Demi is continuing to do well. Last Friday, I had a conference with her teacher, a routine sit-down to discuss how she's progressing at the half-way point through the semester. She had already checked off half of the IEP goals that had been set to cover Demi's whole school year! Granted, many of those goals were carry over from last year, but she's finally making steady progress.
We've recently started a new intervention as well - Therapeutic Listening. I've heard it called different names - she listens to special music for 30 minutes, twice a day. The music is specifically engineered to stimulate her auditory processing and vestibular system, both of which influence her body awareness, balance, environmental awareness, focus & attention, and much more.
We've been doing the process for 4 wks now. When we first started, the therapist mentioned that some children saw an increase in emotional tone (e.g. more crying), but that was usually for kids who were mostly "flat" emotionally. Since I didn't consider Demi "flat", I assumed she would not be in that category. Boy, was I wrong! She definitely did have an "increase in emotional tone" - a euphemism for meltdowns to drive a family insane. She would meltdown in a split second over the most minor issues. In the presence of a meltdown, it's often difficult to think straight - you just yearn for silence. In retrospect, I believe most of them had to do with extreme and immediate frustration in communication.
My husband was ready to toss the (very expensive) headphones out the window. After talking to the therapist at the 4wk point, I convinced him that we should continue on the program, at least for another 4 wks. The therapist said the crying normally subsided within two months. She also recommended moving to certain CD's which focus on language development, hopefully to mitigate the language frustration I believe she was having.
Strangely enough, she's only had one uncontrolled meltdown this week, as opposed to about five last week.
Since the listening therapy started, I've noticed clearer speech and improved eye contact. According to the therapist, we'll need to continue the therapy for a long time in order for the gains to "stick." If the meltdowns stop, I can deal with the rest of the program.
Little to do with cellular zeolite, but I still believe the Natural Cellular Defense, along with nutrition (fish oil, Juice Plus+), is the foundation on which the therapy and other interventions succeed.
Thursday, October 19, 2006
Tuesday, August 22, 2006
Healing Powers
A couple of updates:
We went for a family bike ride yesterday and I took a spill. Not terribly serious, but painful nonetheless. I was going too fast, making a turn, and hitting a bump, all at the same time. I took the brunt of the impact in my hand/wrist/arm, then fell onto my elbow/forearm, and slid the rest of the way on my hip, across pavement. Although I had a good scrape on the heel of my hand, most of the pain was at the base of my thumb, just beside the scrape. It started going numb, swelling, and discoloring slightly. Once I got home, I put it in ice water, as much as I could stand for quite a while. My hand had no strength and I could barely move my thumb. From the way it felt and looked when I went to sleep, I expected to find a very swollen hand when I woke up.
Not so! This morning, it's basically fine. There's no swelling, only minor pain when I move it around, and no discoloration. I have a large spot on my hip (6" across) which should be bruised substantially, but there's only minor swelling and bruising there, from what I can see under the abrasions. I'm pretty surprised it's not worse than it is. I believe the NCD is helping my body heal faster. Granted, this is not a serious injury, but I really expected to be in quite a bit of pain today and I'm NOT!
About my aunt: She had surgery yesterday to remove her tumor. She's been on NCD for 4 weeks. The tumor was still there, so the surgeon removed it, although there were some difficulties with the removal. But some other points bear making: One of the reasons the surgeon removed the tumor was because my aunt was doing very well on the table. Her body, although 74 yrs old and suffering from various ailments (including heart problems), was withstanding the surgical invasion very well. Based on that strength, he continued with the operation. A second remarkable point was that they removed her ventilator immediately after surgery. And that's after having a difficult lung surgery!
I'm wondering if taking NCD for the last 4 weeks has somehow strengthened her body and immune system so she can better handle this surgical trauma. My stepmother's quickly healing toe comes to mind as well. What might NCD be healing that we never even know about??
We went for a family bike ride yesterday and I took a spill. Not terribly serious, but painful nonetheless. I was going too fast, making a turn, and hitting a bump, all at the same time. I took the brunt of the impact in my hand/wrist/arm, then fell onto my elbow/forearm, and slid the rest of the way on my hip, across pavement. Although I had a good scrape on the heel of my hand, most of the pain was at the base of my thumb, just beside the scrape. It started going numb, swelling, and discoloring slightly. Once I got home, I put it in ice water, as much as I could stand for quite a while. My hand had no strength and I could barely move my thumb. From the way it felt and looked when I went to sleep, I expected to find a very swollen hand when I woke up.
Not so! This morning, it's basically fine. There's no swelling, only minor pain when I move it around, and no discoloration. I have a large spot on my hip (6" across) which should be bruised substantially, but there's only minor swelling and bruising there, from what I can see under the abrasions. I'm pretty surprised it's not worse than it is. I believe the NCD is helping my body heal faster. Granted, this is not a serious injury, but I really expected to be in quite a bit of pain today and I'm NOT!
About my aunt: She had surgery yesterday to remove her tumor. She's been on NCD for 4 weeks. The tumor was still there, so the surgeon removed it, although there were some difficulties with the removal. But some other points bear making: One of the reasons the surgeon removed the tumor was because my aunt was doing very well on the table. Her body, although 74 yrs old and suffering from various ailments (including heart problems), was withstanding the surgical invasion very well. Based on that strength, he continued with the operation. A second remarkable point was that they removed her ventilator immediately after surgery. And that's after having a difficult lung surgery!
I'm wondering if taking NCD for the last 4 weeks has somehow strengthened her body and immune system so she can better handle this surgical trauma. My stepmother's quickly healing toe comes to mind as well. What might NCD be healing that we never even know about??
