Allergies & Sensitivities (A&S)
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Most people in the Autistic Spectrum have allergies, sensitivities, or both. A&S develop because different systems in the body are overloaded, overstressed, and not functioning optimally. If the healthy and desirable flora of any part of the digestive system are either missing or outnumbered by less healthy flora, the gut lining may become perforated, and undigested compounds then leak into the bloodstream. If the immune system is unhappy, it will perceive these undigested compounds as invaders to be repelled, and an allergic response may develop. |
If the immune system doesn't attack and destroy these invaders, the compounds spread throughout the body and brain. They may mimic hormones, neurotransmitters, or any number of other messengers in the body, sending inappropriate messages to other body systems and destabilizing them. Or they may accumulate in the joints, accumulate in the fat cells, block the portals in cell membranes which allow nutrients in -- and wastes out -- of a cell, or perform any number of other detrimental actions. Although there is no allergic response by the immune system, if another body system is negatively affected when a particular substance enters the bloodstream, the body has a sensitivity to that substance.
The biggest challenge in this growing field of environmental health is that people are different. One person will have a terrible time with dry cleaning chemicals, while another can't be around a carpet that's less than ten years old. One child will have an anaphylactic reaction to bananas, while another may get terrible gas and cramping every time milk products are consumed. Bodies are complex, and can be destabilized in uncounted ways. We can't know what substances are affecting us until we quiet the disrupted systems enough to test for reactions. Quieting body systems usually involves removing as many potential stressors as possible, doing some detoxification to get rid of undesirable accumulations, and getting some professional help from a complementary health practitioner accustomed to supporting the body systems in doing their own healing.
When we hear that phrase, we usually think about exercise, diet, and taking enough time to relax. These are all important, but much more critical to people in the Autistic Spectrum is what comes in contact with our skin, such as personal care products, wash water, cleaning products, and fabric treatments and dyes. The skin absorbs both water soluble and oil soluble compounds from our bath or shower, from our soaps and creams, from the dyes and finishes on the fabrics we wear and sleep between, and from the multiplicity of other things we touch in our daily lives. When the body system is already under stress, it makes sense to minimize any stressors we can control.
Like the lungs, the skin has no real filtration; if you contact something, it sinks through the skin into the surface blood vessels (capillaries), and is carried throughout the body. So when you bathe, whatever that water contains (including toxic chlorine compounds) is getting absorbed into the bloodstream. In several European countries, including Germany, it is illegal to dye children's clothing with toxic dyes. This is because studies link toxic dye chemicals to a wide variety of health challenges, especially in the nervous system and brain. Since toxic dosage studies with children are highly unethical, and all children will have different tolerance ranges for specific toxins, the precautionary principle has been brought into play. Here in North America, we have instead bought into the idea that "cheap is best".
For a while, I tried researching the chemicals that go into shampoo, hand cream, make-up, household cleaners, and all the other myriad products that surround us. Then I just got tired of neither having enough information, nor enough time to read it. At that point I decided that if a personal care product wasn't safe to eat, it wasn't safe to put on my skin; that any cleaning product I used would be as non-toxic as I could find; that my bathwater was going to be as health-supporting as I could get it; and that any new fabric items would be very carefully cleaned (3 or 4 wash cycles in non-toxic soaps, without using neurotoxic dryer fabric softener sheets) before use.
Apart from air quality improvements, water quality improvements, and avoidance of skin contact with potential problems, an elimination diet is one of the most effective "do-it-yourself" ways of quieting body systems sufficiently to begin identifying what the most problematic substances are for a particular individual. How are we to tell what makes things better or worse, when "worse" is almost all the time? An elimination diet removes potential problem foods from a person's diet for 3 or more weeks, after which the food is reintroduced for a single day, and any changes observed (button to change management).
While there are many methods of allergy testing -- scratch tests, muscle tests, energetic tests, etc. -- most of these are expensive. If you have the money, these kinds of tests can reduce the time it takes to discover what some of the sources of the autistic challenges may be. However, these tests are generally only about 80% accurate, the results tend to change over time, and some of them are affected by the biases of the person who does the test.
You can expand the elimination diet concept to include anything (cleaning products, new furniture, or even visits to relatives), to help you discover if substances (or interactions) are a problem. Just eliminate what you think are likely offenders from the person's environment entirely for 3 weeks or more, and then expose that person to one thing at a time, restoring the system to quietness between "trials" if necessary. When peace has been restored to the body, even if that body isn't functioning optimally, it becomes very obvious if something destabilizes things. List what items are destabilizing (and how things destabilize), because if it becomes feasible to work with a complementary health practitioner, that list will greatly help the practitioner identify which body systems are most in need of maintenance and repair, saving you both time and money.
