Let the chelation begin

I keep forgetting to update on M. We've been seeing a Nutritional Therapist for several months now and seem to be seeing results.
Obviously, for his allergies to be so bad, there was a lot of stuff going on with M. I was worried about heavy metals, and the dr said that yes, he does have mercury, aluminum and others (those being the main 2), but his system wasn't yet ready to deal with them. First, we worked on getting the pituitary gland in working order. It's the control house. We did this through herbs--all of it, really is herbal. The chemical overload of western med would, in my opinion, be way too much for his already damaged system. Plus, western med doesn't recognize most of his issues. Anyway, since his pituitary wasn't fully functional when we started, it was having a hard time making enough HCl for his stomach to digest food with. This was the source of the increased allegies-all the new allergens. Food particles were not being broken down by the stomach, passing to his intestine where they are absorbed. But large food particles are recognized as invaders by the immune system. Hence the problem. So, getting him started on the acid supplement made a huge difference. No new allergies since that started. Whew!
Then we needed to work on draining some of the excess toxins from his kidneys and liver. Also herbal. That took awhile. The dr wants to go slow so nothing gets dumped on his system.
Awhile back we increased pro-biotics. That helps the balance in the gut. And since food is more digested, it's getting us somewhere now. His skin is mostly cleared up.
When we came back from Rockaway with his kin itchy again, it gave the dr another clue. He has put him on an iodine supplement so his body can better use fats in his diet. The theory being that even though he's eating lots of good fats, he can't really assimilate them, robbing his skin of it's protective oils. If this works, his skin should be much healthier.
And finally, since some of his organs are doing a bit better, he has started chelation therapy. This is to start moving some of the heavy metals out. We had to wait since before, with his liver and kidneys needing some help, the metals would just be re-deposited around his body. This is really, really low-level. So it may take awhile to complete, but will be easier on his system.
I can definitely tell when he starts something new. He doesn't sleep as well, and his attitude gets a little worse. But overall, I think we're making progress. We just don't have the major, huge meltdowns anymore. We still have meltdowns, just not as big! Progress!
On the food front, we took out grains for quite awhile, and have been putting them back in. I had read that soaking grains made them easier to digest. I was a little skeptical at first. But in the spirit of things, M's first re-indroduction to grains was soaked teff. Then soaked millet. He was doing just fine with them, so I went ahead and whipped up some pancakes with flour straight out of the bin. Big mistake! He was raging, evil monster all day! Totally had no emotional control and lashed out at everyone over everything. It was kinda scary. We're back to just soaked grains. That just means that I mix up the flour and liquid the night before and let it soak on the counter overnight. Or whole grains. Just like you would soak beans before cooking them. Simple, but effective.

Fresh Milk

I'll just begin by saying oops. I forgot to take the camera. I forgot to ask the farm owners if I could talk about them. This will be general until next time.

So, last time we were at M's dr appt, I mentioned that I couldn't find a place that had goat milk and was accepting new customers. He gave me the number of a place just a few miles away. I called and, yes, I could go and pick up fresh milk that very day. Hooray!!
So we drove out to get our yummy fresh milk. The people were so nice and friendly--as people who produce food lovingly for others tend to be. And, they let the boys come into the barn and meet the goats, chickens and cats. What a fun afternoon!
Being late spring/heading into summer, the kids are old enough to start weaning. They were very friendly and playful. The mama goats were also very friendly. The kids (mine) spent a lot of time getting to know the goats, and the people who work so hard to raise them in a humane and respectful way. They even offered to let M help milk if we get there at the right time sometime. Wow. Talk about transparency in your food supply!
This farm is not certified organic. It's better. I don't need to have a certification when I can go to the farm, see what the animals are fed, see how they are treated, where they live and see how the milk is collected.
When we got home, we sampled the milk. I had heard that goat milk when fresh is just as good as cow milk. I totally thought people were joking. All the milk, cheese and yogurt I've tasted tasts goaty. Not this. It is so yummy!
I am sooooooooooo happy we have a source now for fresh, real goat milk.

chicken pox

No, we don't have it. Sigh.

Many of you know that I'm not a big fan of vaccines. I'm not anti vax. I think they totally have their place. I just think that injecting every child with every major dead virus is supreme idiocy. The vaccine that I hate the most is the varicella vaccine. The makers of this vax would like you to believe that chicken pox is a horridly deadly disease.
Okay, who had chicken pox? Yeah, and you pulled through just fine huh? Probably got to miss school for a week if you were lucky too, right? I even had it about a year ago. I felt like I'd been hit by a truck, but it only lasted for a few days. I'm thrilled it wasn't a stomach bug!
Want to know how to protect your child from varicella? Make sure they get it as a child. Then make sure as you age, you are around kids with chicken pox. Seriously.
Here is a fantastic article on why we need chicken pox.
Oh, and DO NOT GIVE THEM TYLENOL!!!!!!! It will prevent the liver from coping with the disease. They absolutely HAVE to have the fever to process the disease too, so avoid the advil too, please. Giving these drugs has been shown to cause more complications from chicken pox than any thing else.

Halloween Pictures, and the tooth

GrandmaJ found this outfit during her Halloween shopping expeditions. It fit E perfectly. It says, "my little pumpkin" on the side.

Big brother holding him. It's so nice to have a big big brother. He's a huge help. You can see that the back of the playsuit says, "trick or treat" on the bum.

