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Alternative Therapies:
When it comes to alternative therapies, it seems we have tried it all! Although there are many other things we have not tried, we have managed to explore an impressive number of interventions over the years. Some of these things have worked miracles for individual families, but our children seem to fall under the category of children who are more “difficult” to treat. Theoretically, there should be a protocol that works well for almost everyone, with some minor tweaking based upon individual symptoms. We believe that we have found that protocol through Dr. Carley. Because we want to be completely honest with other parents pertaining to our treatment failures as well as successes, we will let you know if at any time we feel that her protocol is not working for us. We remain extremely positive and hopeful about it at this time however, because unlike many of the options currently out there, it makes sense. With that being said, the following is a summary of things that we have already done for the kids. We are surely forgetting some things as the past several years have been quite hectic, but these are the main things that we remember…

1. Auditory Integration Training (Berard Method): We were introduced to this through the Georgiana Institute and tried it with Elijah & Nicolas when they were quite young. We didn’t see many changes related to this intervention, but many people have had wonderful results. Perhaps they were too young at the time, but more then likely it needs to be done along with vaccine detox and other biomed in order to be an effective therapy for most children with autism. We recommend doing something like this only after you have detoxed your child to see the biggest benefits.
2. I.V. Secretin: We tried this for about a year with Nicolas when he was three, and we saw minimal gains followed by loss of the newly acquired words, etc…after the treatment wore off.
3. ABA: we were once staunch ABA supporters and we began this therapy at age 2/12 with Nicolas. Over the years we have tried it off and on again after the initial intensive early intervention, and every time he has hated it and rebelled quite strongly (at least with the traditional "discrete trial" form of ABA). There has never been much progress teaching him with ABA despite what the experts have promised us, and I am not a big fan of the method unless it is used gently and combined with other therapies. I know many people have had amazing results with this style of teaching, and some of the theories may work well if modified for your individual child. For Nicolas it is not a good match, and we never did much of it with the other boys since our opinion of the method has been tainted by the poor results we with experienced with Nicolas. (This is a funny report from a family who originally believed that ABA was the autism “cure all”!!!)
4. Sonrise Program: We have travelled to Massachusetts twice over the years to learn the Sonrise Program, and we have mixed feelings about this one. For starters, they are the nicest most accepting bunch of people you will ever meet. They have a true love for challenged children at the Option Institute. From a Christian perspective, they do not believe in “right” or “wrong”, and teach a new-age like philosophy where “everything goes” and no behavior is labeled as good or bad. The therapy was easy to learn, but it was always hard for us to find volunteers and do the program full time. We adopted many of their concepts at certain times in our lives, and some have worked better than others. We did manage to run the program for 30 hours a week for several months, and there was not much change in the boys. We like it better than ABA for sure, but we still believe that a “mixed approach” is best in most cases when picking a therapy method.
5. Sensory Integration Therapy: We are BIG sensory people! In fact, Nicolas currently attends a school that focuses on sensory therapy and he enjoys it very much. We have been doing SI therapy for a number of years now for the kids, and although you cannot expect an OT to “fix” your child, the sensory therapy will help to integrate and adapt their senses to handle normal stimulus. It is also important to set up a sensory rich home environment to help your children across all settings.
6. SSRI therapy: This includes drugs like Celexa, Paxil, Luvox, Prozac & Zoloft. We DO NOT believe that children should take SSRI’s. We tried them in the beginning before we were educated about the horrible side effects, and there was little change in the kids. We were motivated to do so because Elijah was becoming violent, and Nicolas was so severe that we were ready to try anything. These drugs did nothing to help them, but even if they had we would have stopped them after learning more. (Please see www.newstarget.com for more info on the very real and very awful side effects of using SSRI’s in children). Far from being the boon that Big Pharma wants you to believe they are, these are powerful mood altering drugs that should never be used on developing brains. If we are stepping on some toes here we apologize. Yes, we are aware that many people feel like SSRI’s have helped their children change their behaviors dramatically, but we are still not in favor of using them for many reasons. If your child is currently taking an SSRI, please have an open mind and look up the negatives related to them. Sometimes it is easier to use them instead of dealing with the behavioral issues in another way, but the long term effects are just not worth the risk.
