Homeopathy for Autism Testimonials:
Karin B.
Posted: 2007-02-15
Contributed by: Karin from Austin
Primary complaint: Autism
My son had a completely wonderful and normal babyhood. He was cooing and interacting and had the most infectious laugh. He did have some colic, but we took it in stride. He was crawling by 6 months and walking by 11 months.
I wish I had never started his vaccinations at 6 months, but even though I was concerned and had delayed vaccination, I was still too afraid because of propaganda to go completely vaccination free. I falsely reasoned that he would be able to handle them because he was completely breastfed and completely healthy and that this was probably one of his healthiest times of his life for his immune system to deal with vaccination. We started with DTaP and Polio and HiB. At 8 months he had his very first illness, an upper respiratory infection. used homeopathy and he came through it just fine. He received the MMR at 18 months. At that point his development still seemed OK, but he had started to develop some things that I would later find out were autistic symptoms. He never hand flapped or rocked or did some of the things that would have definitely triggered concerns in me with what little knowledge I did have of Autism. His speech was delayed, he verbally stimmed (although I did not know that was what it was that he was doing), and he did not point or bring toys to me like most children would do. I did not realize he was not doing those last two developmental milestones until later when he was diagnosed. He also lost general eye contact and while still attached and playful with us, he completely ignored everyone else in the world.
I began attempting to potty train him after his second birthday but it was useless because not only was he not ready but he wasn't talking and I couldn't adequately communicate with him. I thought to myself that surely he would be talking by age three and at that point we would try again. The only doctor visits he ever had were "well check-ups" and we went in for an annual one at three years of age. This time we went to a family doctor instead of our regular pediatrician. Prior to this when he went for well-baby checkups and at his 1-year and 18 month and 2-year check-ups, his pediatrician would ask me about his language development. He would say something like "Does your son have 70 words?" My mouth would drop open in disbelief and I would say "NO.. maybe more like 10". Each time the pediatrician would reassure me about different levels of development and "being a boy" and things like that. At his two year checkup I actually wrote down every word that my son had but it was nowhere near the level he was supposed to have. I was still reassured during the brief visit. At the three year checkup the family doctor said my son needed some "speech therapy" and that he needed to be potty trained. I felt guilty and left without even a referral. I also allowed the family doctor to start the Hepatitis B series of vaccinations because I knew my son would need them for school.
The next month I read an article that advised that I could have my son evaluated by the local school district for free and I figured that maybe he could get "speech therapy" through the school. I had never heard of early intervention or any other program and the family doctor had not given me any other resource. I had to wait a couple of months for the school to open because it was now Summer. So, that September, I called and got the ball rolling for the School to evaluate him. In the meantime as my son was getting the Hepatitis B vaccinations that Summer, he was spiraling downward into a world of autism. The day that he lined up his cars in a row, I took a picture of it thinking he had done something brilliant and unusual. Unusual was right! I didn't realize how different he was from my friend's children because we just still enjoyed him so much and were used to his idiosyncrasies. Our friends and family were very concerned but not saying so to us. When they found out we were going for evaluation they kept expressing how supportive they would be for us and I couldn't understand why they looked so relieved.
At our first visit to the school for a play-based evaluation - I couldn't believe how my son could just look right through the evaluators as if they weren't there. I was shocked. He played with the toys but it was almost as if the other people didn't exist. When they asked me to leave the room to see his reaction, he had no reaction. They asked me many, many questions about stereo-typical autism behaviors but never used the "A" word with me. In my mind I could not understand why they were asking me about Autism. That first day I went home and did an internet search about Autism. I pulled up tons of information and as I read the information about the Autism SPECTRUM my husband said immediately "That's it. Our son has Autism". I still couldn't really believe it but it was undeniable. I immediately booked an appointment with his pediatrician who hadn't seen our son in over a year because we had been to the family doctor instead. The next week we went in and I expressed my concerns and the Pediatrician said that my son was definitely on the spectrum within 5 minutes of being in the room with us and gave me a referral to a Pediatric Neurologist. In the meantime we were still going to a follow up appointment with an autism specialist at the school. They finally said the word to me at one of the follow up visits and by that time I already knew. During this one-month period my son had an EEG, bloodwork, MRI and whatever else the Neurologist wanted and everyone came back with the same explanation. He was autistic, he should start school, and his future was completely unknown.
We never saw the pediatric neurologist again or any other medical doctor. There was nothing they could do. The school enrolled him in the Pre-school Program for Children with Disabilities. I had to send my three year old to school instead of have him home with me for the next two years. I began to read and delve into the world of Autism and I went to conferences and we finally started "speech therapy". Life moved along but it was so different than it had been. My son was very stimmy at this point, he had lost a lot of the words he had been able to say, and he was in his own world. I discontinued all vaccinations. He never got that third Hepatitis B shot and no boosters or Chicken Pox or anything else that was on the schedule. I didn't know if vaccinations were a problem or not but I was not taking any more chances.
