Is it January already?

So, here we are in 2011. New Years was a relaxing day, no real plans. I had a paid day off and we all stayed close to home. I continued to prep for my visit with the Dr. on the 3^rd. Making sure I had all my research printed and the email I sent a few days before as well so I could remember what I was going to talk with her about.


Follow up Dr. visit and how I do my research.

1/3/2011- I had 40 minutes of the doctor's time to figure out the next stage of David’s treatment. On my agenda were:

• Review Genova Diagnostics report together and discuss concerns. My #1 was the mercury chelation then amino acids. I brought a pile of one’s I found on the internet with Neocate being on the top of the pile- since it was made for children 
• Running another NutrEval in 5-6 months, this time with all the vitamins and supplements on board to see the difference in how we are helping his body.

At the appointment we dove right in, starting with the Excel spreadsheet I made showing David’s current regimen and checking it against what was suggested. We looked at the numbers on the report that were either too high or too low and those were our focus points. Everything recommended on the report lined up with what we were seeing…how cool is that?

David had very high DHPPA (Dihydroxyphenylpropionic Acid) (say that 10x fast) as well as high Citric Acid, Cis-Aconitic Acid, Isocitric Acid, a-Ketoglutaic Acid (AKKA) and Malic Acid…these are all Citric Acid Cycle Metabolites. This is the Krebs Cycle (fun link to show you how it works) or Citric Acid cycle used for metabolizing nutrients and storing them for later use. When I researched on my own before going to this appointment, I broke it down into bite size pieces. I went to www.ask.com and typed in “What is DHPPA?” and learned it’s tied to digestion and bacterial growth in the gut (Great Plains Laboratory- pioneer in treating autism is the first link to pop up). We have good and bad bacteria…in this case the bad bacteria (Chlostridia) are ruling my son’s gut. 

• The Question…how do we treat it naturally? 
• The Answer… Grape Seed Extract and/or Uva Ursi are both successful in treating this bacteria. I addressed this with David's doctor, which you should always do before starting any kind of regimen, and we started with 25mg and worked up to 100mg. 

I took each additional item on the report that was elevated or lacking and researched them one by one. With that info I talked to the Dr. about how we should proceed. She spent a whole hour with me and I was only slotted for 40 minutes, very gracious for a doctor!

The doctor and I also talked about the info I found about naturally removing the mercury from David’s body- she approved and thought we should give it a try. We also upped his antioxidants to help his body recover as he was in oxidative stress. This is linked to a number of serious diseases, such as: Parkinson’s and Alzheimers.

When I left I felt excited about this next step in David’s treatment. We started everything right away in his evening juice and we also had switched up his probiotic- we wanted to “round it out” a bit- so we are now trying Kids MegaFlora as it has 14 probiotic strains as opposed to just the one in Culturelle. Since the Chlostridia got out of hand we figured more strains of good bacteria along with the grape seed extract should rid his gut of that bad bacteria. We’ll confirm in about 5 more months. I’ll be sure to keep you posted.


     ~A side note about this...I use a HSA account, and normally vitamins and supplements are not covered. I checked with the HSA company and they stated if his Dr. provides a letter stating they are medically necessary, they will be covered. This is a big thing, because this stuff can add up. 

Administering supplements.

David's evening juice is packed with 13 vitamins and supplements! Luckily, he loves tart stuff like lemon and vinegar, the juice doesn’t taste bad at all, it has a nice tart kick to the aftertaste that he likes. It also tastes a little green (from the cilantro/chlorella) but David will drink my green smoothies when I make them and has no complaints, so there you go. 

• If your child doesn't like tartness, you may have to go with 1/2 doses of the anti-oxidants to cut it down a bit and just do 2 servings of juice. We serve ours in all natural fruit juice to help mask the flavors and sweeten it up a bit. We also change up the juice every once in awhile to keep it new and interesting.

The barrage of vitamins & supplements for David's evening juice.

January was a great month for us. We have David on his new regimen and he drinks his AM milk and his PM juice with no issues (thank God). The juice does give him a bit of energy though…so as soon as he is up from nap I give it to him. I stay on him until it’s gone, the farther from bedtime the better.


Adventures in potty training!

1/15/2011- This was a Saturday, I have weekends off and spend them entirely with the boys. I thought, I’m going to try potty training David again. I kept it low key, no pressure and relaxed (mostly my attitude). We were totally successful that weekend. I was so excited for David and he knew it. I gave him fruit snacks and he wore big boy pants all day…we went every hour or so, I used the microwave timer to remind me.

Week of 1/17/2011- Monday (holiday- David off from school). He went in the AM for our nanny and that was very exciting as well. He had a few accidents too. We just encouraged him to go in the potty next time. He would ask to go but it would be too late. He was totally getting the hang of it though! We lost it again though that weekend, my Godkids were over and weren’t able to keep up, so he wore a diaper most of the time.

Week of 1/24/2011- We continued our attempt at getting David on the potty 1^st thing in the AM, hopefully getting him to go before school.  If he did, he got to wear bog boy pants and we sent change of clothes in his back pack. He was always successful at home for me- we’d figured out his schedule. His back pack always had his set of clothes wrapped in a plastic bag for us…he wasn’t getting it at school just yet.

Week of 1/31/2011- David was well on his way to having a potty schedule down at home, now we just needed it to follow at school. He had his first success at school today and the teachers gave him GFCF chocolate chips as a reward, he loved that! I immediately adopted that idea at home, they are fairly cheap and when I only give him two, they last a LONG time! What a great idea and incentive, we gotta do what works…right?

More to come in …February!