It’s been a minute since I’ve shared an update on Beck. Many of you know but for those that don’t, Beck has been diagnosed with SPD and Verbal Apraxia. He’s unofficially diagnosed with autism, although I believe it will most likely be categorized as Asperger’s as he gets older. In December, he was unable to answer a basic question about himself like “What’s your name?” and never told us he was sad or thought something was cool. His ‘self-awareness’ wasn’t there. He didn’t sing, couldn’t count to ten, didn’t say color names and had a really hard time with social cues and anxiety. While we were making progress through therapy and appropriate supplements, as recommended by his doctor and team, we were starting to plateau and I could tell he was getting really frustrated (which I assume comes with age). Our doctor had recommended doing a heavy metal detox when we initially started doing tests, but I had decided to just take things slow. In January, I decided to try it out and see if it helped at all. For me the goal isn’t to fix him, but rather help him thrive. Everything he gets are according to deficiencies his body has and needs supplementing, which has been determined via bloodwork and samples. The detox was explained to me like a pipe cleaner, removing any build up that might be causing his mitochondria and cells to not fully absorb his vitamins. Personally, I have always felt way better with detoxes and cleanses so when a friend started her detox, I was intrigued, started asking questions and decided to give it a try as she started feeling more revived. It’s been six months since we’ve started and here’s all of his gains:

•  Beck says his name when asked 
•  can tell us he’s sad or misses someone
•  asks to make phone calls
•  has an imagination and can act out rolls like being a puppy, pretending the floor is lava, making play food/kitchen play, pretend phone calls, or he needs to rescue a whale
•  is trying new foods and finishing meals
•  eye contact is improving ten fold (this has been a crazy improvement)
•  rarely stems
•  is naming colors, knows letters and has books memorized
•  asks us to cuddle, wants to see our face and asks to see our eyes if we wear sunglasses
•  his speech is making leaps and bounds. Strangers are starting to understand him and he’s having short conversations
•  describes things as awesome, cool, scary, big, cute, etc
•  is starting to do self-calming techniques like deep breaths
•  empathy for others
•  his restricted interests are starting to broaden
•  can wear clothes for longer periods of time, pick out his outfits and put on his clothes. Socks are still extremely difficult and is almost never worn but just him wearing a shirt for an entire day is a HUGE win
•  he had started going up to kids he didn’t know and saying “Hi I’m beck, want to play?” until the shut down happened. Therapy stopped along with exposure to outside people so this development is iffy.
•  he’s developing a teenager attitude, loves giving his opinions and has a sense of humor
•  he’s still gets super focused and “doesn’t hear” us talk at times, but I’ve noticed this happens more when strangers are around and slowly improving with close family
•  he interacts with other people and craves their attention in a positive way

There are so many developments to write and new things happen each day. I would best describe this last six months as amazing yet also very trying. His developments are like bundling the terrible twos, terrorist threes and teenager fours all into one stage. I can tell he still has anxiety with his speech and he gets scared when something doesn’t come out like he wants. He understands there is something wrong and he’ll hit himself out of frustration. But with all of the struggles, there’s so many more joys and positives that happen each day. He’s so much happier, more expressive and learning gets easier with each step. The amount of progress in six months is astounding to me. Close family even agree it’s like he’s a different kid and progress he’s made is unprecedented. If you were to ask me in December what my biggest fear was, I would have answered with him not ever being able to say his name or express his feelings. It’s so exciting to see him thrive and be so much more comfortable in his own skin.

You can find a background story on Beck’s initial plan by clicking here. We have since switched a few products with different brands and cut back as he has developed and caught up. I try to keep everything really simple. He gets a glass of juice, and we hide his vitamins in the juice. It’s important to have high quality vitamins that don’t contain more toxins and fillers, otherwise you’re just wasting your time and money. Here’s the line up:

