2:41 a.m.

And Nick is still asleep. So far, so good.

In our quest to find natural ways to help Nick, we came across this:

It is basically vitamins. Click here for the link. For those who do not know, ASD stands for Autism Spectrum Disorder. I don't know if it will help him or not, but it is worth a try. The paragraphs below summarize the product.
Many children with Autism Spectrum Disorders (ASD) have multiple vitamin and mineral deficiencies. Our ASD Vitamin/Mineral Powder is specifically formulated to help counteract these deficiencies.

Several other companies also offer vitamin and mineral supplements. However, these supplements have many disadvantages. Some of these supplements are sold in a liquid dosage form. The problem with liquid supplements is that many vitamins and minerals are not stable in a liquid for more than a couple of hours or days. As a consequence, the patient may not receive the correct therapeutic levels from a liquid supplement. Also, to keep costs down, most supplements are made from inexpensive forms of the vitamins and minerals. In many people, these inexpensive forms are poorly absorbed and some can encourage yeast overgrowth.

Another problem is that many supplements are designed for the general population. These supplements do not fully meet the unique nutritional needs of a patient with Autism Spectrum Disorder. Lastly, and perhaps most importantly, none of the supplements we have tried taste very good. As most every parent of a child with ASD knows, it is not easy to get a child to take a bad tasting supplement. When we set out to formulate our ASD Vitamin/Mineral PowderT, we made sure to avoid all of these common problems.

Because Lee Silsby's ASD Vitamin/Mineral PowderT is added to a liquid immediately before serving, the vitamins and minerals have no chance to degrade. In addition, we use only the best forms of the vitamins and minerals available, and our formulation was designed in conjunction with several DAN! practitioners specifically to meet the needs of the ASD patient.

Lastly, through more than a decade of flavoring children's medications, we have developed the ability to make almost any medication palatable. Our expertise in flavoring medications insures that our ASD Vitamin/Mineral PowderT tastes great. It is available in citrus flavor or unflavored to meet the requirements of the Specific Carbohydrate Diet. Our formulation is free of gluten, casein, soy, sugar, artificial flavors, artificial dyes, and preservatives.




Each dose of ASD Vitamin/Mineral Powder™ contains:Click here to hide ingredients...

Chromium (as Chromium Aspartate) 200mcg elemental Chromium
Selenium (as L-selenomethionine) 200mcg elemental Selenium
Molybdenum (as Molybdenum Glycinate) 150mcg elemental Molybdenum
Zinc (as Zinc Amino Acid Chelate) 30mg elemental Zinc
Magnesium (as Magnesium Glycinate) 100mg elemental Magnesium
Calcium (as Calcium Citrate) 420mg elemental Calcium
Vitamin B-1 (as Thiamine HCl) 10mg
Vitamin B-2 (as Riboflavin-5-Phosphate) 15mg
Niacin (as Niacinamide) 40mg
Vitamin B-6 (as Pyridoxal-5-Phosphate) 25mg
Biotin 150mcg
Pantothenic Acid (as Calcium Pantothenate) 100mg
Folinic Acid 800mcg
Vitamin A (as Vitamin A Acetate) 5000 IU
Vitamin C (as Sodium Ascorbate) 500mg
Vitamin D 200 IU
Vitamin E (as Vitamin E Succinate, natural) 200 IU

We got a call from the psychologist today, and we have an appt. set up for Friday at 9am. We got his stool sample results. Everything was normal.

Melatonin

Today I took Nick back to see Dr F. We had a lengthy discussion on how Nick is progressing. The words "Classic Autism" were thrown into the conversation. Basically it means that if Dr. Leo Kanner himself had seen Nick back in the 1940's; he would have diagnosed him with autism. Classic Autism is on the severe end of the spectrum, and comes with such things as Mental Retardation. I, for one, do NOT think Nick is mentally retarded. We will not give up on therapies of any sort. We will NOT give up on Nicholas. He wants to be seen and heard. I knew in the back of my mind that he fit more of the classic autism than anything else, but just hearing a doctor say it was very different. But, Doctors don't know everything. The brain is still very much a mystery, and autism is even more of a mystery. They don't know our Nick!

That being said; we did have some issues that need to be resolved. We started Nick on Melatonin tonight. Melatonin is a natural hormone produced by the body to regulate sleep cycles. Kids with autism often do not produce enough of this hormone; and that leads to erratic sleep. Nick would spend sometimes 2 hours in bed stimming off toys, light switches(we had to unscrew all the light bulbs in their room-he figured out the switch cover and would constantly turn the lights off and on)or anything else he could find. Then, once he did fall asleep, he would not stay asleep. You can imagine how much a sleep deprived brain could function-not very well. It affects the short-term memory; so he is essentially having to re-learn everything from day to day. We are hoping the Melatonin makes recouperative sleep a possibility for Nick. This has been going on for a while, and we decided it was time to pursue options. We started him on 1mg tonight, and Dr F said we could go up to 6mg if needed. Wish us luck! Wish us SLEEP!!

Another thing we did was give Dr F a stool sample. NIck is still plagued about 1-2 times a week with mushy poo's. We want to make sure he is not having troubles digesting his food. We should know the results in a week or so. We also put in a referral for a visit with a psychologist. They are supposedly going to help us potty-train Nick. We shall see! It would be wonderful if he were to be out of diapers by summer!

Other than that; not much else is going on. I am also starting him back on Cod Liver Oil. Fish oils are very good for the brain-so we hope to see ANY improvement.