Atropa Belladonna~ Raven (a.k.a. Nightshade)'s Weblog ~
These are the ARCHIVES of March 2007. For more archives, visit the Archives page. For the current Weblog entries, check the Main page.
Atropa Belladonna| Fri, March 2, 2007 (11:40pm) Tales from the Crypt I'm posting from a very tiny little office (a.k.a. a closet), using Pico, whilst getting a backrub from a very cool guy. So, if my typing sucks, I totally blame it on him. (BTW, Mom, Annan says Hi!) So, basically, I'm having a lot of fun here in Vancouver. The conference is going really well. Fabulously, actually. I've learned a lot more things about Autism than I realized I didn't know. I thought I'd learn new treatment techniques (and I have) but I've also learned that current medical opinion is pegging Autism on heavy metals, poor oxygenation of the brain (related to tissue swelling) and nutritional issues caused by 'leaky gut' syndrome. I've met Karen Simmons (founder of Autism Today) and I've stood less than 4 meters from Dr. Temple Grandin (one of the most famous Autistic individuals alive today. I have had fabulous steak dinner, mouthwatering Creme Brulee, and Ethiopian food so good that I wanted to phone Baby Jail to tell Jenn about it. I have watched an episode of House at 30,000 feet. I took my Girlfriend to the Vancouver Art Gallery. I walked miles up a hill, and down again. (We were not lost, though. Nope.) I have modeled corsets. (I have spent money on corsets and other fabulous clothes which I will not tell Shades about). I Have been party to booking a cute And the Conference is only half way over. Tomorrow, I will learn more, eat at a Chocolate buffet, and maybe go clubbing. I will not buy more clothing. At least, I'll try not to. See you all in a couple days. |
| Mon, March 5, 2007 (9:50am) Home again. Exhausted. I need a vacation to recover from my vacation. Had lots of fun, though. And lots of learning. My brain is full. It will take months to unpack my cerebral cortex. Perhaps it would help if I tried to memory-dump to this weblog. Would people care to hear about some of the things I learned at the conference? I'm not saying I necessarily agree with absolutely everything I heard in the lectures, nor that I want to try out every new treatment I heard of (HyperBaric Oxygen Treatments? Oh, my.) There are, however, a lot of Moms who read this weblog, and they might be interested in knowing more about the 'great debate' on the lrelationship between Autism and Vaccinations, or even casual readers who'd be fascinated by the increase in Autism Rates around the world (particularly in places like New Jersey). Drop me a quick-comment if you feel like it, with Ayes, Nays, or demands that Autism be ignored in favour of sordid stories about Vancouver. |
| Tues, March 6, 2007 (11:05am) Okay, the consensus seems to be for stories of all sorts: Autism and Vancouver. I don't have much time right now (this morning's 'free' time has disappeared quickly between grocery shopping and receiving our new dishwasher) so I'll do short bits. Vancouver: We visted our friends Joe & Rain, and saw the renvations they'd done on their house in Kitsilano(?) including their bathroom renos. Oh. My. Gooodness. They have the most fabulous bathroom in the world. There's a most stylish toilet, a jetted soaker tub in a beautiful alcove, and a shower which could be on the front on a Home Improvement magazine. It's got 5 showerheads, one of which is huge and comes from directly above - called a 'Rain Head' I think.) All the showerheads have their own heat controls. The floor & 2 walls are tiled in beautiful terracotta patterns. The other 2 walls of the shower are solid tempered glass. It's got a glass bench inside, and a huge glass door. It was stunning. And I got to shower in it. (There, see that! A story of a naked babe getting hot & steamy in Vancouver!) And now, for Autism: Did you know that the rates of Autism have been steadily climbing since the 1970's? What was once thought to be a rare & obscure condition now affects 1 in 166 kids, by conservative estimates. In New Jersey, the rate is closer to 1 in 54. Areas of the world which have higher pollution levels (heavy metal contamination in the ground water, acid rain, high pesticide use, etc.) have higher rates of Autism. There are many fascinating therapies being used on Autistic kids, from Chelation (using drugs to remove toxic chemicals from the body), to diet therapy, to anti-fungals, to HyperBaric Oxygen Treatments (a.k.a HBOT). HBOT is really fascinating. Basically, you put a kid into a special chamber and increase the atmospheric pressure to 1.4 times normal (or sometimes more) and then you add extra oxygen into the mix (though some places don't). This causes oxygen to enter the person's blood stream in much higher concentrations: instead of counting on red blood cells and hemoglobin to transport oxygen, you actually get molecules of ogygen disolving directly into the blood stream. The oxygen then travels through the body, to many areas (like the brain) where it leaves the bloodstream and goes through the tissue. This allows oxygen to reach cells in higher concentrations, and also to permeate further into tissues which might otherwise receive a lot less oxygen. This stimulates cell growth, and healing (which is why it is somtimes used in treating burn victims) and also lets the mitochodria (the 'power house' of the cell) function more efficiently, producing more energy. Many