7. Risperdal: We are sorry to say that we even used the anti-psychotic drug Risperdal with the older boys for awhile. It helped Nicolas quite a bit with his self abusive behaviors, but it caused extreme weight gain and a muscular side effect where he became unable to use his left hand for quite awhile. It didn’t help Elijah’s behaviors much, and the scary side effects we witnessed with Nicolas were enough to make us stop it immediately. Of course that meant that when we went out in public everyone knew that Nicolas was autistic because he was no longer drugged and quiet. No more inconspicuous trips to the grocery store for us! (But it was well worth it, and I urge you to NEVER use Risperdal on your child with autism as the risks are just too great. Eventually he did regain the use of his left hand, but it took a long time and a lot of OT.)
8. Brain mapping and FGF: We were patients of Dr. Aguilar in Mexico for several years. He treated all of our boys with different neuro-proteins including fibroblastic growth factor, and bovine stem cells. We did see some changes related to this therapy, but they were very slow. The most notable change was the huge increase in Nicolas' and Jacobs' receptive language skills. Progress was harder to measure in Elijah as usual because he is pretty high functioning already. The therapy was very expensive, and travel was always difficult since it is no picnic to fly long distances with autistic kids. Thankfully we were never thrown off of an airplane, but I bet some of the other passengers wish we would have been- LOL! We decided not to go back anymore because the results were not as dramatic as we had expected, and we wanted to explore other options. A few have been completely recovered, but most have not seen any big “WOWs” from this.
9. NAET: We were involved in an NAET study as well as being treated by a private doctor. This therapy seemed odd to me from the start, but the testimonies were good and a friend of mine was cured of eczema and allergies using NAET, so we tried it. Again, there were really no changes and it is expensive to follow the entire course of treatment.
10. Allergy Immunotherapy Drops: We tried these sublingual drops with the kids for sensitivities related to foods, chemicals, the environment, and more. They are very expensive, and their symptoms didn’t improve much.
11. LL’s Magnetic Clay Baths: Supposedly a form of natural chelation, the kids hated bathing in the clay because of their sensory issues. We did it anyway, but never knew if it was working or not, and there were certainly no behavioral changes.
12. NCD Zeolite: We used these drops for quite awhile with all of the kids. Although there were behavioral changes (negative ones possibly signaling detox) and sleep disturbances, we never saw any big gains. We eventually stopped using it because it contains a form of aluminum (see our page on nutritional supplements for more info).
13. Raw Foods: Raw foodists claim that a raw diet will cure almost anything, and so we tried this out as best as we could. Although it is important to include as many raw foods as possible in the diet, we don’t believe it is necessary for all people to be totally raw vegans. The kids find it almost impossible to follow because of their self-limited diets, and the protein intake is extremely low so it is important that you supplement with amino acids. We will mention that Jodi experienced a remission of her fibromyalgia symptoms when eating raw. Ideally, everyone should try to include about 75% raw fruits and veggies in their diets for optimal health and a perfect ph!
14. Sauna Therapy & Massage: We used this detox combo for a few years while on the Edelson program. It is difficult to maintain as it requires daily high heat saunas (30 min. twice a day) and the kids usually don’t like it. It is said to be effective at removing toxins (especially chemicals and drug residues) from the body. We sure did sweat, and it is good for the body to rid itself of junk, but the kids didn’t recover…
15. Chelation: We have tried so much in this department…from drugs like DMPS, DMSA & EDTA to natural chelators like ALA, Chlorella & Horsetail. I would not recommend the drugs because they can cause serious liver damage, and children have died using them. Of course thousands more are killed by mandatory vaccination, yet the government finds that risk acceptable for “the greater good”. Even so, we were not truly aware of the danger that these chelators can be, and we will not use drug type chelation again. There was no big improvements noted, and the metal tests were so unreliable as they were always up and down with no discernible pattern. It really makes us wonder about the efficacy of those lab tests…
16. Amy Yasko’s RNA protocol: We did this one for about 2 years and sunk countless thousands into the supplements and tests. We really believed that this one was going to do it, but we actually saw less results with this protocol then with some of the other things we have done. The kids went completely wacky during those 2 years, and although we attributed this to the detox effect, we are now not so sure. There were hundreds of recommended supplements, and many of the behaviors were probably related to the supplements themselves as they do not work universally for all people. (Note: the parents on the Yasko forum are all wonderful people, and most are very knowledgeable about supplements and genetics. This approach has helped some people, but it takes a long time to see results and even then the results seem minimal to us. Then again, we are looking for complete recovery, so perhaps we are getting a little bit choosier than most!) 