Swimmer Guy and Robert the Bruce in their Halloween splendor. G decided that the trick or treating business was great. After a few houses, he stops, looks in his bag and then back up to me with wonder in his eyes. "Him give me candy! I liiike this!"
And he figured out that everyone thought his costume was great so he showed it off at every house. When M told people he was Robert the Bruce, they just looked at him cross eyed. Then he'd say, "you know, King of Scotland?" and they'd just nod. G definately had the better candy bag to raid that night!

And the teeth. This was taken Sunday night. It looks pretty good now. Of course, it's also obvious from this picture that we will be talking to all our friends and our awesome dentist about orthodontists in the near future. Genetics suck!

I'm a drug manufacturer!

I have been trying to consume enough herbs to make at least some milk for E. But these herbs get mighty pricey! Especially in the form of tinctures. And most of them are hard to find. And if I find them, they are in such small quantities, I would have to swallow the entire bottle to have the effect that I need. So, when the Mountain Rose Herbs catalog came in the mall, I was sooo excited! All the herbs I need, organic or wild crafted, at decent prices, and the stuff I need to make them consumable. So today, our package arrived with the herbs, a capsule machine, capsules, glycerin and other things we found in the catalog that were just too good not to order. And now, I have capsules just the way I want them! I mixed the herbs in the picture below in my trusty coffee grinder (usually used for flax seeds). This was to make them fine enough to go into the capsules. I didn't use fenugreek in this batch for 2 reasons. The first is that I still have a bunch of fenugreek caps. The second is that I have to take so much fenugreek that it wouldn't be worth it to combine it with the other herbs.

The capsule machine after I finished using it. A bit of a mess, but the instructions forwarned me to use a pie pan. Thank you instructions!

The finished product. It takes awhile to make them, but then it's faster than filling them by hand! And it beats the heck out of drinking them in a tea. Yeah, tried that. Gag! Talk about bitter herbs.

So with the fenugreek and E nursing round the clock, I am getting drops of milk. Not lots, but I know he is getting breastmilk at each feeding. And I can still express drops when he's done nursing. I can't pump any, but I'm wondering if he's getting a fair bit anyway. I'm hoping that by adding these herbs in the amounts that I know I'm supposed to will make it so he gets a few ounces a day. It's not a lot, but better than nothing.

Respiratory distress

Not the words you want to have to use to describe the condition of your newborn.
E caught the boys' cold big time. By Wed. night he was having really rough time breathing. I called the advice nurse for Kaiser and she said to take him to the local ER. I was worried by that point, because Kaiser is not known for their eagerness to pay out-of-network. So, off the the ER I went. We got there at10:30pm. By 11:30 we were looking at a chest X-ray that was a little fuzzy. The dr. made the call to transfer him to Doernbecher Children's Hospital in Portland. He was worried enough to send him by ambulance.
Fortunately his oxygen saturation was good enough that he didn't need anything really. The local hospital had tried to dilate his airways using an albuterol-type drug. That didn't work to help his breathing any, but it did seem to wake him up enough to get him to eat. Since he was eating and the super-nose sucking device worked it's magic, we were able to go back home that afternoon.
I'm beat. So is C. Needless say, he has a bigger pile on his desk at work. I'm so glad he's able to stay home again.
The doctor (who, coincidentally, was G's dr last year during his Kawasaki's bout) gave me a great idea. G is now allowed to kiss E as much as he wants--on his toes! I felt bad about saying "stop kissing your brother" but then, look what came of it. I was ready to lay down the law. So this is a great compromise I think.
Also, as much as I was creeped out by the idea of a hand sanitizer with chemicals that stay on your hands for up to 3 hours (I mean, really it's quite disturbing, don't you think?) G will now be sporting a new scent anytime he is around other germy-situations. Anytime we leave the house actually.
We shall have to see how they respond to the FDA. However, it has been in use the UK for awhile now. My in-laws quite like the stuff. We'll see. I'm more concerned with E breathing for the duration of the winter for right now

cute bebe pictures

I have the cutest kids. See?

G always wants to kiss the baby. Then he exclaims with glee, "Him likes me!"

Everyone wants kiss him, so we decided to share. Altogether now, Awwww.

The best way to travel is by sling. Or by wrap or mai tei, or pouch, or you get the idea. This is E in the old ring sling. See how his fingers are already chunking just a teensy bit? I think he is going to be a roly-poly like G.

Unfortunately, G is really good at bringing home viruses. Could have something to do with the fact that he always has his fingers in his mouth. Who ever heard of a 3 year old who compulsively bites his nails? Anyway, he brought home something yucky and has shared it with his brothers and father. The big guys are uncomfortable and going through tissues like crazy. Emergen-C is the drink of the week. But poor little E. Only 3 weeks old and already suffering from his first nasty cold. Newborns can't breathe through their mouths. So when the nose is stuffy it makes life very difficult. I steamed him this morning in the bathroom, I put saline drops in his nose and attempted to suction (didn't get as much as when he spit up through his nose last night), and I am rubbing essential oils on my breast a ways above where his little nose hits so he can have the benefit of that. Only, none of it seems to be working very well. Fortunately, when he does drift into a deeper sleep, his breathing gets a lot smoother. My heart just breaks for the little angel. I need one of those mommy-magic-wands. Anyone know where those are kept?