Category Archives: constipation

>Sitting On A Tack….

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>”If you are sitting on a tack it takes a lot of Risperdal to make it feel better. The appropriate treatment for tack-sitting is tack removal. If you are sitting on two tacks, removing one does not produce a fifty-percent improvement”. Dr Sidney Baker MD

You can also choose to train your child to sit still on a tack by doing months of behavioral therapy. But he will still be in pain.

It’s been 2y5m since the day Maya was diagnosed with Autism. It’s also been 2y5m since we put Maya on the gluten and casein-free diet. And 1y9m since we starting on our biomedical journey with supplements and Biomed doctors. I’m am forever grateful that our choices and decisions thus far has lead us down the path to recovery. Managed recovery for Maya was more than we could ever hope for. When first getting the diagnosis and then deciding what therapies and treatments to choose, we agonize whether it is the right choice for our children. We spend hours on research, ask the advice of doctors, professionals and other parents. But ultimately, it is our decision what we choose to do.

However, at some point, we need to stop doing research and instead apply it. The only way we can determine fully if a treatment or therapy will work for our child is to actually do it. I spent months researching on biomed, now looking back, so many wasted months. I did not need to know everything there was to know about Biomed in order to start it. Luckily, the decision to do the GFCF diet was immediate for Paul and I. We changed Maya’s diet the day she got her autism diagnosis. Right or wrong, we wanted to do something RIGHT NOW. Though the medical community keep telling us that chances of improvement is better the earlier we start intervention, but it usually takes us months just to get a diagnosis and assessment. And more months before we can start behavioral, speech or occupational therapy. But the diet was something that we can start now. Lucky for us, we saw immediate improvement.

I disagree with the current consensus that Autism is a psychiatric disorder. Because Autism manifests itself as primarily a behavioral disorder, many people tend to overlook just how unhealthy our kids are. Our kids don’t only have Autistic behaviors, there are also many physical and medical issues that are brushed aside. Many kids with Autism exhibit hypotonia, low muscle tone, inability to walk well, dyspraxia, low energy levels, some kids I know can’t even last 5 minutes before having to lie down. This to me screams out zinc and CoQ10 deficiencies at the very least.

Some kids have severe feeding issues, refusal to eat, addiction to certain foods especially cheese and milk, reflux, bloating, gassiness, diarhhia and constipation to name a few. In a neuro-typical child, the most obvious conclusion is that this is a patient with either food allergies or intolerance and gastrointestinal issues and the parents would whisk their kid to a GI specialist immediately. But when you bring in a child with Autism to a pediatrician telling them of constipation, they are told that “oh, it’s just Autism” or worse saying that the child is purposefully refusing to poop. Reality check here people, a human being, old or young is not able to mentally will himself to hold on to a bowel movement, especially not for 2 weeks! You should try it sometime, see how far you can go without a bowel movement and see how pleasant you feel during that time.

They are not pooping not because they are Autistic, defiant or trying to exert control over the parents, they are not pooping because they are medically and physically not able to. Constipation is a common malady in Autism, it could be due to many reasons. Food intolerance, inflammation, impacted stool, motility issues, yeast overgrowth,lack of digestive enzymes, Vitamin C and magnesium just to name a few. How many times have I heard “my child is not pooping because he purposefully doesn’t want to”. Have you ever considered that he is not able to? That his stool is so incredibly hard and large that it is agonizing every time he does a bowel movement? That he has been chronically constipated for so long that his bowels are chockful of impacted stool. I have seen Yasmin’s abdominal x-rays, she was literally full of shit! She was so severely constipated that it actually caused diarhhia, known as spurious diarhhia. No wonder she was acting so horribly, her tummy and bowels was in agony. I have dug out rock hard poop out of Maya’s bottom with my fingers, they were as hard as rocks! In light of this, do you STILL feel that she didn’t have a bowel movement for 5 days because it’s a behavioral issue?

If this is your child, go straight to a biomed doctor or a pediatric GI specialist right away. Don’t take Autism as an excuse, if you are constipated for 5 days, you too will act and feel horrible. Laxatives and enemas may be required, but remember that these are temporary solutions just to relieve the symptoms. You need to address the root cause of why he was constipated in the first place. We do get comments such as giving prune juice and my personal favorite “eat more fruits”. Gastrointestinal disease in Autism is a very well known fact. It goes beyond mere prune juice, fruits and more fiber. Plus, many ASD kids refuse to eat fruits and many have salicylates issue so they need to do a fruit-free diet. Maya and Yasmin was only finally able to toilet train and no longer needed to wear diapers after I addressed their health issues.

Many children with Autism have sleep issues such as inability to go to sleep easily, not able to stay asleep for long, the sleep period is too short or my personal favorite, waking up in the middle of the night. They usually wake up for 2-3 hours before going back to sleep, a few just stay quiet or play quietly. But some cry and scream for hours. And some babble, sing and laugh. For parents of children with sleep issues, you know what I mean. Our kids wake up at night every single night for months, some even years. Yes, I have been there and this was by far one of the most challenging part of our lives. Dealing with Autistic behaviors during the day time was bad enough, but having to deal with it from 2-5am every single night for 1 year was too much for any parent to bear. I still get chills down my spine when I recall hearing Maya laughing maniacally in the dark for hours on end.

Please see my previous blogs on sleep issues, the possible root causes and treatments that may help. It is treatable, if your doctor tells you “it’s just Autism” and there’s nothing he can do, then see a Biomed doctor. If your behavioral therapist says that it’s a behavioral issue and to treat it with behavioral therapy, well…. You are most welcome to spend many many nights sleeping with all the therapists in your child’s bedroom, see how far you can get. Biomed doctors understand these things, sleep disorder is treatable.

Some kids have eye stimming such as looking out of the corner of their eyes. For many kids, this is easily treatable with cod liver oil and/or Vitamin A. But please consult a Biomed doctor before undergoing Vitamin A therapy, it can lead to toxicity. Not every child requires additional Vitamin A, most cod liver oils contains Vitamin A and this is usually adequate for our kids.

If your child grinds his teeth or keeps poking their eyes, then it’s usually related to calcium deficiency. Drinking more cow’s milk or formula is not the answer, you need calcium supplementation. Also, cow’s milk is not suitable for our kids. A dentist will say teeth grinding is caused by stress, but seriously, a 3 year old kid with stress? Try some calcium and you’ll notice a difference in a few days.

Children who are always getting sick or has been on antibiotics many times, well, you have to wonder about their immune system. So do kids who NEVER seem to get sick. We are not looking to boost the immune system, we want to have a BALANCED immune system. Most ASD kids have dysregulated immune system or immune dysfunction. Vita
min D, probiotics, zinc and cod liver oil are some of the basic nutritional support for healthy immunological balance. There are many other supplements to address immune dysfunction, but it is child specific.

