Low Toxin Diet Vitamin A and Autism

[lilrawhoney]

Thanks for sharing your story!! Nice to meet you! Glad to have another Mom here on the forum.

I have two sons, my first is 15, he is on the spectrum, he was conceived unintentionally right before I got married, I was just eating a pretty standard diet at the time but I was consuming protein shakes that likely had vitamin A added because I was trying to get in shape for my wedding. But as soon as I found out I was pregnant I started researching like mad and decided I needed to eat 'healthy' so I added a bunch of salads to my diet, then later on in the pregnancy I was getting into veganism so I started consuming green smoothies in the morning. I always craved soda though so I would try to avoid it but I did cave many times (now I know why! I have had trauma in my life I think my glucose needs are high). I thought I was pretty healthy and I had a wonderful homebirth, his hand was over his face though so his face looked a bit bruised and against my wishes the midwife gave him the vitamin K shot, he ended up doing that thing where they 'forget' how to breathe later that day that freaked me out so bad, and it took me forever to find out that it was likely a reaction to the shot. But other than that he was completely unvaccinated and exclusively breastfed for an entire yr before he ever ate much food, breastfed for over 5 yrs, he has been a very picky eater most of his life, but has been healthy other than he had a fear of pooping on the toilet for many yrs and social anxiety, and he's developed some OCD, but he would do the typical autistic thing as a young boy spinning around in circles and not really interacting with other kids, lining up his toys instead of playing with them. He never had issues with verbal fluency thankfully, but I do think had we vaccinated he would have regressed. He clearly is sensitive as am I and I don't think he would have handled them. But I don't think vaccines are the only cause for autism very clearly after our experience! And many others.

My second has ADHD, he was a waterbirth exclusively breastfed completely unvaccianted. I did WAPF during his pregnancy, some cod liver oil, a bit of liver, but raw milk everyday. He is mostly healthy though. Other than all his baby teeth had decay because I was into Ray Peat when he began eating solids, yeah I really screwed that up! And we managed his ADHD with a parent training program by ADHD dude. He has more gut problems than my first, more constipation, and refuses beans. Is very sensitive too in his nervous system, gets adrenaline easily.

I have my asperger son doing the beans along with me, but usually only once a day I don't have too much control over what he will eat so it is much harder. I think you will see much progress with your interventions at such a young age! And I will definitely be following along to see how the glucose protocol turns out with your kids! My ADHD son loves gatorade which has a lot of dextrose, but my older won't put anything in his water. It's so much harder to make changes once kids get older. I am just glad I was able to get them mostly healthy, I guess it'll be whether they stick to eating well, I am educating them as best as I can without being overbearing because then they will rebel and not care at all what I've taught them.

Thank you so much for your reply! Your story is so similar to mine and it’s so comforting to hear from another mom who can relate to what I've been going through. The funny thing is someone commented on another post recently and asked me if I was you Now I totally see why.

I’m praying my son will gain speech soon. Most of his frustrations come from not being able to communicate effectively. Even as an adult, I can only imagine how frustrating that would be not to have words. Was your oldest delayed in speech at all?

I thank God that I never vaccinated my autistic son and I don’t even like to think about where he would be right now if I had. I don’t know where on the spectrum he would fall as we haven’t had him formally diagnosed, but I know he’s not mild, because of his speech delays and struggle to communicate in general. He does a lot of hand flapping and jumping up and down (he could jump two feet off the ground since a year old ). My very first sign that he might be autistic is that when he was 10 months old he would want my husband and I to clap and became almost obsessive about it. He would take our hands with his and do the clapping motion and then bounce up and down. He doesn’t do any hand gestures himself though, no waving, clapping, pointing, etc. He doesn’t line up toys, but he does a lot of visual stimming. For example, he likes to have two similar objects at all times, one in each hand, and will walk around kind of waving them in front of his face. He does great at home with his siblings now, but when he’s in a new place with lots of stimulation, he will tune everyone else out and it’s like they don’t even exist.

Something interesting I haven’t mentioned yet, is that my dad and also my maternal grandfather apparently didn’t talk until they were 5 and 3.5, respectively. They were both very successful men, but were pretty eccentric and both tested as near genius IQ levels, and I could see them being on the spectrum. But I’m holding onto that hope for my own son, that someday he too will talk and live a full life.

I shared this in another post, but when I was pregnant with both my oldest and youngest I binged on sugar like crazy because I craved it. They are both incredibly advanced and have heads in the 99th percentile. I remember reading something by Dr. Ray Peat that said mothers with higher blood sugar during pregnancy tend to have highly intelligent children with large heads. With my second I was vomiting almost my entire pregnancy and could barely hold any food down. With my third I was restricting carbs, especially simple sugars. My 6 year old shows many signs of ADHD, and my almost 3 year old is autistic. I honestly think sugar and stress played a much bigger role than vitamin A. I believe that my need for glucose is also higher than most, because of childhood trauma.

I can relate to you with the food. With toddlers you can’t force them to eat anything they don’t want to and then once they become teenagers it’s the same I also try my best to enforce healthy eating habits, while not being too strict or overbearing and just educating my kids as best I can. It’s been a struggle to keep my son eating properly, but it’s definitely taught me how to get creative. I’ve noticed since starting low VA, his appetite for many different foods has increased.

Anyways, you sound like a wonderful mother and your sons are lucky to have you. I’m so glad to meet you

 

[lilrawhoney]

the boomer generation wouldn't exist for sure. Sounds like something that would come from the world economic forum for population control. lol.
Yeah the raw primal really helped me reset after the fruitarian, never even took long too, less than a couple months and I felt like I was back to my old self, definitely didn't feel like a long term diet though but exactly what my body needed at the time.

