Further Down the Road of Recovery

I took Lib to the new DAN doctor in our little town. Actually, it's another little town past our little town, but all in all it's basically in what you would still call "the country." You'd never expect to find an alternative clinic here that has been quietly offering chelation for 10 years. You just never know what is in your backyard.

The clinic also offers hyperbaric chambers and infrared sauna.

But, that's not why we went. We went to see this doctor, to get Lib established with a developmental pediatrician and the fact that she just got DAN-certified was icing on the cake.

Insurance? Not this appointment but praise GOD, she is going to be on board with insurance next month. A miracle for us! The appointment was expensive and I sucked wind writing the check, but she charged half of what Dr. Bock charged us on our first visit. It's highway robbery, really. I'm sure she is getting insurance because she would not have any patients - who can afford this stuff? It's just so wrong. Here we have an epidemic of ungodly proportion and nothing is covered. We are just so fortunate that we can even go to a DAN and we have had lots of help from family. Oh yes, where would we be without a loving family?

Anyway, do I like her? Yes. She is vegan. She LIVES a "green" life. She is big on learning to eat right and well, and she dislikes pharmaceutical companies. She said she would use a drug if warranted, but will try at all times to do everything naturally to get the body to work properly on its own. She is a new kid on the block in the world of DAN, but she is pretty knowledgeable and I think she is going to add a nice dimension to our "team" here. I still have our Dr. Bock on board and I do still appreciate him, but perhaps we will be able to space our appointments with him out longer now until we eventually turn our care over to someone local.

This new doctor likes the fact that Bock is willing to use homeopathic remedies and natural supplements and probiotics from fermented foods, etc. I don't even know if she has read both of his books The Road to Immunity or Healing the New Childhood Epidemics, but I am willing to lend them to her. I am not touting him as the "best" doctor by any means, but he surely knows a lot about not only autism but asthma, ADHD and allergies and so does his brother who is an expert in Lyme disease.

Our new doc said, absolutely no chelation until the bowels move every day! She has me making smoothies for breakfast with hemp protein powder and flax seed oil, and "green" juices in the afternoon sweetened with fruit or Agave syrup. (I have to give Lib these through a syringe, but who cares?) Dr. Bock gave us a fiber supplement, but the new DAN says she wants fresh organic enzymes going in Lib's little body, not just substitutes.

Although, she DID give us one supplement called MagC and last night, my son moved his bowels on his own for the first time in a very long time! She said that lots of the stimming we are seeing could be just from being backed up with toxins. She wants to see how his behavior changes with the nutritional changes and the daily elimination.

As for chelation, our DAN doctor in NY wants to use DMSA suppositories. I have read different methods and I like the Cutler protocol which uses DMSA but takes the half-life of the drug into account, so you are chelating more frequently on chelation days so the metals don't get re-absorbed. And you introduce ALA which crosses the blood-brain barrier and pulls metals from the brain. Dr. Bock said we have to be careful with yeast being kicked up when we add this in so he said to double up on our probiotic.

The new DAN here thinks we can get the metals out naturally and she has several methods she reeled off to me. I told her that most of us want the "big guns" of chelation (DMSA, EDTA, etc.) simply because we have been on this road for so long and the metals have been in so long. We are scared, we want the gunk out! But, I did see that you have to be careful. I should not have given my son any of the herbal Heavy Metal Detox the herbalist gave us until he was eliminating properly. This stuff contained ALA and NAC and cilantro among others. I saw immediate improvement as I blogged about before because I'm sure he was detoxifying, but then I saw some bad stimming and screaming and disturbed sleep ... we believe because the metals got reabsorbed.

So be careful! Herbs are powerful, too. I see that. The herbalist told me to change Lib's diet and he really should have said for me to do that first and get the bowels moving before I attempted the detox for metals.

But, it's okay. We are moving forward. We are learning. My son is doing well in the middle of the God-awful stimming that has cropped up recently, so I am encouraged. I will stay the course.

Lots of people have told me that I am one of the "warriors" that Jenny talks about, but I really dislike the word. I like the word advocate better. Warrior to me reminds me of all of the pain associated with the diagnosis: The vaccine incidents themselves, the doctors whose ears were closed to me, the desperation and search for help for my son, the sifting through tons of information, wondering what was reliable and what was not.

So, I consider myself an advocate for my son. I've been there and done that and spoken to that person and read from that group. My new DAN here talked about her "smart moms," and how we are the ones teaching the doctors. She actually said that to me! And, for the first time, I looked at her and I said, "Yes. That's right. We are educating you and we have a lot to learn together." She said, "We (referring to doctors in general) were not there for you and have not been there for you for a long time, but hopefully the tide is turning."

God, I pray it's so.