Autistic kids who receive HBOT (and we're talking 50 - 100 treatments, here) show marked improvement. Some come close to full recovery, while others go from being non-verbal to verbal, or from being unresponsive to their environment to responsive. Other kids get no noticable benefit from it at all. They have theories about why the HBOT helps, but I don't want to go into it right now. What is particularly interesting to me is that it helps, and that gives a clue as to what is causing the problems in the first place. We know that Autistic kids have some problems in their brains, but now, we have clues which suggest the problems lie in lack of energy within the brain - like poor blood flow, inusffiecient oxygenation, and/or something going wrong with the Mitochondrial function. More later (maybe tomorrow) on the theories behind the cerebral malfunction, and other fascinating therapies, like Chelation. |
| Wed, March 7, 2007 (1:55pm) Yesterday, we had our new dishwasher delivered. My Dad came over in the evening to install it, but due to some hardware malfunction in the old dishwasher (a coupling had become corroded & seized) the installation didn't go quite as smoothly as planned. In fact, it looks like we're going to need a new coupling and probably the assistance of a professional plumber to get our new dishwasher hooked up. Alas. My Dad was really awesome about coming over, though (Hi Dad!) and I appreciated the help, even though the dishwasher is not yet functional. Ah, well... after a month of doing dishes by hand, what's another week or two, right? Autism and Chelation Therapy Another one of the interesting new therapies which has shown great improvements in a lot of Autistic kids is Chelation. It's a series of medications which is given to help remove heavy metals from the body - mercury in specific. It's not as safe as many of the conventional therapies - the Chelates have some side effects and can be dangerous when not used properly - and it requires regular blood testing to watch for potential problems. However, in many cases, particularly of Regressive Autism (where the child was developing normally but suddenly became 'Autistic' and lost the language and social skills they'd had) there has been dramatic recovery, and some kids are even "Cured" of Autism. What Chelation does, basically, is to provide another chemical for Heavy metals to bind to, so that they are taken out of the cells, and can be removed from the body by the kidneys. In the case of Mercury (which binds to brain cells like mad) a sulphur-based chelate is introduced to the body. The mercury lets go of the sulphur in the brain cells and grabs onto the sulphur in the chelate drug ('switching dance partners' is the phrase which one doctor used. I like it.) and then gets excreted safely. The brain, freed from slavery to mercury, can now produce energy and neurochemicals the way it's supposed to, and things function normally again. At least, in theory. Not all kids respond to this therapy, though, and many kids have to be on it for much longer than an average person in order to show any effect. But the fact that it works is a pretty good indicator that heavy metals play a part in Autism. And from there, we get into the great debate of Mercury in Vaccines, and whether vaccines 'cause' Autism. I'm not really prepared to go into that now, and it'll take more time than I have ATM to do the topic justice. If you're interested, do a Google search, and you'll discover that there are plenty of studies which "prove" that vaccines are perfectly safe. There are also many which "prove" that they are the chief factor in the rise of Autism. The government (and Dr. House) would have us believe that it really doesn't matter if vaccines carry a slight risk - the risk of morbidity or mortality from not getting vaccinated against dangerous childhood diseases is much worse. And yeah, I buy that. Kinda. But it's beginning to cost the government (and insurance companies, and parents, and society at large) much, much, more to deal with the epidemic rise of Autism than to deal with the occasional outbreak of these childhood disease epidemics. I'd hold off on vaccinating my kids with the MMR vaccine, personally, until I know a little more about the real pro's and cons. Note: I'm not saying I wouldn't vaccinate my kids. I'm saying I'd hold off. Exactly why will be discussed in future postings. |
| Mon, March 12, 2007 (10:25am) Sims 2: Seasons So, why haven't I been updating my weblog? Well, besides working and putting in a couple shifts at the clinic, I've been playing the latest Sims expansion. Seasons is perhaps the prettiest expansion yet. I could bitch about it not having nearly enough cool new outfits, and barely anything for new hairstyles (unless you count hats being put over old hairstyles) and no new building tools, but I won't. I haven't been able to pull myself away from playing the main game enough to make new houses or build shiny new families in the Create-a-Sim editor. It's just that pretty. The visual effects of the weather and changing seasons give the game a very cool new feel. The lighting changes from the bright days of summer to the warm orange tones of autumn to the cool crisp shades of winter and back to bright springs and summers again. There's 6 new career paths, too, which is something they've been needing for a while. Your Sims also get bonuses on certain actions (like studying, or building romances) depending