Very true!

Raw primal gave me a love of raw dairy. After that I was convinced that raw milk was the healthiest food on the planet, because it made me feel so good back then. Now I’ve come to realize that it was more likely that at that time I desperately needed the calories and raw milk was an easy way to get them. My body desperately needed to prioritize gaining weight, because I was so depleted. I also felt better so quickly and I looked like I had a completely different body within 2-3 months. However, any type of milk is probably not the healthiest thing to consume long term and I’m coming around to the realization. Coming full circle back to my vegan/fruitarian days Milk is for baby cows milk is the most nutrient dense food we can consume and we all need it milk is for baby cows haha Every single nutrition modality out there has at least something right.

 

[InChristAlone]

Thanks so much @lilrawhoney you sound like a wonderful Mother as well, we are all just doing the best we can with the information (and energy) we have. Yeah I saw that comment from @Hidden49 asking if you were me haha, him and I have talked on Grant Genereux's forum. I hadn't been here for a few months though.

My son had normal speech development as far as I remember, he does seem to talk more slowly in the last few yrs, I've had to be more patient in listening because it takes him a while to explain something. But we've been working with him on many of his fears so he's always lacking in energy from his anxiety being pushed so often. He could really use the glucose protocol if I could convince him of it. He does listen to me, he's just very hesitant to try new things. I honestly don't know what I'd do if he couldn't communicate with me, I am sure that has been so hard. I definitely empathize. He may just take longer to do it, my husband was that way, didn't say one word until he spit out an entire sentence shocking everyone! But I don't think it was any later than 2 yrs old for him and he is definitely not neurotypical. This does seem to run in families, maybe trauma over generations just lowers the availability of glucose to the brain? But then why are autistic people so smart? It's like part of the brain receives all the glucose and the other parts don't.

Yeah I wish I knew about sugar affecting brain size, I tried to limit it with my asperger son, although not very successfully, and with the 2nd I tried to eat more whole food sources like fruit, so I ate a LOT of watermelon towards the end and I think that really really helped he would likely be more on the spectrum if I had not.

 

[lilrawhoney]

Thanks so much @lilrawhoney you sound like a wonderful Mother as well, we are all just doing the best we can with the information (and energy) we have. Yeah I saw that comment from @Hidden49 asking if you were me haha, him and I have talked on Grant Genereux's forum. I hadn't been here for a few months though.

My son had normal speech development as far as I remember, he does seem to talk more slowly in the last few yrs, I've had to be more patient in listening because it takes him a while to explain something. But we've been working with him on many of his fears so he's always lacking in energy from his anxiety being pushed so often. He could really use the glucose protocol if I could convince him of it. He does listen to me, he's just very hesitant to try new things. I honestly don't know what I'd do if he couldn't communicate with me, I am sure that has been so hard. I definitely empathize. He may just take longer to do it, my husband was that way, didn't say one word until he spit out an entire sentence shocking everyone! But I don't think it was any later than 2 yrs old for him and he is definitely not neurotypical. This does seem to run in families, maybe trauma over generations just lowers the availability of glucose to the brain? But then why are autistic people so smart? It's like part of the brain receives all the glucose and the other parts don't.

Yeah I wish I knew about sugar affecting brain size, I tried to limit it with my asperger son, although not very successfully, and with the 2nd I tried to eat more whole food sources like fruit, so I ate a LOT of watermelon towards the end and I think that really really helped he would likely be more on the spectrum if I had not.

I hope your son will try it out too, but I definitely understand. I don’t blame him for being cautious. I also don’t consider myself autistic, but having my son was incredibly eye opening for me because I realized how much I relate to him. I have very strong physical reactions to stress and always have, and it drains my energy like no other, so I know exactly what you mean.

I’ve had the exact same thoughts as you. Autistic individuals often have very high IQs and are more like to have savant syndrome. It makes me think of how people with other types of disabilities are more like to be savants. Maybe when one part of the brain is shut down, then other parts of the brain get stronger. It’s definitely very interesting! Even though my son doesn’t talk, he’s an incredible problem solver.

 

[InChristAlone]

I hope your son will try it out too, but I definitely understand. I don’t blame him for being cautious. I also don’t consider myself autistic, but having my son was incredibly eye opening for me because I realized how much I relate to him. I have very strong physical reactions to stress and always have, and it drains my energy like no other, so I know exactly what you mean.

I’ve had the exact same thoughts as you. Autistic individuals often have very high IQs and are more like to have savant syndrome. It makes me think of how people with other types of disabilities are more like to be savants. Maybe when one part of the brain is shut down, then other parts of the brain get stronger. It’s definitely very interesting! Even though my son doesn’t talk, he’s an incredible problem solver.

Yes it is very interesting!

 

[purple pill]

Very true!

Raw primal gave me a love of raw dairy. After that I was convinced that raw milk was the healthiest food on the planet, because it made me feel so good back then. Now I’ve come to realize that it was more likely that at that time I desperately needed the calories and raw milk was an easy way to get them. My body desperately needed to prioritize gaining weight, because I was so depleted. I also felt better so quickly and I looked like I had a completely different body within 2-3 months. However, any type of milk is probably not the healthiest thing to consume long term and I’m coming around to the realization. Coming full circle back to my vegan/fruitarian days Milk is for baby cows milk is the most nutrient dense food we can consume and we all need it milk is for baby cows haha Every single nutrition modality out there has at least something right.

raw milk was out of this world when I came off fruitarian, couldn't get enough of the stuff, raw butter and raw chicken went surprisingly well together as well feels like a long road just to get back to a "normal diet" which beans, beef, rice and bread feels like haha