I have been thinking about our "early" years with Hayden recently. I have a friend that has a two year old son that has sensory processing disorder. I have been listening to what she is going through and helping her help her son. The things she talks about brings back so many memories for me. At 18 months Hayden was "diagnosed" with Sensory Processing Disorder. I say "diagnosed" because we didn't seek out official diagnosis, this is what the early intervention team felt he had (which I completely agreed with them). I had to fight with our pediatrician at the time because she felt nothing was wrong with Hayden and we should just wait it out and see. I pushed forward and requested that early intervention evaluate him.
Tonight I decided to look through old pictures of our sweet little Hayden. This quickly put me in tears. All of the red flags and warning signs were there. I thought I had dealt with my past decisions for Hayden but I as I looked through the pictures I did a fabulous job of beating myself up. "Why didn't I see this as a problem / abnormal," I thought to myself as I looked deeply at the pictures through my tears. "Why did I listen and trust his/mine physicians......Why did I feed him CRAP food?" "Why did I expose him to so many unnecessary toxins?"
I know that I was doing my best at the time but I still beat myself up. I still deep down blame myself for Hayden being autistic. All of this could have been prevented. Wow.....I really thought I had deep down accepted and dealt with my feelings of being responsible for Hayden being autistic. Guess I have some work to do :)
I do my best to raise awareness about autism and give people hope for their children. Autism is completely preventable and curable. I am going to share a list of red flags that I observed in Hayden early on.
1) Would not walk barefoot outside of the house and would cry hysterically if put in grass. It was not a typical cry it was this is painful cry.
2) Could not handle any adjustment to his routine. If we were not home for nap time there would be hell to pay the next several days.
3) Spit up and vomited on a daily basis.........this is NOT normal and it is NOT genetic!!
4) Eczema.........again NOT normal and NOT genetic!!
5) Constant runny nose.............don't be okay with this......find out what your child is allergic too
6) Dark circles under eyes.........indicates a child in poor health and is NOT okay
7) Pooping every other day...........everyone should have formed, sinking poops 1-2 times a day.
8) Crying and melting down over everything
9) Playing independently the majority of the time
10) Prefers to be in a room by themselves
11) Can not stand to be messy.....cries in a way that you think they are in pain
12) Does not want or seek out cuddling
13) constantly in motion seeking out crashing into things
14) Fear of nothing
15) High pain tolerance
16) Lining up of objects
17) Not playing with toys appropriately.......watching wheels on cars spin vs. driving cars around
18) Instant meltdowns in unfamiliar surroundings full of people
19) Covers ears constantly and seems to be sensitive to loud noises
20) When you walk into a room and your child does not notice you
21) Flapping of the hands
22) Tip toe walking
23) Super limited diet
24) Does not respond to name
25) Does not speak or communicate
26) Does not gesture
27) No or limited eye contact
28) Does not appeared interested in people only interested in objects
29) Flat facial expressions, rarely smiles
30) Has a "drunk" laugh or appears to laugh for no reason
31) Wakes up in the middle of the night screaming hysterically and is very "un-reachable" This was absolutely horrible. I thought he was having seizures of some kind
32) Tantruming 90% of the day.
33) Sleeping less than 10 hours a night
Yes, even with this long list of red flags our pediatrician did not think there was anything wrong with Hayden and we should wait it out.
THANK YOU GOD I did NOT wait it out and I did NOT follow her advice at all!!!! The earlier you intervene the easier the recovery is going to be. The longer you wait the more toxins and damage is being done in your child's body. Yes, you can still recover a older child from autism. It just takes more work to reverse all the damage.
Hayden is doing amazing, in fact I feel we are all doing amazing :) He no longer has any sensory issues, in fact he only still has one of the red flags on that list and it is very mild almost a non-issue. Hayden is healthy, thriving, and absolutely glowing.
HI Brandi, Out of all the RED flags you mentioned in your above list. After our 4 years of work on recovery, we are still dealing with number -12, 28. Let me know how you tuned these around we are doing as much son-rise as we can. But can you tell us what brought the biggest change for not being object oriented and being open to hugs and cuddles.
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