on the season, and that's kinda neat - it adds a bit of strategy to the game play: Do I make a pass at that cute girl right now, or work on my career first, and wait 'til Spring to start wooing her? There's some serious annoyances, though, like the body thermometer. If your Sims get too hot or too cold, bad things happen to them. But does that stop the stupid electronic people from going outside to play on the swingset in the middle of the stupid electronic winter, without putting on their stupid electronic coats? No! And then they get stupid electronic simulated frostbite! And if you're the type of Sims player who likes to put your Sim on the treadmill to work on his body score until his Hygiene bar is completely red... well, you can't anymore. After only a single Sim-hour on the treadmill, the body temp gets dangerously high, and your Sim gets heat stroke. I'm inclined to look online for a cheat code to turn off that stupid thermometer. If I can find that cheat code, I think this will be my favorite expansion yet. If not, it ranks just a little behind Sims 2: Pets. - - - Ladies of Hack On Friday night, I DM'd my first D&D game in over a decade. Luckily, my players were very forgiving of the fact that I didn't know this new set of rules inside and out. We needed to consult the books a couple times, and on more than one occasion I had to draw on Lady Myke's knowledge to resolve a technical question. The game went very well despite this, and everyone seemed to have a good time, and really got into their characters. Our roster is as follows:
All the players are female, and I would like to say that the group is every bit as bloodthirsty as any group of males I have played with. Perhaps more so. This could be an interesting campaign. (grin) - - - Autistic Enterocolitis Guess what? 50 - 80% of Autistic chilren also have gastro-intestinal symptoms of some sort. Many (perhaps most) of these kids aren't diagnosed with any bowel problems, though, because they can't communicate the problem, or because their health-care providers don't run the appropriate tests. In one case, a mother brought her Autistic son to several different doctors because he was bashing his head against walls, and she thought he was in pain. The doctors wouldn't do tests, because headbashing is 'just one of those things autistic kids do'. Luckily, the mom kept pushing, and found a doctor who was willing to scope the kid's intestines. It turns out the kid had intestinal problems as bad as most Crohn's patients. Once the kid was put onto the appropriate medication (anti-inflammatories and pain meds) the head-bashing stopped, and most of the other autistic-like symptoms went away, too. Could Autism be related to a bowel disorder? Well, the incidence of Autism is higher in fammilies with any kind of allergies or auto-immune disorders in them. Genetic studies haven't found a single gene (or genes) which can be directly correlated with Autism, but they have isolated 50 or so genes which they suspect are involved. Of these genes, 22 are also suspected in Crohn's disease, and several are suspected in Celiac's disease - both diseases of the G.I. tract. Interesting, isn't it? I suspect there will be a lot more research done in the near future to look into the G.I. component of autism, especially from a genetic standpoint. (There's a lot of funding available for studies in genetics, you know. Co-incidentally, there is very little funding for studies looking into environmental factors, because that might show that we're poisoning our environment or something.) Okay - next time, I'll try to talk more about cool G.I. stuff, like leaky gut! Betcha just can't wait, right? |
| Comment added Wed, March 14, 2007 (11:55am) - acronym tags added by me. Shani has this Public comment: Comments : over 70 % of Crohn's patients have a form of OCD, or Aspergers or ADHD or other similar issue.- - - Yes, Shani - it would be fascinating to compare notes & discuss studies sometime! Maybe next time I hit J&H, I'll steal you for a bit. |
| Wed, March 14, 2007 (1:40pm) Excellent news on the Hotel front! We have a hotel for GenCon! Woohoo! I've been checking the hotel reservation pages daily - 3 different hotels, plus the GenCon reservation block - and coming up empty (although the genCon page now list 10 "available" hotels instead of 3, most of which are at the airport and not really an option for us, and the others don't have a room available on all of our dates). Then Shades sent me an email. Apparently, people who are registered as Exhibitors have a different block of houses available to them! And this year, Shades is registered as an exhibitor with the forge. So I plugged the code into the GenCon reservation page, and a dozen hotels came up. We're now booked in the Hyatt Regency, for almost half the cost of the Marriott 'concierge' level room which we'd been using as a fall-back. The Marriott reservation was cancelled today (yay!) and I'm pretty comfortable with the state of things. Of course, I'm gonna keep checking to see if something opens up at the Embassy Suites (our most preferred hotel), but even if it doesn't, it's not a big deal. We've stayed at the Hyatt before - it's a good hotel, connected by pedways to the Convention Hall, and even happens to be kitty-corner from the Embassy Suites, so we can duck over there for late-night forge gaming with ease. Next year, though, we're booking a room at the Embassy Suites as soon