When substances get into the bloodstream that the liver and kidneys don't have the capacity to remove, the respiratory system gets into the act. Mucous in the sinuses and bronchi can build up, and halitosis can become a problem. When both the digestive system and the respiratory system can't rid the body of waste, then the integumentary system can show symptoms. Rashes, eczema, psoriasis, acne, and other skin conditions may emerge, as the body attempts to exude waste and toxins through the skin. When the three systems above are blocked or insufficient, waste products will affect the reproductive tissues. For men, there is decreased viable sperm because the seminal fluid carries toxins -- including into the absorptive tissues in women's vaginas. For women, there are unpleasant disruptions to the menstrual cycle, and toxins are sent into growing fetal tissue and exuded through breast milk. Failing all of the above, people get sick with arthritis, multiple sclerosis, cancer, or diverse other diseases.
Apart from decreasing or avoiding toxins, the answer to this is, first and foremost, to sweat. Sweating is the easiest way to remove both water and fat soluble toxins from the body. Exercise (and other measures) can mobilize toxins from wherever they've been stuck or stored into the bloodstream, and when we sweat, the toxins carried through all the tiny capillaries in the skin's surface are exuded. Saunas combined with showers are optimal, because if the toxins remain on the skin when the sweat dries, some of them are reabsorbed. While saunas are contra-indicated for certain health conditions, sweating on its own is good for everyone.
There are various ways to make the removal of toxins through the sweat more effective, but most involve careful monitoring by a health care practitioner. There are also herbal, homeopathic, lymphatic, and acupuncture treatments which can help mobilize toxins out of the tissues. Unfortunately, doing these without professional guidance can lead to a healing crisis, when so much toxin is dumped at once that the body, mind, and emotions are overwhelmed, overwrought, and unable to sustain normal functions. In other eras, there were sanitariums available to support people during healing crises; these days, if you want a child to continue going to school, or an adult to continue going to work for the duration of a detox, you'll need to pace the detoxification carefully.
Research is ongoing in many health disciplines, regarding the support of autistic spectrum individuals. Adults in the spectrum have lots of comments on different treatments they've tried. I hope to expand or link the website to some of these commentaries. In the meantime it's important to note that most of us who have continued to see improvements in quality of life have done it either on our own through trial and error, or have done it much faster with the support of complementary health practitioners.
The sad fact is that our North American medical system, which so excels at hip replacements and heart surgery, has very little to offer people with systemic malfunctioning, other than drugs to cover the symptoms, and tests that may help with particular diagnoses. Don't throw the baby out with the bathwater, but don't expect your family doctor or the specialists to whom you're referred, to be able to improve the autistic quality of life -- though yours may improve if autistics are drugged enough to stop exhibiting how unhappy their bodies are! Try hard to find an M.D. who is open to Complementary Medicine -- more common as the leading-edge Universities incorporate some of these treatments into the curriculum -- because a doctor willing to collaborate with complementary health practitioners will speed the process even further.
Complementary Medicine, however, uses the symptoms to discover the root causes of autistic challenges, and then addresses those root causes. Holistic Nutritionists, Homeopathic Doctors, Ayurvedic Doctors, Naturopathic Doctors, Traditional Chinese Doctors, Herbalists, and various physical therapies help to heal the root causes through particular treatments, chosen to fit the individuals and their overall health pictures. When seeking Complementary practitioners, ask around. Try to find someone that you really trust who can refer you to a health practitioner they have direct experience of. And remember that not every treatment is effective or even appropriate for everyone; find what works in your case.
Some spectrum adults find drugs helpful; many parents of autistic spectrum children do. But the majority of children and adults in the spectrum find that taking drugs to reduce the challenges of being in the spectrum similarly reduces the gifts, the places where we really shine and we know we do. In addition, many of these drugs are not tested on children in short-term drug trials, none of these drugs have been tested on children in long-term trials, all have multiple undesirable known side effects, and their effects on growth and development are mostly not yet known, though the indications are scary.
Our culture is hooked on quick fixes. If a pill will make a problem disappear, most people will take that pill, even if multiple other problems ensue from taking that pill. We just don't look at our "problems" realistically, as indicators of more deeply seated challenges that definitely won't go away on their own, and might even get much worse when they're suppressed. Does putting a bandage over a festering sore make it better? We'd be lucky not to lose a limb to gangrene if we covered over skin infections the way we do autistic symptoms. We ARE losing the very real gifts which right-brain dominant individuals have to offer to society as a whole, when they are unable to shine either from remediable challenges, or drugs.
Evidence is accumulating that the only difference between the growing number of people with Environmental Illness (or Multiple Chemical Sensitivities), and the growing incidence of autistic symptoms in children, is that when sensitivities are developed early enough in life, brain and other development is significantly altered. In essence, the environment is already causing our internal reality to be altered. When the systemic causes of the sensitivities are addressed, the challenging aspects and behaviours of the autistic spectrum are reduced or eliminated. If autistics are developing differently and behaving “drugged” because their bodies are being affected by "normal" substances, do we really want to complicate things with more drugs?
