Thursday, May 24, 2012

That little monster...YEAST!

Has finally reared it's ugly head in David. Got the results last week after we sent in stool sample to see if we needed to continue Enhansa. Inflammation was all gone, so Enhansa worked. David had been on a 5 day course of Zithromax for a long time cough he had and that is probably what gave us prime conditions for the yeast. It's LIGHT, but we are attacking it right away with a month of Nystatin and then a month of another drug IF it is covered under insurance (its super expensive).

What we are not looking forward to is die-off reactions from David: aggression, irritability, hyperactivity- if anything...praying for the later. I was told to give him activated charcoal on an empty stomach if we start seeing these behaviors and ibuprofen if he complains of cramps or headaches.

This is a 30 day treatment. We will be going in for another blood draw and glutathione push in a few weeks- hoping that goes well. Will check his aluminum and arsenic levels and see if cutting out a lot of the juice and apples has helped or not.

Hardest thing about this yeast is that it feeds on sugar. All David eats is carbs! That's not too good.

Last minute decisions...

Well...we decided on the day that David was to start Tomatis in Bellevue, not to do it. Why you ask? Well, I started the quest to file a benefit advisory to help insurance pay for the treatment, which was denied as "investigational procedure". So I was in the middle of working on my appeal.

Since Tomatis is new to the States (about 10 years) and there isn't a lot of research stateside for it's use, I started to email Dr's that were on the research studies that I did find for a letter of support for the Tomatis program to try and build my appeal.

I was actually contacted by one of those doctors! He took time out to contact on Monday and ask quite a few questions regarding how David was referred for that program specifically, who diagnosed him etc. This Dr is  professor at Howard University in Washington DC, he has been researching the various listening programs out there for over a decade and specializes in auditory and sensory processing disorders...so he knows his stuff.

He said that across the board ALL listening programs will provide you a calmer child. That the goals we were given were not realistic. He said once you have a calmer child, the OT/PT and Speech therapists get more quality time out of your child and THAT is where the benefits and goals met comes from. He felt that we would achieve the same results from a listening program with our current OT and that insurance would pay no problem.

I am thankful for the call at the last minute. I would do anything for my son, to help him grown and learn and achieve more socially. We are going to hit OT hard this summer with weekly sessions and get him specialized sensory help as well.

Can't wait...