Monday, August 21, 2006
Demi's First Day Back At School
Demi just got back from her first day back at school. I wanted to share the teacher's note she brought home:
"Great first day! We traced shapes and she did great. She stayed near the line and I didn't have to hold her hand or arm at all! She drew a person with verbal prompts only (except for body) and it looked great! You guys worked hard this summer. Did well pointing to capital letters, got 12/26 consistently right."
"Great first day! We traced shapes and she did great. She stayed near the line and I didn't have to hold her hand or arm at all! She drew a person with verbal prompts only (except for body) and it looked great! You guys worked hard this summer. Did well pointing to capital letters, got 12/26 consistently right."
She has struggled with all of those things for a long time. Yes, we worked on things over the summer, but not significantly more than we have in the past when she didn't get them. Perhaps this is just one long learning spree, but it's been going on for a few months now. At this rate, we'll have to completely rewrite her IEP in a few months. I really believe it's the combination of detox (NCD), EPA/DHA (fish oil), and antioxidants (JuicePlus+) which enable her to absorb the information and therapy that she's getting. It all works in combination.
Thursday, August 10, 2006
NCD Digging Up Buried Junk?
I've been reading lots of stuff on AutismNCD about NCD bringing out rashes or kids suddenly getting sick when they haven't been sick in a very long time. Parents attribute it to NCD pulling out viruses which have been suppressed (and causing problems) for years. They see it as a good thing.
An interesting thing with my aunt that I just learned last night: After being on NCD for almost two weeks, she had a very bad case of gout. She had previously dealt with gout, but it had been under such good control that she stopped taking her regular medication. Coincidence, or was NCD pulling it out to get rid of it for good?
An interesting thing with my aunt that I just learned last night: After being on NCD for almost two weeks, she had a very bad case of gout. She had previously dealt with gout, but it had been under such good control that she stopped taking her regular medication. Coincidence, or was NCD pulling it out to get rid of it for good?
Tuesday, August 08, 2006
Multiple Updates
Way overdue for an update, across multiple subjects.
Developmental Delays: Demi has been a mixed bag lately. Still showing mild improvements, but also a few negatives. Eye contact is one of those things that we've been working on. Just a few days ago, I wanted her to go out to the garage to get something for me. She was very anxious to get it, but I wanted to make sure she understood where to find it. I took her hand and said, "Demi, listen to me." She turned her head and looked directly at me with such intensity that I was taken aback (she has such bright blue eyes!). No eye contact problem there! She still averts her eyes with people she's less familiar with, but overall, that problem is improving.
Some of the negatives I'm seeing I believe are side effects from detoxing and/or moving metals. I've learned from the Autism NCD group that metals can kick up yeast (symptoms: giggling, euphoria, redness in certain areas) and/or ammonia (symptom: increased stimming). So now I'm going to try to address those issues.
Lung [Serious Health Issue]: My aunt had her PET scan last Monday as promised, but she still doesn't know whether or not the size of the tumor changed after being on NCD for a week. She learned that the residual pneumonia in one lung cleared up and that there was no sign of [serious health issue] anywhere else nearby (they had previously scanned her entire body and didn't find any). The tumor was still there, but no report on the size. Hopefully she'll find out when she talks to the doctor this Thursday.
Menstrual Cramps: I'd reported before that my mentstrual cramps entirely disappeared after being on NCD for about 3 months. Two months ago, I had mild cramping for about 1/2 day, but I didn't take anything for it. Most recently, I had no cramping but had substantial back pain - kind of unusual for me. It lasted about a day and I did take some ibuprofen, since I also had hip pain from running (I believe that was caused by old shoes!). All better after one day. No sure exactly what this means.
Multiple Sclerosis: Here' s a new one. A friend of mine with MS just started taking NCD last week. I'll find out Friday if the single bottle she got has made any difference at all. Rik Deitsch from Waiora reports "nothing but this side of miraculous results with Natural Cellular Defense and that population." Hopefully that's the case for my friend.
Developmental Delays: Demi has been a mixed bag lately. Still showing mild improvements, but also a few negatives. Eye contact is one of those things that we've been working on. Just a few days ago, I wanted her to go out to the garage to get something for me. She was very anxious to get it, but I wanted to make sure she understood where to find it. I took her hand and said, "Demi, listen to me." She turned her head and looked directly at me with such intensity that I was taken aback (she has such bright blue eyes!). No eye contact problem there! She still averts her eyes with people she's less familiar with, but overall, that problem is improving.
Some of the negatives I'm seeing I believe are side effects from detoxing and/or moving metals. I've learned from the Autism NCD group that metals can kick up yeast (symptoms: giggling, euphoria, redness in certain areas) and/or ammonia (symptom: increased stimming). So now I'm going to try to address those issues.
Lung [Serious Health Issue]: My aunt had her PET scan last Monday as promised, but she still doesn't know whether or not the size of the tumor changed after being on NCD for a week. She learned that the residual pneumonia in one lung cleared up and that there was no sign of [serious health issue] anywhere else nearby (they had previously scanned her entire body and didn't find any). The tumor was still there, but no report on the size. Hopefully she'll find out when she talks to the doctor this Thursday.
Menstrual Cramps: I'd reported before that my mentstrual cramps entirely disappeared after being on NCD for about 3 months. Two months ago, I had mild cramping for about 1/2 day, but I didn't take anything for it. Most recently, I had no cramping but had substantial back pain - kind of unusual for me. It lasted about a day and I did take some ibuprofen, since I also had hip pain from running (I believe that was caused by old shoes!). All better after one day. No sure exactly what this means.
Multiple Sclerosis: Here' s a new one. A friend of mine with MS just started taking NCD last week. I'll find out Friday if the single bottle she got has made any difference at all. Rik Deitsch from Waiora reports "nothing but this side of miraculous results with Natural Cellular Defense and that population." Hopefully that's the case for my friend.
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