Autism treatment for older kids –
Vanessa's special journey II
Biomedical autism treatment for Vanessa
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Vanessa started biomedical autism treatment in 2004, when she was already a 15-year-old teenager. Her journey presents an interesting case study of the extent to which an older autistic child can improve his / her condition.
In an earlier article posted in March 2006, we traced Vanessa's journey from 2004 till then, listing out some of the major improvements in her behaviour. Since she started biomedical treatment, her ATEC score improved from 77 to 41 at that time.
Since then, Vanessa has started Hyperbaric Oxygen Therapy, Neurofeedback Training as well as RDI (Relationship Development Intervention).
This second article by Vanessa's father John Yeo, with a YouTube video, continues to chart Vanessa's progress with biomedical autism treatment.
Progress with autism treatment
When Channel U, a popular Chinese language TV channel, approached me to put Vanessa on TV in May 2006, I was a little reluctant.
We had dosed her with a high potency homeopathic remedy two weeks earlier and she was beginning to react with some anxiety and loud monologue. Almost all day long, she would say, “I’ll throw you out!”.
In classical homeopathy treatment, this is known as an aggravation, whereby symptoms get worse before they get better.
The programme would put her in bad light, I told the producer. She assured me that she would try to edit out the bad parts and we agreed to proceed.
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At that time, Vanessa had been on biomedical autism treatment for about 1 1/2 years and had completed about 40 sessions of mild hyperbaric oxygen therapy (mild-HBOT).
Public temper tantrums were already a thing of the pass since August 2005. But she would still get hyper-excited in a shopping centre and would literally run from one end to the next.
She would hyperventilate on entering an elevator. Often people would get so alarmed that they would run out! Our skins have become quite thick so we are always happy to have the elevator all to ourselves. This was in May 2006.
RDI autism treatment
In September 2006, we began RDI (Relationship Development Intervention).
Vanessa was only able to do the RDI ‘exercises’ for short periods of a few minutes. Then she would remove herself from the setting. She had lots of coping anxieties. This is apparent when you view the YouTube video.
By December 2006 / January 2007, she was more “with us”.
Neurofeedback autism treatment
In mid-September 2006, we started neurofeedback training, adding yet another element of the biomedical approach to autism treatment.
To our surprise, Vanessa stopped her monologues by the third 30-min session.
Almost all the kids who have been doing Neurofeedback training with me at The Autism Clinic have shown improvements. But no one has made such a dramatic improvement in so short a time.
I attribute this to the more than 70 hours of mild hyperbaric oxygen therapy that Vanessa already had by then. The brain blood flow was already in place and the Neurofeedback stimulation just came in to connect the brain.
Vanessa now receives about 5 to 7 hours of mild-HBOT a week, for as long as two hours per session.
Results of autism treatment
In early November 2006, I was away in the US for a conference. One day, I got an excited telephone call from my wife.
In all her 18 years, Vanessa has never showed signs of missing me or my wife when we travelled without her. This time, at dinner, Vanessa told my wife: “I want daddy to sit here.”
Yes, she is also using pronouns “you”, “me” “I” more consistently and appropriately.
We were also getting comments like “She’s so calm”, “She’s so much better”, She is quite different”, “She looks so happy”, “She looks so normal”.
Vanessa at a wedding
In December, we attended a wedding. Vanessa surprised us by going up to the bride and greeted her unprompted: “Hi Lyn”.
The bride, Lyn, is Vanessa's cousin whom she had not seen for more than 10 years.
Vanessa also greeted a number of aunts unprompted. She was very settled at dinner and after a rather moving speech by the bride and groom, she said to herself: ”Spoken through the heart.”
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Vanessa has also put on a few kilos in a short span of a couple of months. Again, this is apparent when you view the YouTube video.
Her appetite is good, just like a normal teenager’s. I am guessing that her rather persistent intestinal yeast problem all these years has finally been corrected by the 100+ hours of mild hyperbaric oxygen therapy or m-HBOT.
Her general mindfulness has also increased. For example, she loves to eat whole-shell sunflower seeds in my car! We normally stop her as she would leave the shells all over the floorboard. Now, she voluntarily puts the shells in a plastic bag.
She even switches off the air-conditioning when she leaves her room… unprompted.
Biomedical treatment - after 2 years
Vanessa still does not talk a lot. But she looks at people now and smiles a lot. She still behaves a little off just before her menstruation and I am working out a natural approach to solve this issue.
Although Vanessa has gotten over the obsession of throwing belongings out of the window, she still picks up food packages in the supermarket to smell them.
After two years of biomedical autism treatment and all the other stuff, she obviously still has issues to solve.
HBOT treatment
From my discussions with other healthcare professionals involved in autism treatment, as well as from conference materal gathered at ACAM (American College for the Advancement of Medicine) conference which I attended in 2006, I have decided to target 250 to 300 or more hours of hyperbaric oxygen therapy for Vanessa.
I believe this is a very safe and proven way for recovery of injured brains.
In the long run, HBOT autism treatment is actually not that expensive if we have our own chamber.
To help families provide this valuable autism treatment for their autistic kids, The Autism Clinic has launched a co-ownership scheme that would bring the cost of HBOT autism treatment down to $50 per session in the first year, and practically free thereafter.
For details, please call The Autism Clinic at (65) 6253 6257
With a hyperbaric oxygen chamber at home, other family members can benefit too. Personally, I have had more than 100 hours of HBOT treatment with Vanessa and I can feel the difference. In particular, I find that I can recall faces and names better.
‘Coming back’ after autism treatment
Vanessa is a beautiful child not just outwardly. She has a very mild personality. Not once has she ever protested when we tell her she cannot buy her favorite candies at the supermarket.
She would pick up an item, look at me and smile. I would shake my head and she would give the item a shake, smell it and put it back on the shelf. There has never been a tantrum episode over this. Many parents of autistic children will appreciate this.
My wife and I have commented in recent weeks that Vanessa is now so easy to look after.
Most of the time, she goes to sleep on her own though we have to remind her to brush her teeth. She does this independently.
During the December school holidays, we visited Vivo City (Singapore's newest and largest shopping mall) at the opening week.
Those of you who have visited the mega mall during that period will know what it was like - jam packed with people, crowded, noisy and chaotic.
We stayed there for more than two hours with Vanessa walking beside mum all the time!
No more noise sensitivity and running about in the mall!
We don’t get stares in the public so often now, as she is hardly noticeable in a restaurant or in church.
Slowly but surely, our teenage Vanessa is coming back to us.