If your kids have been on frequent antibiotics, you must give him additional probiotics supplement. Remember, antibiotics kills bad AND good flora. The probiotics in yoghurt or yoghurt drinks are not recommended, it only gives very low amounts of good bacterias, it’s not multi-strain and most contain tons of sugar, flavorings and preservatives and not to mention casein. Frequent antibiotic usage also brings to mind yeast overgrowth, when there are no good flora present in the gut, yeast and other opportunistic organisms proliferate. Whenever I bring up the subject of yeast overgrowth with a local doctor, they give me the ‘fungus exists in our bodies naturally etc” speech. Yes, we know that, but we are talking about yeast infections or fungal overgrowth here. It is a well-known fact that yeast infections causes physical discomfort and emotional imbalance.

And when you finally manage to convince them to do the yeast test, and upon finding a positive result, some doctors even refuse to do antifungal treatment! Citing again that fungus exists in our bodies. So why is there a yeast test available in our local labs anyway? If you still won’t treat a positive fungal test, when do you ever choose to treat one? Some argue because the amount is low. Well, if it is positive, that means the amount is far larger than what is considered the acceptable control levels of yeast in the body right? Many doctors have no qualms prescribing antibiotics, but they give me a 1 hour lecture if I request for a yeast test or for antifungals.

Many parents new to Biomed, especially the ones who do not consult with a biomed doctor insist on giving Super Nu Thera. However, many children do not tolerate SNT well. Mainly because it is a multivitamin and mineral combo, many kids require specific nutrients at specific dosages. Thus a combo multivit is not suitable. I much prefer single B6 or P5P formulations. I heard that Kirkman Labs will phase out SNT eventually.

Children who are always licking things, this is usually a sign of mineral deficiencies. In biomedical, we give individual calcium, zinc and magnesium supplements. Maya stopped licking everything after 2 weeks on zinc. Yasmin stopped knocking and patting things with her hands and knuckles after a few weeks on all the minerals.

Maya stopped tiptoeing when we treated her yeast overgrowth. Yasmin only stopped tiptoeing after addressing here chronic diarhhia. Don’t even get me started on aggressive behavior due to bacterial and anaerobic bacterial infections. The improvements we see after treating infections are enormous. Our kids have nutritional deficiencies, immune dysfunction, multiple infections, neurotoxins, abnormal biochemical imbalances, metabolic issues and many more.

If a doctor gives you a lecture of how the GFCF diet or Biomed doesn’t work, I guarantee you that he or she has never been trained in biomed treatments, that they know even less than you do about Biomed. I bet the doctor has never ever recommended a patient to do the diet nor vitamins and minerals supplements. Instead, check how often that doctor prescribes mind-numbing psychotic pharmaceutical medications. I’m sure there are children where the diet and supplements did not help them and only the drugs will help. However, you will never know if your child will be the one to improve or even recover on Biomed unless you try it. Before you go straight to the pharmaceutical medications, try everything. If I listened to the 20 doctors who told me Autism is untreatable and that I should plan for my daughter’s future by putting her in a home for the disabled, I shudder to think how far gone Maya would be now. You have heard the horror stories of the abuse and even murder that goes on in these homes.

Autism is treatable. No matter how old your child is, you can always improve the quality of his life. As Dr Sidney Baker said, remove the tacks.

>Post Endoscopy & Colonoscopy…….

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Yasmin got through the endoscopy and colonoscopy safely. Our thanks for all the well-wishes from many good friends, it gave us strength. Though she was admitted on a Thursday, the scope was scheduled on Friday. When it was time, I carried Yasmin down to the OR, dressed in her little surgical gown. The anesthetist placed the gas mask over her face, she struggled a little but quickly succumbed. Paul and I waited outside for a while and later the doctor invited us in to take a look at the monitor. It was hard to tear my eyes away from Yasmin lying unconscious on the table, meanwhile the doctor showed us several parts of her large intestine.

He did not use a pill-cam even though we requested for it. According to other pediatric GI specialists in the UK and USA, they commonly use pill-cams for young patients even 3 year olds. However, I guess things are different here in Malaysia. Due to the traditional cam scope, the doctor is not able to check the small intestines. However, he did a thorough check on the entrance into the small intestines. The endoscopy was then over, and it was time for the colonoscopy. We then waited outside again, and were invited back into the OR once the doctor had gone into the colon. He showed us her colon and as before, he kindly explained where and what we were seeing and findings he had.

Overall, the up close and personal look at Yasmin’s inside was a revelation. She was absolutely perfect! Everything was pink and healthy as it should be. There were no signs of inflammation, lesions, polyps or anything else out of the ordinary. Paul and I are immensely relieved that she did not have any of the GI diseases we initially suspected. It was good to know that she is not in the kind of awful pain that was reported in many children in GI literature.

Once the procedure was over, I carried Yasmin to the recovery room. Once her condition was deemed stable, we brought her up to her room. It took a long time for her to wake up from the general anesthesia, nearly 2 hours. Even then, we tried several methods to wake her up. We were warned that some patients when coming out of GA tend to act aggressively, cry or act weird. We were prepared for that, but Yasmin was totally fine apart from being groggy, sleepy and a bit uncoordinated, as was expected. The doctor discharged us soon after and Yasmin was happy to be home though tired. We were relieved to be home on Friday night, I was not looking forward to another night in hospital. Caring for a child in hospital is hard enough, even though it was only for 2 days. However, this was during Ramadhan, it was harder to go through it physically, mentally and emotionally while fasting. In the next few days, we expected to see signs of side effect from the anesthesia. However, again we were lucky there wasn’t any lingering side-effects or other concerns.  

The only thing abnormal was that she had constipation and night awakenings for 3 weeks after that. Initially we thought the constipation was due to the scope and it was taking some time for her bowels to get back to normal. However, take note that she had constipation and night awakenings 3 weeks prior to the scope anyway. We had done a stool test for yeast a few weeks before with our pediatrician, it turned out positive. However, we did not address it as we wanted to wait for the scope first in case it affected the outcome of the scope. Because she had recently undergone the procedure, we were advised to take it slow and give her body time to adjust. However, when she was constipated for 3 consecutive days, we gave her Lactulose, a stool softener/laxative. After that, we increased her fluid intake, fibre, vitamin C, magnesium and probiotics. However, it didn’t work. At times we had to use the laxative, to me constipation more than 3 days running needs to be addressed immediately.

I put her on therapeutic doses of S.Boulardii and ThreeLac as anti fungal treatment however there were no changes or improvements. On the advice of our biomed doctor, Yasmin is now on Nystatin and extra Bifido strains of probiotics on top of her usual supplements. Those with constipation may require additional Bifidos temporarily, this worked for both my girls sometimes. Within 2 days, her constipation is reduced, she has a bowel movement every 2 days. Previously she required laxatives. Hopefully, the further we get along with the anti fungal treatment, she will be back to her normal daily bowel movements. And best of all, she now sleeps through the night. Yasmin has slept through the night consistently for the past 1 year unless during times of illness or infections. No more broken sleep for the whole household.      

