My journey to heal my son

At 18 months of age, my once healthy baby boy, CJ, started to slip backwards. He stopped interacting with my husband and me -- and I thought he had lost his hearing. After taking him to a hearing specialist, I was told he could not even understand the test and I had to take him to a special place where they tested children who were mentally ill. Well, it wasn’t his hearing that was the problem, so I was told to go to a child psychologist.

The child psychologist didn’t know what was wrong with CJ, but based on how CJ would rest his head on the floor to watch electric trains, the child psychologist felt it might be this “new age thing” called autism. This diagnosis was based on having seen one other child do the same thing. When I asked what to do, he said “pray,” because he had no other answers, nor did any doctor at the time.

It was 1999 and without any guidance or options, I was determined to find the answers, so I went to a library and researched reasons that children would rest their head on the floor.

This led me to learning about inflammation present in the body and brain, which could cause a heavy feeling in the head. To reduce inflammation, I learned an anti-inflammatory diet could be helpful, but not much was mentioned.

From that point on, I began studying anti-inflammatory foods and feeding CJ soups and broths. Most of the time, he threw up everything he ate. For the next five years, I experimented with every healthy food I learned about, from gluten-free casein-free (GFCF) to the Specific Carbohydrate Diet (SCD). CJ threw so much of it up that my clothes were constantly covered and I was at the end of my rope. The weird thing was, CJ seemed healthier when the food was out of his body, making me question whether he was allergic to the food we were feeding him.

Over the next several years, I was steadfast in my mission.

I went to the most renowned doctors I could find, some charging upwards of $1,100 per hour. I tried a hyperbaric chamber, far infrared sauna therapy, mini-trampolines (for CJ’s lymphatic system), special vitamins and homeopathy. I also went to some of the best-known psychologists, energy healers, learning specialists...and I have to say, the more people I saw, the more confused I became. Some things got better, but there were still no answers to bring my son back to me.

Then one day, I learned about the power of fermented foods and liquids, which are full of probiotics. These potent, pre-digested foods were like a miracle for CJ’s digestive system. Adding probiotic foods to his diet profoundly healed his gut and enabled him to get the nutrients he needed from food. He started to grow (he’s now 5’10” at age 14!) and he started to interact with us again!

After this, there were a few more steps that really helped, like reducing CJ’s exposure to electromagnetic fields (EMFs), the silent toxins that can interrupt healing. And interestingly, as CJ’s gut healed, several of the therapies I had tried before were now able to have an improved effect.

Today, CJ still has developmental roads to cross, but he’s continuing to heal. He’s healthy, he’s growing and he’s back with us again…for this, my family and I are so grateful.

I have to say that this has been a harrowing and heartbreaking experience…and yet, it’s been one of the greatest adventures in health that my family and I have ever experienced. We are all better, healthier people because of it.