As well as an Occupational and Speech Therapist, Elizabeth has been seeing a Physiotherapist over the last two years to try to tackle her toe walking. She literally walks, runs and jumps on the very tips of toes that’ll put a professional ballerina to shame. Despite regular exercises, the physio has recently noticed a stiffening of Elizabeth’s hips and a slight change in posture, as well as, a tightness in her calf muscles. To prevent major surgery when she is older, Elizabeth has been fitted with AFO’s (ankle foot orthosis). She is to wear them five hours a day over how long it takes to get her out of the habit of toe walking. It could be a few months or a few years. At the moment as soon as they are taken off she is back on her toes. She doesn’t seem to mind them which is a blessing and can still climb and jump in them. However, I’m not looking forward to summer as I can imagine how hot they are going to be..
Saturday, July 30, 2011
AFO's
As well as an Occupational and Speech Therapist, Elizabeth has been seeing a Physiotherapist over the last two years to try to tackle her toe walking. She literally walks, runs and jumps on the very tips of toes that’ll put a professional ballerina to shame. Despite regular exercises, the physio has recently noticed a stiffening of Elizabeth’s hips and a slight change in posture, as well as, a tightness in her calf muscles. To prevent major surgery when she is older, Elizabeth has been fitted with AFO’s (ankle foot orthosis). She is to wear them five hours a day over how long it takes to get her out of the habit of toe walking. It could be a few months or a few years. At the moment as soon as they are taken off she is back on her toes. She doesn’t seem to mind them which is a blessing and can still climb and jump in them. However, I’m not looking forward to summer as I can imagine how hot they are going to be.
Lactose Free Diet
I cannot believe how long it has been since I posted on this blog. A lot has happened since March. First, the grommets were not successful, in fact the ear infections worsened (despite following the instructions from the ENT to the letter). My daughter was put on five lots of oral antibiotics and two lots of antibiotic ear drops immediately after the op before her Doctor threw up her hands and gave up. She was just not responding to the antibiotics and so in the end all we could do was give her painkillers. Over Easter she came down with a very bad upper-respiratory infection that saw her off school for three weeks. This was soon followed by a cold and another ear infection. And despite washing her hair with dry shampoo and being very meticulous over getting water near her ears, one of her grommets came out.
Totally frustrated by the nonchalant response by her ENT I went searching on the internet in a quest to find out what could be causing all these ear infections. Her Occupational Therapist mentioned that it could be something in her diet and bingo, website after website mentioned lactose intolerance as being a major factor when it comes to ear infectionns. Lactose intolerance is the inability to digest the milk-sugar lactose and it usually develops in susceptible people around the 2-4 year mark (she started getting ear infections at 2), when the stomach stops producing the enzyme Lactase, which is needed to break down the lactose. Lactose thickens mucus and can cause an allergic reaction which in turn, leads to ear infections. With nothing to loose I immediately put Elizabeth on a lactose free diet.
Lactose intolerance is not to be confused with a milk allergy. When I mention to people that my daughter has been put on a lactose free diet they naturally assume I’ve cut out all dairy from her diet and become concerned about her calcium intact. This is not so (she drinks over one litre of milk a day). Following Australian Government Dietary Guidelines, I put Elizabeth on lactose free milk, changed her cheese from Tasty to Cheddar (hard cheese does not contain lactose) and made sure her yoghurt contained acidophilus (it did). I did not have to change her bread as we have always eaten wholemeal as I could never see the point of white bread as it doesn’t have any nutritional benefits whatsoever. And I changed her porridge over from instant (which contains milk powder) to, well, real porridge. I’ve also put her on Inner Health Plus and upped her vitamin C and B and her iron.
Within one week I saw a major difference in Elizabeth. Although generally a happy child she suffered a lot from diarrhoea (so much so that has spent a few stints in hospital with a drip in her arm) and she had a lot of negative behaviours such as scratching and pulling hair. It has been two months since I started the diet and I cannot recall the last time Elizabeth has pulled my hair or scratched my arms. She no-longer suffers from diarrhoea and she has not had a single ear infection since I eliminated lactose from her diet.