So, now that our suspicions of colitis has been ruled out, where does that leave us? First and foremost, this is good news indeed. Colitis or any kind of Inflammatory Bowel Disease is terrible in anyone, especially a 3 year old child. Having hard physical evidence that ruled this out is worth it. We are glad that we went through with it, even with all the trauma and possible side effects of the general anesthesia, it was worth the risk. Since the scope has ruled out colitis, IBD (Inflammatory Bowel Disease) and other bowel diseases, the GI specialist based on the symptoms diagnosed Yasmin with IBS (Irritable Bowel Syndrome) instead. IBS is diagnosed based on clinical observations and symptoms, there is no test for it. As usual, I take everything with a pinch of salt. I have read that many Irritable Bowel symptoms are similar to symptoms associated to Clostridium infection. I will look further into this as well as any viral infections, Yasmin regressed ever since the Rotavirus infection, so it makes sense to look into her immune system as well as viruses.

So, how do we treat Yasmin’s issues now? We are maintaining her usual supplements of vitamin C, B complex, minerals, probiotics and cod liver oil. I want to address her immune dysregulation as this is the core reason why she gets recurrent infections. Since we started 4Life Transfer Factor 1 month ago, neither girls have fallen ill. We also give her Klaire Labs Galactomune, a prebiotic formula containing betaglucan  to support TH1 immunity. We also supplement with Vitamin D3, also beneficial to the immune function.

Apart from immune modulating supplements, I also give her Culturelle daily for maintenance against clostridia. I also include Milk Thistle to maintain healthy liver and kidney function. I reintroduced L-Glutamine a couple of months back, this helps with leaky gut. Since we started her on L-Glutamine again, she is much happier, with good appetite and always cheerful. The biggest change of all, previously Yasmin has rarely been as close to her Daddy compared to Maya. She always has great fun with Paul whenever they are playing together but she rarely seeks him out for company. Since restarting L-Glutamine, Yasmin constantly seeks out Paul, always looking for him when he’s gone, she is very loving and attached to her Daddy compared to before. It is heartwarming to see how she dotes on him and vice versa. I al
so introduced 5-HTP to help her with sleep, melatonin did not help when her yeast issues are flaring up. We also never forget Epsom salt baths daily.

I look forward to our next appointment with our biomed doctor for more insights on what else we can do for Yasmin. But for now, we are pleased to have a cheerful, illness-free girl again.        

>A Good Night's Sleep

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I was recently reminded by how good sleep is generally in our home right now. It served to remind me to appreciate and not take for granted the good night’s sleep that we have all enjoyed for the past year or so. For the past 3 months, both the girls have been falling ill constantly. As usual, when children are sick, it also affects their sleep as well as the parents sleep. Having just come back from a quick little holiday with Paul, just him and I alone, we both enjoyed 2 nights of great sleep. Looking back, the sleep fairy has been extremely good to us in the past year. I had forgotten all the sleepless nights we had and how I used to crave even a straight 3 hour stretch to sleep. As a Mum, if your kids don’t sleep, YOU don’t sleep right? Since sleep disorders are a common issue for most ASD kids, I needed to remind myself of the luxury and privilege that I now have, a guaranteed good night’s sleep most nights. Nowadays, if they’re not sick, both girls would be in bed by 7.30pm and would stay asleep until 6.30am. Usually they will fall asleep by themselves without much fuss, but occasionally they would cheekily get out of bed again, so we would have to tuck them into bed again a few times, read countless bedtime stories and sing lullabies. But being the ungrateful parents that we are, Paul and I would moan over the 6.30am wake-up calls of them jumping on our beds, giving us kisses and cheerful “Good mornings !” How times have changed, how easily we forget…….



When we first started intensive Biomed, we worked out our priorities together with the doctor. This determined the first course of action and treatment and addressed our most pressing issues. First and foremost was sleep! Throughout Maya’s entire life, even from the day she was born, she always had sleep issues. A typical newborn would stay asleep for 23 hours a day, whereas Maya would be awake for 12 hours a day. For the first few months of her life, she hardly ever stayed asleep long enough like other kids. She would fall asleep while breastfeeding and I remember having to wake her up so that she could drink her fill. When she was a baby, she hated sleeping in her cot, preferring to sleep in our bed, tucked between the 2 of us. Unfortunately, though she would sleep, Paul and I couldn’t for fear that we would accidentally squash her.
When she was born, we had 4 main issues to deal with. I had difficulty breastfeeding her, getting her to sleep or stay asleep, dealing with constant pooping and her constant crying.This was going to be a pattern for much of her life.  Breastfeeding was hard!! She had difficulty latching on, she couldn’t suck properly, the milk flow would be too much for her causing her to gag, she would scream for milk, but when trying to feed, she’d scream as if in pain. I had mastitis twice and was on antibiotics while breastfeeding her. Her feeding was so erratic that it affected my milk flow, there were 2 occasions when my milk supply dried up. I had to painstakingly express milk all day long for up to a week trying to get my milk supply up to the previous level. Even when I expressed milk and fed her by bottle, she needed the slowest flow nipple and could only drink not more than 2oz at a time.  If she drank too much or too fast, she would projectile vomit. I remember many many times of cleaning up the car, the bed, the floor and changing her outfit and mine many times a day due to her throwing up. She required small feedings very frequently. I remembered breastfeeding her every hour for the first 3 months. When she was 4 months old, she only needed feeding every 2 hours. 


At that time, I knew that the mother’s diet would affect the breastfed baby, thus I was careful of avoiding caffein during and after pregnancy. Also friends and family had reminded me to stay away from foods that caused “angin”. However, in hindsight if I had known to stay off casein and gluten too, things may have been different. Even though at that time Maya was never fed any formula or milk-based products, I didn’t realise there was a lactose, dairy or casein issue involved. A child can still ingest it through the mum’s breast milk. When I was breastfeeding, I was constantly hungry, I craved chocolate milk and yoghurt. There were many varieties of yoghurt in Sydney and I loved the  fresh greek yoghurt with mixed summer berries from David Jones, Paul would buy me tubs of it. I also ate freshly baked gourmet breads and pastries everyday, now I know better…….. 