as the dates for GenCon are confirmed. - - - Leaky Gut Everyone reading this has had some kind of high school biology under their belt, right? You know that the Gastro-Intestinal tract (the "G.I." tract) includes your mouth, esophagus, stomach, small intestine, and large inestine, and that - in a technical sense - it is 'outside' the body, because the things which go into it aren't immediately taken into the tissues. Special cells have the job of absorbing nutrients and liquid from the food which we pour into our G.I. tract, and they act as a screen, choosing which proteins and molecules are allowed to enter our body proper. These cells are covered in villi and microvilli, little finger-like protrusions which increase the surface area of the cell, and let it absorb more nutrients. I can't remember the exact amount of surface area in the intestine, but I remember it being compared to that of a football field. There's a lot of absorbtive surface in there. Your high school biology lessons should also help you remember what happens during infection or inflammation: the area swells, and cells create little gaps between them, so that white blood cells can enter the area and attack the bad stuff. It gets hot, swollen, and usually painful. Well, what happens when the inflammation is in the lining of your intestines? The cells lining the gut swell, and the finger-like protrusions get smaller, and sometimes even disappear. Your ability to absorb the right nutrients goes way down. At the same time, the cells create little gaps between them, and things can get in which shouldn't get in. Big proteins (like gluten) can bypass the intestinal cells and get into the tissues and cells without being broken down into useable components. Heavy metals can get in, too, and be absorbed into the blood stream. All kinds of things which would never get past the intestinal lining of an average person do, and that's called 'leaky gut'. Of course, your body doesn't like these foreign particles floating around in it, and often it causes an immune response. This response is body-wide, and it can cause all kinds of other problems, including fatigue and excema and difficulty concentrating. In bad cases, the body's immune response to "normal" proteins (like gluten) in abnormal locations (like the blood stream) can cause the body to make anti-bodies to gluten which will kick in the next time you do something as innocent as eat a sandwich. Sure, the gluten is in the intestinal tract where it's supposed to be, but the moment it touches the villi, the body reacts to it like it's an intruder... and then you get swelling again, and the inflammation, and the leaky gut all over. It's no surprise, then, that kids with autism often do well on special diets which exclude things like gluten and casein (a milk protein similar in many ways to gluten). In fact, some autistic kids can seem like completely different people when they're on their diet vs. off it. Then again, with other kids, the diet makes no difference whatsoever. Obviously, it's not the intestinal issues alone which cause Autism, but the fact that there's so much cross-over between Autism and G.I. disorders, or between G.I. disorders and other behavioural issues (see the comment on the March 12 entry) is pretty indicative that there's a connection. And remember - when your G.I. lining is not screening things the way it should be, you are exposed to much more of the environment than you should be. Heavy metals and poisons (pesticides, etc) which the average person would screen out can get in. And the environment we live in is becoming more polluted every year. Yay. |
| Thurs, March 15, 2007 (9:30am) Beware the Ides of March! Sorry - just had to say that. It happens, roughly once a year. The real reason I'm posting, though, is to say Congratulations! to Grey Panther, who has just announced her third pregnancy! I can't comment on her blog, you see (stoopid Blogger says my browser's cookies aren't turned on, even when they are) so I have to make my comments here instead. Yay for more babies! Yay for conquering the world through superior numbers of gamer children! Yay for making the photographer's face fall off when we bring all our kids en mass for a photoshoot! Yay for screaming hordes of madness which will get underfoot and consume time and money and valuable resources which could otherwise be put towards gaming. Er... maybe not so much with that last one. But, you know. Yay. Also, I would like to let people know the completely trivial fact that, as I type this, I am listening to the dishwasher running merrily in the background. It's a beautiful sound. Thanks, Dad. |
| Sun, March 18, 2007 (2:40pm) It's been one of those days: Jasen coloured with markers By the way - the TeamDK Weblog problem has been fixed: The Official TeamDK Weblog. Update your links as necessary. |
| Wed, March 21, 2007 (11:15am) At least today isn't one of these days. Monday was, though. (Yes, that's two cartons you see in the foreground. What you can't see is all the eggs on his lap, the floor, and the newly reupholstered chair. Sigh.) Connor breaks eggs. By the way, it's Spring! That means Grey Panther and I are hard at work making cloaks. Beware of pins & needles if you come to visit our houses. |
| Wed, March 28, 2007 (9:15am) Things I have been doing, other than updating my weblog. A list, by Ra.
And that's pretty much been my life. At least it keeps me off the streets, right? |
