Change at the Speed of Snail

My pediatrician said to me on our first visit that it takes 20 years to change clinical practice.  That parents are changing the treatment of autistic and sensory children simply because they demand it.  And that if we waited for clinicians to do it, we'd be waiting too long because children grow up too fast.

In that same vein I just read this article on gluten sensitivity: http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052748704893604576200393522456636.html.

In two separate places the woman who runs the gluten intolerance group of north america says that patients have been told that it's in their head or they are crazy if they don't have celiac but still react to gluten.  Their symptoms simply written off as psychiatric.  It also says, "Peter Green, director of the Celiac Disease Center says that research into gluten sensitivity today is roughly where celiac disease was 30 years ago."

My response to Mothering's Vaccine Debate article

Thank you, Mothering, for running the Vaccine Debate article. I am a parent who chooses not to vaccinate. As a nurse with a BSN who practiced in hospitals for 8 years before having children, I never once questioned vaccinations. I even consented to the flu shot when I was three months pregnant, after asking the nurse giving it if she was sure it was safe. She simply shrugged.

My life changed when my daughter was born at 35 weeks. She had her first Hepatitis B shot in the neonatal intensive care unit at MUSC in Charleston, SC. Looking back, I still do not understand why you would vaccinate a child whose immune system is already under attack from pneumonia and respiratory distress, at less than ten days old. Once we got home to Hilton Head, I questioned her pediatrician as to why I should vaccinate her on schedule, because the guidelines at the time (2004) said that premature infants should be vaccinated according to their gestational age, not when they were actually born. He convinced me to stay on schedule, and being a health care provider, I never questioned him.

Elle reacted to her two month shots with high pitched screaming that lasted for more than 24 hours. I just thought it was an extreme expression of her already frustrating colic. Then after her four month shots, she stopped breathing during a nap. I went in to check on her because the room was a little too quiet, and she was blue around the lips and nose, and her chest wasn't moving. It took me 1-2 minutes of rubbing her sternum to get her to breathe, and about an hour for her to come around and be fully coherent.

Updates

I want to make a few things clear... when I was asking Eric if he thought Justin was ever autistic, he got confused. He said that most people think autism is an incurable problem, a dead end diagnosis.

It's actually a constellation of things- social disconnect, sensory integration issues, delayed speech, stimming (doing the same behavior over and over again), delayed gross or fine motor skills, inflexibility, and labile mood. Physical manifestations are food allergies, gut dysfunction, immune system dysfunction, yeast overgrowth, and sleep disturbances.

Autism is treatable. There are biomedical treatments, homeopathy, physical treatments, OT and speech therapy, detox, chelation, methyl B12, on and on. It is like being hit by a bus. You don't get cured, but you can recover. Kids can recover from autism.

Justin's Issues

I know it's been a long time since I wrote about Justin's issues so I am going to try to bring you up to date. We went to speech therapy for 5 or 6 weeks before we moved, with a lady at Ochnser. She was super! Had lots of toys and was able to engage him well. When he was evaluated at 2 yrs 9 months, he tested for speech at a less than two year old level. He did very well in speech but it is hard to say if he progressed a lot because we didn't continue when we got up here (insurance doesn't cover speech unless you've had a stroke here). So I need to look into the state-run program for Iowa.

Swine Flu Info

I was really curious as to why we are freaking out about 190 confirmed cases when there are 300 million people in the U.S.  Compared to the average winter flu, that is a drop in the bucket... there is some evidence out there that this virus was produced as a biological weapon, much like the H5N1 virus (avian flu), but that is conjecture at the moment.

Thought you all might find this interesting.

K

<http://www.latimes.com/news/nationworld/nation/la-sci-swine-reality30-2009apr30\
,0,6192735,print.story>http://www.latimes.com/news/nationworld/nation/la-sci-swi\
ne-reality30-2009apr30,0,6192735,print.story



Scientists see this flu strain as relatively mild

Genetic data indicate this outbreak won't be as deadly as that of
1918, or even the average winter.