Hi Dr. Vincent, My name is XYZ, and I am writing you today in regards to my daughter, ABC. ABC was born on XX/2011, and so she is a little more than 3 years old now. FYI, we have spoken on the phone about 3 days ago, and I am the fellow calling from ABC. Thank you so much for taking the time to speak with me and my wife. Just a brief history on ABC. She was developing normally until I think about 14-16 months mark when we started to see some regression in her behavior and learning. My wife just noticed this and brought it up to my attention, but I dismissed it. At 18 months, we brought her to our pediatrician, and he too dismissed the possibility that there might be something wrong, especially autism. Just before 24 months, she received (in one day) a battery of 4 shots in one visit (including MMR) and I think she really went downhill after that. Her symptoms included tip-toeing, like to be by herself, like to watch TV and playing on the Ipad for hours at a time, difficulty to sleep at night, non-verbal, some frustration-induced screaming, etc. At this point we were really concerned and took her to a local autism doctor. He ordered a full battery of tests (blood test, urine test, feces test, allergy test, etc). Of course, it turned out that she was allergic to all food according to the test, so he prescribed strong pro-biotics, liquid glutathione, strict diet, and progressively B12 shots. Whether some or all of those methods worked fully or partially, we have no ideas. We looked at various diets, from the GAPS diet to GFCF diet to Feingold diet.... I think we tried them all to some degrees, but we didnt have any strong belief in these diets so we didnt really following any of them strictly or at length, and of course, that didnt work out well either for us. From the time she was two, we brought her to the state-sponsored Early Step program and they diagnosed her with severe developmental, language delay, so for like 6 months, we also had speech therapy and ABA therapy in our own homes. Of course, I dont think any of that worked because when she turned 3 years old, they re-tested her and she again was diagnosed with severe developmental language delay, and was placed in optional pre-K Exceptional Student Program in the local elementary school. She was in that program for approximately 1 month, I officially took her out of that program last week because I didnt think she was learning anything but bad behavior and habits from all the kids there. Currently, she is tip-toeing, very high, but since we spoke with you, we really watched this and tried to monitor and lessen this behavior. She sleeps better at night now than before if she does not sleep in the daytime and if she is sufficiently tired. Every night, it is hard for her to get to sleep, and sometimes we had to use Melatonin. Her feces is super stinky, and sometimes she is constipated for days. She is still in diapers, and she has shown no interest at all in going to the bathroom to urinate or defecate. However, she looks very normal (what our peers said) and not people-shy. She is very loving, cuddling, has good eye contact with everyone most of the times. I dont think her muscles tone is either too soft or too hard. Her diet now is extremely limited: steamed white rice, Popeyes fried chicken, McNuggets, Xiu Mai, fried eggs and bread, bacon, ice cream, and pizza. She would refuse to eat anything else. She hates teeth brushing, face washing, sometimes taking a bath can be a challenge but usually ok. She is non-violent most of the times, except when she is wanting something really bad and either we dont understand her or refuse to give it to her.... then she would scream, yell, and dive at us... but this is rare. She can put on her own shoes. Her manual dexterity is somewhat clumsy, but not horrible. She can spoon-feed herself food and drink from a cup (with a straw) relatively well, but she usually tries to make us feed her first and only does it herself if we refuse. She repeats things very well. Her pronunciation can be fantastic. But she is only repeating what people said, and not necessary understanding anything. I think her language development is extremely poor. She only knows a few words: Daddy, Mommy, eat, cup, drink..... and almost nothing else. I think she understands some basic commands like: go upstairs, take shower, turn off the lights, put back shoes, put on shoes, change clothes.... but thats it. She memorizes quite a few things from many months of watching cartoons, educational videos, and Ipad games ... so her left brain is a lot stronger than her right brain, so to speak. We are now currently retiring her Ipad, restricting her TV watching to a minimum, and faithfully monitoring/controlling her tip-toeing. Since 16 months, she got seriously sick twice with high fever and had to be admitted to the ER. Both times, it was something like bronchitis or viem co hong and she was put on antibiotics for 10 days. She is very allergic to insect bites. The bitten spots oftentimes looked very bad and could easily lead to serious infection if not treated immediately and correctly. At this point, I want to engage into a serious conversation with you about your 3 months residency program. I really want to know all the details and logistics so I can start planning from my end. There are so many questions and unknowns and I dont know where to begin. I realize that you are a dedicated doctor and your time is valuable and thats why I am writing this email instead of calling you again. Right now, I am thinking about making a trip to San Jose (dont know exactly when yet, but soon, pending your availability and my own situation). I would like to take my wife and Kim to meet you for a face-to-face consultation and perhaps a visit to your office and your home. I would like to make this also a short 1 week vacation, so perhaps if everything works out, we would drop Kim off and entrust her to your care at the end of this trip. Of course, this is just initial thinking and all the details would need to be worked out pending your availability, comments, and my own work situation. The urgency with this situation dictates that we act now... not a second later. However, now is nearing Christmas time, now is cold, now also means expensive last minute airfares, and also now may or maybe not a good time for you....so therefore I would need your comments and feedback on this. I can also go early next year too ... and of course we can discuss this in details. I am enclosing a couple of ABCs recent videos for you to view. If you have time, of course I would like to converse with you on the phone If not, you and I can also exchange emails too. Thanks so much for doing your work. Please take care and I am looking forward to hearing back from you soon. Sincerely yours, XYZ Answer: Here are my thoughts. Your daughter has problems and you know them very well. My approach to autism treatment is massive action. It means a lot of things to be done or to be tried in a short period of time. Sometimes we find the solution and sometimes we dont. For your daughter I only hope that she can walk flat after the 3-month trial. Other thing you can expect is that she will be able to eat better and healthier diet. Her current diet is causing massive inflammation for her brain and body tissues. If she stop eating them right now, it will take about 6 months for the cells to heal. The body does not heal well when having too much inflammation. If you go to San Jose, I will only spend about an hour to meet you so you can ask or do whatever that you need to do. Actually you can do all of that over the phone instead of flying to San Jose to meet me. Autism treatment requires massive action so you need to think about your action too. Whatever action you take, will that help or delay her treatment process? In case you want to give your daughter a chance to try, I only accept her if she can walk and only when her parents are not around (there is no point for me to care for a child when her or his parents are around). If you come here for a week, your daughter will not start her treatment program until the day you leave. If you are uncomfortable leaving your daughter alone, we also have the instructional program. Thats all for now. Best Regards, Contact Info: Dr. Vincent Hoai Do, MS, DC, D.PSc. ; Email info@doctorvincentdo ; doctorvincentdo ; San Jose Autism & ADHD Recovery Center , 2360 McKee Rd, Ste 5, San Jose, CA 95116, USA.
Posted on: Fri, 12 Dec 2014 07:36:19 +0000
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