- Air pollution
- GMO’s
- MSG’s
- The tiny bit of mercury in vaccines, and who knows what else from vaccines
- Lyme disease
- C-sections (don’t ask me why)
- Glutens, caseins, soy and other food allergies and sensitivities
- Leaky gut / gut issues
- Thyroid issues, especially undetected
- Toxins in the home
- BPA
- Oxidative stress
- Seizures, especially undetected
- Metal toxicity and buildup
- Strep in the blood
- Bad bacteria and yeast in the gut
- Parasites
- Low Vitamin D
- Flame Retardants
- Antibiotics
- During pregnancy: obesity, hypertension, diabetes, infection
- Familial autoimmune disease
- Tylenol and acetominophine
- Genetics and epigenetics
That’s just off the topic of my head and briefly scanning my hefty documents from the NAC. Anything I left out?
What causes autism? Some varying combination of all this stuff, and probably a few more. Every child is affected differently by different combinations of these things. No wonder we moms with kids with autism are tired. No wonder the tradition medical community can’t find it’s “one” smoking gun cause and has moved on to other things.
I get up every day and try to figure out how on earth I can make my daughter just a tiny bit better today, and go to bed praying for the grace of God to accept what I can’t yet (or never can) fix.
What was the National Autism Conference like? It was hundreds of parents dealing with countless varieties of disorders and behaviors, and dozens of vendors hawking wares that *may be* for your child in this situation in the right combination with other stuff and elimination of certain things will make this thing or that better. It was supplements and homeopathy and chelation and diet and hyperbaric chambers and medications and behavioral therapies and labs all on display to help your child. Yep, autism is big business – but at every station there was a parent who had been helped by this or that, and so it’s worth it.
Autism is exhausting in its comprehensiveness and its variations. Most days, I don’t know where to start. Autism is teaching me to be a more decisive person; it’s not a trait I naturally have. With autism, you have to throw second-guessing out the window or you won’t make it out of bed most days. I’m really hoping to find a system that works and share it with you – and advise you on how to move past the choices you didn’t make but this week, I’m just trying to get through the holidays. My worries from now through Christmas are making sure my kids know the real meaning. I don’t really care about gifts or trees or holiday shows, but I want to help them enjoy it and speak better, do better, live better.
That’d be the best Christmas gift of all.
