Speaking of autism by SIGNYM

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Speaking of autism

POSTED BY: SIGNYM
UPDATED: Sunday, March 20, 2016 13:07
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Sunday, March 20, 2016 12:47 PM

I believe in solving problems, not sharing them.

In the PROCESSED FOOD thread, KIKI mentions dietary deficiencies/ excesses/contamination as a possible source of the autism epidemic. My bet is on lack of choline in the diet, thanks to the anti-egg scare, but I digress.

I just came across this yesterday by accident.

It was both interesting and distressing, not only because it points to our daughter's potential future, but also brings up - once again - the unexplored link between behavioral issues, epilepsy, and brain damage/neuro-developmental problems.

We know what our daughter's problems stem from, but for YEARS we tried desperately to get neurologists to recognize and respond to her non-seizure issues. So even as we told the neuros that daughter was becoming mute, getting lost in her own house, trembling, posturing, and not responding to language, they kept asking us ... Yes, but is she having seizures?

Oh my god, seizures occupied maybe a half-day a week. We would have gladly traded seizures for the problems she was having 24/7.

On the other hand, neurologists and other medical professionals treat autism with behavioral therapy. They ignore potential physical causes.

That so many people with autism die of apparently undiagnosed and untreated epilepsy (SUDEP I think) is an indictment of the medical profession, and the wall they seem to have built between the physical causes of epilepsy and the behavioral manifestations of autism.

We know from experience that there is no wall separating the two. There are several epileptic syndromes - Landau Kleffner, Continuous Spike Wave Syndrome, and sometimes BECTS, which cause children to behave JUST LIKE autistics. We also know from experience how difficult it is to even get a diagnosis of these syndromes: our daughter's neurologist crossed it off the list of differential diagnoses because it was TOO RARE, and it wasn't until I re-approached it a few years later with information from the internet and a book that I bought from England that it became a working diagnosis. Finding a successful treatment is another hurdle, and avoiding the medications that make it worse (carbamazepine and related) is crucially missed. The neurologists who understand the link are few and far between (Devinsky).

Clearly, there is some epileptic problem smoldering underneath what appears to be autism with cognitive disablities. Neurologists really need to hop to this, because if these people were treated successfully many years of accumulating damage and disability could be avoided. And given the current "epidemic" of autism, sooner rather than later would be a good idea.

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Sunday, March 20, 2016 1:07 PM

1KIKI

Goodbye, kind world (George Monbiot) - In common with all those generations which have contemplated catastrophe, we appear to be incapable of understanding what confronts us.

I saw that as well. I didn't want to bring it up. It's very disturbing news.

SAGAN: We are releasing vast quantities of carbon dioxide, increasing the greenhouse effect. It may not take much to destabilize the Earth's climate, to convert this heaven, our only home in the cosmos, into a kind of hell.

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