Is "Autism" an epidemic???

[mamadadawahwah]

Having a recent diagnosis of my son with ASD, i started counting all the parents i know with kids who have the same diagnosis. I dont know that many people and I counted 7 including my own son.

I know about 150 people, so 7 out of that number is LOTS!!

Having skimmed over autistic research and books/material over the past year, I have definitely come to the conclusion that autism is an umbrella term for something the medical profession simply cant define in exact terms. More to the point, there are links to what causes it but we have not progressed in research enough to find these links. I am convinced of this.

I did everything humanly possible to conceive and carry a healthy baby. After he was born, the same, no immunisations, breast fed, then organic only food, no toxins.

What is causing it to rise? I am convinced its our environment. I of course dont have any proof of this yet, but I am searching.

swiperfox

swiperfox, i made myself get a job in a shop,and for a while i appeared confident, but then i met [peter at work lol, settled down ,had kids etc, and like you have become quite 'shy' again. but i dont feel like i'm shy, i feel like everyone judges me, and i feel like idont belong. its hard to explain.
new situations scare me, i knew i wouldnt be able to walk stright into ITU after peters op, so i asked to be shown round there before so i could mentally prepare myself for the situation. its like a little list that i tick off in my brain. (walk through main entrance, down towards E ward etc etc). if i didnt know what was beyond those doors then i'd find it really really hard. thats why it takes me ages to go out, as i need to make sure things are right i n my head.

lol

have you tried the multiple choice quiz?

which one?

red apple or green

i'll get a link

Hercules, that is question I am seeking answers for. We and "they" the medical profession really dont know what causes it and really dont know how to define it. "It" comes in varying degrees of "severity" for lack of a better word. But for me that is not good enough. I just dont think we have a handle on it and for that reason, the wishy washy diagnosis method is in my view, lumping kids with all kinds of "problems" setbacks, differences, etc, together under one roof.

This in itself is not the bad thing. The bad thing is that these "differences" arent being challenged. For ex. I answered about 20 questions to the doctor she looked at my kid for 20 minutes and wham bam, he has autism. At the moment, she might as well have said he had cancer, God forbid or some other such thing.

Its the same with speech problems in kids. There are a gazillion different types of speech delay and reasons for it. And everywhere you have these totally stressed out parents wondering if their kids have a delay, a disturbance, a disability, autism, etc etc. Its awful, just awful.

Do you think that a lot of the recent 'epidemic' status comes from heightened paranoia of the MMR over the last 15 years?

here

mercury

That sounds really similar to me misdee. I panic in new situations full stop. When we took dd to the hospital the other week i had to take her to another dept then bring the x-rays back. It was literally down the corridor and left but i panicked and got lost!! Dp gets angry with me for being stupid which doesn't help!!

How is your memory? I have a memory for things like car number plates but general memory is rubbish!!
I also do the colours thing where certain words are associated with a colour. I always have and until I saw a programme about it recently i never thought anything of it!

memory for phone numbers, dates, etyc pretty good. i have a brain full of useless information tho. people think i' ma bit 'dim' as i dont get 'things' but i am actually (not bragging) quite smart, just find thinsg tedious. school bored me. maths didnt push me enough.

go and do the test

autism is lifelong in 97% of cases. (going on rnb's figures from the other thread). The 3% who 'recover', recover regardless of the interventions they receive.

autism is also a huge spectrum. DS1 is miles away from a geeky, nerdboy who could have been missed. And he is also quite a long way from the very severely autistic such as gabriel from the book 'the call me gabriel'.

mama - as far as I know- more research on the link between mercury and autism is soon to be published. Basically some people are genetically predisposed to be unable to detoxify heavy metals such as mercury very efficiently. They are more at risk of developing autism (interestingly across the spectrum, although from my completely anecdotal observations I would say high functioning/AS seems to have a higher heritability of autism than lower functioning- which seems more linked to a family history of autoimmunity).

it wont calculate

i did the test too and it wont calculate lol

Oh, sorry, it's elsewhere on the net.

here

am adding my score up atm. not looking good

koff42koff

21 i think.....

22

I think 35 and over is autism/aspergers.

sorry, says 32

ah well, its not held me back so far wel lok ,apart frpom making my child years a nightmare, its not held me back