After 7.5 months of breastfeeding, Maya refused to drink from me and preferred the bottle so we moved her on to formula. I envied those other mums whose kids would drink a huge bottle of milk in one go, then fall asleep for hours. With Yasmin, it was so different. She slept well, she fed well and we only had to change her nappy 6 times a day. Because Maya was my first born, we didn’t know any better. We thought 12 poopy nappies a day was normal. We thought feeding every hour was normal for a 3 month old baby. But what I knew was abnormal was her sleeping only for 20 minutes at one time. However, no one could give us any insight on it. 
Since she was 3 weeks old, Maya would scream and scream from 6pm until 10pm every night. This went on for 4 months! We would try to feed her, change her, rock her, swaddling, anything that would calm her down. Usually, swaddling her very tightly and rocking and swaying her hard whilst walking around and around very fast would help. For 4 hours every night, Paul and I would take 1 hour shifts, both of us trying to soothe her. Yet, she would continue to scream bloody murder. Doctors would tell us it was colic and gave us some anti-colic medication which didn’t work. We were exhausted and worried about our child, but we could’t find any answers. Her crying was always high-pitched at the loudest volume, her cries were so blood-chilling that people were afraid to come to our house or invite us anywhere. We finally had an inkling that Maya had sensory issues, whenever we took her out to the shops or for an outing in the day, at night her screams were more frantic and lasted longer. If we kept her at home all day long, with no distractions or visitors, she would have an easier night. She’d still be screaming, but it was only for 4 hours, rather than 6 hours straight. This eventually got better, especially since we finally got a maid when she was 4 months old. For the first time ever, Paul and I managed to sit down to eat together while the maid would rock and soothe Maya. I remember days when I never had a chance to sit down, because Maya needed to be carried and rocked all the time.
When we finally weaned her on to solid food, it was a struggle. She did not like to eat. Mealtimes would take up to 1 hour, just to coax 2 tablespoons of food into her. She continues to be a picky eater up to this day, with a very small appetite compared to other kids. However, when she was 1.5 years old, I moved her on to fresh milk. She loves it so much and could drink up to 1 litre a day, which is a lot for her. And she loves bread, she would happily eat bread and drink milk all day and nothing else. We noticed the addiction, but nontheless we were happy that we could feed her nutritious meals by making pizzas and sandwiches which also contained protein and vegetables. We noticed her love of milk, but we have been taught that fresh milk is good, lots of calcium and nutrients right? She would drink a 6oz bottle, then she would be all dopey and sleepy and goofy. She acted like someone on drugs, all high and woozy. Initially we thought it was funny, until years later we learnt about the opiate effects of casein and gluten. 
She would have explosive bowel movements 12 times a day in the first 3 months. We did not know this was abnormal. And once a day, every day, her poop was so explosive that it would burst out of her nappy and cover her entire body. Her little bodysuit would be soiled from the knees up till halfway up her back, sometimes she would be covered in her poop from her neck down to the ankle. We threw out so many outfits because it would get so soiled.  She also had nappy rash, again and again. We were still in Sydney at the time and when I showed her poopy nappy and her red sore bottom, our well-respected and experienced Australian paediatrician said fully breast-fed babies are not supposed to have diarrhoea and they are not supposed to have nappy rash. Errr……… “Doc, I don’t care whether they’re SUPPOSED to or not, but you can see for yourself the diarrhoea and the nappy rash. I fully breastfeed her, yet she still has diarrhoea and she has bad nappy rash”. He didn’t have any answer for that, just kept saying that she’s not SUPPOSED to have them. I don’t care what medical books say, she DID have them, so help me out here will ya? Can you explain this doc? Can you help my baby? 

From the very first day she was born, Maya didn’t sleep well. Paul spent the 4 nights in hospital with me, sleeping on the floor.  The hospital advocated the baby sleeping or rooming in with the mum immediately from birth, in order to facilitate bonding. There were no nurseries where babies are placed, all babies roomed in with the mums unless they were in ICU or if the mum had complications. The nurses would always be on hand to help, but Paul was and still is an amazingly hands-on dad. Because I couldn’t get up from bed for a few days after the Caesarean birth, Paul took charge of changing her nappy, rocking her and burping her. He even gave her her first bath, even for the next few weeks after because I was afraid to bathe her myself. In hospital, Paul would hand Maya to me whenever she needed to be fed. She would not sleep in her bassinet, preferring to sleep cuddled up next to her Daddy even from her very first day. She loved being held by Paul, he would sleep on a mattress on the hospital floor in my private room. She would cuddle up to him, her little face tucked against his chest. Only then, she would sleep peacefully. I remember nights in the hospital when she would scream and scream and I was not able to get up from my bed. Paul would rock her all night long, walking down the dark hospital corridors while trying to soothe her. Even while we were all holed up in hospital, Paul still had work to attend to and would try to catch up on his emails. He would sit on the floor in front of his laptop, Maya cuddled up in his arms whilst typing out an email. 
As a young baby, Maya would fall asleep for 20 m
inutes and stay awake for 1 hour, then sleep for another 20 minutes and so on. By the time she was 2 months old, at night she eventually managed to sleep for 2 hours straight. Then wake up again for another hour to drink milk, a nappy change, then another half hour of rocking her back to sleep and she would sleep again for 2 hours. Usually, she would wake up cranky and crying, even after a somewhat long sleep. This was how life was like in the first years of her life. However, when she was 1 years old, she finally managed to fall asleep by herself without much difficulty and would sleep for 12 hours straight at night. We would limit her daytime naps to only once a day, and then only for 1 hour. We wouldn’t let her nap too late in the day, otherwise she would be up all night. It was mean, but that was the only way we could cope. However, even though she slept well at night, during the day time was very tough. We had to deal with her tempers, meltdowns and mood swings. It wasn’t quite as bad as after she regressed into Autism, but it was taxing enough for us. 
But throughout all the difficulties and challenges, Maya developed and achieved all the milestones at age-appropriate levels. Her growth chart and well-baby visits recorded normal development. She received all her vaccinations on time and we combined both Australian and Malaysian vaccination schedules. Therefor Maya received more vaccinations than the average Australian or Malaysian child. Her last vaccination was for Meningococcal C. She was 1.5 years old then, about 4 months after her MMR and Varicella vaccination. We were living in Sydney then, the vaccination was give 1 week after Yasmin was born. Before that, there were many videos and photos of how happy and interactive Maya was. She didn’t really talk spontaneously, but she would label things on the posters for us, when asked where’s Mummy, she would point to me. When asked who that was, she would happily tell us their name. She had a big vocabulary and could count to 20, she knew all her alphabets. Though she never did call me Mummy ever, she knew where I was and would always want my attention and be with me. She had a sparkle in her eyes, she was full of fun and played well with other kids.
Looking back, we realised she started to plateau developmentally and she slowly regressed. She talked less and less, her tantrums and aggression were worse. She retreated more and more and preferred to be alone and her sleep deteriorated. Maya constantly would wake up in the middle of the night and stay awake for 2-3 hours, singing, laughing or talking to herself. Or it would take her a long time to fall asleep. She also kept getting constipated, medical records showed many visits to the doctor with a prescription for more laxatives. And her behaviour and condition deteriorated until she was finally diagnosed with Autism.
Unfortunately, only years later with the hindsight I have now, I now understand why Maya was such a difficult baby. And why she eventually regressed and became the 1 in 100 to get Autism. 

