Can autism get lesser?

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If you're telling the truth then this is really interesting. Could you please explain in more detail all treatments you took, order in which you took them and what specific resources you used, particuarly resources used as treatment guides. Do you have any other conditions besides HFA? Were you ever diagnosed by doc for HFA?

He thinks he's telling the truth, Wilson. But it's not true - because the treatments he refers to are placebos - and nothing more.

You shouldn't trust anyone so easily. There are a lot of lies, BS, stupid, flawed and biased views out there. There are many people who are saying contrary things about autism; I say do your own research and then make up your mind. We may not agree with Zendell's conclusions, but he deserves some respect for trying to research such a complicated area, and applying the treatments he read about with success.

I have done my own research prior to knowing Diva, combined with just the instinct of knowing what is a fit for me and what isn't. And I've seen many people on the Spectrum who have the same view of matters in general as I do.

I have no respect for anyone who relies on unproven quackery that could be dangerous despite the surface responses (ie placebos). Chelation is a great example of this. Can have a short term positive but long term can be lethal.

Don't you feel you are jumping to conclusions quickly? He says he got better; it would be interesting to gauge the extent of his improvement if he can share some before/now examples of his behaviour.

I'm telling the truth as best as I can. The first treatment I tried was the gluten-free/casein-free diet. It's based on a theory that something inhibits the DPP-IV enzyme that digests gluten and casein which are partially broken down into gliadorphin and casomorphin and then into amino acids if the enzyme is working properly. The pieces of protein end in morphin because they are similar to morphine, an opiate. I tried it first because: I've always been much less sensitive to pain (opiates are known cause) and I fasted for the first time one month before I ever heard of opiates or the diet and experienced almost all the symptoms of opiate withdrawal. Before I started, I punched myself in the arm maybe 10-20 times and it barely hurt. I used to let someone punch me alot because it didn't hurt much. After two weeks on the diet, I punched myself 3 or 4 times in the arm and it hurt much more than it ever did before. That's how I know the improvements I felt were real. Saying I became less autistic is subjective but having pain sensitivity 10x more than ever before has no other explanation. It also improved my poor upper body muscle strength to average strength. I benched pressed 120 pounds before the diet and 170 pounds after 3 months on the diet without lifting weights in between. I previously lifted weights for about a year and never came close to lifting what I can now life thanks to the diet. And I didn't take creatine or any body building supplements.

I tried digestive enzymes to treat IBS and it improved my digestive symptoms.

Then I tried probiotics in the hopes of curing IBS and went on a low sugar diet to help with possible Candida infection. The probiotics cured the IBS. I went on and off the diet every few weeks to see whether I consistently got better and worse and I did.

One thing I noticed is the wheat and milk didn't affect me as much after taking probiotics. The probiotics cured a condition that I previously treated with digestive enzymes so whatever caused IBS must be something that inhibits the pancreatic enzymes I took. I thought maybe whatever I treated with probiotics inhibits other enzymes such as DPP-IV that digests wheat and milk. So I continued taking more probiotics even though my digestion was fine. I stopped my diet on Christmas so I could eat with my family and am still off it 4 days later and I don't feel worse. My sensitivity to pain is still normal and I can still bench press 170 pounds. I plan to stay off the diet to see if things remain the same. Right now, it looks like the probiotics cured whatever was inhibiting the enzyme that digests the gluten and casein from wheat and milk. I can't prove it but there's evidence autistics have an overgrowth of intestinal yeast and/or bacteria and probiotics have been shown effective in treating it. I believe another study showed that the Candida yeast and Clostridia bacteria inhibit the DPP-IV enzyme. But I don't need definitive scientific proof to get better because the treatments have potentially enormous benefits with minimal risk.

I also took the antifungal Pau d'arco and went on a low sugar to treat Candida so I can't say for sure whether it was the probiotics, Pau d'arco, or the low sugar diet that helped but it was probably a combination of all three. I also have been taking more magnesium to treat an unrelated problem. Magnesium helps with digestion and I think it's used for enzymes in the body so that may have helped also.

I have documentation that I exhibited the symptoms of high-functioning autism and although I haven't been officially diagnosed with it, I definitely met the criteria.

