10 Lessons I Learned Trying To Heal My Kids From Autism, Anxiety & ADHD
By
practice, I’m a psychotherapist who has been working for over a decade
in the world of mainstream medicine, a body of experience that has
allowed me to develop a strong understanding of both its strengths and
weaknesses.
But beyond
my work, I’m also a mom who fiercely loves her children, and for their
sake, when it comes to their health I’ve always explored all available
options — an approach that I’m proud to say has led me to find better
solutions than any conventional specialist had ever offered.
My work
has allowed me to cross paths with a seemingly endless number of
psychiatrists and general practitioners, who for the most part have one
thing in common: They all see medication as the optimal form of
treatment for the vast majority of what they diagnose. This includes
attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD), anxiety, sleep issues,
depression, and obsessive-compulsive disorder.
For a long
time, I wondered about the cavalier prescribing of drugs but bit my
tongue. Who was I to question physicians with the benefit of many more
years of medical training? My viewpoint changed
in 2006 after I had my
children who suffered similar challenges.
I knew
doctors would recommend medication. I also knew I didn’t want my
children to go down that road for fear it would severely damage their
lively, beautiful spirits.
As my
husband, Steve, and I tried to make do with physical and behavioural
therapies, I read many medical journal articles about the link between
autism, mental health issues and malnutrition, toxicity, food
sensitivities and intestinal permeability, immune, metabolic and
digestive issues. These discoveries led us to realize that these
disorders could be a real medical illness treatable with natural
remedies that didn’t involve intrusive, personality-altering medication.
While we were skeptical at first, the potential rewards were so high
that these methods outside the mainstream seemed well worth trying. And,
I am happy we did!
Here’s what I learned:
1. My Doctors Weren’t Reading the Same Medical Journals I Was
I started
collecting lots of data, studies, and articles on these subjects from
esteemed medical journals. The more research I read, the more I realized
how much information was out there. I quickly realized that
pediatricians and the mainstream medical community weren’t on board.
With all of my studies and articles in my hands and hope in my heart, I
asked a pediatric GI specialist about the possibility that my son Evan’s
developmental delays, anxiety, and autism features may be due to a gut
issue or a food sensitivity. He raised his eyebrows and said, “You must
be reading too much.” It became apparent at that moment that this doctor
wasn’t reading enough.
2. Big Pharma Writes Our Doctors’ Textbooks
Drug
company money is tainting medical education. Big pharma writes medical
school textbooks and uses their own money to finance drug studies. Dr.
Marcia Angell, former Editor-in-Chief of the New England Journal of Medicine,
stated how corporate dollars corrupt research and education at academic
medical centers — including Harvard Medical School. Pharmaceutical
companies spend millions of dollars to implement carefully designed
plans. According to R. Webster Kehr of the Independent Cancer Research
Foundation, “The FDA, NIH, NCI, ACS and medical schools are their
puppets.”
3. Our Medical Community Ignores the Power of Plant Medicine and Calls It Pseudoscience
Pharmaceutical
companies have set out to discredit holistic treatments — especially in
those areas of highest drug profits, such as cancer, heart disease,
psychiatric disorders, and allergies, even though they are widely used
in other countries and steeped in tradition. Drug companies use the term
“scientific evidence” as a political definition to control the FDA and
National Institutes of Health. They buy investigative journalists with
their advertising. They pay doctors and psychiatrists to speak on their
behalf and offer up expensive trips and steep payments. They block
financial contributions by using terms like “unproven treatments,” and
many “charitable organizations” are entirely controlled along with
Congress.
4. The Biggest Corporate Sponsors of the American Academy of Pediatrics Are Pharma Companies
The
Academy of Pediatrics was created in 1930 as an “independent” forum for
the health and well-being of our children. Today, corporate Friends of
Children Fund members include Pfizer, Sanofi Pasteur (The vaccine
Sanofi-aventis group,) Merck, GlaxoSmithKline, Johnson & Johnson,
etc. A conflict of interest? Have our doctors been bought? I believe so.
5. Conventional Doctors Tend to Address Only One Organ at a Time
One of the
fundamental flaws of our existing medical paradigm is the tendency to
approach health and sickness only through a disease-based or single
organ-focused lens. We treat the body as a machine with separate parts,
assign a diagnosis label, and match it with a corresponding
pharmaceutical. In reality, our body is a complex, interconnected web of
biochemistry. Therefore, we need more medical doctors who understand
that we must start to treat the “whole body” like holistic and
functional doctors do.
