Saturday, January 07, 2006

Clinic Notes: Alternative Therapies for Autism

When a child is first diagnosed with autism parents are confused with all of the therapies available. I receive countless emails, phone calls, letters, and personal visits asking my opinion.
I have been practicing for 35 years and I have found ABA along with medications such as the selective serotonin reuptake inhibitors, Resperidol, and occassionally Adderal to be effective, along with speech, occupational, and sometime physical therapy. Children with autism do much better when they get these therapies at an early age. (I see a lot of two year olds in my clinic) and they seem to do better if they are in daycare, at least some of the time.

I have watched parents try alternative therapies--diet--vitamin supplements, etc. and have yet to see significant improvement. I read and hear anecdotal reports of children who are much improved on these alternative therapies, and I hope that thhese reports are true, but I have yet to see it.

5 comments:

Anonymous said...

Dr Brown; It's a shame that you haven't learned that autism is mercury poisoning. All the therapies in the world won't do anything to help autistic kids until you remove the mercury. All you are doing is improving symptoms. As that was your only option for most of your 35 years, I don't blame you for touting this approach that can achieve SOME good results. Since chelation IS curing kids and the old methods never CURED anyone, don't you think it's time to update your knowledge on the subject for which you are allegedly an expert?

Dr. Brown said...

I practice in a rural area and even if chelation
therapy were approved by the FDA and the evidence was
convincing I could not get the parents of my kids,
most of who are below the proverty line and without
insurance to take their kids for chelation therapy.
And you are correct I am not curing autism which I
tell the parents. But I can make their life and their
child's life better with aba. I mainstream many
children with aba and I wish I could do more.
Notice on my website we are conducting a survey
looking into the causes of autism. One thing we are
looking at is location to power plants which emit
mercury and other possible sources of mercury
poisoning. Thanks for your input.

Anonymous said...

Dr Brown; I apologize for knocking you without knowing you. Chelation costs me about $30 a month for DMSA, ALA and some supplements. I don't use a doctor as I rely on Andy Cutler at Autism-Mercury Yahoo group for my information.
I wouldn't spend much time looking at smokestacks for answers since there was no autism before 1943 when most of the country was heated by coal and a lot more mercury was floating around.
I think the HepB shot at birth before a blood brain barrier has time to develop was the major culprit.

Anonymous said...

WE also have lost a diagnosis of autism by doing the diet, mb12 and chelation. Took us almost 18-20 months but we got there! It does work, I personally know of 8 kids now in my area that have lost or near losing their autism diagnosis. These kids range in age from 4-9 years of age. Please look into it, it does not have to be expensive.

Anonymous said...

Modern medicine sees all mental illness deriving only from the brain - primarily from neurotransmitter imbalance and nothing else - the truth is that in many cases there is often an underlining physical cause (eg: infection, celiac disease, etc) and this is often never investigated, and so its no wonder today we are faced with the current tragedy that the Mentally ill die 25 years earlier, i mean look at these studies:
'An autopsy of 82 patients who had been diagnosed with schizophrenia. Gastritis was found in 50%, enteritis in 85% and colitis in 92%.' read more...
'99% certain of a genetic association between schizophrenia and coeliac disease' read more..
'Enterocolitis discovered in the majority of children with Autistic spectrum disorders'
for more see
http://www.gutandmentalillness.com