• PUBLISHED ARTICLE ON AUTISM •

Perhaps it is because my very first patient, the daughter of my next door neighbor, has been severely damaged by a DPT vaccine according to her parents, that I have a deep fondness for autism and make it a specialty in my practice. The girl is totally paralyzed, unable to sit up straight she spends most of her days lying on the couch making incomprehensible noises, little can be done. She has great difficulties swallowing because of throat muscle paralysis. Her growth however is normal. She had daily seizures which stopped with Silicae at once. This said, I will talk very sparingly about vaccines or the Thimerisol additive in them(1). Not much needs to be said about it from a homeopathic point of view besides that the fact that we should have a proving of it. A search for Thimerosal or ethylmercury in my reference works library E2 did not bring anything up. I shall talk rather in accordance with Hahnemann's Organon in his footnote to aphorism 1 "It is high time for all those who themselves physicians, once and for all, to stop deceiving suffering humanity with idle talk, and to begin now to act, that is to really help and to cure." In other word I will talk about the practical, clinical stuff, I see daily in the practice and how to deal with this extremely complex condition.

Autism is obviously an extremely serious ailment which is in my opinion particularly difficult to treat. Miracle cures happen but I think we should be extremely careful when talking to the parents of these children. Here is a look at an email I received recently. "I have been to a lot of nd, md, etc. and all they did was take money and gave me false hope in curing my son. I did more for my son using herbs than what they have recommended!"

In my view it is lamentable to read this. It does not mention homeopaths but are we really outside of that club? Naturally we can be unsuccessful but we should not leave the impression that all we have done is take the money and give false hope. In this regard, for some time, I downplayed expectations so much some parents told me there was no point in bringing their children to me since I could not do anything! I did not mean to be so negative but my concern of not participating in the roller coaster is primary. These parents are vulnerable, they educate themselves and yet they clinch onto anything that gives them hope. They desperately "want their child back." The divorce rate is 80% among these parents. We should all put ourselves in the parents place.

The family unit is extremely important for a good outcome. It is unlikely that a child who is growing up in a environment where there is excessive arguments or divorce that this child will do well. These parents are turned away from the medical establishment because it doesn't have any solution to this problem. The latest I have heard from parents is that doctors are now trying a new medication originally designed for Alzheimer's disease! The parents are trying a lot of different therapies by and large with limited success. They are spending a lot of money and other children in the family may be taking a back seat. Often we see one parent far more trustful of homeopathy than the other. I have dealt with this situation by explaining that since hardly any harm can be done with homeopathy the wish of one parent be granted. I have found this to be more effective than explain homeopathy to the skeptical parent. Skepticism is meant to lead to an educated conclusion but most of the time the skeptic remains simply that, skeptic for which I don't have the time and energy.

By the time parents come to us they have tried the GFCF diet, many of them are doing chelation therapy, most of them enroll their children in programs designed to "bring these children out of their own world" using various different methods of rewards when accomplishing a task. My experience with these programs is that they have their limits. The children get used to them and they become boring to them or simply repetitive. The therapist needs to change the routine very often and then what? Eventually there are so many ways to match a cube with a cube. Of course ABA and others programs are far more sophisticated than this caricature but the end result do not seem to vary widely. Speech therapy is useful of course, sensory integration as well, as these children are thought to be over sensitive to noise which is not true but I will get back to that later. All of these therapies bring about some improvements of various different level. All attempt at making the child deal with his environment rather than bring about a cure and have the child be free within it. The parents are often happy especially at the beginning of therapy because the results appear tangible. Chelation therapy is the big kid on the block, everybody wants to do it because of the Thimerisol connection. Apparently some kids have done extremely well but again I see a lot of unfounded hope which emotionally drains the parents and I can only imagine might contribute to the exceptionally high divorce rate. Likewise some kids are doing extremely well with the GFCF diet. Regarding the GFCF diet, Amy Lansky, of fame because of her book "impossible cure" made a very astute observation in Florida regarding the diet. "GF(gluten free) = DPT = seizure prone; CF (Casein free) = MMR = gut problem. In my practice you can just about take that to the bank. By the way, regarding the MMR vaccine, it is my understanding that the MMR vaccine never had Thimerisol and yet, according to the parents, it is one of the most common cause of autism. Most importantly, any of these therapies are greatly enhanced and far more effective when the child is under homeopathic treatment.

These autistic children exhibit sensibilities to a wider array of products, I recall a child who had a seizure following a massage with primrose oil. Likewise, any product with aspartame, I am told, may trigger seizures in these children. Another difficulty with the girl I first mentioned was that since her seizures had stopped the parents wanted to discontinue the medication but because the child was regularly tested to see if the parents were giving the medicine they were afraid the child would be taken away from them. It took them close to a year before they cleared up the issue with their doctor.

Do notice that parents come to homeopathy generally after these aforementioned therapies/ interventions. Honestly, this does not speak well for our community. It seems to me we are far more interested in internal mischief than moving our profoundly incredible profession forward. It never ceases to boggle my mind when I hear people trying reflexology before homeopathy. It is high noon for ourselves to become conscious of OUR deep internal shortfalls.

