Trish Marsh

(Mother of Tristan and Emily-Rose

The day that Tristan was born was the happiest day of my life. He was perfect, and I was convinced that I would be the world's best mom, and that Tristan would be brilliantly clever, athletic, socially popular, gorgeous etc. - in other words, perfect. For the first few months all went well (as far as milestones are concerned). I eagerly watched and documented his progress, and my husband and I were completely absorbed with our beautiful baby boy.

Then things started to go wrong. Medically, he had always had a few problems - colic, recurrent ear infections and reflux, but our doctor kept prescribing antibiotics, and we accepted that this was all quite normal. The problems were with his milestones. He raced ahead in some areas and fell behind in other areas, and he was so stubborn, he threw really hectic tantrums. By the age of one he could say 2 words, but by 17 months he had lost what little speech he had acquired. He had not developed any non-verbal communication, rarely made eye-contact, lined things up, spun himself around and around, and spun pot lids, wheels on toy cars and anything else that would turn. Everyone said that he was 'independent', 'strong', 'self-sufficient', and that by worrying about him I was neurotic. It was when we saw a locum Pediatrician (for yet another ear/throat infection), that someone took my fears seriously. The doctor was immediately concerned by Tristan's behavior during the examination, and lack of speech. After a brain scan, 2 hearing tests and an assessment by a Psychologist, Tristan was diagnosed as having severe classic autism. No need to say anymore about that - all parents who have been given that diagnosis know what hearing those words feels like.

After a period of grief (length unknown - those months were a blur), we were finally able to make decisions about the future. We moved to Cape Town in the hope of getting the best treatment. Back then, 7 years ago, we couldn't find much help in Port Elizabeth, which is where we were living at the time. By the time we moved to Cape Town and first saw a Pediatric Neurologist, Tristan's symptoms had become worse. His tantrums were extreme and unpredictable, and he began injuring himself. We tried many many things, and spent a lot of money, but in the end it is the following that I believe helped my child:

• Initially I stopped working so that I could stay at home and work with Tristan all day. After a while, however, I took a mornings only teaching position, and worked with Tristan in the afternoons.(* see note)
• We put him on the gluten free casein free diet, and committed to it entirely (we never 'cheated'), and when we saw the dramatic improvements, it was easy to stick to it.
• I gave Tristan the Eye-q supplement daily (after trying many other supplements) and we saw definite and dramatic results, especially in speech. The child receives a high dose of this supplement for the first 3 months and you can then drop down to a maintenance dose. We found that the maintenance dose was ineffective however, and ended up giving him roughly double the maintenance dose to continue to see improvement.
• Lots and lots of prayer
• Weekly Speech Therapy and Occupational Therapy, and doing the therapy 'homework' everyday

Tristan is now 9 years old. He attends a remedial school in East London, and his diagnosis is PDD (not otherwise specified) He speaks extremely well, plays with other children, reads beautifully and comes across as a perfectly normal little boy to others. He is still socially/emotionally impaired, but we are hoping to mainstream him within the next 2 years.

I don't know if he would have turned out this way, anyway. Perhaps he was misdiagnosed initially, perhaps he was always very high-functioning and it wasn't picked up in the assessments. There is no way of knowing exactly why or how he made this recovery, but he is functioning so well that I couldn't honestly ask for more.

My Advice:

• Be careful of all the scams out there, claiming to cure autism. There is no cure. We lost a lot of money that way.

Books that helped me:

• Transforming the difficult child: The nurtured heart approach
• The Out-of-Sync Child and The Out-of Sync Child has Fun

Supplements that helped me:

• Bathing in Epsom Salts. A quarter of a cup of Epsom Salts in the bath every night.
• Eye-q supplement. Expensive but well worth it