Speech therapy did not help my son to talk. School did not help my son to talk. I desperately wanted to talk with him. Two years after his diagnosis, I attended a conference where I learned about Thimerosal and other possible causal factors as well as bio-medical treatment. I had dabbled with homeopathy going to a couple of different practitioners during those two years, but was not getting anywhere and although I loved homeopathy and used it in the family for everything else, I did not have confidence that homeopathy and a single remedy was going to help my son with his complex issues. I could not imagine there was a simillimum for all the variety of symptoms my son had. But I was looking. I was reading every single remedy description in my materia medica and I was trying to find someone who I had heard of that had successful treatment with homeopathy. I was getting very close to trying chelation and some of the other treatments. I finally heard about Amy Lansky's book and ordered it. I was so encouraged by her story, but her son's background was different than my son's and I couldn't see how to proceed nor who I could access to help me in my area. I attended the conference of National Center for Homeopathy in the Spring of 2005 and went to the session on Autism Spectrum and listened as Amy and other homeopaths discussed the use of homeopathy in the treatment of ASD. I was very encouraged but I was also dismayed by a lot of people saying that the parents needed to have their expectations adjusted. That total cure might not be possible. That the parents needed to be treated for their issues so that they could better accept their child's plight. I heard lots of stories of improvement, but the emphasis was on that it would take a very long time and that it might not bring the child totally back. I left that conference more determined than ever to use homeopathy but nervous as to whether it was the right decision because I was hearing of full recovery stories through chelation and other treatments. I did not want to put chelating chemicals into my son but I didn't feel that I had time to pursue a long slow cure through a single remedy approach. My son was closing in on his 6th birthday.
I had a good friend who was a classical homeopath who wanted to take my son's case. She had never treated a child with an ASD however so it would be new ground. We left that conference together determined to find our way. Less than a month later she would get the terrible news that her husband's cancer had come back and her attention was rightfully diverted to him. I went back to the internet and started searching for help for Autism through Homeopathy. I ordered an expensive set of videos from a famous homeopath who was having success however he was about 2000 miles away from us. Then one day I stumbled onto an e-mail list about the use of something called Sequential Homeopathy in the treatment of Autism Spectrum Disorders. I had never heard of Sequential Homeopathy, but the anecdotal stories I was hearing and the discussion by the homeopath with interested parents was intriguing to say the least. I listened in for about a month, asked questions and feeling the pressure of my son's 6th birthday and his inability to communicate with me... we decided to take the plunge with Sequential Homeopathy. It seemed like I was somehow led to this decision because not only did they have great answers to my questions but they were located only 2 hours away from me!
We began treatment two weeks before my son's 6th birthday which was in early June. I was very excited because their approach was to work backwards through my son's timeline and work on the assaults his immune system had received through vaccinations and other things that he had experienced in his brief life. We started seeing results within the first month. The changes in our son that Summer were unbelievable to us. He developed new language skills every month after we would have an appointment and get a new set of remedies. His imagination began to develop. He started playing in a whole new way including with other children. He was pretending! He taught himself to swim. He went from being a child who would not put his head in the water to diving down to the deep end of a swimming pool to retrieve a toy and swimming across the pool, in one month's time! He was changing before our eyes and I have a journal of stories and notes and things that he did that he had never done before. That first year of treatment he began to speak in sentences and his vocabulary exploded. When he started School that Fall he was placed into a general education Kindergarten class (he was six, but I had requested to hold him back) with the support of an aide. He could not hold his pencil very well and all he could do was scribble. Within a few months he was drawing very detailed pictures even in small spaces. The School expected him to fail in the general education classroom so they had put him in there to indulge me with the expectation that he would have to be returned to the self-contained classroom. Within three weeks at the beginning of the school year they had an ARD meeting where they informed me that he would be staying in the general education classroom. They explained to me... "We just had no idea he would improve so much during the Summer."
We continued to have appointments with our Sequential Homeopath - who is Lindyl Lanham of the Houston Center of Homeopathy. She treated him with a large variety of homeopathic remedies and some other supportive supplements to keep yeast issues at bay and help his immune system be able to detox. He made new gains and improvements every single month. He took his remedies very willingly and even asked me to give them to him at times because he knew they were helping him. He changed completely from the boy he was and he came out of the world of Autism and into the world of interaction and communication and social experiences.
We are now almost two years from the point where we started. Our son talks non-stop!!! He has friends and goes to sleep-overs; he has an amazing imagination; he is showing a lot of artistic talent as his drawings become more and more impressive; he has overcome some incredible sensory problems. I did not even talk yet about his sensory issues. He used to scream like he was being tortured when he would have to get his haircut. This led to him having military haircuts for his early childhood because we would cut it as short as possible in order to do it less often. Today he jumps up into the chair and converses with the woman who cuts his hair and he laughs and he tells himself in the mirror that he is so handsome! He used to gag and choke at trying to eat certain foods. He would hold a piece of meat in his mouth for over an hour rather than chew it and swallow it! He couldn't handle any food that was too soft. Today he eats anything and dinner is no longer stressful. The word stressful is actually an understatement to what it used to be like to try to feed him.
There is much more to this story than I have remembered to write here. I have been typing for over an hour though and I don't know if anyone has the patience to read this whole thing anyway. I just wanted to share that parents should never give up or feel that it is too late. There are answers. I am so happy and blessed to have my son back. I don't know what would have happened if we had not found Sequential Homeopathy. I don't even want to think about that. Thankfully I don't have to.
