Mercury proof?

The first article in the latest Schafer Autism Report, with a study showing that the autism population has a consistently higher mercury level, certainly appears to be a silver bullet. However, a quick Google search revealed no background info and it would appear a bit too good to be true. It'll be interesting to see how this plays out over the next few weeks as the 2 "sides" fight it out.

The article does remind me, though, that I am way behind in my chronicling of Grant's chelation process. While the 1st 4 months went very well, we started to see improvements level off around mid-February, and we also started to see him starting to hit more, we saw his clapping/stimming increase, and his teachers reported that he was, at times, hard to reach. Since this was so different from the previous 4 months in which we consistently heard from multiple "partners" - "whatever you are doing, keep doing it!". So, we did not hesitate and we contacted his Dr.

The Dr. suggested that we immediately stop all chelation and supplements. Either he was reacting to something new in the supplements, or his body was reacting to it differently. We went off everything for about 2 weeks, and have since started slowly reintroducing the supplements to see what might be the cause. In the past 2 weeks, the negative behaviors have gone way down and his vocabulary has started increasing again, so it's pretty clear that something about the supplements, or the combination of them, was not doing him well. It's going to take at least a month to get him back on everything, but we'll see what happens. The only thing I can think of that changed was we introduced Malic Acid earlier in the year, and I believe the brand of Magnesium had also changed.

Today was so exciting though, watching him participate in the Easter egg hunt. There were about 12 kids present, so there were lots of eggs! Each child had their own color to look for, and we are so fortunate to have understanding friends and family who accomodated our request not to have candy in the (plastic) eggs. I never heard one complaint from the kids or the parents - thank you!!

Grant's color was purple, and he understood quickly that he was to only pick up purple eggs. He did great, looking only for his eggs and not giving up till he had all of them. It's so exciting when he stays with a task that long!

In addition, he's been putting more words together to communicate. For example, last night at bedtime he asked (said) water (wa-wa), juice (ju), and then cup (cuh). Yes sir! I did my duty and brought back his requested item. He took a look and then said ice (i). Fantastic communication - 4 distinct words, all used to communicate his needs/wants and they were said clear enough that I had no issue understanding his request. What an incredible feeling that must be for him to get his point across without struggling!!