Autistic children please have a look at dr andrerw wakefields research

[haze36]

My son has autism and i fully support dr wakefields findings about autism especially if your autistic child has bowel problems like my son it's a real eye opener to say the least.I am not saying mums of autistic children need to agree with his findings but boy is the evidence stacked up.You can eith google dr wakefield to get the info or head to his facebook page dr andrew wakefields work must go on.So you would type in facebook dr wakefield's work must go on.you will be gob smacked when you read his findings.

I don't know. I do wonder about all this. My children both have autism. Ds1 has terrible bowel trouble. Still soils himself at times and he's 11.

They never had the mmr.

If they had, no doubt I would be saying it was the reason. ds1 was clearly autistic from birth but ds2 'regressed' at the exact time that you normally give children the mmr - if I had let him have it, he would have regressed and I would have insisted it was related to the mmr. He was perfectly 'normal', interactive, good eye contact, loving and giggly and wanting attention in a way ds1 never did. Then the boy I knew disappeared. How would I think it was anything other than the mmr if he had had it?

But it can't be The Reason or why do my children have autism when they never had the mmr?

If it is a trigger, why does it trigger in some and why do some who don't have it turn out exactly the same way? Does that mean that some would have autism and bowel problems whether they had the mmr or not, and that some only had it because they had the mmr and how do you tell who would have had it without the mmr anyway? There's just so much uncertainty.

I agree it's about wanting to know why! I can't say it's the mmr because it's not, in their case. I think it must be genetic, in their case.

Or maybe those jabs they have at a few weeks - what's it called? Used to have mercury in it? Or perhaps it's all the additives and preservatives in food, or pollution...

It's the not knowing that is worse, not having a 100% unarguable, proven reason.

I used to think I'd done it by being a bad mother and if I'd been a better mother they wouldn't have autism. I blamed myself for years.

I also wondered if I'd done it by feeding them baby food from those jars.

There's definitely more than one type of bowel disorder involved in autism. Ds1 & ds3 have the same bowels. Ds1 was in contact with numerous potential triggers, ds3 none (we had no way of knowing which had been significant if any so avoided them all). Ds3 thankfully is fine.

The Wakefield group do have very specific markers (ulcers in the gut for example) that aren't afaik seen in other bowel cases - another reason for identifying the subgroups of autism.

I'd love to know whether in the past children who were sociable could be diagnosed with autism. Ds1 is and always has been sociable - others have said this is an indication of a regression and encephaly rather than classical from birth autism. I have no idea. And without attempts to identify subgroups (whatever the causes/triggers) we're never going to be able to track that sort of thing.

Hecate - some say the timing of meeting potential triggers is important. So for example if you meet one of several potential triggers at a crucial time in brain development it could have an effect. It might not have ant effect at a different time. And there are a range of different potential triggers.

Some interesting work had been on maternal viral infections during pregnancy. This sort of primes the developing fetus and if it then comes into contact with a virus (or as the researcher I heard said 'the dreaded vaccines') at a particular time you can trigger a regression.

So complex - but I think there is a lot of evidence that
for some an aberrant immune response plays a role.

out of interest, what is prompt salt? Can someone point me to a link.

We got eye contact improvement during the cf/gf diet which enable us to interact better with ds1. We also got his pointing and his tantrums have since reduced greatly. we eventually stopped the diet and he has been ok. I would never knock cf/gf tbh.

His imitation skills also improved tremendously and he will now mouth words that he's asked to say but wont make any sounds.

@pagwatch, there was a time that I was 'looking for someone to blame' and I had a few people around me who were the same. It was preceded by denial and turned out to be a phase (which was followed by more denial).
I appreciate that not everyone is or has ever been like that.

Finefat - will start a thread later - I'm wondering whether anyone has tried it.