I can say with 100% certainty that treatments for autism help. I learned of the treatments from this link: http://www.autism.com/treatable/biomed/ ... ry2007.pdf

PKU is a genetic cause for autism and it has been proven that a special diet helps treat it. So even if every case of autism has a genetic cause, it doesn't mean that it can't be treated. AutismDiva and TLPG don't seem to understand this.

Pub med has different kinds of papers listed. Most of the really bad junk is not in there, the quacks "publish" it in magazines they own, basically, and most of them are not indexed in pubmed. Med Sci Monitor is a joke. JAPandS is another joke, but it's not indexed by PubMed. Some of the really bad papers are just "published" on websites, but people will take them for "real".

Another journal that comes up a lot in quackery is "Medical Hypotheses". Real scientists avoid publishing in this journal because it is not peer reviewed, but anyone who writes a paper can get it published in there if it has the surface appearance of being legit and if the writer will pay the per page fee (some hundreds of dollars, I think). This is where "autism a novel form of mercury poisoning" was published.

Then there's the problem of people missing out on something obvious like the fact that it is known that more autistic kids are found in cities than in the country, because of access to services. That's what's dumb about the Grether, Croen paper. Otherwise, they aren't bad scientists, they just made a dumb mistake that the reviewers didn't catch, but that others have.

Scientists can be paid off, and they can be just temporarily dumb. Everyone makes mistakes. Journal editors and reviewers can let really bad papers past them, but usually they do a good job. It's a better system than just taking Rashid Buttar's word that filtered urine injections cure allergies. Or garlic and vinegar IV infusions rid the body of mercury.


They also didn't bother to step back and look at mercury pollution all over California (which is tracked) and see that there are no hot spots of autism that match hot spots of mercury or any other kind of pollution.


I've seen it before where an Aspie decides to go the alt med route to cure his autism or make it better. The thing is that the ones I've seen do it use their own subjective judgement on whether or not they getting "better" and they don't know if they'd do just as "better" on another therapy or on no therapy so long as they were convinced that they were doing something that would make them "better". The thing to do is to have some objective measures. What counts as better eye contact? What counts as more fluid ability with chit chat? What counts as less nervousness? What counts as less senstive hearing?

One way to test the GFCF diet is to find a friend who would randomly spike your food with gluten or casein in such a way that you couldn't know which days you got gluten and casein. Do this for a year with like 6 -12 days with added gluten and casein and see if you can tell which days are different. That's not a perfect experiment but it might be worth a shot.

So far studies like this on kids (where parents are blinded and kids are blinded and experimenters are blinded) the GFCF diet shows no benefit.

There's a big one due to be published very soon out of Rochester. Maybe they'll find a difference between the GFCF diet and not, but I don't think they will.

While you are looking for studies that prove your idea about thimerosal causing autism, you are skipping over a million that point toward brain structure that is there from before birth and show there is no reason on earth to suspect vaccines as causing autism. I mean it's really like a bad joke now. Vaccines and mercury do not cause autism. They don't, and they never did.

One more thing - Even though the treatments I used definitely helped me, I'm not saying I'm cured or fully recovered. I've improved enough that I'm happy and understand people better but I still have a ways to go before I consider myself recovered. I didn't interact with many people before so it's hard to give before and after examples. That's why I say just try it (based on risk/benefit analysis) if you want to get better and see if it helps you.

I haven't done anything with mercury yet but I'm thinking about removing my amalgams and doing oral DMSA chelation. That's why I'm looking into mercury. I put it off till later because of the risks involved.

But you are swallowing a big fairy-tale if you believe that opiod excess business. It's not true. Autistics are not stoned on opiods as Wakefield alleges. The large proteins are not entering your gut through holes and these large proteins in your bloodstream can not get past the Blood Brain Barrier, so I have been told by an MD. Also, if the gut has large holes in it to let the proteins in to the blood then the blood would be leaking proteins back into the gut (it's a two way hole, you see) and these proteins are not found in autistic kids guts. ... because the opiod excess theory is a lie. It''s phony baloney.


And PKU has nothing to do with what they are talking about on the ARI quackery site. PKU causes irreversible brain damage. The quacks talk about a kind of brain damage that is quickly reversible by diet, sometimes overnight. Riiiiiiiight. or on the other hand it might take a year... riiiiiiight. It's bunk.