Autism is an ailment unlike any other. When a child has pain, whatever it may be, the child will relate it to the parents who in turn will FEEL the child's pain through compassion, empathy, resonance or understanding. With autism the parents are, in a way, deprived of these basic feelings that are an integral part of the parenting experience and baby/child relationship. In fact, particularly for the mother, the pain of not feeling the child is just another traumatic circumstance that should be addressed with homeopathy. This is the only illness I know of with this set of emotions or lack thereof as it may very well be that with this condition the child does not even feel pain at all. Imagine, not being able to caress your child on the back because the child doesn't like and walks away when you do it. Considering this, the unique qualities of the child are difficult to find yet it is fabulously important to find them. I give a lot of animal remedies and these have brought great relief but the bottom line is that the remedy will change over time because this condition although deep seated and with few clear symptoms changes constantly. A child may be doing great with one remedy and all of a sudden there is regression and the remedy that helped her so much does not do anything. It couldn't get any more puzzling than that but that's the nature of the illness which reminds me much of a mercurial aspect.

I concentrate on animal remedies for several different reasons. First of all, Temple Grandin in her book "animals in translation" elucidates a great deal about the perception of autistic people. For example, I mentioned before that these children are not over sensitive. They are rather over perceptive. Understanding the difference opens a door on a quality as opposed to a problem. Over perception explains why an autistic person can remember an enormous amount of information such as cards during a game of blackjack or what day of the week was June 14th 1934 or cover his ears when hearing certain sounds. The perception comes in the way of pictures much like a squirrel remembers exactly where it buried the nut six months earlier. They take a mental picture with an extreme amount of acuity or perception. The picture is "taken" with an extreme amount of precision and far more details than we do. This explain why when autistic children come back to your office they will generally do and go to the same place they did the first time. They remember perfectly what they did and how it looked in far greater details than we can imagine. There is quite a bit of what looks like routine or habit. This is contrary to what we may think but routine is very common in the animal kingdom. I believe this shines a light for us in provings of animal remedies. We prove animal remedies from the human point of view much like we believe an autistic child to be over sensitive instead of hyper perceptive. Understanding Temple Grandin's point, the proving master and supervisors should probe for what is the extra-ordinary quality of the animal remedy being proven. These extra ordinary qualities / hyper perception might give us a better / deeper understanding of these remedies in the treatment of autism much like Sankaran's method of case taking gives us a deeper understanding of illness within the patient. An example of how this might translate in the consultation room. A child refused to enter my office whereas he didn't have problems coming in fifteen minutes earlier. The room had been darkened to try to put him to sleep. The darkness impaired his "picture taking" and so he was refusing. As soon as the light was raised he didn't have a problem coming back in. This is an example Ms Grandin makes over and over again in her book and it translates perfectly in the consultation room. The tragedy of this example is that he was given Stramonium by a homeopath online. So very important time was wasted. He did not have fear of the dark. He was fine at night, no night terror, it was very much misunderstood.

With all this "picture taking" it is no wonder that many of these children tend to be quite artistic hence Carcinocinum which Amy has talked about at length. These kids not only see in pictures but they also think in pictures. When a speech therapist shows a picture and the child repeats it she repeat by seeing the object. This is why some children who have had extensive therapy have a robot like speech because every word is "seen" rather than expressed.

Besides focusing on animal remedies which we don't have enough of in the MM, I have seen the bromatums be helpful especially with children who have had ABA therapy. There is often a guilty look to them as their impulses of flapping their arms or making noises etc... have been suppressed. Often, it will fit the bromatum picture well.

Medini Longwell pointed out to me after the NCH conference that the Cycad plant family may help us in these cases. Medini mentioned the case of a dog who had eaten the plant. "one of the Border Collies here ate cycad seeds from the yard which were on the kitchen counter. This was a very active dog, used to crowds at agility trials, loved to perform, extremely friendly, lively and sociable. Shortly after ingesting the seeds, she changed dramatically, became very reclusive, not interested in the other dogs here or being around people. She seemed fearful and did not do well at agility trials. I haven't thought about any of this since we corresponded. She is still very reluctant to go outside. A couple of times she has hidden in the landlady's bedroom and successfully avoided having to go outside. As a consequence, she messed on the floor in that room, something she had not done prior to the cycad incident either. There's something about her which I would sum up by saying she's not normal." Although anecdotal there are several aspects in this story that connected very well in my mind. My experience with the remedy is too early to relate as the results are still pending but I think that for the provers out there it would be well worth a try if not for autism for the Cycads in general as it appears that a couple of biotech companies are investigating it for motor neuron problems!

