Our Healing Journey Through ASDOur Healing Journey Through ASD
By Jill Hardina
CHD PA does not give medical advice. We provide important information concerning health. Readers should always consult their wellness provider/advisor before applying any information they have researched.
Part 1: First Aid for Allergic Reactions and Other Ailments
This is the first installment of a series outlining methods that we used to heal my son’s ASD. There were many treatments and each installment will focus on a different stage. When your child is not well, whatever the cause, all you want to do is make him or her better quickly. Therefore, this one will highlight a few non-pharmaceutical remedies for treating immediate needs.
Three critical suggestions I can give are: 1) don’t vaccinate; 2) avoid pediatricians like the plague; and 3) non-pharmaceutical, and even common home remedies, can stop allergic reactions and other ailments. I became Dr. Mom after realizing that the pediatricians were not helping him but making him worse. I read everything I could on alternative medicine and learned about nutritional therapy, herbal medicine, homeopathy, and energy medicine.
My ex-husband and I adopted Nicholas in 2000. Even though I taught special education and reading in elementary school and knew about the increase in ADHD and autism, I wasn’t aware of its causes. In fact, my professor had taught us that the FDA’s claim, drawn from one flawed study, “proved” that food coloring does not cause hyperactivity and yet refused to do any follow-up studies. I was to later find out that was one of many lies.
Nicholas’ first year was difficult right from birth. He was colicky, not gaining weight, for which the pediatrician threatened to claim failure to thrive, not reaching speech milestones (which the pediatricians poo-pooed), having his first ear infection at six months, and having two more ear infections by his first birthday. The last and worst one occurred when I transitioned him from formula to milk. I should have made the connection between ear infections and dairy, but I didn’t. Neither did the pediatricians.
His second year was no better. The physical issues included diarrhea, vomiting, non-stop drooling, in-toeing, sleep issues, his skin turning yellow, excema, allergies (which were denied by allergists), sensory issues, overly sensitive hearing, hyperactivity, an extremely short attention span, and terrible diaper rashes. One diaper rash was so bad that he couldn’t sit down. In addition, he wasn’t talking.
The most critically important remedy I found was the simplest, time-honored one: baking soda or Alka-Seltzer. Yes, baking soda, a bicarbonate of soda, stops allergic reactions. I read about it in Doris Rapp’s, “Is This Your Child? Discovering and Treating Unrecognized Allergies in Children and Adults”A holistic allergist gave him Alka-Aid, the pharmaceutical-grade form of Alka-Seltzer, for the reaction he was having to an allergy test. The reaction stopped within minutes. A few years later, a coworker told me that she had avoided food poisoning after an event by swallowing a bit of baking soda while everyone else got sick. Nicholas reacted behaviorally to allergens and would become less focused, more hyper, defiant, and aggressive. The first time I gave him Alka-Seltzer, it was for a reaction to peanuts. Within minutes, the aggression stopped, and he spent the rest of the evening peacefully playing with Legos. Needless to say, I was stunned. Why hadn’t the pediatrician told me about this?
I started to carry small atomizers, about 2” long, pre-filled with Alka-Seltzer, in water with me for emergencies. I broke up an Alka-Seltzer tablet into small pieces—not any exact size—that would fit in an atomizer and filled it with water. Surprisingly, it remained active. It’s easier if you can get the child to drink Alka-Seltzer from a cup, but I needed to always be prepared for an outburst. I would spray it into his mouth. Even though he didn’t like the taste and would resist it, the calm afterwards was worth it. At the time, I found the atomizers on eBay. It saved the day many times.
Another critical suggestion: coughs can be stopped with aconitum, a homeopathic remedy. I tried this for the first time when I had to pick Nicholas up from school for a bad cough. The coughing stopped a half hour after the first dose. In “Encyclopedia of Homeopathy,” Andrew Lockie says to take 30c every four hours, but I recall reading elsewhere to take it more often. Administer it by putting one pellet under the tongue and allowing it to dissolve. I remember thinking that if the school had been willing to administer homeopathic products, I wouldn’t have had to leave work. Back around 2008, I could buy homeopathic remedies easily anywhere, not only in health food stores but even in pharmacy chains and some large supermarkets. Another valuable reference book is “Homeopathy: An A-Z Home Handbook” by Alan Schmukler.
Homeopathy under assault? In 1988, the FDA issued Compliance Policy Guide (CPG) 400.400, “Conditions Under Which Homeopathic Drugs May be Marketed,” which described the agency’s enforcement policy. This policy announced something of a hands off approach to homeopathic remedies, which the FDA regards as drugs, as long as they stayed away from treating serious disease such as cancers. In late 2019 the FDA withdrew this policy “because it was inconsistent with the agency’s risk-based approach to regulatory and enforcement action”. The FDA opened a docket for public comment to help it revise its policy on homeopathic drugs. Because of the well documented capture of this governmental agency by Big Pharma there has been great concern by the many millions of US consumers of homeopathic remedies that this new policy will be used to disable or destroy these safe and effective competitors to Pharma.
Another critical warning: DO NOT treat ear infections with antibiotics! Antibiotics just weaken the immune system and lead to more ear infections. I learned to use herbal drops containing mullein and garlic in olive oil, which would relieve the pain and clear up the infection. Follow the directions on the bottle. I’ve also heard that just olive oil will produce the same result. Dr. Palevsky, a holistic NY pediatrician, recently explained why children are prone to ear infections on an FLCCC episode. He said the angle of the ear canal changes with age. Listen here from 27:20 to 32:30.
One more critical suggestion: DO NOT give Tylenol to your child. When a person is sick, they need to get the toxins causing the illness out of their body. Tylenol damages the liver, which makes the liver less able to detoxify. I learned to do lymphatic drainage for respiratory and sinus ailments from Mary Ann Block in “No More Amoxicillin: Preventing and Treating Ear and Respiratory Infections Without Antibiotics.” I’ll include more about that in a later installment, but basically, you massage the head and upper body in a downward and outward direction.
My last critical suggestion for today is to do your own research. I became very cynical about medicine and would say to not even listen to the classical pediatricians. I learned to do the opposite of what the pediatrician said. Maybe a better approach would be to find one you can work with. We tried a few and settled on a practice that didn’t require vaccines. However, that was in the early 2000s. I don’t if this practice has survived its merger into a large medical system, a dangerous trend which strengthens autocratic and corporate control over medicine.
Our Healing Journey Through ASD is a four part series. Continue you reading with the links provided below.
Bio:
Jill Hardina resides in the Poconos and is an advisor to the Pennsylvania Chapter of CHD. Jill was very fortunate to be able to retire from teaching in NYC after about thirty years—two years ago, when the DOE mandated the COVID shot.She knew not to get the shot because of prior experience with vaccines. She had a reaction to the DPT booster when she was twelve; as discussed here, her son was vaccine injured, and she saw the children in her class regress after getting the Swine Flu shot in 2009. She feels that these children are our sacrificial lambs.