Amalgam is safe.

And since chelation doesn't reverse anything already done, it would be stupid to do.

And real expensive, too.

AutismDiva, I see what you're saying about problems with studies. I use PubMed and I'm glad you think it's better than other sites. One problem I have with them is that they only let you see an abstract so it's hard to tell whether the study was done properly. But I think 9 studies linking mercury to autism must mean something. You just seem to be so strongly in support of a genetic cause and so strongly anti-cure that you find a problem with all the studies that don't agree with you. The reason I lost interest in genetic studies is because they can't help me get better. I focus on finding information that I can use to improve myself.

I agree it's hard to know whether treatments work because it's subjective. I'm convinced of the opioid excess theory because I could clearly notice a difference in pain sensitivity and a 50% increase in muscle strength along with being less autistic.

I got a story about that. After I went on the treatments I took, I noticed for the first time the differences in other peoples eyes. I never noticed all the different eye colors before because I never really looked. So I can definitely say my eye contact improved which I credit to a low sugar diet plus antifungals. The funny thing is that I thought my eye contact was fairly good before. It wasn't until I saw different eye colors that I realized I looked through peoples eyes instead of at them.

AutismDiva, The National Institute of Mental Health is conducting a Randomized, Double-Blind, Placebo Controlled study to determine whether a gluten- and casein-free diet has specific benefits for children with autism. If they find that it helps, will you believe?
Link to study: http://clinicaltrials.gov/ct2/show/NCT00090428

The National Institute of Mental Health is also conducting a Randomized, Double-Blind, Placebo Controlled study to examine whether 12 weeks of DMSA, an oral chelating agent that removes mercury and other metals from the body, is beneficial for children with autism. If they find that mercury chelation is effective for treating autism, will you be convinced that mercury contributes to autism and that chelation is effective in treating it?
Link to study: http://www.clinicaltrials.gov/ct2/show/ ... ion&rank=1

I'm looking forward to the results of their chelation study. If they find it effective, I plan on trying it unless you or someone else gives me a good reason not to try it. I assume the National Institute of Mental Health knows what they are doing and will do a good study. Their name makes them sound good. Do you think they are an organization I should trust?

Actually, the dmsa study won't be running. They found too much evidence that DMSA is too harmful to be experimenting with it on vulnerable children. I have a copy of the protocol from the NIMH. Like, dude, I'm in the middle of all this stuff, do you really think I wouldn't know about that study? I knew about it months before it was announced because a researcher at the MIND told me about it. It's abusive to chelate children who have no heavy metal toxicity and the NIMH was going to do this study on kids who pre-tested as having no metal toxicity (go figure) and the reason that they even agreed to do it was because of pressure from a politician in DC, probably Dan Burton or that other one from Florida. It's insane. Totally insane what these people are doing to autistic kids.

There have been several studies already showing no benefit from the GFCF diet and if they have one that shows benefit, then they should find which kids it benefits so that not all of them go through it (and it's can be brutal on the parents, especially if they are poor).

I don't believe you have done anything but convince yourself you are doing better. Like I said, you need an independent test from someone who is blinded to why they should be testing you for your eye contact etc. It's very easy to convince yourself that you are getting better. Odds are that you will hit a "peak" and go back down to where you were when you started, even if you continue with new therapies. I have read some terrible things that the mercury moms have experienced in getting their amalgams replaced. The composite fillings have toxins in them too, but you aren't supposed to know that.

One concern about the gfcf diet is that it's like a "gateway drug" into more and more dangerous therapies. You seem to be demonstrating that principal. And just because you are autistic and can't change that with chelation or diet, doesn't mean that you have to be sad or give up on personal improvements. Your attention might be better focused on say learning to ride horses or play a violin or something that will put you in contact with nice people you can talk to and who might not worry that you don't make eye contact, but will like you as you are.

I have not read any of the food studies, I just know that milk, cheeze, lead to bloating, gas, and headachs. Refined sugar is a drug, was used as one, and my body does not adapt to such things, I will take my coffee black.

Autism and a bad tooth is a horrible combination, but I do not think either causes the other.

I do have a lot of Native American ancestors, so European foods might be more of a problem for me.

