We had a great Christmas. Ben was wonderful, calm, and so excited about all his toys. He is really "tuned in", much more social, and talking lots! We are so happy with his progress, he is really fun to watch and be with.  The discipline is coming along as well, though its blood, sweat and tears!  He has developed a few odd little behaviors of late, and some "seeking" behaviors-pretty much looking for stimulation.  We're trying to provide physical challenges for him, but it's tough because we now have a car in the garage, and the wet outside has been non-stop.

I came across some information on salicylates recently that is making me rethink how I have been doing this diet with Ben. Apparently carrots and cinnamon, daily staples for Ben, are high in salicylates. So I'm going to have to do some more research and tweak his diet some more. I really, really, want to add eggs, so I may give that a shot first.  It would add some variety to a restricted diet that is about to become more so.

I think I posted that we were trying zinc out as a way to rid Ben of Pica-totally unsuccessful.  No change at all.  I'm hoping it will get better in time, but am feeling pretty discouraged right now.

We have been going crazy because Ben hasn't slept well for about 2 months now. I think I finally figured it out-DHA, which I thought was similar to CLO, causes all kind of issues for some kids. In Ben, it caused insomnia. I pulled it a few days ago, and though he still gets up every night and gets in bed with us, he no longer thrashes around and cries in the night, thus keeping Dave and I awake.  We've had three wonderful nights of good sleep, and are feeling much better for it.

Speech therapy is scheduled to resume next week, and I'm trying to get an appt. with the OT as well. Also I should hear from the school district about what benefits and what schedule they have for us. On a sour note, Dave got the news yesterday that his company is changing insurance companies, effective January 1.  YIKES!  We have no idea what this will mean to our current doctor situation. We have been assured by the powers that be that the same doctors should be covered, but what about Naturopaths?  We are really praying that God will not ask us to make a change to an unknown at this time-Mark has been a HUGE part of Ben's recovery, and we trust him-not all Naturopaths are created equal.

Hopefully I will learn to post pictures here soon-at this point I need Dave to help me, and somehow we are never free at the same time.

Merry Christmas to all!

I haven't posted for a while...because I haven't had time.  Ben was hyper off the charts for about a week. It started at a family event (20+ people or so) several of them new to Ben, he hadn't seen them in 2 years.  He was wonderfully social, speaking to and interacting with new people.  However, the strain began to tell after a couple of hours, and we had to leave before it got really bad.It got REALLY bad.  We spent the next several days having things get broken, never sitting down, yelling at Ben to get down, stop that, don't throw that, etc. it was a very grumpy time at our house.  At the same time, Ben's Naturopath start to notice the rash he'd never seen before. He's having me pull supplements, try creams, etc. nothing is working and the rash is getting worse and spreading all across the bottom half of his face. One evening I noticed Ben got super hyper after eating home-made juice jello.  Then it dawns on me-Phenol issues! i had reintroduced jello because he was doing so well..and tipped the scales. So I pulled all fruit out of his diet, he calmed down within hours so I could let my neice babysit for the first time(thank you Marisa), and the rash cleared up in two days.  We now have a new yeast issue to deal with-hopefully this is why Ben is not sleeping (3:30 last night!) and we can get back on track.

This month we start working with the insurance company for better coverage for therapy-Ben needs 3 kinds and the money only goes so far.  We pick up speech next month, 2x per month. hopefully we can get back into the rotation with the occupational therapist as well, probably 1x per month. We should also get benefits for all three types of therapy through the school district, but so far those are not forthcoming.  His speech continues to improve with more "offered" speech and it is now understandable by anyone who has had a two year old with a pacifier. :)  A big victory there-He understands so much more now. Last week I told him to go get his blankie, and he did! This has never, ever, remotely, in any way been in his skill set before. He simply lacks the understanding to follow directions.  We have been waiting so long for this-it was the first thing I noticed wasn't "quite right" with Ben.  Pottytraining continues to come along with some poops making it in there too.  He has learned to play some games, has begun talking to other children, spontaneously saying hi and goodbye, using names when speaking to someone, and naming objects he sees. At the doctor today, he interacted with a mom who had similar aged children and she didn't seem to notice that Ben might be different.  We get the strangest looks, this was practically miraculous!

We're introducing Zinc this week. Turns out lack of zinc contributes to Pica (mouthing everything that comes your way and eating non-food items), and if you lack B12, you probably lack zinc as well. So we're giving it a try after consulting his doc and nutritionist. His doc also has a brain nutirent test he wants to do on Ben, to see what else we may be missing. I need to research it, but as it's just a urine test, I think we'll do it for informational purposes. Who knows what we may find!

I am revisiting this idea of chelation-I'm going to pray about it between now and February when Ben will have been on this diet for one year.  I'm going on the philosophy that you should try EVERYTHING because you don't know what will be the golden ticket for your child. Chelation is hard because it is bad for the digestive tract which we've spent a year healing, and it has side effects similar to chemo.  Ben has had such a hard time already, I hate to put him through anything else. But it may be a necessary part of his healing.  So I keep kicking the tires but not buying.  But maybe he'll be ready....his doc thinks so, so we'll see.

Teena