In order to understand how my son developed autism, it’s important to understand my health history and what I passed along to him during the early stages of his life.

Before I go into that, I would like to address some current statistics about the epidemic autism has become in our world. One in every 110 children are now being diagnosed with autism, and boys are being hit even harder, with 1 in 60 boys being diagnosed with autism. Excuse me, but this is an outrage, and something needs to be done! Jenny McCarthy, a celebrity autism activist, has done an amazing job proving that autism is preventable and curable, by recovering her own son. If you haven’t already picked one up, every parent needs to own her book, Healing and Preventing Autism. She is super funny and makes the book incredibly easy to read and understand.

Two other important books that I highly recommend would be The Body Ecology Diet, by Donna Gates, and GAPS by neurologist Natasha Campbell-McBride.

Beginning with me as a child, I was super skinny, so much that I was often teased about my weight in school. For as long as I can remember, from elementary through high-school, my weight was brought up, and I was questioned as to whether I was anorexic. To this day, my weight is brought up and I’m being told, “If you get any skinnier…”

Ironically though, as a skinny kid, I had a bulgy belly. I remember pointing out to my mom when I was just a child that I looked like one of the kids in third world countries seen on TV, who were so malnourished that they looked like they had been in a concentration camp. They too had bulging bellies.

I remember eating a TON of food, but yet I never gained weight. I even would steal my sister’s french fries when we would go to McDonald’s. I loved donuts and all things sweet and floury. I loved bread and ate a ton of it. I wasn’t a big meat eater, but I loved starches!!

I don’t want you to get the impression that I ate only a diet of breads and sweet foods, because that isn’t the case. Throughout my whole life, I’ve tried to eat a healthy diet. My mom shopped at farmers’ markets, health food stores and instilled much of my health data bank into my brain. My mother got into nutrition and alternative health remedies in the 1970s when she too found herself not in the best health and unable to get pregnant. Fertility drugs weren’t something people took in her day though.

We’ll touch more on my mother’s problems in future posts though. So, back to me…

I can remember back, as early as 5-years-old, I suffered from migraines, which have carried on into my adult years. I got them frequently throughout my life. My parents linked them to certain foods that contained MSG. I’ve avoided MSG and that has helped, but I had never been able to narrow in on why they continue to reoccur.

Starting in elementary school, I developed acne, which proceeded to worsen in junior high and high school. It was embarrassing for me to even leave the house. It was awful and humiliating! I tried every topical acne medication and facial soap on the market. Nothing worked. Some would temporarily alleviate the problem, but as soon as I stopped using it, the problem would come back.

In high school, I remember feeling tired all of the time! It got worse as I got older. I began to wonder if I had chronic fatigue. I complained to my doctors of feeling tired but they had no idea what was causing that since I ate pretty well and everything else about me seemed totally normal and healthy.

My daily life consisted of waking up exhausted and feeling like I could take a nap at any given point throughout the day, just a continual feeling of being lethargic.

WHY? I didn’t get it!! I had friends that had never eaten organic foods, gorged themselves on TV dinners, take-out, the wrong oils, and I knew I had a much healthier diet than them, so what was the deal?

Just within the last few months, and after years of searching for solutions, having ended up with an autistic child, a seemingly normal and healthy 2-year-old who also suffers from a bulgy belly, and one with brain damage from a placental abruption (with doctors having zero explanation as to what caused that), I have finally found some help for me and my family. I only hope that my story will help others. Oh, and let me also mention, that about two months after giving birth to my third child, I was rushed to the emergency room for vertigo. We didn’t know if I had a brain tumor, caner, or some really awful disorder. I had become so dizzy that I couldn’t even stand up to walk without falling over. My head felt like it was spinning and the room seemed to have been spinning as well. Thankfully, a brain tumor was ruled out when they did a CAT scan of my brain. So with no known idea as to why I was having severe dizziness, the doctors naturally recommended drugs. I asked them what the drugs did and if they got rid of the problem, and they said unfortunately they didn’t – they merely covered up the problem, so that I would  be able to function and get through my daily routine. Needless to say, drugs weren’t the answer for me or my problems, so I refused to take them, and searched out other resources.

The solution lies within a healthy inner ecosystem. We, not too long ago, lived in a day and age where ALL bacteria was considered evil. All cleaning agents we bought were antibacterial, killed 99.9% of bacteria and viruses, and we consumed antibiotics to kill off infections. The problem with this is that that there are two types of bacteria – harmful and beneficial. And, these antibacterial products and antibiotics kill ALL bacteria, including the beneficial. When beneficial bacteria is destroyed, fungus and parasites can begin to grow inside your body – things that antibiotics do not get rid of. They can take over, form a habitat in your intestines, burrow holes in your intestines, spread, grow, produce toxic waste and infest your organs!! Crazy, huh? No wonder so many people are dying of cancer and have all sorts of health problems!

Well, eating a proper diet and re-establishing a healthy inner-ecosystem by consuming probiotic foods and supplements, along with cleansing your body with colonics or enemas and proper exercise, will restore your inner Eco-system. During your recovery, it is important not to consume things that feed abnormal flora  like sugars and starches.

So, how do my health problems relate to my son’s? Well, it lies within his inner-ecosystem and immune system. If your child travels though the birth canal and is introduced to candida early on because the mother has a yeast-overgrowth, your baby’s body will accept that as normal and candida will set-in early. As you will see, many babies suffer from Thrush, a white candida overgrowth on the tongue. Formulas can worsen this problem 10 times over. My son was breast-fed for the first six months, but I didn’t consume any probiotic foods to repopulate his gut or mine with healthy bacteria. I then switched to formula. When I weaned him, he mainly ate purees of banana and sweet potato. I messed up and fed him too many sweets and starches. He didn’t get a proper intake of proteins and veggies.

Isaiah developed eczema as a baby, which when shown to the doctors, was just sloughed off as him needing a better topical moisturizer in this dry heat and not to bathe him as frequently to help eliminate dryness.

Since my naive, doctor-believing and trusting days, I’ve learned a tremendous amount about how important your skin, eyes, tongue, finger nails, and body odor are all phenomenal indicators of toxicity and mineral deficiencies within your body. We will be discussing these topics in future posts.

I can go on and on, and still feel like I haven’t explained enough, but I promise, it will all be explained in due time.

So, join me as I journey to recover my son from autism, bring peace and balance into our home, make my family strong and healthy, and bring balance to my own body – inside and out.