The district from Big Bend National Park to El Paso is loaded with mercury, there have been hundreds of small mines, the ground water is loaded , yet no autism outbreaks recorded.

Some of the water quality reports, for all wells were studied, show huge amounts of various minerals, which seem to just pass through the body. I have been told the metallic form is not bioactive. Cattle who drink 45 gallons a day do not accumulate metals.

Tetra Ethel lead in gas was bioactive, and before it was pulled from gas in 1972, there were reports of declining IQ over a broad area. It was mostly in cities, and I have heard several hundred million tons of lead were spread about. Many children born 1955 to 1970, have IQs below expected. Some as much as 20 points. Lead is worst in the developing brain, the under five group.

Those people are now 35 to 50, I hate to fuel the debate, but they are the parents of autistic children, and they are most likely still loaded with lead. It saturates and stays. It is the type of thing that could affect a developing child in the womb.

With both the government and the oil companies hiding their role, the scientific record is, The Beach Boys. "Little GTO, sure are looking fine, three duces and a four speed, and a 389, listen to her taching up now, listen to her whine," Running 95 Octane leaded with a boster, or cut with aviation gas, 135 octane, and cruising the strip.

My avatar was made to run on 95 octane leaded. 1963.

The government stepped in, removed the lead from everything, and covered for industry. It was a big mess, but there was no autism epidemic. Mercury in groundwater, or from papermills, same result, some metal poisoning, no autism.

The danger of metals is saturated parents, when cell division starts, one molecule of Lead can do strange things, if it is in an egg or sperm.

I do find the people 15 to 30 years younger than me dumb. It seems like much smarter people started coming after 1990. The ones who grew up after the lead was removed from the air. The high point of the 70s and 80s was Disco. The 90s was computers.

Both Greece and Rome suddenly fell apart from refining silver, which is lead/silver/zinc ore, which when heated, gives off the lead and zinc as gases. It did not kill the smelter workers, it did produce a dumb generation to follow, and in the next generation, starting with cell division, it all fell apart.

Both eras produced something of a dark age that followed. Greek Culture lost it's vitality, and Rome left next to nothing when it fell.

It seems what was lost was the creative, and the ability to see the results of their actions. They stopped thinking of the future, and did not have one.

Back to the OP, I would say autism is a developmental delay that can be prolonged with treatment. Taking treatment as, give the kid a pill. It can be lessened by talking to the child, not expecting immediate response, but keeping the lines of communication open.

The forced socialization of school seems detrimental, and can cause lasting problems. Most report the university was better. The one big issue being ignored is social skills. What everyone knows is hard to teach. Our big issue is learning enough social skills to become educated, find employment, mates.

All of the people who tried to teach me, did not have very good skills, and when I acted like them, they got mad. When I asked questions, they had no answer why they did what they did, everybody did, and I was a troublemaker. When I got to be larger, I told them to shut up, it is what I learned.

I liked the structure of business, you can fire people. They can get along with me, or leave. There are antisocial roles in life, The Boss is one. With pack animals it is pecking order, dominate or be dominated, this is a very primitive species.

Any way I can verify that it's permanently canceled? Got a link? I've been waiting for it to finish to see whether I should try chelation.



I have no idea who you are. I don't know anything about you. Based on your posts, I thought maybe you work for one of the drug companies that makes vaccines.



I wish they would do the study because people are going to continue using chelation as long as it hasn't been proven ineffective. I don't think anyone is asking for secretin now that studies have concluded it doesn't work.



I've had doctors tell me that stuff I think is "all in my head" There's nothing I hate more than other people telling me that. It insults my intelligence. I felt like punching a doctor in the face once after he told me something like that. But I understand why you and other people would think that. I think things like that about some people.



I want to hear more since I may get my amalgams replaced soon. A dentist told me he can replace them in February and said there's nothing to worry about. If there are risks, I want to know.

Wow, that's a strange assumption to make. I haven't seen any evidence of that at all in her (and lots of evidence of other things). Of course, I'm routinely accused of being in the pay of the pharmaceutical industry (or worse) myself. Both she and I are actually autistic people, I'm low-income, I think she is too, and she's got an adult child who's also autistic. Neither of us has the tiniest bit of financial stake in the pharmaceutical industry. I know if I got paid by them I'd want a better apartment.