• Intrakids Daily Vitamin. This is a liquid that gets in his juice each morning and has been the staple daily vitamin that has worked best for our family.
• SPEAK formula by Lifetrients. This is just a pure blend of Omega 3, D3 and Vitamin E, which has been proven to help reduce inflammation. Kids with apraxia are typically deficient in these need an extra boost. This line came out and it was a no-brainer to switch since they offer it in liquid and capsule form.
• We were doing speech therapy twice a week and OT once a week until the COVID shutdown happened. We tried doing online meetings with our therapists, but they weren’t beneficial and became more stressful for both of us. We are now in the process of moving, so we’ll be finding a new team that he can hopefully finally see in-person.
• We still do chiropractor appointments (and sad we’ll have to find a new one… Dr. Joel has been amazing). We’ve also started working in homeschooling work, sensory work and keeping a visual schedule calendar for him to see.
• The heavy metal detox has been the game changer this last six months. There’s a ton of different options out there but I’ve seen so many doctors recommend this product and I’m all about keeping it really simple and easy. I initially started with a different product but switched and have kept with this brand. We use Results RNA and it comes in a 4 oz bottle and 2 oz bottle (so you can try the smaller first). It’s a simple spray that tastes almost like water and so many people can benefit from using this product.

That’s it! I do recommend checking out the post I linked at the beginning with his initial regimen, because catching up on those deficiencies was also crucial to getting to this point. A Daily Vitamin is probably the best thing we’ve ever done for him. We can always tell when we go on vacation and don’t bring the big bottle with us and he doesn’t get anything for a few days and his doctor was extremely impressed by the quality of his daily V.
Until next time! xo

Since giving birth to tanner and going through my second postpartum season, I’ve found new favorites for breastfeeding and healing. A few of these are favorites from my first round but most are new that didn’t exist or I didn’t know about. So let’s get to it:
Motherhood Maternity sleeping bras. You’ll want to size up due to engorgement.
Jockey Modal Tanks. I’m not a fan of “nursing” tops with bras built in. I love these lightweight undershirts because they are perfect for pulling down from the top and layering under any top. I can lift my top up and easily nurse while keeping my mid-drift covered.
Gap Sculpt Compression Leggings with a high waist (helps get that postpartum belly down while helping me feel “together”).
Belly bandit. This helps compress your muscles and heals your abs faster.
Silver Nipple Shields. These are absolutely magic. They heal and soothe within hours and completely replaced nipple cream. Well worth the splurge and makes nursing so much easier. Trust me and You’re welcome.
Freemie Breast Pumps have made pumping so much easier. Unlike other wireless pumps, freemie pumps allow me to pump up to 8 oz in each cup and the pump can work with other systems (so I can also use my medela bottles and shields if I want). It’s also extremely affordable compared to other competitors and clean up is a breeze. It’s extremely quiet, allows you to be mobile and the cups fit in the sleeping bras under a normal shirt making it awesome for pumping in public without anyone knowing. 
I’ve loved the products from Legendairy Milk. I use the organic sunflower lecithin when I start getting clogged ducts and it’s stopped mastitis from developing. They’ve given my clients a 15% discount as well: SARALYNN15
Bamboobies cloth breast pads are still a favorite. My Freshly Picked diaper bag is sill in amazing shape and allows me to stay organized with two kiddos. Lastly, this nursing coverup apron makes nursing Tanner so much easier and has helped during the times when he gets easily distracted out in public.