17. Off Label Drugs: This category includes Tenex (actually a blood pressure med), Cerebrolysin (for Alzheimers) and a few more we are forgetting right now. There seems to be a trend among doctors to put kids with behavioral difficulties on drugs designed for another purpose. Perhaps the “side effects” of the drug cause changes in the behavior or something, but whatever the case it is ineffective and dangerous. Don’t believe your doctor…and don’t do it!
18. Anti-fungals: This class of drugs like Nystatin and Diflucan is supposed to work by cleaning up the yeast and therefore fixing the leaky guts that most of our kiddos have. We have used both drugs many times over the years (even having them compounded to exclude common allergens), and we still battle the leaky gut. What has helped most in this area is Paranil and good probiotics. However, we believe this will be an ongoing battle until the children are effectively detoxed of vaccines and other environmental insults.
19. Solomon Wickey: Yes we even tried this renowned Amish “healer”. What did we have to lose? He has helped a lot of people, and he doesn’t charge very much. We sent him a photo of the boys and a sample of their handwriting. I found this odd, but he supposedly goes off of the “energy” that is emitted from the person. Amish people are Christian, so I figured at least it wasn’t satanic or anything. Well, he returned their photos with a note saying that their thyroids were shut down and they needed to take kelp. He sent a bottle of nasty tasting kelp in a base of pure alcohol (yuck- they HATED it) with instructions to take it twice daily for six weeks, and then to send another handwriting sample (or scribble). We declined to keep working with him because it seemed odd, the kelp was disgusting, and we didn’t see any changes. However, people have reported good things about him on other sites.
20. Magnetico Magnetic Mattress Pad: We decided to try one of these for Nicky to see if it would work out. At the time he was having horrible sleep issues, and even with the melatonin he often stayed up half the night or got up at 4am. The pad helped him to stay asleep longer, and combined with the melatonin we seem to have found a winning combination!
21. Homeopathy: We are speaking of the single dose constitutional remedy type. We took the kids to a homeopath who claims to have cured many autistic children. For two years they took their remedies faithfully, and although we saw some minor changes during that time, it is hard to say what they are attributed to. The problem is, when one thing changed another symptom would develop or get worse. We were told that because homeopathy works slowly, we should only expect a 20% change per year. With so much at stake, we were not willing to keep waiting with hopes that it “may” work. We felt that we needed to keep trying new things.
22. Wheatgrass: We tried to get the kids more alkaline using wheatgrass. It is a nice idea, but the reality is that it tastes pretty strong and kids with sensory issues usually barf it right back up. It’s certainly not a cure, but if you can get your child to drink it then good for you! (It will help with alkalinity and ph is very important when recovering from illness).
23. B12 shots: We have tried the methylcobalamin shots several times over the years. We originally used a small amount three times weekly, and upped it to daily shots when we were doing the Edelson program. There were some occasional side effects of hyperactivity, but otherwise the shots were well tolerated. (These were preservative and chemical free shots, of course!) We kept using them because they were recommended by so many experts to open the methylation pathways. No big changes were noted, so we eventually discontinued usage and tried the oral form instead. We have used various types of B’s including: B complex, hydroxycobalamin, cyanocobalamin, and methylfolate (which is different altogether). Sometimes the B’s cause hyperactivity in our kids.
24. Probiotics: We have used so many different types over the years. Primal defense, acidophilus, kyodophilus, and too many more to name. They all do similar things, it is just a matter of finding what works for you. We like to rotate probiotics to increase the beneficial bacteria in the gut. Rotating allows for multiple new strains to be introduced. We still use probiotics daily as they are essential for a healthy GI tract.
25. The Maker’s Diet: Similar to the Weston Price diet, but biblically based and a bit different. We like this diet and agree with many of the health concerns it addresses, like not eating pork or other unclean animals. The book is informative overall, and it paints a nice picture of what we should and should not be eating for optimum health.
