I am starting the hopefully therapeutic task of blogging my son's journey with autism. First off, when I say "my son's journey" anyone that is living with autism, no matter what method of treatment you apply, becomes a journey that the whole family endures. My strongest hope is that our journey story will ignite a thought that will help lessen the struggle of autism.
2006
My son's name is Oisin and his name means "Little Dear." As you can see, his name is a perfect fit. He was born in March 2004. He was diagnosed with autism when he was 22 months. For the following year and a half his life was filled with therapy appts and Dr appts. For me, endless reading late at night, I mean late!
Oisin's symptoms of autism at that time were no eye contact, hand flapping, dark circles under the eyes, no speech (until age 3.5 yrs old), hypotonia, unaware of anyone around him, no social desire, severe gastrointestinal problems, verbal stims, hyper running, limited diet, looking at the TV upside down (visual stims) and overall very spaced out, seeking out head pressure with his fist, loads of lead and mercury in his little body and sound sensitivity.
Spring 2007
Due to his severe diarrhea, we put him on that GFCF Diet. We were not one of the many families that saw obvious verbal or cognitive gains immediately, but we were strongly encouraged to continue because his diapers went from several explosions a day to a few appropriately shaped stool movements a day, within 3 weeks.
A couple weeks after 3rd his birthday, I started giving him some supplements that I researched. After a few months I started giving him 1 DMG a day for 2 weeks and then increased it up to 2 DMG. Being the scardy cat that I am, I hesitated to increase the dose to 3 tablets, so I kept him at 2 tablets for several weeks. After more research I finally felt comfortable giving him 3 DMG. Oisin was on his 6th day of taking 3 DMG a day when I went to California for my first DAN! Conference. I was out of town for 3 days. When I returned home, my husband looked like he was about to burst! He told me to take a seat (before I put my suitcase down) and he brought Oisin over to me and said to Oisin "say mommy" and for the very first time, Oisin said mommy. My heart was beating fast, I couldn't believe it. At 3.5 years old I finally heard my son say mommy. He began repeating everything we would tell him to say. Of course this is just repeating and echoing, but we were "over the moon" to hear his voice and to realize he had any verbal ability. All we could say was yippee!!!