Overall, things are much more pleasant and I am able to focus more on her communication and gaining life skills such as dressing and feeding herself. Still completely non-verbal I’m starting to accept the fact that Elizabeth may never talk and am looking at alternatives to her Pecs cards as they are not a long term solution and she is rather reluctant to use them anyway. Her Speech Therapist has purchased her an Ipad and I am about to upload the Proloquo app, an agumentative and alternative communication
software program designed for autistic children. At $200 I’m hoping she takes to it. The Special School Elizabeth is attending at the moment is for children with physical and/or severe intellectual impairment. Because of the severity of Elizabeth’s autism she is classed as being intellectually disabled. My dream is for Elizabeth to eventually move onto the nearby Special School which is for much higher functioning children who can basically walk and talk, or if the child is nonverbal, being able to use an alternative communication device competently enough so as not to fall behind the verbal children. It is heart wrenching to admit that my dream of Elizabeth moving onto a private school with a special ed department will probably never eventuate. But as a keep telling myself, one baby step at a time. At the moment I’m just relieved that we’ve finally tackled those ear infections that have plagued our lives over the last two years.
Totally frustrated by the nonchalant response by her ENT I went searching on the internet in a quest to find out what could be causing all these ear infections. Her Occupational Therapist mentioned that it could be something in her diet and bingo, website after website mentioned lactose intolerance as being a major factor when it comes to ear infectionns. Lactose intolerance is the inability to digest the milk-sugar lactose and it usually develops in susceptible people around the 2-4 year mark (she started getting ear infections at 2), when the stomach stops producing the enzyme Lactase, which is needed to break down the lactose. Lactose thickens mucus and can cause an allergic reaction which in turn, leads to ear infections. With nothing to loose I immediately put Elizabeth on a lactose free diet.
Lactose intolerance is not to be confused with a milk allergy. When I mention to people that my daughter has been put on a lactose free diet they naturally assume I’ve cut out all dairy from her diet and become concerned about her calcium intact. This is not so (she drinks over one litre of milk a day). Following Australian Government Dietary Guidelines, I put Elizabeth on lactose free milk, changed her cheese from Tasty to Cheddar (hard cheese does not contain lactose) and made sure her yoghurt contained acidophilus (it did). I did not have to change her bread as we have always eaten wholemeal as I could never see the point of white bread as it doesn’t have any nutritional benefits whatsoever. And I changed her porridge over from instant (which contains milk powder) to, well, real porridge. I’ve also put her on Inner Health Plus and upped her vitamin C and B and her iron.
Within one week I saw a major difference in Elizabeth. Although generally a happy child she suffered a lot from diarrhoea (so much so that has spent a few stints in hospital with a drip in her arm) and she had a lot of negative behaviours such as scratching and pulling hair. It has been two months since I started the diet and I cannot recall the last time Elizabeth has pulled my hair or scratched my arms. She no-longer suffers from diarrhoea and she has not had a single ear infection since I eliminated lactose from her diet.
Overall, things are much more pleasant and I am able to focus more on her communication and gaining life skills such as dressing and feeding herself. Still completely non-verbal I’m starting to accept the fact that Elizabeth may never talk and am looking at alternatives to her Pecs cards as they are not a long term solution and she is rather reluctant to use them anyway. Her Speech Therapist has purchased her an Ipad and I am about to upload the Proloquo app, an agumentative and alternative communication
software program designed for autistic children. At $200 I’m hoping she takes to it. The Special School Elizabeth is attending at the moment is for children with physical and/or severe intellectual impairment. Because of the severity of Elizabeth’s autism she is classed as being intellectually disabled. My dream is for Elizabeth to eventually move onto the nearby Special School which is for much higher functioning children who can basically walk and talk, or if the child is nonverbal, being able to use an alternative communication device competently enough so as not to fall behind the verbal children. It is heart wrenching to admit that my dream of Elizabeth moving onto a private school with a special ed department will probably never eventuate. But as a keep telling myself, one baby step at a time. At the moment I’m just relieved that we’ve finally tackled those ear infections that have plagued our lives over the last two years.
Saturday, March 19, 2011
Elizabeth's Op
It is such a relief to have this operation over and done with. Her adenoids were really enlarged which attributed to her sleeping difficulties and being on antibiotics all the time was beginning to wear on her health. I am also hoping that with the improvement in her hearing she might start talking. Turning five next month, the statistics of her being able to talk are getting less and less as she gets older. Here’s hoping that 2011 is the year for miracles.
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