An autistic child was treated for mold after it had colonized in their gut. After a very aggressive treatment, he lost his autism diagnosis. This means he was great in school, had no support, was able to learn, go out playing sports, started interest in an instrument. He lost his autism diagnosis.
Let’s discuss this research that has been published about how he lost his autism diagnosis. This is actual published research, and yes, it is on one child, so it is a case study. But this is research that you definitely should know about because it might be impacting your child
Initial treatment
So, the child was diagnosed with autism. He did have an official diagnosis. He was given S. boulardii as a treatment. Now, in the research, it doesn’t say that there were tests done to warrant the reason why S. boulardii was given. It was just said that it was given. And no surprise when you do something without having a real logical strategy, there was a bad reaction and it didn’t go well.
And I commonly see this bad type of reaction when S. boulardii is given without a full understanding of a variety of levels in the gut. So testing is always super important so that you avoid these big negative reactions.
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Finding more information
Right, let’s get back to the research. So after that mistake, they did a urine test and saw that three fungal markers were elevated. These specific fungal markers indicate that there is a colonization of a fungal infection in the gut.
When you’re thinking about mold exposure and toxicity, a lot of times, you’re thinking about the environment. This was actually in the gut. So the toxins were being produced by the fungal infection that had colonized in the gut.
New treatment
The doctor started him on generic itraconazole, and there wasn’t a clean positive reaction. So then they switched to the name brand Sporanox, and there was a good reaction. The dose was slowly increased to three times the recommended adult dosage. Now, this was a four-year-old. Please keep that in mind.
The doctors did do liver function tests every two weeks to ensure that the liver wasn’t being overworked. So, they were keeping safety in mind. Right. This is a four-year-old getting three times the adult dosage.
However, things really started to change. So many of the symptoms decreased. Some of them had completely gone away. So they kept them at this higher dose for some time, and then they slowly started decreasing it. Then, he was on a maintenance dosage for a while.
Results
Two years later, the doctor and parents both agreed that the child no longer had autism. At four years old, he was actually testing at the academic level of a six-year-old. He was playing sports and playing instruments. It’s described in the research article.
So, based upon this research, losing the autism diagnosis is totally possible. We have other research papers that can quantify the percentages, which right now is about 37% actually lose their autism diagnosis, which is a good thing because they no longer need support, no longer need speech therapy or OT or all of those kinds of things.
Lessons from the paper
Test, test, test
This paper also points out the importance of really testing and being very specific. The first administration of S. boulardii did not go well, and it really wasn’t a clear strategy as to why they were doing that. It was just one of those, ‘okay, well let’s try’. And that didn’t work. So, that is definitely something to learn from the paper.
When you do have tests and you can get specific, you can see the doctor had the freedom to find the therapeutic dose that really made an impact for this child while also keeping safety in mind. So it’s something to keep in mind that there’s a balance between what it is that your child needs. Right. So it was more than the child’s dosage; it was more than adult dosage. Right. But then, how do you do this safely? So there is that balance, and it can be achieved for sure.
It’s-not-that-bad mold
An important conclusion of this paper is also that chronic low-level exposure to something like Ochratoxin A can actually be more damaging than acute short-term high exposure to mold. Sometimes, people get their house tested, and the levels are ‘not too bad,’ right? But if you think about it, not too bad over 10 years or more, that can really tax the body. So when you are considering mold and the levels, even though something might be low, just remember it’s low, but long-term exposure is problematic.
Conclusions
I’m going to read a quote directly from the paper:
His case is presented as a cure of autism resulting from the reduction of his load of certain toxins.
So it’s important to understand that this is a possibility that can happen, losing the autism diagnosis and being very specific on how did they do that? Okay. Well, they really addressed the fungal infection that was in his gut.
An unusual case
Now, I will say this is an unusual case in that they did one thing, and it worked completely. So they didn’t have other infections and other issues and other toxins and things like that. This was one singular thing. They had extreme focus on it. They cleared it, and the child lost the autism diagnosis. A lot of times, it’s a lot more complex. So, I just want you to keep in mind that everything isn’t always as simple as this case study.
‘Break the mold’
And if you get your house tested for mold and the levels come back low but still elevated, you really want to address it because that chronic low-level exposure can really build up and be damaging to the gut.
