Update on Slater - September 2005

Posted on Chelating Kids 2 Yahoo Group & included here with permission

Slater is now 3.7 months old, diagnosed officially at 22 months
old but started biomedical per Dr. JM's book and diet at about 19
months. Slater was PDD-NOS but Director of Autism Center said she
have easily scored him one point lower and he would have been autism
which when you look at videos is where he seems to fall in most
folks minds now who are looking back on his history.

Dr. McCandless is Slater's doctor and did his eval at 24 months. We
began individualized nutrients based on his testing and also in the
first few months changed our diet which was SCD at the time to
GF/CF/SF/CF and sugar free (no fruit except pears, berries etc). We
also began to watch sulfur and phenol foods.

Slater did great and we had removal of diagnosis on my birthday last
year... he has continued to improve (removal of diagnosis does not
mean all issues are gone I found!). The Director of the Autism
Center who diagnosed Slater removed his diagnosis and he scored a
perfect score on the test (ADOS).. no marks against him and she will
admit that she was very strict in reevaluating him. It was the first
time in 20+ years she had removed a diagnosis and she told me
afterwards that it made her rethink her entire philosophy on
autism.. this is major university based autism center and for years
she had taught students that autism is a lifelong disability. Now
she sees that it may not be for all children and she even attended
the last big DAN! and took others with her so all of this has had a
very positive impact. So our kids can get better and it can impact
what the mainstream folks out there are thinking. :)

We are now working on the gut
which has responded to LDN and then to the low oxalate diet that
Susan Owens introduced. I saw GREAT gains once we started this in
ways we did not expect.. cognitively, language and motor skills. We
are also still on a very strict diet though Dr. JM recently told me
that she felt we could begin to challenge this soon with the
improvements we have seen. I'm not quite ready to do that yet but it
was exciting to get that note from her. I want to allow some more
healing time and then maybe consider it next year. There is so much
at risk to stop the diet too soon and hoping that a little extra
time will work in our favor.

Slater starts normal preschool tomorrow  in a 3 year old program. He
is potty trained and age appropiate in most if not all skills. His
expressive langauge and receptive language are within the mean and
this is huge for a child who was virtually non verbal until about 26-
28 months old.

He is loving, laughs, plays, has 3 year old tantrums (I have another
3 year old too so believe me I know the difference in these
and "autism" tantrums!)and though the gut is not 100% fixed, he gets
better with each day.

My gratitude to those on this list and others and especially to
Anagrammy and to Dr. JM who were such a big part of this little guy
"coming back".

I realize that people always wonder what the definition of recovery
is when someone writes a post like this. And this also hits on the
other reason I felt the need to write  --- I literally lived to hear
about children who have responded to treatment when we first got
started. So....for me recovery is functioning
successfully in a normal setting with no supports. And he is doing
this 100% of the time now. He has no "quirks" or stims or odd
behaviors.  We do still have dietary restrictions and that is about
it along with taking a few supplements. We were off ALL supplements
for months but decided to add some back to assure he was getting all
the nutrients he needs and to comply with the recommendations for
the oxalate diet. I think in this toxic world we all need some
vitamins/minerals anyway! I am not sure if his gut will ever
completely heal but hold hope from Dr. JM saying that many kids do
as they get older..there was so much damage initially that it could
not be expected to heal over night. And the oxalate diet is
fostering healing that I am so excited about. But like Ann has said
many times, there are many adults who suffer from crohns and colitis
for a lifetime and some of these children may fall into that
category. I hope that does not happen but if it does, that is
managable. The only issues we have that may be 3 year old issues but
I don't think so are when I am trying to tweak the diet and
supplements and he doesn't respond well to the changes. We quickly
can get back on track but his gut is healing so fast and I am seeing
so many positive changes that adjusting things to keep pace with it
all is sometimes a challenge. But basically he can go anywhere on
any given day and fit in with typical children and function well
there.

I hesitate so often to share our story because my heart is with all
who are still on this journey.. and I consider us still there too
since we still are healing the gut and that brings challenges yet. I
realize that not all children will respond as quickly or completely
but I have high hopes for all children to be in the best health
possible. Slater is functioning in typical situations with
absolutely no supports. He participated in a somewhat advanced
preschool this summer and did so with no problems and loved going.

My best wishes to everyone and many thanks to so many on this list
who helped as we were undergoing treatment. You were all our angels.

Blessings,
Karen
www.slatersjourney.blog-city.com