Obviously, when we started biomedical, sleep was our first priority, years of sleepless nights has taken it’s toll on us. So getting her sleep sorted out was by far the most important thing for us, rather than the Autism behaviours. Dealing with her behaviors was extremely challenging enough, but doing it day in and day out on very little sleep was just too much for us. The GFCF diet helped by reducing some of her food cravings. By eliminating casein and gluten, this also caused a reduction in gut issues. A lot of sleep issues are directly related to GI disorders. Since we took out casein and gluten, and later introduced digestive enzymes, she could process her food better. Thus reducing her reflux and colic, which are frequent culprits when dealing with sleep issues in kids. We also used melatonin for the first few months to help regulate her sleep patterns. However, melatonin alone will not resolve the underlying sleep disorder. Once we started intensive biomedical treatments, we eliminated all the IgG reactive foods including soy and eggs, based on her IgG Food Intolerance Test results. We replenished her with magnesium, which has a calming effect and gave her high doses of casein-free multi-flora probiotics. Magnesium and probiotics also relieved her of constipation, another culprit to consider if your child has sleep issues. However, only when we started doing several rounds of anti-fungals, then her sleep issues were totally resolved. Fungal or yeast overgrowth is a common cause for night awakenings followed by laughing and giggling. Yasmin however had sleep issues whenever she had bacterial overgrowth, this would also include bloated tummy, crankiness and smelly abnormal stools. 
Therefor, whenever my children have sleep issues, I always go through my checklist;
1. Diet – were there any casein, gluten or other infractions such as MSG, preservatives, colorings, high salicylates, too much sugar etc
2. Is she constipated? If yes, then check the possible causes eg if she’s getting enough magnesium, diet infraction or yeast overgrowth. With Maya, once we resolved her constipation and yeast overgrowth, her sleep improved 100%
3. Is it due to yeast-overgrowth? Possible clues for my girls include laughing middle of the night, during the day there is giddy, silly behavior, standing upside down, lots of climbing and jumping off furniture, eating too much sugar or yeast feeding foods, scratching bottom, biting toes, rash, itchiness, constipation
4. Melatonin – would a few nights on melatonin resolve the issue? If no, then check the other causes. Also, hyper kids are not able to regulate serotonin levels amongst other things, serotonin is the precursor of melatonin. At one point, it took a long time for Maya to fall asleep, usually we would need to rock her for 1-1.5 hours every night! During those moment, melatonin helped her to fall asleep faster and easier.
5. Magnesium deficiency – increasing magnesium may be calming
6. Folinic Acid – for some kids on MB12, it may cause hyperness. Tempering it with folinic acid may have a calming effect. Some may need certain amino acids if they are deficient.
7. Is it GI problems such as bacterial infection? Bloated tummy, low appetite, tantrums and diarhhia are usually followed by sleepless night in my home.
8. Are they ill? Perhaps they have a virus, sore throat or fever or colds and flus, these would affect sleep. Especially if their nose and sinuses are congested and it affects their breathing at night. 
9. Is there enough calming treatments? Warm epsom salt baths at the end of the day is usually calming for our kids, gentle massages by mummy also helps to calm them down.
10. Sleeping arrangements and routine: is the room temperature too hot or too cold, is my child shivering or sweaty, is the room too dark? Maybe your child may be comforted if there’s a nightlight. For my girls, I installed blackout curtains so that the morning sun would not shine so brightly waking them up too early. Do they share a room, is their sibling waking them up? If they share a room with the parents, is the child being awakened by your husband’s loud snoring? Most kids respond well to a set routine, therefor try to establish a good night time routine .
11. Sleep pattern & habits – do they still have an afternoon nap, is the nap too long or too late. Is it possible to either limit the time they nap or take away nap time completely. Remember, anyone child or adult, if we have a nap in the afternoon, chances are we will be well rested and won’t feel sleepy until midnight. If we are only able to sleep a total of say 10 hours a day, then if we take a 3 hour nap in the afternoon waking up at 5pm, chances are we won’t go back to bed until 12 midnight, and will wake up fresh and rested at 7am. Simple math right? 


The challenge here is when the child is so exhausted in the day time after several hours of intensive 1 on 1 therapy, they really really need to nap. It seems cruel to take it away from them. However, in the end the mum ends up utterly exhausted too because they have to deal with a wide-awake active child until midnight. Therefor, we have 2 choices. Either follow the child’s routine ie. accept the nap time and hopefully you get a chance to nap and rest when they do, accept the fact that you will only be able to go to bed at midnight every night. Or the 2nd choice is to try to change your child’s sleep pattern, this is quite difficult according to most parents. However, due to desperation, this is what I did. We started home based ABA when she was 2y9m, she still needed a 2 hour nap everyday at 1pm. So after the morning ABA session, she’d have a quick lunch and have a nap. However, sometimes she wanted to sleep longer. Many times we had to wake her up because the therapist had arrived. However, if woken up prematurely she would be extremely cranky throughout the day, even during therapy times. Also, because of this, we couldn’t get the maximum amount of hours of ABA that Maya required. 


Therefor, I tried all means possible to keep her awake during the daytime with tv, toys, snacks, playing games, ANYTHING that would keep her entertained and not want to go to sleep. And usually by 5pm, she would be dead on her feet and try as we might, she would fall asleep for 5 hours straight and wake up at 10pm! Of course, whenever this happened, she wouldn’t go back to sleep till 3am. After a few weeks of this extremely exhausting pattern, we eventually managed to keep her awake till 6pm, then 7pm. Simultaneously, I would give her melatonin WHILE she was sleeping, in the hopes that it will keep her asleep for a few more hours. When she was overtired, it also took a long time to calm her down enough to fall asleep. It took a couple of months of even more worse broken sleep though, but eventually we got there. By the time she was 3y1m, she could stay up the whole day even with a full day of ABA with no nap. She
would be cranky, overtired and irritable in the late afternoon and always falling asleep, but we persevered and cruelly kept waking her up and keeping her awake until  she’d fall asleep exhausted at 7pm. After that, I’d sneak in a small bottle of milk with 2mg of melatonin around 11pm and she would only wake up at 7am the next morning. 


However, as she grew older and her body grew healthier and stronger, she was no longer as exhausted by 7pm. She no longer needs melatonin after the first 3 months of us regulating her sleep cycle. Though it seemed cruel at first, eventually Maya got used to the routine and was well rested and had enough energy to get through all her therapies and the demands of the day. Best of all, Paul and I get to have the evening together. We get to have some quiet relaxing time together and can look forward to a good night’s sleep. 

