Fairies and Ringworm

Today I was sitting outside on a deck chair in the back yard. O was playing with his Go Diego Go figure and A.J. was sitting in a little wooden rocking chair, rocking back and forth. The way the wind blew and the temperature and the smell of firewood in the air took me back to when I played in my Grandma Hilda's back garden when I was A.J.'s age. My sisters and I played games of setting up fairy houses in the rocks that lay about Hilda's garden. We made little chairs and tables and gathered small berries for their food. I was sure that the fairies came and used the houses we created, after we left, when no one was around.

Today I looked at A.J. rocking back and forth and back and forth in the rocking chair and I thought of how I would have liked to have another child, a little girl, perhaps one who would want to play fairies in the back yard. Then A.J. got up and went inside for a little while. She came back to the screen door and pushed it to come out to the back garden and I noticed the toy she had brought from inside was her small Tinkerbell fairy doll. It was perfect and I was so happy, as if she had read my mind. I gathered her up and gave her some kisses and knew that I don't need another little girl. I just need A.J. and that she has all the imagination in the world. Right now I am still sitting on the deck chair. "O" is pushing a plastic wheelbarrow around the yard and A.J. is playing with Tinkerbell and Peter Pan figure dolls. The weather is still perfect. I can hear the traffic over on University Avenue, just a house and a university-jewish-center-building away. A.J. is letting O. play with her dolls from Christmas.

I have read some stuff about yeast/Candida and how it affects children with autism. Jennie McCarthy talks about it in her book, and there is plenty of literature about it online. I trust what parents say because when I do as parents recommend I see results. The mainstream medical community has no interest in trying anything that has not been handed down to them from mission control in a very long memo. What I mean by this is that, for example, I read the most recent medical journal put out by Pediatric Health Alliance to it's doctors, on the explosion in autism and what to do about it. Mostly it said to screen for it a lot more. But it does not recommend any treatments at all. A parent has to go online and ask other parents about that. Anyway, so I have not tried any anti fungals on A.J. yet. Parent's swear by this, but it was only 3 months ago that we got a stool sample done for Avery to see if there was yeast in it, and there wasn't any. So it seems reasonable to not use a yeast medication if there is no yeast in her poop right? But apparently not. Apparently it is more complicated than that. There are different strains of yeast (Candida) that do not show up on the lab tests they do on her stool.

The parents on the website I post on say that kids with autism are plagued by candida and it needs to be resolved. They say that there is a yeast "die off" period when the kid freaks out for a couple of weeks before getting much better. I have read that sugar feeds yeast. So my poor little one gets very minimal amounts of sugar. As a result, when she does get sugar she acts like a maniac. It is interesting though. If I give A.J. sugar she freaks out, if I give "O" sugar I see no change. It seems like what autism does is make everything she ingests, affect her whole body, and her actions and mood and comfort level. That is why you will see parents of children with autism, micromanage their child's diet. And parents who do not have to deal with it, don't understand or even believe it. The immune defficiency or, over sensitive to environmental toxins and even certain food theory is not "proven' just talked about.

So, this morning I took A.J. to the doctor for ringworm. She has had the fungus on her arm for a while and it appears to be spreading a bit. I asked her doctor for Diflucan and the doctor said you don't give Diflucan for ringworm. I can just hear her telling the story now, "I had a parent ask for Diflucan for ringworm ha ha ah!" I explained that I thought that the fungus issue was an ongoing problem. Also I just wanted a reason for her to prescribe it to Avery. I knew the Dr. wouldn't just because A.J. has autism. I don't think that is unreasonable, but if the dr. is not an autism specialist and is not educated on the new findings then she just won't know. Pediatrician's are simply bound by their text books, medical "alliances" and never venture out any further.

Dr Mom note:
I have discovered that grapefruit seed extract oil (more so than tea tree oil) is helping to get rid of the ringworm really well. I read about it online and I am switching from the Lotrimin and using this, since the ringworm builds up resistance after a while to each anti fungal.