Connor was a typical toddler. He was happy and loved to smile for the camera. Connor had a vocabulary of at least 10 words and used them frequently. At Connor's 12 month visit to his pediatrician he had an ear infection. With Connor it was one ear infection after another, one anti biotic after another. At that visit we didn't give him his vaccinations. When we returned at 15 months Connor received 7 vaccinations. Almost immediately we were back in the pediatricians office with symptoms of another ear infection. Connor had a weak immune system at the time he was dosed with all these shots. Connor also had tons of antiobiotics in his system and was put again on another one. At this point Connor was going to and ENT with an appt for ear tubes. He is currently on his second set and doing much better with infections. Will his weak immune system and the antibiotics acting as "glue" to thermosal or aluminum (aluminum has replaced thermosal in all vaccines and is metal....hmmmm).  read more »

I can't believe I didn't think to post this before about enzymes. Has anyone here tried enzymes instead or in addition to the Gluten-Free Casein Free diet? I bought some last year when I heard about them. I had to do a little research and price comparison first, but I decided to get two different kinds, one for gluten and casein digestion and one for bean, grain, and vegetable digestion. Now that my son is eating a broader variety of foods (this year), I am going to give these another try. Here are the brands I tried:

AFP-Peptizyde from HNI: Houston Nutraceuticals, Inc., Using Nature's Science for Better Health

V-gest from Enzymedica

Other companies make enzymes including Kirkman Labs, a bio-med company that is popular with the ASD set.

I heard that V-gest is extremely mild and a good enzyme to start with. But I also wanted to get an enzyme that really addressed the GFCF diet. I tried the AFP Peptizyde loose powder for sprinkling over food. I found that it does have a very, very slight savory taste. The drawbacks are that it says not to get it on your skin or inhale it. That's just impossible. Also, it tends to make sauces runny--it seems to draw the moisture out of Mac n' Cheese so that all of the enzyme is sitting in a runny pool of cheese and I wonder how much enzyme is actually getting into my child's system.  read more »

Perhaps because Michael is still at the beginning of his diagnosis I am confused by things, but I have been looking up so many things about Autism. I am finding things about diets for glutin free foods for  Autisitic children. Thus far none of the people who work with Michael, including his doctors have mentioned a special diet for him. I wonder if this is for all children with Autism that such a diet is reccommended or maybe children on specific places on the spectrum. Michael has been tested for Diabetes and Anemia because of a concern with his eating and sleeping, but I was not told to do aything with his diet...