For my girls, after we have successfully taken away their nap times and they are able to sleep from 7pm – 7am or so, we try to have this routine for the past year. After dinner, they have a warm epsom salt bath together, often with me included, we brush our teeth together and we all choose our favourite pyjamas or nightie. Then when I can, a nice massage by mum with perhaps glutathione lotion, MSM cream or magnesium cream. If not, a simple lavender based oil or lotion is calming too. Then the girls get into bed, the air condition at a nice cool temperature, the air purifier switched on, curtains shut tight and a soft nightlight on while Daddy reads a bedtime story. Then, they have a nice bottle of rice milk with melatonin perhaps. I tuck them into bed and I kiss and hug them every night ever since they were newborns and I always tell them how much I love them, how proud I am of them, I say thank you to them for a lovely day, and that we’ll have another happy day tomorrow. I let them know how happy they make me feel and that I hope I made them happy too. I tell them how brave and clever they are. I tell each girl private words of love and affection. I tell them to have sweet dreams and that I’ll see them in my dreams. Every night whenever I tuck them into bed, I never fail to tell them this. After years and years of whispering my love to them in their ears, eventually Maya and Yasmin started telling me good night and that they love me too. Good night and sleep tight everyone………




>Bathrooms, Big School and Uniforms….

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Every little milestone my girls achieve is another celebration in my home. Big or small, whether it was at age-appropriate developmental milestone or if it came 1.5 years later. Based on many accounts of parents with either neuro-typical or children on the Autism spectrum, their kids were toilet trained (fully or partially or only for daytime) around the age of 2.5 – 3 years old. This turned out to be a struggle for us.

Maya developed typically eversince she was born, hit every developmental milestone on time. She was crawling, walking, babbling and talking at the appropriate age. Apart from being cranky, fussy, poor feeder, poor sleeper and prone to epic tantrums, she developed age-appropriate skill sets up until the age of 1.5 years old. This was when she received her last and final vaccination – the Meningococcal C, a requirement of the New South Wales Australia Health authority. She had a combined vaccination schedule based on both Australia and Malaysia’s health requirement. This was also during the month that her younger sister Yasmin was born in March 2007. Very soon after that, we also got Maya started on drinking fresh cow’s milk.

For the next 6 months, the regression was not very apparent to us. Mostly due to the fact that we were preoccupied with our 2nd daughter. However, by early 2008 I started to notice that Maya did not learn any new skills, even though she had a large vocabulary of words, she is not progressing to actually communicating with us. She continued to communicate with us through pulling our hands or most commonly, by throwing tantrums. She did not label anymore words, she spoke less and less. Though she would talk and sing a lot when she woke up at 2am. Neither did she seek out our company. A friend actually admired me, saying that it’s so great that Maya is quite happy to play by herself, that she wasn’t clingy to me nor did she require me to entertain her all day long. For 1 second, I actually thought yes, I’m lucky. I have time to concentrate on my 2nd daughter without feeling guilty of neglecting Maya. However, deep down I yearned for her to call me Mummy. She was perfectly content to spend all day in her room, playing quietly by herself. I wasn’t quite sure what she did, but she seemed contented. There were many more signs of her regression, loss of previously acquired skills as well as the lack of new development.
After the official Autism diagnosis at age 2y8m and getting on with the work of therapy and biomedical intervention, we tried to introduce potty training when she was nearly 3 years old. No effect whatsoever. Not wanting to push it, we tried again when she was 3.5 years old. Again, no luck. We enlisted the help of our hardworking ABA team, taking her to the bathroom every hour. After 6 months of toilet training with ABA methods, when she was 4 years old in October 2009, Maya finally started peeing on the potty regularly. However, at home she would insist on using the small potty, rather than use the regular toilet. This coincided when we started her on TMG. Coincidentally, she was able to tolerate clothes better too and actually allowed us to put on nightgowns for bed. The fights we used to have trying to get her dressed was long gone.
She also insisted on wearing a nappy when doing a bowel movement. She would never poo poo on the potty or the toilet. We tried ABA techniques and used social stories. Usually, Maya responded very well with social stories and we managed to resolve quite a few issues using them. However, she was pretty verbal and had great cognitive function by then and always insisted that she can only poo poo in a nappy. She would crouch half-standing usually in a corner of the living room and strain.
By then, we had resolved a lot of her gut issues. She no longer had constipation or incontinence and we were able to keep her recurrent yeast overgrowth under control. However, 3 weeks ago she started having constipation again. She would have a bowel movement every 3 days and it was either very hard and pebbly or very soft and little. This affected her behavior and appetite to a small degree. Our usual methods of relieving it didn’t seem to work. Our DAN doctor surmised that it was another yeast infection, as yeast overgrowth can cause constipation. So we put her on a course of my favorite anti-fungal Diflucan. As most of you already know, yeast overgrowth tend to recur time and time again in our children. Historically, Maya has responded very well on Diflucan. She was calm, focused and ‘sparkling’. There’s no other word to describe it, Maya was like the real Maya that I knew existed underneath the weight of Autism.
We also did another urine Organic Acid Test by Metametrics Lab. The previous OATs was done 9 months ago, since then we have done much to address Maya’s biochemistry issues. We needed another look at her current position and see if there are other things we can fine-tune. The recent OATs confirmed high presence of yeast metabolites. Once we put Maya on Diflucan, her bowel movements became regular and the texture is normal. There was some slight die-off however it was a small price to pay for the improvements we saw later.
On the 3rd day she was on Diflucan, for the first time ever Maya allowed us to seat her on the normal toilet to do a poo poo. This was a huge achievement for Maya, we were so excited that my husband took a video of Maya sitting on the toilet doing her first poo. This continued consistently every day for the next few days.
Maya was on a 2 week course of Diflucan, however I discovered we did not have enough capsules to last us for 14 days. In the midst of communicating with our DAN doctor and trying to get more stock from Malaysian pharmacies, Maya missed 2 days of the anti-fungal. On the 1st day without Diflucan, Maya refused to poo on the toilet and demanded a nappy instead. After a consistent week of doing poos in the bathroom, I was disappointed. However we realized that by missing the anti-fungal, Maya had difficulty doing a bowel movement while sitting down. She needed to stand half-way crouched over, thus the need for nappies. On the 2nd day she missed the Diflucan, for the first time in 2 months Maya did not inform us that she needed to go to the bathroom. She had wet her pants.
Stopping an anti-fungal before the course is fully completed is akin to not completing an antibiotic course. It may cause another flare-up of yeast overgrowth. We managed to obtain more Diflucan, Maya has been back on it for 3 days now. Yesterday, she was back to pooing on the toilet again. We have been extremely lucky that when doing anti-fungal protocol or any other treatment, any regression or die-off reactions has been somewhat manageable compared to some other children. Even if there was major regression, it was always temporary and not permanent. She always got back to her previous level and managed to pick up any skills that she had lost. Her language and cognitive function is still amazing, her comprehension and compliance has consistently improved.
We are transitioning Maya to attend a mainstream kindergarten very soon. Recently I spoke to Maya and told her that very soon she will attend a new school. A big school called C******* School, with new teachers and new friends to play with. Also, that she needs to wear a uniform. Maya remembered all this and she told my mum all about it the next day when they came to visit. My parents had sent Maya off to her regular ABA school and Maya kept telling them that she needs to go to her new school C******* School and wear a uniform. I haven’t told anyone of our plans yet, so my mum was not aware of this. My mum came back to me and asked if everythi
ng that Maya said was correct. We were amazed at her memory and her comprehension, all this after only telling Maya about it once.
As you know, Maya has always had very strong preferences with clothing, preferring pretty pink dresses with spaghetti straps. So getting her used to the idea of a uniform was important to me. I told her “You must wear a uniform at C******* School. But when you go to Stepping Stones, you can wear whatever you want” Maya thought about it for a moment and declared “I wear a uniform to C******* School, but I can wear a dress to Stepping Stones”. My clever little girl worked it out all by herself! I wonder how she will do with the new uniform, it’s got short sleeves and has a blue checkered print…..

