Some physicians may recommend complementary alternative medicine (CAM) therapies for children with autism.
A survey was offered to 3,100 pediatricians and family medicine practitioners, and about 1 out of 5 responded to the survey (539 physicians). The survey showed that 49% of the doctors encouraged multi-vitamin therapy for children with autism. And 19 to 25% of them encouraged essential fatty acids (EFAs), melatonin, and probiotics as therapy for autism. Physicians discouraged parents from using some therapies. Therapies that were discouraged include chelation (61%), anti-infection treatments (57%), and secretin (43%). Many of the doctors (76%) also urged immunizations according to the recommended schedule. The authors said that doctors may want to ask families about therapies that families might be using, even if the parents do not bring up the topic.
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Anti-social problems
Nov 27, 2006 by AnonymousAll in all, it was a successful Thanksgiving weekend.
When I last wrote, I was about to take Thomas to the doctor for pink-eye. We went on Wednesday morning, and he again amazed me with his composure. This time, I told him that all the doctor wanted to do was look at his eyes, but the doctor ended up giving him a complete once-over…and Thomas put up with it! I couldn’t believe it. He was very calm and still as the doctor examined him. He was diagnosed with pink-eye, and the pediatrician also wants me to take Thomas to a pediatric cardiologist to have his systolic heart murmur checked out. That’s a little scary…but the doctor doesn’t seem to be too worried about it. Also, I have no idea whether or not the cardiologist handles special-needs kids at all. I’m pretty sure that Thomas would have to be sedated for chest x-rays and any other tests they would want to perform. I’ll have to call soon and find out.
So as I predicted, we were prescribed eye drops for Thomas’ infection and they were every bit as hard to administer as I thought they would be. I almost cried when the doctor said to give them to him seven or eight times every day! I think we gave him five or six rounds before the infection was completely cleared up. The good news is that although he protested mightily, he did get over each round very quickly. He used to cry for a long time after stuff like that, but he was able to soothe himself really well after the eye drops.
He was not contagious for Thanksgiving Day at my mother-in-law’s house, so off we went on Thursday, despite Thomas’ objections. It wasn’t that strange for him to be against going somewhere like that, but he wouldn’t even get out of the car when we got there. It took a lot of coaxing to get him to come in the house, and even after he finally did come in, he wouldn’t take his coat off. It was such a beautiful day here that Thomas got to play outside with his second-cousin Grady, and Uncle Jeff’s new puppy, Brooke. Thomas also learned how to roll downhill; he loved that probably because it’s fun but also because of the sensory stimulation. The three of them were so cute playing outside. The puppy thought she was a little kid, too.
Thomas seems to be going through an anti-social phase. Every time we talk to Thomas about seeing somebody – anybody – Thomas cries, “No! I don’t want to see So-and So!” He gets really upset about it. We had Jonathan’s family over for the Bears’ game on Sunday, and Thomas didn’t like the idea of it at all. When Jonathan’s mother got here, Thomas said he didn’t want her, didn’t want to see Grandma, and of course my mother-in-law took it very personally. I tried to tell her that it’s not personal, he just doesn’t feel like seeing anybody and we should let him warm up a little. She kept asking Thomas, “Why don’t you want to see Grandma?” “Why” questions are really tough for little kids anyway, but it just exacerbated the situation. Thomas screamed and cried for quite a while after everyone showed up, but he did calm down eventually and was pleasant after. Seeing other people and going to other people’s houses used to be something that Thomas looked forward to, but it doesn’t seem like he’s into it right now. Hopefully, he’ll get better at it. We’ll just keep giving him as much warning as possible. We didn’t arrange the get-together on Sunday until late Saturday, after Thomas was in bed, so maybe the shorter warning had something to do with his behavior.
We’ve decorated the house and put up the outside lights. This was the week to do it; we’ve been having unseasonably warm weather here in Chicago. The house looks great (except for the hideous carpet) and we’re looking forward to Christmas. And Thomas didn’t miss hand-turkeys on Wednesday when he was home from school; they made them last Tuesday and his was sent home in his backpack today!
Un-Halloween
Nov 1, 2006 by dankohnWe had to cancel Halloween. Both Thomas and Hayley were very sick yesterday, so Thomas couldn’t even go to school, let alone run around the neighborhood ringing doorbells. It turns out that he has a double ear infection and Hayley has some sort of irritation in her throat and they’re both congested and sniffling. They were much better today, until Thomas got bleach in his eye this evening.
I was just getting ready to give Hayley a bath when Thomas, standing on the training potty behind me, started screaming and rubbing his eyes. I immediately noticed a bleach smell and realized that I had left the spray-bottle of bleach-water on the counter. After all of the cleaning-up I’ve been doing over the last few days with potty accidents and barfing, I’d just forgotten to put it away, or even turn the sprayer to the “off” position. Duh! Actually, “duh” doesn’t cut it. “Completely irresponsible and insanely negligent” describe it better. So the whole thing was my fault.
My husband and I immediately tried to get Thomas’ head under the kitchen faucet but succeeded only in really upsetting him and getting his hair wet. I called Poison Control and they said to rinse his eyes out for fifteen minutes and not let him rub them. We knew right away how unlikely it was that we’d be able to get Thomas to hold still while rinsing his eyes. Restraining Thomas for any reason is impossible without the help of hospital orderlies, but holding him down and pouring water in his face was an absurd thought. We did the best we could; Jonathan held him in the shower for about five minutes, but that was all we could do. Thomas is terrified of the shower spray.
After the shower, we all lay down together on the bed and Thomas calmed down a little. The gentleman I spoke to at Poison Control asked us to call back after an hour, so I did. I mentioned to him that Thomas is autistic, and he seemed attuned to our plight. He asked if Thomas could tell us if his eye was bothering him, and I told him “maybe.” I asked him, and Thomas said, “yes.” At that point, he wasn’t rubbing his eye at all (we had had to stop him from rubbing it earlier), so we figured it was okay. We’ll watch it over the next few days for any signs of irritation, but we think he’s going to be fine.
Never a dull moment.
Thomas missed yesterday and today at school, so I really don’t have any reports about that. I’m really sorry that I had to miss the little Halloween parade at his school yesterday, but my mother-in-law reminded me that he’s too young to know what he’s missing as far as parades and trick-or-treating. It’s much harder on me and Jonathan that Thomas missed it. Hopefully everyone will be healthy next Halloween and I’ll be able to see the parade. I’m not sure how it would have gone, though. Thomas gets confused when I show up at school in the middle of his day and it tends to turn out badly.
The potty-training continues to go really well; much better than we thought it would. He has figured out how to hold it for very long periods of time (several hours) and he did a really great job over the last couple of days despite being sick, probably because he was a little dehydrated.
I’d be very happy to sacrifice Halloween if we could be sure the kids would be well for Thanksgiving and Christmas. I wish such bargains existed.