Thursday, December 6, 2012

Autism - Concerns for a second time around

When my third child was a little over a year, I had to stop her from banging her head on the headboard or wall. Scared me to death! She had some language. But that was clearly an autistic behavior and I knew all it would take is one trigger to cause a regression where she could lose the language. I refused all vaccines between 18 mo and 3 yrs in MS since they don't have religious or philosophical exemptions. I had only gotten some of them before but I wasn't taking any chances now. I'm thankful that they understood my concerns.

Do I believe vaccines cause autism? I believe there are way too many. I know Davy got some when he had ear infections but no high fever. I was a new mom and let them give them to him. There were also lots of antibiotics and steroids with his asthma treatment so I can't say for sure what Davy's trigger was. I do know that the amount of vaccines and cases of autism are rising steadily. I feel to ignore the possibility would be irresponsible. Flu shots still contain mercury. Vaccines have aluminum and all other manner of strange ingredients. So when we moved to AL, I got religious exemptions (because of the aborted fetus tissue used in vaccine manufacturing) for all the kids. Not taking any chances!

I asked the doctor for a referral to have my daughter tested. She needed some help with processing things around her but I wasn't sure what to do. She was having lots of meltdowns. She was having symptoms of pica (eating foam craft pieces and plants). She was stripping her clothes off every chance she got. My first child had language delay and poor eye contact. Easy to see where we needed to focus for him. I wasn't sure what I needed to do for her.

A couple of weeks ago, we got some very soft, comfortable clothes from a clothing swap. I had struggled to keep clothes on her with the weather change. She had spent the summer in dresses and the jeans irritated her. Since switching her to these Garanimal style clothes with soft pants and shirts, she has been like a new kid. She's no longer stripping off her clothes several times a day. Her language has exploded. She is using more complete sentences and saying things like, "I'm coming, Mom" or "Thank you, Dad."

Now it could be also just getting used to our new place but the clothes were the only real change that has been made. I told the pediatrician of the change and she still wants her to be evaluated. After looking over the criteria for diagnosis again, she won't qualify for autism or asperger's because of her social ability and speech. I really think it's Sensory Processing Disorder. Different textures like jeans after a summer of cotton dresses are simply overwhelming. So glad that seems to be all it was.




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