>Relaxing the Diet

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We had an amazing holiday in Sabah recently. Yasmin loved the water slides, Maya really loves the flowers in the garden and both girls climbed trees. We went on a boat ride and visited the sea gypsy villages on the river. Maya loved fishing for crabs, she caught one and named it Pinchy the Crab. And the highlight of our trip was watching the orang utans in their natural habitat.

It was the first time that the girls did not fall sick whilst on holiday, neither did they fall sick after coming back. Most importantly, we took a bold step by relaxing the girls’ strict gluten-free and casein-free and low sugar diet.

Maya has been on the GFCF diet for 1 1/2 years and Yasmin has been on it for 1 year. Also, we have made tremendous progress in Maya and seen some improvements in Yasmin. Thus, we conclude that their gut and bodies have healed to a certain extent. My strategy was to allow the girls to eat gluten and casein and sugar, while making sure they have digestive enzymes too. And to observe for any changes or regression.
Maya was in absolute heaven, she had coco pops for breakfast, she had a choice of fresh breads and buns from the breakfast buffet. She chose a different flavor of yoghurt every morning and we would buy an ice cream or a lollipop from the shop at teatime everyday. She was loading up on wheat based carbs, dairy and sugar – all the things she has missed for so long. Yasmin just loves her coco pops and gluten toast for breakfast, but otherwise was happy to stick to her usual diet. We make sure that they have a relatively healthy lunch and dinner with lots of protein and vegetables, it’s not all junk food:-)
We would pre-mix a container with Kirkman’s Enzym DPP-IV and Kirkman’s Phenol Assist with juice. Every-time the girls ate, we would have a syringe handy and just squirt it in. We did this for the entire 5 days holiday. The other resort guests would stare at us when we brought out the giant 20cc syringe and feed the girls that way. They must think we’re nuts. We also made sure they had all the other supplements as well.
They both slept well, had daily bowel movements and there was no meltdowns or behavior changes. Previously, any infractions to the diet would result in sleep issues, constipation, increased yeast behaviors and tantrums. I assume this means the girls’ gastrointestinal health has improved especially their leaky gut. All the supplements that we have been giving religiously for the past 1 year has made a huge impact. However, now that we’re back at home, we will still continue with the GFCF diet. The diet is the cornerstone of biomedical intervention; in order for the other supplements to work optimally, we need to have the diet in place.
We have fond memories of Sabah and Maya keeps saying she wants to go back there. It’s a magical place full of yummy bread, multi-flavored lollipops and endless ice-cream.

>All About Yasmin

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My second daughter Yasmin is 2y5m, she was a happy easy-going baby, she fed well, slept through the night and pretty much a normal child. Her language and cognition is very good and she’s very affectionate. However, for the past 6 months we have noticed a gradual change in her behavior, she is often cranky, shows rigidity in behavior, uncontrollable at times and rarely smiles. Also, she started to have sleep problems, is now a very fussy and picky eater, chronic constipation and shows a lot of abdominal pain. We also noticed some stims such as tip toe walking, slight repetition in language and motion, always tapping and knocking on walls or furniture, she is always climbing on the arms of the sofa, straddling it while rocking her body and grinding her pelvis against it and we have noticed some eye stims recently.

However, throughout all this, her language and cognition has always been very good. But Paul also pointed out that we have not seen any developmental gains in the past few months, she is still at the same developmental level as she was 6 months ago. Because of what we went through with Maya, we also understand the genetic susceptibility of siblings getting the same condition. So we took steps to reduce the possibility of it; we put Yasmin on the GFCF diet for the past 9 months, she is also soy-free and egg-free. Her diet is organic and pretty much the same as it is for Maya. We did not give her the MMR however she did receive some vaccinations prior to it.
In January 2009, both girls were hospitalized for Rotavirus. Both Dr Erwin Kay and Dr Rina Adeline suspect that her regression was induced by the infectious and bacterial disease. There are many causes of Autism, we now believe that the Rotavirus tipped her over the edge. I also believe there she also contracted other countless bacterial and viral co-infections that were never tested, identified or treated for. We were on holiday in Phuket and Paul took the girls to play under the water sprinklers in the hotel garden. I kept asking them to stop because the water smelled putrid, plus the Thai gardeners kept shouting and gesturing at them to get away from the garden. We later found out that the filtration system is broken and water contaminated from the septic tank was used. Yeah, dumb but true. 2 days after we came back from Phuket, first Yasmin and then Maya was hospitalized. They were treated for Rotavirus, but it’s interesting to note that they were not tested for other types of infections or viruses, the doctor only tested for Rotavirus.
We did the IgG Food Intolerance test and the Comprehensive Stool Analysis. Her IgG levels are elevated with multiple food intolerance, she also has leaky gut, there are multiple bacterial infections, yeast overgrowth, digestive enzyme deficiencies, gut inflammation, oxidative stress and others. Her medical prognosis is chillingly similar to her sister’s, in fact some of her test results are worse than Maya’s.
Both DAN doctors confirmed that Yasmin is either borderline ASD or gradually declining towards the Autism Spectrum. We don’t know whether it will be Autism, ADHD or Aspergers, but I’m not waiting to find out. We are doing all we can to stop it now, starting with her gut issues. We have not done a psychological assessment, mostly because of time and financial constraints, but also we do not need a clinical psychologist to tell us what we already know. Also, some people including doctors are very quick to judge us as overly-worried parents because Yasmin’s language skills are amazing. And it’s unfair that because for the 5 minutes someone observes her, they come to the conclusion that she’s fine. As if that can be construed as a `qualified diagnosis’.
Yeah, but did they ever consider that during that 5 minutes, she is so engrossed with a new toy, chatting happily away, laughing and everyone is giving in to all her demands that she is not likely to throw a tantrum? No one else would know that it takes us such a long time to calm her down or redirect her when she’s in one of her tantrums and rages? No one else has to get her to stop humping the furniture, if they did then they’ll know that this is not `normal’ behavior. No one outside the family has ever experienced a night when she wakes up at 3am and wants to play for 3 hours. It’s come to point now that sadly, our officially-diagnosed ASD child Maya is so much easier and better behaved than Yasmin.
As parents, we shouldn’t let ourselves be blinded by Yasmin’s cleverness and precociousness. I could never avoid noticing some of her abdominal pain behaviors, she would insist on me holding her tummy, she would lean over tables and bed corners, pushing her tummy into it. I can’t help but notice that she is constipated for 5 days, her stools are always either very hard and pebbly or runny and soft. Her tummy is distended and she is extra irritable and cranky during constipation days. Her constant knocking and tapping is a sensory issue and also signs of calcium deficiency. Yes, a lot of her behaviors are considered normal 2 year old behaviors, but all together at once and there’s a sibling with ASD? Come on, I’m an Autism Warrior Worrier Mummy, you can’t fool me!

