More on Autism

After a lot of research and finding more sources citing the gut-brain connection as a possible cause of autism, even Ben is starting to buy into the theory.  He's not hopeful, but he's not hopeful about any silver bullet, and he does think it's worthwhile to try.

So Michael is about to embark on an even stricter diet.  It's more important now that he not eat any allergens or difficult-to-digest foods -- dairy, gluten, soy, grains.  And he needs more probiotic foods.  We're currently transitioning him by trying to train him to replace his some of his old standbys with better options.  

We used to use raisins to bribe him to eat things like broth, but we discovered something that works even better:  10 or 20 minutes on the Kindle or one of his other "loud" toys.  Now, he only gets screen time if he eats a bite of x or y.  It actually works better than bribing with raisins; he's trying things he would never try for just raisins.  In the past day and a half, we've gotten him to eat cheese, kefir (both of which are probably getting phased out with dairy; not sure about kefir yet), fermented pickles, fermented carrot sticks, fermented sauerkraut juice, raw egg yolk, broth, omelette with spinach, his cod liver oil.  For treats he got to eat banana and broth chips and walnuts.  Many of those are things he wouldn't touch before.  He barely touched the cabbage juice, but his ECI therapist said it's great if it gets on his tongue because it can take multiple exposures to adjust one's tastes.

The second approach we're trying is to really hammer in communication skills.  We're getting better at holding out on his requests until he makes eye contact and vocalizes something.  In the case of his ball, he can even consistently say "bah!", which I think is his first pseudo-work.  (I still swear he did say "jeez!" and "ow sigh!" a long time ago for "cheese" and "outside," but he's never repeated this.  He seems to consistently associate "bah!" with "ball", though.)

I've become very sad and feel broken, and I think Ben is sad too, but we handle it differently.  I am retreating more, stress-eating again (serious ongoing problem for me), trying to escape the moment.  Ben is getting more involved with Michael, with the love and patience of a saint.  He's an incredible dad.  Michael truly prefers Ben most of the time now.