Round one - Success!

We got through round one with flying colors and if it's any indication of how Grayson will be after chelation is done....(doin' the happy dance)!! He was amazing during the round, calm, well behaved, happy, patient, he was showing signs of very complex thoughts, what more could the parents of a three year old ask for? Maybe if he could just put his toys away without being asked....ok, maybe that is asking too much still, so anyways...

This is a cute little story showing some of the things we experienced while on round. We took him out to lunch (with his own foods, of course) but he read the kid's menu anyway and wanted a side of sliced apples with his lunch. He couldn't wait to order it himself and practically blurted it out while flapping the menu at the waitress before she was done introducing herself. He enjoyed his lunch and apples, chatting along with us throughout lunch like a mini-man. After lunch, he grabbed the survey questionnaire, which we have never explained to him by the way, and promptly said while looking at the card, "I want to say thank you to her, do you have a pen? How do you write thank you?" Dave and I looked at each other with our jaws dropped, very obviously having to digest what he just said. We spelled the words, he very neatly wrote even sized letters on the lines and then circled all the "3"s "because he is three!", ha ha ha. Of course, we had to explain to her why she only got a rating of all threes, but she was thrilled with her little survey card from Grayson and he was thrilled with the smile it resulted in from her.

Our weekend was full of little tidbits like this. He was flourishing, intelligent beyond his years! He was also very tired by the end of each day though and for two of the three nights, he told US when he was ready to go up to bed, the last day it was 6:30pm! He slept like a rock between doses and woke up at 8am every day, fully rested and rearing to go, dressed before he came into our room and smiling ear to ear! I had read over and over again to be prepared for the yeast monsters to increase with chelation, but amazingly, they weren't out of control during chelation, it's now, afterwards, that I feel like it's slightly out of control I don't know why that would be. Unfortunately, with the highs that we experienced during the "on" days, come the dreaded days that follow stopping the round....redistribution days. During the round mercury gets flowing out of the body with the aid of the DMSA (it's like an usher, pulling the mercury ions with it, on it's way through the body and out through the urine). The key to dosing is to keep the DMSA actively in the bloodstream (hence the every 4 hour dosing schedule day and night), as soon as that stops, everything that was moving also stops and you guessed it, needs to go somewhere. So the loose mercury will find body tissue to bind with and then you experience the down days of chelation which for some, can be like mercury poisoning all over again. The first day wasn't as bad as I expected, however, day two and three afterwards have been no fun. The yeast is out of control, he is feisty beyond words, he is showing signs of sensory dysfunction all over again (probably the overgrowth of yeast) and I can't seem to dose enough Biotin, OoO and No Phenol to get it completely under control. I can even see that he WANTS so badly to control his emotions, he tries to, he starts to talk with a high pitched wavering squeal that sounds like he is holding back the tears, trying to keep his cool and then he looses it and the anger of his lack of control lets lose. He crashes and smashes things, before running out of the room in tears. It's been a while since he has had these experiences on a regular basis, so I know it must baffle him as much as it does us. So it's on to more reading for me, but overall, I give this process the big thumbs up!!

Does he really need ALL of those?

I think I could write a book on Grayson's daily intake of supplements alone!  When a child needs so many healthy foods removed from his or her diet, supplementation is the name of the game.  The list is long and can vary from day to day depending on his needs for any given day. The usual looks like this: two enzymes for gluten and casein, two enzymes for carbohydrates, a No Phenol enzyme, two multivitamins, four cod liver oil gel tabs, two drops of grapefruit seed extract, liquid calcium, and one probiotic....on days when he is coming down with something or has a cold, we add zinc, vitamin A and additional vitamin C.   Another challenge with supplementing is that we need to be very cognizant of the ingredients to be sure they don't contain anything he is allergic to and just about every supplement has a filler of some sort, mostly likely containing gluten and/or casein.  Probiotics are often made from dairy and vitamin C from citrus.  Many, many children's chewables are made with "natural" citrus or pineapple flavors.  So we buy most of our supplements from specialty providers online, like Kirkman Labs and Houston Enzymes.

The role of enzymes in this diet is huge and may even allow us to reintroduce many of the foods he is slightly sensitive to.  If you were to ask Grayson what the enzymes are for, he will tell you that "they are for badestion", ha ha ha.  Translation = digestion.  The link between food allergies and the lack of enzymes is very common, so with the added enzymes every time he eats, they provide him with the ability to break the foods down further.  Leaky gut syndrome comes from undigested food particles which actually make their way out of the intestines and into other parts of the body!  Weird, isn't it?  There are enzymes for many different foods and just about EVERYONE would benefit from additional enzymes in their diet.  Enzymes are naturally occurring and are only available in raw foods so once you heat a food over about 100 degrees you kill the enzymes, which then requires your body to use it's "stash" to digest the food you've just eaten.  You can actually deplete your body's enzymes by eating only cooked foods.  Raw foods provide just enough of their own enzymes to break itself down, there is no excess.  So when your body is forced to give up it's enzyme stash to digest foods on a daily basis, other parts of the body begin to suffer and you become more susceptible to illness.  When you see a fruit decomposing, going bad, those are enzymes at work.  The reason you don't feed a baby from a baby jar, put it away and then continue feeding from that same jar again later is because of enzymes.  The mouth contains enzymes and when you put the spoon back into the baby jar, the food in the jar comes into contact with the enzymes on the spoon, digestion actually begins to occur, yummm!

This child never ceases to amaze me.  He saw me swallowing my cod liver oil and wanted to do the same with his, which are of course chewable.  I promptly explained that his are chewed and mine aren't.  He was content with that answer...that day.  When we ran out of his cod liver oil and again he witnessed me swallowing mine.  He said, "It's fine mommy, I can just take yours!"  I told him he would have to swallow it like I do and he very convincingly told me he could do it.  So who am I to hold back a child?  I handed him one and expected to see him gag and choke on it, but you've got to live and learn, right?  He immediately popped it in his mouth and like a pro, guzzled some water and proudly opened his empty mouth for me to inspect!!  Can you say determination??  Who said reverse psychology doesn't work??  If you want to get a three year old to do something, just tell him he can't and you will be greeted with childhood optimism I wish we all still had.