Ups and downs

It has been a while since I have not published anything in my Blog, but a lot of things have happened these past years. I have my daughter who has autism and more than a year ago she was diagnosed with OCD too. My daughter still remains Gluten Free for several years and everything is separated in the house to make sure there is no cross contaminated with our food and hers. She drinks Lactaid milk and not regular milk, but the only thing I still remain is on her Gluten Free life. 

I have always been a believer that I did not want to child to be on medication for no reason before more than a year ago because when she was first diagnosed with autism they told me she had also ADHD; which in the end was a misdiagnose in that point of her age and the medication that she was on made her worse than better. There are times in life you have to see what is important for your child health and when she was diagnosed with OCD; I knew that going biomedical in that portion of her life was not going to resolve her condition. The Gluten Free made her autism better as in changes and results I saw when she was GF, but with OCD it is a different condition that I decided after talking to the psychiatrist in her school and my husband and I decided it was best for her to be on medication. 

I thank my husband who is her step-father, but a big part of my kids life because for my little ones he is the only father figure that they have seen for years; I thank him because in that stage of my life I had his support; both emotional and as a mom too. I was honestly scared because I did not know what was going to happen after she was put on medication for her OCD diagnosis. 

It did work out as she lowered her OCD; I am not going to lie to you guys as in there are times she has her moments but they are less not than they were before years ago. Just today I had a situation with my daughter as in she had an episode with her OCD and it was very difficult because we always want the best for our children and want them to be better in life. Nothing is perfect in life and we just have to be strong and never give up on them. 

Just like when she was diagnosed with autism; several physicians told me she was not going to get better and that they were sorry for that, but I never gave up on my daughter and now I see the best in her. I searched the internet, found different alternatives for the autism; which I am not a doctor but I am an advocate for my child and I am not going to never just stand there and give up on her or none of my kids if they ever have anything. 

Now we are in the waiting list for her to go back to private speech therapy and hopefully she can get in before October so she has speech therapy in her school which she does already and in a private facility as well. I am not a perfect parent, but I try very much to be the best I can be and as long as they are doing great; then I know I did my job as a parent. 

I even found out a gluten free cosmetic website that sells lipsticks and foundations and also a shampoo that is Gluten Free that I currently bought for myself and my daughter now uses the shampoo, but the cosmetics not yet because she still is a teenager but when she does in years to come at least I know what things she can use. 

 

Updates, probiotics and info on gluten on lipsticks...

 

It has been a long time since I haven't posted any blogs on my daughter's progress. Angelina continues on "Gluten-Free" diet and with her Methyl B12 injections given every 2 days in her buttocks. Last week, we went with my daughter to her biomedical doctor Dr. Patrick Elliott in Philadelphia. I was so glad to hear from him that he has seen so much progress from my daughter and he asked me several questions (kind of a test but knowledge check in his part), it came out that my daughter's autism has reduced significantly. I know there is no cure for autism, which I am aware of and this is not a disease in no way or shape.

 

What the doctor did "ADD" for her to take was VSL #3 Probiotic vitamins (that have to be refrigerated all the time), which are natural and gluten-free. Of course she continues with her Methyl B12 injections every 2 days, before it was every 3 days but now he wanted to increase the intake.

 

 

My daughter is not celiac in any way, but has extreme gluten sensitivity when she consumes gluten in any way. We all learned it here the good and bad way and even her school is aware of it. What I love about the schools are that if you do make them aware of their allergy to gluten, they can provide gluten-free lunch (you do have to provide a doctor's note when you do this).

 

There are a lot of gluten-free products everywhere now which make life easier for me and everyone who is allergic or celiac. When we go outside I am not that worried if it will be uncomfortable to hide things from her. I do wish a lot of other places do include gluten-free food, I guess it is still a work in progress throughout the years.

 

I am not going to lie, until now I still read labels and have my bookmarks from websites to help me. What I did actually discover from my neighbor is that there are a lot of lipstick products that contain "Gluten" and that was shocking because it adds more to my list now.

 

http://celiacdisease.about.com/od/GlutenFreePersonalCareProducts/fl/Gluten-Free-Makeup-Brands.htm

 

I have included above a website on information on gluten-free lipsticks.

 

I also am including below a website that talks about Probiotics as well.

 

http://www.autism-help.org/intervention-biomedical-probiotic.htm

 

This week I will be blogging more. I know that everything that I am doing with my daughter, there is no evidence that it helps her autism but so far it has helped me as a parent and that I am happy and glad so I just go for it and continue.