I see these children on a three week basis rather than the conventional four to six weeks. Remember the parents want to see improvement fast. It is good for them to visit the homeopath otherwise they see time pass by. For them, the abyss is getting closer and they lose patience. Patience is by far the most important commodity a parent can have for this long term treatment. We need to nurture their patience so that they stick with homeopathy because I don't have any doubt that homeopathy presents the best possibilities of deep improvement and even cures let alone augment other therapies.

Taking the case of an autistic child is a two part process for me. Because these children often don't do too well in the consultation room as they get quite restless, agitated or even violent, I ask the parents to email me the history in details. Most of the parents have already done that for others such therapists, schools etc... I look for SRP's right away as well as redundancies in the different reports. These are key to proper prescriptions.

Often I find a history of heavy anti biotic use for recurrent colds or ear infection. To my surprise so far I have not found that to be crucial in prescribing a remedy but I may be missing something. Perhaps the infectious recurrence reflects, again, the mercurial aspect of this condition as we know it to be in homeopathy.

I do think it is important to see a lot of these cases to understand the depth of this disease with its complicated twists, and many trappings that can so easily steer us away from the correct remedy. For example, as previously mentioned I have seen many cases where Stramonium was given repeatedly because of what appears as fear of the dark and other Stramonium qualities. These symptoms need to be investigated in person, that is one reason why I am adamantly opposed to phone cases in general but particularly with these children. Taking the case of an autistic child involves a lot of "feeling" the child. The homeopath needs to feel what is being said by the parents, what is being "bounced off" by the child and come to a rational homeopathic conclusion rather than a mechanical repertorial one. This is absolutely not possible on the phone. In addition, what I previously said about the parents truly requires a hands on approach that is only possible in person.

What about the remedies such as Opium, Helleborus, Helium, Neon and the nosodes which have gained a good reputation for autism? My conclusion, which is constantly shifting, is that they are as important as any other remedy in the MM. I see a lot of children who were given remedies from the Solanacea family but I think a good deal of these children's condition and reactions are mis understood which is probably why I see a good bunch of them. When solanacea qualities are truly apparent the papaver family may be a better place to search. Spider remedies are also common and appear to do better than the Solanaceas. My experience with nosodes is limited to their well known intercurrent qualities, as such they have helped a great deal. I do think the carbon series is important for these children and it should be studied deeply and profoundly by anyone willing to see a lot of these cases. As Jan Scholten says "the first distinction a child learns to make is that between himself and the rest of the world." This seems right on for this condition, doesn't it? The theme of the Hero as talked about by Joseph Campbell and adapted to homeopathy by Jan is equally brilliant.

The Thomas engine cartoon on TV is well worth noting as many of these children seem to like it. At the beginning I was rather puzzled by it as I tried to find individual clues in individual episodes to individual cases. It is my conclusion now that there is no such a thing with this show. It seems that the characters themselves have few facial expressions, appearing quite plastic (my term) which may be why it is popular with these children. I was recently told that the producers of the show are currently working with autistic children.

I have talked at length about the children but we can't forget that we have a population of adolescents and young adults with this problem. At first my results were dismal but with understanding it appears as if there is some hope for them as well. The same requirements are necessary as previously mentioned, the results of complete re establishment of health less likely than in the younger population but nonetheless we can improve their lives greatly.

Outside the homeopathic realm I am now recommending Brewer's yeast for these patients supplemented with vitamin E. Brewer's yeast contains sulfa protein such as Cysteine, glutathione, methionine. These proteins bind with heavy metals and eliminate them from the body: These proteins make up the "thiol" group which according to David Kirby who wrote "evidence of harm"(3) is synonym with "mercaptan" from the Latin mercurium captans meaning "mercury capturer". If anyone has a better food source of these, please let me know. These sulpha based proteins are apparently greatly deficient in these children perhaps because they are being used and excreted at a greater rate. It could also be that the children who are most deficient in these proteins are the one who are the most affected because they don't have the basic blocks to chelate the mercury out.

The recurrence of ear infections and the inevitable anti-biotic prescriptions which are sulfa based makes me wonder if there is something there to know but this is up to the bio chemists to figure out.

I hope to have shed some light on this condition and raised a few of the most common pitfalls in the treatment of autism. It is not easy and very heart wrenching for the homeopath. Many of these children bring tears to my eyes. Depending on where they are on the spectrum they seem to be in between extremely simple and yet extremely complicated lives. Seeing these children develop relationships and light up is astounding. In many ways, I believe many of these children were never meant, in the small sense of the word, to have such lives but because they do they deserve our deepest effort. Remember the example of not being able to caress the child on the back, well, it is possible now, he is laughing but it is for me not the end simply a beginning of treatment. We can't sell ourselves short from full cure yet at the same time we must be realistic. There is one bright light in this condition. The number of cases appears to be leveling off in California. Considering the rate at which these cases were multiplying it is the best news. In next year's AH Journal I will publish some my cases.

(1) Most of what needs to be known about Thimerosal can be read in Robert F. Kennedy article published in Rolling Stone Magazine, June issue or on Salon.com
(2) Temple Grandin "Animals in translation"
(3) David Kirby "Evidence of harm"