We went back to see Richard Malter this morning, or, as I call him, Flaxseed Guy. No offence to Richard, just easier when I’m speaking to people to identify who he is! He informed me that the virus in the liver is now all gone. Yippee! She still has a little bit in the brain so we’re going to keep on with the flaxseed oil with the magnet on the finger for another month, then he said that’s about as far as he can take us. I asked him about diet and allergies and he said he’s glad to test a range of foods that she eats if I take in samples for him next time. He’ll ask Alan who is the naturopath what his opinion is and if we need further help in that area I’ll check out somebody a bit closer to home. It’s good to know that he’s happy to say that it’s as far as he can go as I was a bit worried that we’d have to keep going to him to try various things. It puts an end to what we’ve done and we can move on to the next treatment.
I personally have noticed a big improvement in Beth since the liver virus has been going. As I mentioned before, behaviourally she’s been a right bugger, but communication wise she’s been terrific. Rod at Sensational Kids is the only other person who has commented on it and, as he’s a trained professional, I’ll take that as a positive. His job is communicating with her so his opinion means a lot. She behaved really well at the appointment this morning too, talking to Richard and Alan about things that were in pictures on the wall. She also read a girl’s name badge in Rivers and said hello to her. All small things but significant none the less.
I have a few new things on the agenda for next year. Rod at Sensational Kids was telling me about a program called How Does Your Engine Run which is a self regulating course designed to help the kids recognise when they need revving up and calming down. He said it is run by an Occupational Therapist and after our speech session last time when he was carrying Beth around to get her ‘up’ and communicating he suggested that we do it with her. I’ve been reading a bit about it and it does sounds like a great program. I remember years ago after Beth had been a clown in our school play, she seemed so high on adrenaline that she was pumped and couldn’t stop chatting. I had said to Paul at the time that when she’s like that she’s terrific, really ‘there.” I never realised that this was a common thing in autistic children and that there was something that could be done about it. I am excited in the prospect of her being able to recognise when she needs stimulation and doing it for herself. Things like chew toys help which we already use. I’m a bit annoyed though that Beth has been doing Occupational Therapy for over a year and it had never been suggested. Sensational Kids itself run these programs and Rod seemed surprised that Melinda hadn’t discussed this with me.
A new friend Lou has also sent me information on a course she is going to regarding homoeopathy, run by somebody who specialises in autism. We tried homoeopathy with Beth several years ago to help with her Selective Mutism with disasterous consequences. She did get reactions but it seemed to be the opposite ones! I would still be looking at trying it again in the future. Similarly we tried cranio sacral therapy with the lovely Robin Hosford, a local Osteopath that I still go to. This did seem to work well for Beth but when we started Speech at Sensational Kids we decided that we couldn’t afford to do both. We decided to drop the cranio sacral for a while to see if in fact there was any difference, not really knowing if it had benefitted that much or if improvement had been because of Beth growing older. As she showed much improvement with the speech therapy it was hard to tell. I still believe it was a benefit so hopefully we can go back to that and try again, starting from a different point.
I have also heard that Iridology is of benefit to children with autism so will put that on the list of ‘to do’s!’ Lots of room still to move! Upwards and Onwards!