>Alert – Not for the faint hearted!

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One of Maya’s most pressing medical problem is chronic constipation. Infrequent bowel movements, light colored, pebbly, dry, hard and stinky.

Her constipation got so bad at one point that she didn’t poo for 3 days. When she finally did, she was straining and straining for so long, but nothing would come out. She was crying in pain and in desperation Paul had to hold her under her armpits and position her squatting with her feet on the toilet seat. I looked up her bum, and I saw that the stool was so big it couldn’t possible come out.

With my fingers wrapped around a wet wipe, I had to dig in and literally pry off bits and chunks of it out of her. Eventually, she managed to empty her bowels once I cleared the obstruction. Her stool was so hard and dry like hardened clay. At that time, we were in the disabled toilet in Terminal 2 Singapore Changi Airport, so no surgical gloves on hand. Maya was in such agony, it was an act of desperation for Paul and I.

That was one of the worst memories I have, tears was running down my face the entire time I was on my knees on the bathroom floor trying to help my daughter. That experience makes Paul and I even more determined to keep going with biomedical treatments.

We keep to a strict GFCF diet, very limited sugar, eliminated all her food allergens according to the IgG test results, high amounts of probiotics (50 billion CFUs a day), vitamins and minerals, DPP-IV digestive enzyme and phenol assist enzyme at every meal and many more. (See Maya’s Daily Log for a full list of her supplements)

Maya doesn’t have constipation issues anymore and she is no longer in pain.

>Scratchy Bottom & Itchy Feet

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Maya had GI issues such as constipation, bloating, gassiness, very picky eater, a lot of pain behavior as well as yeast & fungal related behaviors. She would scratch her bottom all the time, occasionally there are peeling skin at the bottom of her feet and sometimes she would bite the skin off her toes. She hated wearing shoes and sometimes she would scratch her back till it bled.
Treating her GI issues was our most immediate concern, and we finally figured out that some of her behavior such as scratching and biting was due to yeast overgrowth.
One of the focus of biomedical intervention is to heal gastrointestinal disorders. 91% of children with Autism has gastrointestinal (GI) issues. Examples of GI distress include inflammation of the gut, abnormal intestinal permeability (also known as leaky gut syndrome), malabsorption, maldigestion, reflux esophagitis, colitis, yeast or fungal overgrowth and others. 70% of the body’s immune system lies in the gut, making it a very important part of your biomedical protocol.
Symptom –
GI symptoms usually presents itself as chronic constipation, diarrhea, abnormal stools, foul smelling stools, bloating and gassiness. Obvious symptoms such as these are easier to detect, however some children do not present these symptoms.
There are also other subtle symptoms or clues that a child has GI issues. Historical clues may include difficulty breast feeding, persistent colic, reflux, eczema, food sensitivities, picky eater, frequent antibiotics, abnormal posturing, self-injurious behavior and poor sleep. Our children may have a combination of these symptoms.
Some of the behavior linked to gastrointestinal distress include confusion, hyperactivity, short attention span, lethargy, irritability and aggression. It also causes headaches, stomachaches, constipation, gas pains, fatigue and depression. Reflux and intestinal discomfort may also be a reason for your child’s sleep problems.
You may require to do stool and urine tests for this, please refer to my previous blog on testing.
What causes it?
Gastrointestinal dysbiosis (imbalance) may occur in Autism through different means; frequent use of antibiotics causes a depletion of the good flora in our gut. The lack of beneficial flora will lead to an overgrowth of bad flora & bacteria such as clostridia. Damage caused by other environmental toxic assaults such as pesticides, heavy metals and chemicals may result in nutritional deficiencies. Food sensitivities such as gluten and casein causes damage to the intestine and the mucosal lining, which results in leaky gut and painful inflammation. Parasites and viral infections are also commonly reported in Autism children.
Yeast overgrowth
A combination of the lack of good flora and a bad diet results in yeast and fungal overgrowth. Foods such as sugar and simple carbohydrates keeps on feeding the yeast. Yeast or more commonly candida usually resides in the digestive tract. When the yeast multiples, it releases toxins in the body. And these toxins also impair the central nervous system and the immune system. Apart from rashes, yeast and fungal overgrowth may also present itself behaviorally.
Healing the gut
The basic protocol involves removing the allergens in food- the IgG food sensitivity test will help to identify what foods your child is allergic to. The GFCF diet is a very good start, also avoid yeast, sugars and artificial colors, flavorings and preservatives.
It’s important to replenish essential vitamins and minerals, give probiotics and start taking enzymes. Super Nu Thera, calcium and vitamin C is a good base to start with. Make sure you get the refrigerated type of probiotics – ask a pharmacy for probiotics multi-species at the highest CFUs you can find. I like to start at 10 billion CFUs a day, then work up to twice a day. A digestive enzyme of the DPP-IV variety is recommended with every meal. You can implement the diet, baseline supplements, probiotics and enzymes yourself.
Only take antibiotics if it’s absolutely necessary. Please make sure to replenish with more probiotics when taking antibiotics. Apart from killing the virus it’s supposed to, antibiotics also kills up to 90% of the good flora in the gut. When there’s less good flora, there’s more room for the bad flora to grow.
You will need the help of a doctor to prescribe a course of anti-fungal treatment to get rid of candida, some may need to treat clostridia, also anti-viral treatment for the viral infections and anti-inflammatory supplementation.
Healing the gut takes a long time but the benefits are enormous. Just by treating the GI alone does not mean that it will recover your child from Autism. It will take away the discomfort, allow him to concentrate and perform during therapy, it will regulate the immune system, give him a healthy body, improve his quality of life and most importantly it will take away the pain.
Nowadays, Maya is a happier girl, she has regular bowel movements, enjoys her food and is open to new textures and flavors. She is sleeping through the night, doesn’t crave for sugary treats and she no longer has dark circles under her eyes or red rimmed eyes due to food allergies. When Maya’s language improved, I asked her recently about her feet. She replied softly “It’s painful”. Now, Maya has a love for shoes and never ever scratches her bottom at all.