Welcome

This is my first post, on my first blog. I'd like to share my story with you in the hopes that it helps you through your journey with NIDS, gives you a few laughs along the way, and lets you see that NIDS can have an ending (believe me, I didn't always know that while trying to get meds into my kids and running them from therapist to therapist). Is it a happy one? Mostly. I now have 2 teenagers, so it's at least always entertaining, one way or another.

I'm a mom of 3 NIDS kids. They are now 14, 13 and 8, but they began on the NIDS protocol at 5 yrs, 4 yrs and 17 months respectively. We began with Dr. Goldberg in LA, then switched toward the end to Dr. Russell in New York.

This all began with my oldest, Al, when he was quite young. We never understood his sensory overload problems, and many tantrums. Other odd behaviors popped up along the way, with losing language the most alarming. He never totally lost it, but when he began talking again his pronunciation was quite impaired. By the time he was 5 his pediatrician finally told me he had autism. He felt there was no effective treatment, so why tell the parent until school age. Urg. After seeing Dr. Goldberg (who, at that time, travelled to MD to see patients - easier for us to get to than LA since we were living in the Chicago area at the time) we realized that our second child, Kelsie, wasn't particularly healthy either. Goldberg went on about 'bright, clear eyes', waking up rested, etc. When we got back home we had Kelsie tested, even though her language and social skills were fantastic. Sure enough, her bloodwork came back positive and we started her on the protocol as well. My littlest one, Audrey, was only days old when we discovered she was allergic to milk. Then as she went on solid foods, we noticed a gluten intolerance. I watched her very, very closely and by the time she lost 5 words from her repertoire, I made an appt with Goldberg for her too. She was 17 months old. What a difference early diagnosis makes.

As a newly single mother of these 3 challenging kids, I'll write what I can when I can. I'm hoping other 'old timers' will share their stories on this blog to give the 'new timers' hope and inspiration. My goal is to post twice a day, continuing to tell you the history of our journey, as well as a story from that day. A bit of the past and what we're dealing with currently. I'd like to have the time to write out their entire history before starting on the present, but that's totally unrealistic for me time-wise right now.

So.....here goes.