some ASD rambles.

[emmacrew]

I don't know how the "OMG THE MMR VACCINE MAKES KIDS AUTISTIC" folks (and boy, there are an awful lot of them) explain things like the UW study where specialists from their early autism treatment program watched video from the first birthdays of a number of children, and were able to tell from those videos which of the kids had grown up to get ASD

Comments

[firni]

Nobody gives me any crap about immunization.

Then again, I live in the boonies and rarely interact with adults other than zenbastard and beergutt, except when forced.

Our pediatrician would probably beat the shit out of anybody who tried, anyway. She's mean. Well, not to US. YOU know.

[emmacrew]

Yeah, if I had it to do over, or if I were to have another kid... I'd still vaccinate.

[firni]

Me too. I mean, bring that up with OUR doctor. "So, did the vaccinations have anything to do with his speech delays and what-not"?

Doctor: *snorts* *hands me numerous links to research papers*

She'd probably kick my ass if I *didn't* vaccinate. She has three small kids of her own, too.

[hobbitblue]

A friend of mine's middle child has aspergers, and they've linked that directly with the MMR vaccine, and tested for some genetic marker that makes her kids more susceptible, so they got the youngest son the separate vaccines just to be on the safe side (oldest kid had no problems). The daughter is doing great with the diet thing, and youngest son seems happier on it too, so that's what's working for them. How people can go from one case study with a specific set of causes/effects/solutions to then generalising that the same should apply to *everybody* always boggles my mind though. I don't think we know enough to make such sweeping generalisations.

[emmacrew]

Our main problem with the diet is that the number of things P considers food isn't very big. And trying to get him to try something he doesn't think is food pretty much involves holding his head against my chest so he can't get away and literally shoving it into his mouth. Usually he immediately pushes it back out with his tongue or pulls it out with his fingers. there's crying and drama. If we removed everything that didn't fit the diet, he'd eat applesauce, possibly rice cereal, the occasional orange wedge, and juice. French fries and chips, too, I guess.

As it is he mostly eats cheese-flavored goldfish crackers, graham crackers, yogurt, and pizza, with additions from the above list now and then. And frozen chicken nuggets. But he's very, very particular about those foods. They must be the fish crackers, not other shape will do. And no other flavor besides cheese. Ice cream, though it looks a lot like yogurt, generally not food. Any other form of chicken nuggets besides the one brand we get frozen, again, not food. Sigh.

[emmacrew]

Yep. It's just this e-mail list I'm on, with the parents of autistic kids, there's a very vocal core group of them that seems to think if we're not putting our kids on CF/GF diets and we vaccinate them and we don't give them chelation drugs to remove the mercury and it goes on and on... that we're bad parents not interested in finding a cure and, well. I don't think there's some magic cure for all of autism like they seem to. And every now and then the barrage of posts from these folks just gets to me and I'll blurt out something like this on my journal instead of posting something unpleasant to the listserve.

[boojum]

I have an (often trainwreck) interest in what I've been calling anecdotal psych: books, often written for a lay audience, which focus on one or a handful of patients and tell their stories, usually with some degree of purple prose. I'm pretty sure that one of the anecdotal autism books recommended GF/CF (/yeast-free/tomato-family-vegetable-free/sugar-free/food-coloring-free/soy-free/banana-free) for *everyone*, pretty strongly. I don't remember the argument, other than that it had to do with spiky yeast in the intestines.

If you haven't seen the chez miscarriage mommy-drive-by posts yet, they might make it easier to cope with that vocal group of that list.

[emmacrew]

When P was being diagnosed, most of the autism books that one could find in palces like Barnes & Noble really talked about the GF/CF diet. I read one that said "if on the day you even suspect your child has an autism diagnosis you do not immediately cut out all wheat and dairy products, you are an awful awful parent who does not care about doing what is best for your child." And I only paraphrase a little bit.

The argument I've seen for the diet is that some thing (vax, Hg, whatever) has damaged the ability to process nutrients properly (this is where they start using the term "wounded gut"). And something with peptides and other handwaving, means the dairy proteins and gluten form substances that are basically opiates. So the kid is going around with roughly the equivalent of a brain full of morphine, so no wonder they can't process anything. I kid you not.

I also wonder if they even know what it feels like to have a brain full of morphine, because I can tell you the way I felt then has nothing in common with the behaviors of

[eldil]

And part of what makes a sufficient accumulation of those traits pathological is a society that values extraversion and finds something wrong with introverts, people who tend to get unusually interested in limited areas of knowledge, people who have difficulty "reading" other people or making chit chat... yeah.

Well, gee. That's me!

I like to read your thoughts on such things as the above. You're so level-headed.

[emmacrew]

Just reading this... OK, I don't know very many people who have the six or more in the appropriate spread for the diagnosis. But nearly every one of my friends and family members have at least one of them to some degree.

I'm not always level-headed... but I do try my best. Thanks.

[bookwormb]

(unabashedly crashing into conversation) Exactly. I believe the same about the ADD/ADHD, depression, etc. Nobody is X and nobody is really NotX. It's all a matter of degree. And I believe nobody but you can/should decide if your own personal degree to which you exhibit X is a problem or not - to you. And what to do about it.
I say this as I *still* struggle with my decision to take Adderall XR. I miss drugless me. But I also like having a decent house and my ability to keep some deadlines at work, etc. And I wonder why the drugs don't make it effortless, or at least easier, and if more drugs would help, or if I should just give them up and be drugless me again since I'm still struggling anyway. SIGH.
So yeah, where we fall in the continuum is important, as well as where we draw those personal lines between "acceptable" and "needs intervention".

[nonniemous]

I have one friend who can trace her daughter's "autism" directly back to the HiB vaccine; the day before she was a happy, normal 18 month old and the day after she was falling over and drooling. My nephew, on the other hand, is one that definitely fits the "hindsight" diagnosis. His parents accepted a long time ago that there was no "cure" for Jack; he is who is and what they can do is try to find ways to make his world easier for him

[emmacrew]

Falling over and drooling doesn't sound so much like autism as... uh, I'm not sure what exactly, but something else. But what an awful adverse reaction. Such a nightmare.

[nonniemous]

That was only the first symptom, the first clue my friend had that things were wrong after the vaccination. There were a lot of other symptoms following that, if they weren't autism itself, mimicked it closely. But the story makes me very grateful that my own children have had no adverse reactions to their own immunizations.

[emmacrew]

No kidding.