Supplements and Progress

This year 2009 has been incredibly awesome! We finally jumped through enough hoops with the state and both boys are recieving waiver benefits and we are finally able to afford therapy, clinics and the visits to the psychologist for both boys! A huge weight has been lifted off our shoulders and it feels so good to be able to get all the help for them that they need without having all the financial burden or weighing which one is more important at this time.

Also this year Lochlan continues to make tremendous gains with ABA and Speech therapy. He is a totally different kid and to see him emerge more and more each day is breathtaking. I never knew if we would ever get ahead of the autism or damage done to his body (immune, neurological and gastrointestinal systems) but I feel like we are head to head with it now. Lochlan's speech therapist told me that she had started an evaluation and that in some areas he was scoring WITHIN HIS AGE RANGE!!!!!!!!!!!!!! Taking into consideration that less than 9 months ago they could not even evaluate him because he had barely any language skills and now he is in his age range in some areas. What a miracle!!! I truly believe that God is at work here and that this is a testament that He can do anything! For Lochlan to gain that much development in only 9 months is impossible by human standards. And what is so amazing is that everyday we can see him gaining more and more ground.

Sully is also making huge strides. He amazes us as his intelligence surpasses mine daily! He is getting taller and is begining to learn how to deal with his sensory issues. One of our more recent issues is that he had started pulling up and at his pants obsessively all day. It became such a problem that it impaired his daily function and just walking down the hall was an ordeal. I kept thinking that this has to be sensory. Of course sensory is the most difficult kind of problem to figure out. We had also been dealing with him stomping around the house. For 35 pounds he sounded like a 3 ton elephant!!! No matter how many reminders, it was as if he couldn't help himself. I keep racking my brain for possible culprits... diet, supplements, sensory overloads. The only thing that made any sense was that my hypersensitive son was have trouble feeling his pants on his waist or his feet on the ground. So I pulled out some old undies(training pants that I made for him while we were potty training) and we gave them a shot. At first he complained that they were too tight. I kept telling him that we have to be scientists and give it a few days to collect data. He was more receptive to the idea as long as we were only doing a trial. The first day I can count on one hand how many times I saw him pulling on his pants!!! It was amazing. He no longer fights me about them and the problem is currently non existent! To handle his stomping we discovered that about 10 minutes on the trampoline would help the heavy footedness for about an hour or two. (one of our respite workers who is also a family friend suggested this)

As for supplements:
Our current supplement schedule is as follows.
Lunch: (I mix the following in a banana puree with a bit of apple/orange juice and then administer with a syringe)
1 scoop of ASD plex (millinium nutritionals)
1 cap EnZym-Complete/DPP-IV II with Isogest (kirkmans)
1 cap mega-mulit antioxidant w/ very Berry (Solaray)
1/2 500mg cap Insotiol (solaray)
1/2 tsp Nordic Naturals Cod liver oil for kids
1 cap bio-defense probriotic (kirkmans)
2mls Aloe Vera Juice (Akins Brand)-for absorbtion

Supper:
The same as above without the ASD plex.