(00:01):

Parents are constantly asking me, Karen, what does this symptom mean? If my child’s got this going on, what does that mean? What does that mean? And it’s usually connected to something biological going on. If you’ve been following me for a while, you know I’ve talked about how the gut controls the brain, how much the gut microbiome and the biology of the gut has to do with how other things in the body are functioning, especially the brain. So I just wanted to go over some of the symptoms you might be noticing in your child with autism and why they might be happening to give you a greater idea of what the background is on that symptom. The first thing to start with is candida because candida is an overgrowth of a bacteria that we naturally have in our system, but it gets overgrown due to stress, and

(00:52):

Antibiotic use, poor diet, including high sugars processed foods and processed carbohydrates. A lot of those things. Gluten and casein can cause a lot of inflammation in the gut. We can even pass down candida in utero. We can give it to our children or they’re born with it. Then they’re weaker and more susceptible. Then we start feeding them solid foods. After they’ve been weaned off of breast milk or hopefully breastfed instead of bottle, but whatever you’ve been giving them, then we start usually adding in a process carbohydrate of some kind. And this ends up feeding this candida so the problem gets even worse. Then if you get a vaccination and I’m going to link to this really good study, I found on how vaccinations can impact the gut and the microbiome. This is all really important to know that there’s this whole, what we call the microbiome, this whole area in the gut

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That is all of these trillions of different types of bacteria and fungi, fungus’s and viruses and different things that are living in the gut and how easily they can get out of balance. And so, as you know, I’m all about healing the gut, but that also requires a lot of stabilization because you’ve got to support the detoxification pathways. Even changing the diet alone, again, get my seven foods guide, I gave you the link to, and I will link to it in the show notes if you didn’t grab it. But it’s very important to know. You’ve got to start with diet, diet changes and shifting out of the bad foods and eating more of the good foods that is really important. We don’t want to feed that candida even more. So we’re basically trying to starve it out.

(02:46):

When we do that, they’ll die and that’s good, but we get what are called die off symptoms. You might notice heightened irritability and anxiety, trouble sleeping. Your child might have been calm and now  their behaviors are much worse. This is part of detoxification. So you’ve got to support that with binders and minerals and different things that support the detoxification pathway. Then there are often also parasites in the gut, as well.  I want to talk about some of the symptoms again with candida. There are some that are very common that you might notice in your child. Some are bloating with eating, or they have a lot of gas, acid reflux, brain fog, sinus and ear infections. They suffer from fatigue and you can’t really figure out why, or they may have episodes of laughter for no apparent reason, or have a dry mouth and be thirsty all the time.

(03:48):

Vision can get really blurry and then clear and then blurry again. There’s a lot of trouble also with hypoglycemia and balancing blood sugar. Getting really tired after you sleep and really irritable and shaky if you miss a meal. Also constipation and diarrhea are common from Candida overgrowth, borderline anemia or commonly, rashes. We see a lot of rashes when we’re detoxifying anyway. Rashes are really common because the body is releasing toxins through skin. You might notice toenail or fingernail fungus, very common vaginal yeast infections, or jock itch. And then basically you look at all these symptoms and then, if you have three or more of them, then you’re indicating a very strong fungal overgrowth. See at-home testing options for candida. All of this can also affect hormones, and creates a lot of food allergies because of leaky gut. Leaky gut is when the Candida or viruses or inflammatory foods or all of the above will create holes in the lining of the digestive tract, especially candida. Their spores, which are like their little babies, have little corkscrew legs on them. So they literally are drilling holes

(05:14):

In the lining of the digestive tract. What happens now with this leaky gut syndrome is that when your child eats foods, those foods will be released into the bloodstream from that leaky gut area without being digested. So undigested foods, especially undigested proteins are a really strong inflammation marker for the immune system to see and it puts out inflammatory markers to attack this foreign agent. The immune system is doing what it’s supposed to, but these normally wouldn’t be foreign agents. So now your child  has developed allergies to pretty much almost everything that they eat. That’s very, very common. You’ve got to heal up the leaky gut so that we can then stop the immune reactions.

(06:20):

We don’t ever want to boost the immune system in autism. I did a show on that recently that I will link to in the show notes for today, because if you boost the immune system further in children with autism, they will very commonly go into an auto immune reaction. So we are modulating or regulating in an autism. We don’t want to boost it. You might, so lot of allergies can develop those mice might see those dark circles under their eyes. They’ll have a lot of chemical sensitivities. There’s common to have short-term memory loss, persistent drowsiness, headaches, mood swings are very common OCD, a lot of dizziness, lack of balance or coordination. What about ear sensitivity or ear ringing might even know people who have something called vertigo or their ears will itch. They’ll have mucus in their stools. Lot of post-nasal drip, very frequent colds and possibly strep throat now from strep throat and sinusitis and bronchitis, which yes are often from the candida to overgrowth.