6. Our Genetics Is Not the End of Our Story
Just
because ADHD, depression, or even autoimmune issues run in the family
does not mean that is our fate. We have more control over it than the
medical industry wants us to believe. We may start with a genetic
vulnerability; however, we need to start recognizing that our lifestyle
and environmental factors instruct our genes on how to express
themselves. The foods we eat or don’t eat, the nutrients we take or
don’t take, our stress levels, sleep habits, and exposure to toxins
dynamically determine our gene expression.
7. Most Doctors Know Very Little About Nutrition
Most
disease is preventable and related to nutrition, yet doctors today do
not know the science of how healthy food heals the body. Nor do they see
the impact “fake” food, pesticides, and toxic chemicals have on our
health. According to the Journal of Clinician Nutrition, most
graduating medical students continue to rate their nutrition preparation
as inadequate. According to Michael Greger, M.D. FACLM, a physician and
internationally recognized professional speaker on some important
public health issues, medical students are still getting fewer than 20
hours of nutrition education over four years, and even most of that has
limited clinical relevance.
8. Allopathic M.D.s Do Not Heal Autoimmune Disorders
You cannot
get health from a pill. When referred to a specialist like a
gastroenterologist, endocrinologist, rheumatologist, and alike to treat
an autoimmune disorder, they rarely discuss healing foods,
detoxification, and other modalities that heal the body. Instead, they
prescribe drugs, namely immunosuppressants or steroid therapy to merely
mask symptoms — never getting to the root cause of any illness nor
healing any disease. And these medications often do more harm than good.
9. Insurance Companies Do Not Cover Important Treatments and Therapies
Health
insurers can limit coverage they deem experimental or not medically
necessary, and they often do. Many consider “alternative” interventions
medically necessary only if adequate evidence of safety and
effectiveness in the peer-reviewed published medical literature supports
it. I find this funny, considering more than 100,000 people die each
year from complications caused by prescription drugs. And thousands more
die of drug overdoses after getting hooked on prescription pain
medication. Again, money and politics are the reason insurance won’t
cover safer alternatives. The more services they exclude from coverage
while still selling policies to patients, the better for their bottom
lines.
10. Healthcare Today Puts Band-Aids On Splinters Instead of Pulling Them Out
Current
pharmaceutical and surgical methods are incredibly useful for treating
acute, life-threatening health issues. However, for more nuanced
disorders, these approaches do not take into account the complex
communication that exists between the various systems of the body and
can ultimately lead to a breakdown in communication followed by a loss
of function. Often the side effects of these treatments can be as
harmful and worse than the original symptom itself. Eastern medicine
modalities are ancient systems of healthcare that take into account all
of the biological systems of the whole body. Natural Medicine
practitioners strive to stimulate the body’s natural capacity to heal
itself, leading to healing on a much deeper level.
Calling for a Shift in Our Mental Health Paradigm
Although
many parents claim that psychotropic medication has changed their
child’s life for the better, we must not forget that giving a
six-year-old medicine does nothing to improve the conditions that derail
their development in the first place.
Policy
makers are so convinced these children have an organic disease that they
have all but called off the search for a better understanding of the
conditions — even though these medications often cause many short-term
and long-term side effects. Therefore, I encourage all parents
everywhere to let love guide you to explore all available options,
rather than simply settling for what conventional specialists suggest.
It isn’t enough to just be alive. The quality of life is also essential.
We need
more due diligence in our healthcare system. We need an “Integrative
Medicine” approach, a healing-oriented medicine that takes the whole
person (body, mind, and spirit) into account — including all aspects of
lifestyle. We need to emphasize the therapeutic relationship and make
use of all appropriate therapies, both conventional and alternative. We
need a medical system that neither rejects conventional medicine nor
accepts alternative therapies uncritically.
Good
medicine should be based on sound science, be inquiry-driven, and be
open to new paradigms. We need to use natural, effective, and less
invasive interventions whenever possible. We need a system that promotes
prevention of illness as well as the treatment of disease. We simply
need to wake up and make a stand for real change. We can no longer put a
price tag on our physical and mental health. The amount of pain we are
creating for our families and our children is a high price to pay for
the way we conduct our business.
Interested in learning how to heal your family more fully from ADHD, ODD, Autism and more? Join Robert Kennedy Jr, Dr Kendra Becker, myself and 98 other speakers for the FREE 2020 AutismOne Online Summit – REGISTER NOW FOR FREE!
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