FoggyRock General Forum

My daugher was a tiny fragile baby. She had a two vessel cord in utero but at birth her kidney function checked out ok. She was born via c-section so she received the usual antibiotics at birth.

She grew normally until she was about 9 months old. She was able to sit up at that point but was diagnosed failure to thrive b/c she was below the growth chart and no matter how much she and I ate (she was breastfeeding), she just didn’t gain weight or meet milestones. She didn’t walk until she was 18 months and only did that b/c of OT. She had no stamina and was content to lie around for the entire day doing nothing. Her eye contact was minimal. For two years, she didn’t grow at all. She was pale and skinny, but had bright eyes and a ready (if exhausted) smile. She didn’t talk but we thought it was because her chatterbox brother hogged up all the words in the world. For some odd reason, that just never struck anyone as strange, not even us. She didn’t sleep at night but we put a gate at her door and trained her to stay in her room and play quietly while everyone else slept. We assumed she laid around all day b/c she was tired, but could never quite figure out why she didn’t sleep at night.

At 2 years of age, we moved from Texas to South Carolina and she started meeting milestones. Although her most common pose was sucking her thumb and twirling her hair while languishing on the couch or floor; she did take spurts of throwing herself into walls (laughing hysterically at the same time) and screeching or her other favorite pastime - spinning. We were blind to the signs of physical pain such as her constant posturing over furniture and her gnawing on everything she could. She finally started talking but we thought it was clever that she could repeat, word for word, a conversation we’d had in her hearing. It took years for us to notice she never said anything of her own, just repeating what she’d heard. We just thought she was scatterbrained b/c she would script something bizarre in response to questions. She was also incredibly clumsy, dropping stuff constantly. Looking back, I have no idea how we didn’t see it, but we were blinded by her charm and just loved our delicate little girl. We didn’t mind the quirks although we did get distressed over them on occasion. We just didn’t think there was anything to it but immaturity. We attributed everything odd to just being a delicate tiny creature with food allergies. Boy, were we dumb! LOL

When she was 3, her sister was born. At this time, life was the most chaotic mess I could have ever imagined. We loved our children but were insane from the chaos they created. Her sister was born with many problems and a kind friend mentioned candida to me. Although I didn’t think there was anything to it, I was desperate, so went to the alternative doctor she recommended. What an eye opening, painful day that was!! I was full of yeast and had passed it on to my children (all three of them), who had weakened immune systems and just couldn’t pass toxins out of their systems. Over the course of the next few months, I researched and read until I was cross-eyed, but I discovered she had a mild form of autism (confirmed unofficially). Had she been non-verbal, she would have received a different diagnosis. Research led me to believe autism was reversible so we set our path to recover our children.

We have done many things and I have listed them here below in order of what she was like before and what helped these behaviors.

Before intervention:

Extreme food allergies
Extreme lethargy – would lay around for days on end with no energy to play
Craved salt – would lick salt off anything she could find, including her skin (this is a symptom of adrenal fatigue)
Would spin for hours
Would stim for the majority of her day
Would throw herself violently off walls
Didn’t convert beta carotene – she would turn yellow/orange if she ate those colors
Could not converse intelligently; lots of nonsense talking/scripting.
Inappropriate hysterical giggling
Constantly chewing on toys, clothes, whatever was nearby
Extremely clumsy; always dropping things
No upper body strength; could not carry more than a lb or so
Couldn’t remember not to eat food from others, in spite of having nearly died from having done so before
Could not focus
Didn’t sleep enough or well
Extreme terror of needles making blood tests a nightmare
Always very underweight (failure to thrive) in spite of eating huge amounts of food; had a very fragile look to her


*******We began intervention in 2005, when she was 4 years old.


After candida treatment began, stimming was less often (although still present), she was able to focus a little bit, stopped the inappropriate giggling, could remember not to accept food from others

After gluten removal, the spinning was less, she stopped throwing herself into walls, the chewing was less, and her focus improved more. She started sleeping appropriately. Started sleeping at night.

After chelation, the lethargy was able to be controlled by ammonia-reducing medicines (these were not as effective before chelation), she doesn’t turn orange from eating orange foods, conversation has become incredibly intelligent – plenty of give and take in a conversation now; she has independent thought and only scripts if it’s appropriate (like acting out a movie), she has started to gain weight (3 lbs in 3 months) and no longer looks like she will break, the salt cravings are very diminished.

After starting OT and Neurofeedback, she is able to give blood without extreme terror, her upper body strength is age appropriate, she is no longer clumsy; her physical abilities are improving every day.

Her chewing has completely stopped with massive zinc supplementation.


She still has a ways to go. She is nervous in new situations and the terror of needles is still strong. She is more comfortable with grownups or younger children, although she can carry on with her peers for a short time. Her immune system is still weak, but she no longer stands out as the “strange one” in a crowd. She is still chelating and needs heavy mineral supplementation. Her eye contact, however, is incredible. She is present probably 99% of the time and when she’s not it’s very obvious that she’s having yeast problems. Treating the yeast resolves the mental absence.

She too is a wonder and joy to us. She has a loving spirit and is an advocate of those who are different. She has a knack for knowing what someone non-verbal wants and is always the first to help someone who can’t express themselves. She says she just knows how it feels to not be able to say what you want and wants to help people who can’t help themselves. She is not completely recovered, but I have every confidence that she will be.