concern re: possible diagnosis
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| Fri, 02-17-2006 - 1:08pm |
Hi all,
On Monday we met with Dr. re: Ethan, ds age 6. Ethan was pretty calm but did have off subject conversations with the doc. Then doc asked what Ethan does in the am. He said, "Eat breakfast and then go outside." Basically that's the highlight--breakfast and then leaving for school. I didn't think that was an off answer, really, but doc said, "Ethan that's not really what you do--you get dressed, right?" Ethan agreed. So doc said, "Well, why did you say something that wasn't correct? Did you think of that answer by yourself, or did you hear a 'voice' telling you to say that?"
WHAT?! On Law and Order I think they call that leading the witness!
Ethan replied, "A voice" (First time I've heard of this., btw.) SO now I'm concerned the doc is leaning toward something other than AS. So far doc says it 'might be AS, but because Ethan can socialize and has friends, he isn't sure. It does take Ethan a few weeks to get comfortable in school settings and start to interact with other kids.
Doc also mentioned putting Ethan on a low dose of Prozac or Zoloft for anxiety. I'm not sure about that, since the anxiety is hit and miss and he can be calmed.
So far these are the AS symptoms Ethan shows:
lining items
obsessive thoughts
off topic and disjointed speech patterns (also makes up own words)
some repetitive noises (motions too, only not often)
extreme emotions
feelings of anxiety especially if someone is correcting him
no patience
I know there are more, can't think right now.
We go back on Monday. Can anyone relate to an AS child who is pretty social? I really think part of this is due to the fact that Ethan's sister is VERY social and he has learned to socialize from practice with her.
Also, what do you think the doc is looking for if NOT AS???
TIA!
Debbi

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Dear Debbi,
I think I must have not hit the button to post it the second time after the "preview," darnit! ;)
Your son Ethan sounds so much like our twins w/ PDD-NOS - very affectionate despite their issues. We started to look into the thimerisol-autism connection (I just finished reading "Evidence of Harm" by David Kirby, incredibly eye-opening regarding the explosion of cases of learning and behavioral disorders in the last 10 yrs).
Anyway, I wanted to mention metal toxicity as a possible avenue to expolre. Apparently a VERY high % if kids w/ these kinds of disorders have abnormally high levels of mercury in their organs & brains, aswell as other metals. If Ethan received any thimerisol-containing (ethylmercury) vaccines especially, it could be something to look at. We are waiting for urine, hair and blood test results, and expect to find that our twins have mercury poisoning, not PDD-NOS. As it turns out a VERY HIGH percentage of ASD (Autism Spectrum Disorders) children have high levels of metals, as they are less able to excreet them. Many scientists have found that the increase over the last decade (at least) of the number of ASD children correlates with the increased amounts of mercury those children received in thimerisol-containing vaccines. I believe flu vaccines are among the few left that continue to contain mercury, as well as aluminum.
Just wanted to pass this along - actually I want to shout it from the roof tops, it just such important info and to think that it could be the route of the majority of ADD, ASD, etc cases that our kids are suffering from, its just really disturbing to me. Here's some more info if you'd like:
http://www.mothering.com/articles/g...ines/toxic.html
http://www.mothering.com/articles/g...ochemistry.html
http://www.mothering.com/articles/g...nes/poison.html
In the news:
http://www.bioprobe.com/ReadNews.asp?article=27
http://www.rollingstone.com/politic...eadly_immunity/
http://www.boston.com/news/globe/ed...y_and_politics/
Other sites:
http://www.whale.to/a/miller1.html
http://www.autismwebsite.com/ari/dan/heavymetals.pdf
http://www.generationrescue.org/
http://healing-arts.org/children/
http://www.safeminds.org/
Videos:
Watch some of these (the first one is pretty
technical, but the others are
good - try Dr. Boyd Haley & Dr. Anju Usman):
http://www.autismmedia.org/media2.html ** You may
have to right click over
which player you would like to view the video in,
and click "open" - use
"high" for DSL & cable.
I hope this helps you in some way... Best of luck on Monday!
Meg
I am very concerned with what the doctor said about "voices".
Thanks for the info Meg! VERRRRY interesting...
I am waiting for a call from the Dr. right now. He was supposed to talk to our Ped and call me yesterday, but haven't heard. I am leaning toward another opinion, but now DH is saying there is no hurry to have a dx. ARGH!
I am looking into the testing for mercury also, as is my best friend who adopted Ethan's half-sister. She exhibits many symtoms but grew out of the off-topic conversations. I don't know if you read my other post, but dr. now says Ethan's conversation is so off the wall that he is thinking thought disorder (read schizophrenia) BUT Ethan has NO other symtoms of that as far as I can tell. It took forever just for his teacher to see the symptoms he does have. I could believe bipolar, because he has such dramatic mood swings, happy and singing one minute and meltdown the next. The meltdowns are usually caused by the same types of things, tho,--can't find something he wants/needs, can't get something to work right, can't HAVE soemthing he wants. He doesn't see things that aren't there or hear voices, in spite of what the dr. said.
I so appreciate this board, you guys are a terrific resource!!
Blessings,
Debbi
I just wanted to let you know that my ds also has converstions that at first appear "normal" and then sometimes mid sentence he just starts making up words or will repeat lines from movies. I think that's a common ASD thing to do as is lining things up, obsessive behavior and my ds also makes weird noises(vocal stims). He gets very upset when I correct him and his behavior escalates when he's not allowed to do something he wants. I have a sister who is schizophrenic and to be honest when she was a child she never heard voices or did some of the things people think schizophrenics do. She was very paranoid about people talking about her. She cried all the time and nothing seemed to please her. She had extreme anger and would kick holes in walls and doors because she would get so angry. She wasn't diagnosed until much later in life although my mother brought her to every doctor in the country to try to figure what was going on with her. I'm not a doctor put I think Ethan sounds much more like he has more AS traits than anything else. I'm not very familiar with Bi-Polar disorder but I know there are other people on this site that could help you with that. Could you take him to somebody else to be evaluated in particular to someone who has lots of experience with kids on the spectrum?
Teresa
Yep, it's time to move on to another Dr. I am very frustrated right now, because on Monday the DR. said he was MEETING with my Ped on Tuesday Re: Ethan and they would then call me ON Tuesday and recommend where to go from here. I just called my Ped's office and apparantly the Psych. Dr. never even talked to my Ped yesterday. ARGH!!
I've tried calling the psych Dr. 2 x's today and no response. The other struggle is that we have a deductible on our insurance of $2,500 per child, per year. We had to do this because we own our own business and can't get in a group plan. So none of these Dr.s visits are covered--we pay the whole thing. Same with meds. The psych Dr. was $300 this week and I have no idea what a psychiatrist will be. We want to get this diagnosed and begin treatment, but it's hard when you have to eat,too LOL Not to mention oldest ds is having wisdom tooth surgery (also self-pay) to the tune of $1,600 next week.
I'm not ususally so down, but I get frustrated with Dr.s who don't do what they say/when they say. (The psych Dr. seemed happy enough to take our money, even tho he said he wasn't qualified after all to dx Ethan.) I also have an appointment tomorrow with the director of Special Ed for my dd, age 5, who the teacher says has a LD. I guess I'm feeling overwhelmed right now--I'll snap out of it.
Thanks for letting me sound off :^)
Debbi
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