26. The Feingold Diet: We have been off and on this diet over the years. Stage one, stage two, and back to stage one again! We find it very difficult to cut out all of the so-called offending foods. However, if you can do the rotation diet to figure out what your child’s offenders are, it does help quite a bit to cut them out. We maintain this diet in its modified form which means that our kids do not eat any dyes, colors, or artificial ingredients. If they slip (which doesn’t happen often) we notice it because they get completely out of control behaviorally. I cannot imagine letting them eat this junk on a regular basis! We have noticed that excess sugar fires them up too, even in its organic state…
27. Bach’s Flower Remedies: We made concoctions of these remedies to try and help the kids. We bought the books, did the research, and tried the remedies. We didn’t see much improvement in behavior when this was the only intervention being done, but the remedies do accompany other therapeutic approaches quite nicely. We especially like Rescue Remedy, and we keep it around for times of great upset or trauma. A little spray in the mouth or soles of the feet and the kids recover quickly!
28. Melatonin: Yes we still use melatonin. We are aware of the warnings that using a natural hormone may cause the body to stop making it on its own, but we do need to sleep. The way we see it, if we are not sleeping then our bodies cannot heal themselves and become run down and ill. So sleep is essential for us as well as our children, and until they heal enough to get some decent sleep without it, we will continue to use melatonin with some of them. It is also a free radical scavenger so it does have some benefits not related to sleep!
29. Charcoal/Magnesium Flushes: These are a great way to get something to leave the body quickly! When we need to flush the kids out, a few capsules of charcoal to absorb the toxins followed by some magnesium citrate and STAND BACK!!!
30. Digestive Enzymes: We have tried so many of these it is hard to name them all. We’ve tried the ones from Kirkman labs, Renew Life, Garden of Life, plain betaine hydrochloride, and digestive enzymes targeted for children with autism that claim to digest gluten and casein molecules. Although they are supposedly essential for the gut, we have not seen much improvement related to the intestinal permeability and leaky gut issues when using them. Plus they taste yucky if you are emptying out the capsules and can be hard on the stomach.
31. Body Ecology Diet: As I have mentioned before, they offer some nice products IF you can get your kids to eat them. Picky autistic pallets usually reject fermented foods, and only a handful of parents I have spoken with have had success in getting their children to eat this stuff. Kefir and other fermented foods have a strong taste that is often too much for the sensory sensitive child.
32. Kirkman Labs Supplements: Although they encompass a large variety of supplements, we have tried most of them at one point or another over the years. Our journey began with Kirkman, and although some of their products are loved by physicians, we don’t like that many of them contain sucralose (see www.thetruthaboutsplenda.com). There are healthier alternatives in our opinion, and we are not a fan of high B6 vitamin therapy after having used it extensively.
33. Stem Cells: We read a lot about stem cell therapy being done in the Asian countries and Mexico. We were interested in trying this therapy, but we wanted to be sure that the stem cells were ethically derived. The use of embryonic cells is not only immoral, it has been proven to cause tumor growth and is very dangerous. We were able to find a place that offers autologous cells which are made from your own blood. Procuring even more debt, we took Elijah and Nicolas across the world to try this treatment in January of 2008. We were so sure that this would be the magic bullet! The two week trip was not easy, and the boys had to go through a lot to receive the cells. Since returning home, we have seen changes in Nicolas that have been very encouraging. He is better behaved and seems more connected to the world. However, we have not seen many changes in Elijah related to this treatment, and the trip was difficult and expensive. We have decided not to continue pursuing this avenue for the children. Although stem cells hold promise for treating a myriad of disorders, they simply do not detox autistic children from the vaccine damage that contributed to or caused their conditions.
34. Music Therapy: We are big fans of music therapy! It is fun and enjoyable for the kids, and it teaches them new skills as they make progress towards their individual goals. Research has even shown that playing Mozart for your kids changes their brain waves! Erika, Elijah & Leah are learning to play instruments as well, and it has increased their confidence and attention spans significantly. We just love our music therapist!
35. Hippotherapy: We are not sure why it’s called Hippotherapy when it involves horses and not hippos (just kidding), but the kids sure enjoy their horseback riding therapy! It is a wonderful sensory activity as the child learns to move as one with the horse. They feel the movement and the soft hair of the horse, they see the world differently as they gallop about (slowly) on their horse, and they hear new sounds as the horse makes its horsey noises. (They definitely smell new things as well…) So as you can see, it involves almost all of the five senses, and provides a joyful and memorable experience. We encourage you to try it!

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