(07:28):

It’s a yeast and a fungus overgrowth. It gets into the respiratory pathways as well as other systems of the body. All of this is affecting the gut microbiome, which directly has an impact on the brain and on the immune system. There’s 80% of the immune system made in the gut. So it’s really important to understand how all of these connect with one another. Candida also eats up progesterone. So this imbalance can cause things like acne or really thinning hair might have migraines or depression. And that’s really common as well. Your child might smell like ammonia. Ammonia is released by certain bacteria when it’s dying off and even when it’s alive. Lyme, parasites and candida will all release ammonia. So if you’re smelling ammonia in your child, look at those three issues.

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Also, as I just mentioned, OCD is really common with PANS or pediatric auto-immune neuropsychiatric syndrome. And if it’s PANDAS we call that associated with strep. Streptococcal infections are very common as well with autism. And it’s not just strep throat, which is what we mostly attribute it to, but  strep is also carried in the gut. This can deteriorate the amount of hydrochloric acid or stomach acid. So it’s kind of, hand-in-hand, low stomach acid caused by candida overgrowth, and all this bacterial imbalance makes it so strep can live in the gut more easily. Then you might see things like acid back up or GERD which is really common with that as well. These are things to be aware of. 

(09:38):

Parasites are a really big deal with our kids and are commonly missed. You can look in their stool and see if you actually see black or white specs. And if you see them visibly with the naked eye, that is a severe parasitic infection. Now we work with these naturally with herbals in my program, but be careful of going to a medical doctor, who’s going to load your child with antibiotics. Antibiotics are short-term for how they affect many of these issues that I’m discussing today at all, and they can actually cause these bugs to get stronger over time because they become resistant to these things. So just be aware of that as well. Mouthing, if you see your child putting their fingers in their mouth, putting other things in their mouth a lot, it’s usually very common of nutritional deficiencies, but also if you see them nail biting, then that is indicative of parasites. Adding some trace minerals and magnesium and some B vitamins can be helpful, but of course, being careful with B’s, especially with B12 and methylation issues, you want to be careful about those types of sensitivities.

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Super green foods can be helpful. You want to get some nutrition in, but you’ve got to be careful. We wait just a little while in my program, before we have anybody start with multivitamins because if there are parasitic or Candida or other type of infections going on in the gut with the overgrowth of these bacteria or viruses or anything, many of them, especially parasites can use the vitamins as food and we don’t want to be feeding them. It’s really a delicate balance as far as moving forward again, supporting those detoxification pathways with some binders is very important. If they’re hungry all the time, you might notice that too with parasites because they’re not absorbing the nutrition from the food that they’re eating because the parasites are eating the food in their body, so your child is really not getting a lot of the nutrition that they need.

(11:54):

Also there’s a lack of serotonin. There is a neurotransmitter in the gut that’s called serotonin and it’s responsible for helping balance things like mood, sleep and appetite. If there’s not enough of it, then it can’t help the brain do those things if it’s not building in the gut properly. So again, it goes back to working with the gut, very important. Again, remembering that leaky gut also reduces the nutritional absorption from the foods. The co-infections are really a big deal for keeping the gut ill as well. Mold,  parasites, and Lyme disease are very common. The mold biotoxin issue comes from 29% of the world population having a genetic defect that doesn’t allow your body to dispel the toxins when you are exposed to mold in water damaged building.

(12:54):

This is really common in children with autism and can be a reason why your child plateaus and why they stay ill. Maybe you’ve had them on a good diet and some good supplements for awhile and you think, well, how come my child isn’t getting better? It is usually because of an underlying co-infection that is being missed and very important to to know about. With mold biotoxins, you want to make sure your  home is cleared of any mold. There is a symptom called MARCONS, which is a staph infection that actually grows in the sinus pathways and can cause a lot of inability to think clearly, a lot of sleepiness and fatigue. Weight loss is common too. If you have a child who is having a lot of weight loss, the combination of the leaky gut and the Candida and the parasites are all possible contributors, but Lyme and mold and strep are all contributing to those as well.

