Beginning of Journey

So, here we are. At the beginning of a new journey.

After a lot of reading and research, our family is in the process of trying a couple of things to see if they would help our ds with his aspergers.

We started with the Gluten Free Casein Free diet at least three weeks ago. I tried this before (not as full heartedly or as informed as I am now) but didn't see much come out of it. This timed, armed with much more information, I believe that there is some change. I mainly noted it when we deviated from the diet. One night, I ordered pizza which he happily ate for both dinner and breakfast the following morning. He was not "present" during his lessons. He seemed to have completely forgotten/lost what he learned and had been practicing for weeks. It was so disturbing that I was in tears by the end of the lesson. With this experience, we decided that we needed to continue with the diet.

My only concern was that I've read that so many started on this journey only to find that they had to keep eliminating other foods and the list seemed endless. I didn't want to be on that road when I have a child that would eat almost anything. Ds is NOT a picky eater. I mean the boy eats asparagus, anchovy stuffed olives, and even sushi without any complaints. We are not talking about just california rolls here (which took a little convincing to keep the avocado in). I mean raw octopus!

After doing more research, I found that a lot of parents went the enzyme route. So I figure why not do both; We are keeping the basic gluten free casein free diet and have started on the enzymes as of this past weekend. We are still in the introduction stage so it's hard to tell.

As so far as therapies, I've found great resources locally but stumbled upon something that struck a cord with me: Brain Balance. During my online research, I found another mother who is blogging about her son with aspergers (she's in my list of blogs that I follow). She mentioned something about exercises that she is doing with him and I emailed inquiring about what program she was doing. She informed me about the book Disconnected Kids and the Brain Balance program by Dr Melillo. I purchased and read the book (along with Enzymes for children with autism and other neurological disorders) and thought we would try this program at home mainly because the closest facility was two hours away.

WELL, my MIL (who is a special education teacher in SC) just happened to get an invitation to an information session near her. Both my FIL & MIL went. They called us immediately after to tell us of the session and how they think ds would benefit from such a program.

DH went to an information session the following week and we have since signed up (yes that means we'll be in the car A LOT). We just finished the initial evaluation and are going to the report/findings meeting on Monday.

The long and short:

*Homeschooling using a waldorf inspired curriculum because we find it to be the most

therapeutic curriculum out there.

* Enzyme therapy using Houston Enzymes AFP Peptizyde

* Brain Balance Program

I will update to share how things are going.