the reason he has kept up with his development at all is b/c he has been breastfed. 17 months is very late to walk, 12 months is very late to pull up, and 8-9 months was pretty late to crawl. I have had many people tell me that he was well within the range of normal, which is great, it just wasn't normal for my child, who had been developing fine and right on schedule until the shot. I don't know whether the shot precipitated the gluten problem by affecting his bowel or the gluten in his diet just brought out the side effects from the shot.

Elle has developed her eye problem again like she had as a baby, so I think detox is almost over. Justin is talking more, and more clearly now. It turns out that the trace of mercury in the one shot he got was not the problem, it was the aluminum in the shot, which can cause the same heavy metal poisoning and symptoms that mercury poisoning can cause. Dr. Sears had a very interesting section on it in his book.

It is interesting to note that boys often have neurological consequences from shots, and girls have respiratory and skin problems. Elle's exzema is gone, but only because we took her off of cow's milk. Her skin was awful. Her eyes itch now every time she has dairy. Hopefully it will go away again! Not that our bodies need cow's milk anyway. Studies of other mammals show that they do not need milk after they wean, because it has growth hormones designed specifically to help babies grow. Maybe that's why we keep getting bigger and bigger???

It has been interesting being on a gluten free diet. I don't get sick anymore and I've lost a whole bunch of weight, which at first I attributed to nursing, but I think it's more than that. Wheat has to be broken down to be processed, whereas corn and rice retain their whole grain form. Anything that is broken down turns to sugar in your body when it is digested. So even though Justin and I eat a lot of corn and rice, it doesn't seem to be turning into sugar and then fat.

It is interesting to note that Mexicans aren't fat, even though they eat a lot of corn, and Oriental cultures aren't fat, even though they eat a lot of rice. I think it is because of the above. Americans are fat for a lot of reasons, not the least of which is the wheat we eat, that is in everything, even things you would not expect! The other reason we are fat is b/c of bottlefeeding, where the baby does not control how much he eats. It is easy to get a baby to finish a bottle, but there is no way you can get a baby to breastfeed if he doesn't want to.

Studies have been showing that newborns are overfed in the hospital. On day 1 a baby's stomach can only fit about 5-7 mLs (1/6 of an ounce), 22-27 mL (about 1 ounce) on day 3 when mom's milk comes in, and about 60-81 mL (2 to almost 3 ounces) on day 10. So what are we doing to babies in the hospital when they are fed 2 ounce bottles every 3 hours from birth? Overfeeding! And when that happens babies' fullness indicators are ignored by both the baby and the caregiver, and that leads to overeating later in life... and fat adults!

Ok enough of my rant, the kids are doing much better.