(14:01):

So again, there are multiple infections going on here that must be worked with. It’s not just one thing. You might be spending a lot of money going to appointments with practitioners and you’re trying to figure it all out, and then they don’t know how to work with these things properly. Please get my seven foods guide and learn what the top seven foods are to start eliminating from your child’s diet and why. Then I’ll offer you, as well, an invitation to my free webinar where I walk you through this further. If you get the seven foods guide, you’ll be offered the free webinar, and it will explain these things in more detail and on how I can help you, because I don’t want you to just be left hanging. I think the worst thing would be for you hear all of this, and you say, okay, Karen, great, 

(14:55):

yeah, my child has all these, but what do I do about it? So get that seven foods guide at, NaturallyRecoveringAutism.com/7foods, and then from there, we will also invite you with a link to watch my free webinar on these four stages to naturally recovering from autism and how I can help you with that, if that’s something you’re interested in. Weight gain and weight loss are very much related to mold inflammation from the gut and all of the hormonal imbalances that are caused by these mold biotoxins. The mold issue is a very big deal and it creates what we call a chronic inflammatory response syndrome. Your child’s system stays inflamed and it affects multiple systems of the body. So it’s very, very important that we balance those. And again, it can cause a lot of these these hormonal issues and especially in puberty. We’re running back into symptoms and why. Mercury is a heavy metal toxin. Mercury inhibits the body’s natural ability to remove excess candida from the body.

(16:10):

So again, hopefully you’re not just using Diflucan or some other medical prescription drug that’s going to only do something good short term, but not last long-term. You may have already seen that. I hear about it from parents all the time. We work with things that take time and you must be patient. There are natural supplements that work that have taken me over a decade to figure out with my own son’s recovery process and they work long-term. It’s really important to know that you want to work with these things long-Term. It’s not just about a short-term fix. So you’re able to balance out these issues with natural supplementation that can help your child long-term and help to work with the causes to remove the symptoms, you know, their lack of speech. In my now over a decade of experience with autism and working with parents with autism, lack of speech and the regression you see, I hear a lot of parents say they saw it after vaccination. Two triggers are heavy metals, especially aluminum, and also PANS, that affect speech and regression.

(17:19):

The vaccinations contain viruses and they have the heavy metals which start contributing to this gut imbalance amongst other things as well. Mercury is also very much affects candida’s ability to overgrow in the body and affects the gut microbiome. There are viruses that are living in the gut as well, so all of these things have to be balanced out. If there are a lot of episodes of anger, you’re really going to see that commonly from Lyme’s disease. So that can be a clue to you that there may be some Lyme issues going on as well. We talked about PANS and PANDAS. These issues can cause really heightened episodes and sudden onset of OCD and anxiety. Sleep can be affected from all of these, including candida, Lyme, the gut dysbiosis, and a parasite issue.

(18:17):

Hyperactivity can be from histamines. The speech regression, as I was mentioning, speech regression is really common from PANS, pediatric autoimmune neuropsychiatric syndrome, and PANS is when the immune system is attacking the brain and it can be triggered by any heightened environmental toxin overload, and also from rapid detoxification if you’re doing it too quickly. That’s why I always stress doing it as slowly as possible. I see that a lot. It’s something also to be aware of. I hope these things have been helpful for you. I could go on and on because they all affect something else. They really affect each other. 

(19:20):

There are also Mycoplasma toxins. Mycoplasma bacterial infections are a very common co-infection too. That’s when you’re going to see things like asthma, a lot of respiratory issues. Your child’s really mucousy all the time, and you’re not sure why, then there’s likely a mycoplasma infection which is a bacterial issue as well. So again, there are multiple infections in the body going on. It’s not just one thing. Please get my seven foods guide here to start eliminating top seven foods today that are contributing to these symptoms because they’re keeping the inflammation up in the gut. It’s why our kids have so many of these health issues and why they remain. We want to slow down the inflammation and reduce it and eventually eliminate it. These foods will reduce and eventually help to eliminate some of the inflammation in the gut and in the whole body. They will also help to reduce some of these symptoms that your child’s having from all of this inflammation being exacerbated.

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This is all making a big difference for your child in the long run. I do want you to know that in my next podcast episode I will be interviewing an expert researcher on the gut microbiome and autism, very specifically. Be sure to tune into my next episode to listen to that interview because it’ll give you even further insight as far as how this gut microbiome is all working together and working with those symptoms of autism. It will be even further information for you. I’ve got a couple episodes that I’m going to follow up on this with to give you some more insight and more solutions. I hope this is helpful for you. Make sure if you like this episode, and it’s been helpful for you, then please go on my iTunes page or my Spotify page, and give me a helpful rating.

(21:09):

This helps other parents see that this podcast and website page is something that’s been valuable to other parents and that they might want to take a look at so that they get these resources that they need as well, because that’s really what it’s about and our community. Especially, we want to help other parents with their children whenever we can because with 1 in 36 kids being diagnosed with autism today, there are a lot of kids out there, and a lot of parents who are needing support and answers. They need a roadmap and that’s what I can offer. So again, don’t forget to get that seven food’s guide. Please share it with anybody, you know, who would be interested. Thank you again so much for being here and being a proactive parent, and getting the resources you need. I look forward to seeing you next week with that next episode where I will be doing that expert interview. Until then take care and have a great week.

Be sure to get your free food guide here, so you know which top 7 foods to avoid to help improve immune strength, reduce inflammation, and toxic overload.