It’s been awhile since I’ve written an update on Beck’s speech delay healing. I wanted to share where we are with his speech but first, I need to dive in to exactly everything that was happening for symptoms. To be clear, this isn’t a pro or anti-vaccine article, but it’s meant to help families with children going through similar situations to help save them time and money.
In February 2018, we noticed Beck’s eye contact decreasing more and more. He also was starting to show signs of autism but also ADHD. We couldn’t exactly pinpoint what was happening. He had “ticks” which I could only describe as repetitive barking noises. Beck’s ability to register us talking to him, or his receptive language, was almost gone. I could be right next to him saying his name and he wouldn’t look for minutes. We knew he could hear but he couldn’t listen.
Beck also had body temperature regulation issues. We would have him wrapped in down blankets, cuddled in our laps, in the heat of summer, and he would still be shivering. His ability to focus on an activity was hard pressed. But if he found something he loved, it was like no one else was in the room. We couldn’t pry his attention away and if we took whatever had his interest away (like to eat or change his diaper), there would be a tantrum that lasted for hours.
But the most apparent symptom was his speech delay. His tantrums and frustrations were starting to turn into full blown headbanging, hitting and kicking fights. We were at our whist end.
In April 2018, we took Beck to see the dentist. It was there that we discovered he had a submucosal brake tongue tie. At this same time, we just got done with our sixth round of croup, which we then were described a refillable steroid, in case Beck’s throat closed up again and we needed to get it opened immediately. We started seeing ENT doctors, talking to our pediatrician and doing tons and tons of research. The funny thing is, everything started to click and make more sense as the Facebook memories were popping up in my feed, showing us videos and photos of Beck as he was growing up. We noticed that it was more difficult after 8 months to get his attention. That his eye contact and focus decreased. And we also noticed his sounds changed from using “ba, ga, ma, and da” to nothing — more like coo’s.
In June 2018, things started to click. We made an appointment with a neuroscientist that is a world-renowned naturopathic doctor for August ‘18. This is when we realized that Beck was vaccine injured. At our 8 month appointment, he received a round of vaccines (Polio included). After, he spiked a fever, pushing 104-105 degrees and went lethargic. Our pediatrician didn’t seem too concerned as he didn’t have any other symptoms. We were told to put him in an ice bath and rotate between Tylenol and Motrin. We are lucky that he never had a seizure or worse. Our pediatrician never told us that what happened wasn’t normal and never encouraged us to file a VARES report. It was after this that we noticed the changes I wrote above in Beck.
After we did more research and reading about families that have gone through similar experiences, we decided to start Beck on a high grade multivitamin called Intra-Kids from Drucker Labs. We’ve read that many kids with speech delays have seen huge successes, so we decided to give it a try. The first two weeks were hell. I’m not going to lie one bit. Hitting, biting, screaming, you name it. At two weeks, it was like the storm clouds moved out and the sun started shining. Out of nowhere, he started using sentences like “Whoa, look at that dad!” “What’s that over there?” To be clear, he was using single words like “me” “dada” or “up”. He had never used these words by themselves, let alone, all together in a full formed sentence.
Fast forward to September 2018. We saw the new doctor for a second time (August was our initial consult) after having blood work and urine tests done. We discovered his mitochondria were damaged (from the vaccines) and instead of being busy with keeping up with his developing brain and body, they were busy still trying to heal from the vaccine injury. His cells weren’t able to oxidze and produce the energy his body needed. In short, it was like his brain/body were being deprived of oxygen. In order to do these tests, we had to take him off his multivitamin for an entire week. Neither of us expected much change with being off of it, but by day 8, he had reverted to back to how he was in May 2018. Lost his speech and the tantrums and frustrations were in full force. We were amazed by how much he regressed.
To support his body, system and development, we came up with a list of targeted supplements. We added this to the multivitamin he was already on. Within days of going back on the multi-v plus the additional supplements, we noticed his receptive language increasing ten fold. My husband noted “how sharp Beck has become”. He is finally in the “copy stage” where we can tell him what something is, and he has the ability to repeat it. He is putting sentences together like “No don’t. You naughty mama. That’s enough” as he points his finger at me. Yes, his speech improving doesn’t mean he’s always my sweet angel. His curiosity and kindness towards others and his environment always amazes us. We love having him ask us “who’s that” or “what’s that” and to be able to ask him to help us around the house or go find a certain item.
So, what’s the secret sauce you ask? Here’s what we’ve done to help Beck:

• Speech Therapy once a week, and every day we work on speech
• Chiropractic adjustments to help his nervous system
• A *mostly* dairy and gluten free diet (he still eats cheese and we enjoy a pizza or indulge in ice cream once in awhile)
• Intra-Kids Multi Vitamin
• Methyl B Complex
• B-12
• ProBiota HistaminX
• Liposomal Glutathione
• L- Acetyl Carnitine

The ‘ticks’, body temp regulation issues, eye contact issues, etc have all gone away. His speech, the most prevalent issue, is what we’re currently still working on and slowly improving each day. I hope this helps others going through similar situations that aren’t able to find the answers they need. I’m an open book so if you have questions, please feel free to reach out via email.


If you would like more background on Beck, click here to read my “A Mother’s Feelings on Speech Delays” post.