Dec 13, 2016
Autistic girl regained health, school grades improved drastically
This medical case was referred by a female piano teacher. The patient was one of her students. She was only nine years old, tall, not too thin and average weight. Her complexion was green and a little pale. She was diagnosed with autism when she was 2 years old. She did not start speaking until three years old. She had no response when people called her, as if she did not hear. She was not able to pronounce words properly so no one could understand what she was trying to say. She was not able to roll her tongue up so she could not pronounce the letter “L” and it was pronounced with the “N” sound. When she first came to my clinic, she appeared restless while her parents was describing to me her condition, an indication of attention deficit and hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) and pervasive developmental disorder (PDD).
When I talked to patient’s parents, she would repeat what we said without understanding the contents, a habit she had developed, also a unique symptom of autistic children: echolalia, repetition of phrases, words or parts of words, or “parrot” words and phrases that they overhear. Her mother also said that she walked with her toes when she was little, she had difficulty falling asleep and could hardly sleep soundly, although the situation has improved a little, and she had defecation problem, she had stool only once every two days. I gave the patient a colored picture to identify the colors. She got most of them right and took a long time before she could name a few other colors so in general, color identification was not a problem for her. Besides those symptoms of autism, I believed that she also had hearing problems. What she heard was very likely interrupted with noise so she could not hear clearly, causing her pronunciation to be inaccurate. However, based on my experience in treating autism, in three weeks of medication, the tongue will become flexible and kids with pronunciation difficulties will improve and speak properly so that others can understand.
Body functions improved, smile on the face
After the first week of medication, when patient came back for a follow-up visit, I could see significant changes in her. She smiled when she saw me and was cheerful. When I asked what her name was, she was able to accurately pronounce her name. She was not restless like last time and was more stable. I asked her to read out the “L” sound, the numbers one to twenty and the English alphabet A to Z, etc., her pronunciation has improved significantly. She was able to speak slowly and I could understand what she was saying. She also seemed to understand what I was saying and we could communicate. As for her constipation, the situation has also improved a lot, from having stool once every two days to once every day, although the stool is loose and not strip shaped. She could also fall asleep more easily and sweated a little. She vomited every time after she finished her medicine. I told her mother to make sure that she took the medicine when it was hot and in one go for the best effect. The urine samples she brought had different colors, orange, orange-brown and light deep green. At her third follow-up visit, three bottles of her urine sample were dark reddish brown that was almost dark purple, indicated blood clots and toxins being discharged from the liver. There was also a bottle of sample with heart cell sediment. These are good signs. The sooner the blood clots are discharged, the sooner the recovery. When she spoke, her voice was not as sharp as before and she could learn to speak like the others. Although the patient was nine years old, I told her parents that they should treat her like she was only three years old when they tried to teach her, especially pronunciation and every little bit of life lessons.
Every time the patient saw me, she would greet me loudly and was very polite. Her mother was pleased and told me how much improvements her daughter had made in terms of language and behavior. Sometimes patient would ask questions that she never asked before. One time, when her mother told her to stop playing video games, she blurted out a bad word, which never happened before, indicating that patient was constantly changing. Also, one time she asked her mother the time, her mother told her three minutes to three. After a while, when she asked her mother the time again, her mother told her the same thing, three minutes to three. She immediately corrected her saying it couldn’t be because it was the same time a while ago. This showed her thinking ability and ability to point out her mother’s mistakes.
Similar to a cold, occurred many times
When patient came to see me, she was always absent-minded and seemed to be thinking about something else. Sometimes she would gaze and giggle, as if she had entered another world. Her constipation and sleeplessness, although initially improved, appeared again later. She said after the medication, she became restless and could not fall asleep until 3am every night. So I adjusted the prescription, which improved her constipation and she had defecation once a day. At her fourteenth follow-up visit, her mother said that one day she had a fever of 390C, and when she later vomited and her temperature went up to 400C, she didn’t know what to do so she took her to the emergency to see a western doctor before consulting me. As a matter fact, that was an important phenomenon during detoxification, I call it pseudo fever syndrome. There is no need to see a western medicine. As long as patient continues to take my Chinese medicine, the fever will disappear in one or two days and at the same time, the patient’s improvement will leapfrog. In the many autistic cases I have treated, the above situation has appeared many times. There is no need to worry. On the contrary, it is something to be happy about.
I repeatedly explained this phenomenon to patient’s mother, and finally she began to realize and admitted her daughter had a lot of progress, for example, in response to constant nags that she felt impatient with, she would say, “I already said I’ll do it in a bit,” in a tone that was unprecedented. She became very curious about the outside world, often asked questions and sought the truth. When she talked with me, she had eye contact, clear pronunciation and flexible tongue. Her attention has improved and learning continued to progress. Before, she seldom went to the cinema because she often had to cover her ears. I think that was because of her hearing problems. When the sound was loud, she would hear a lot of noise at the same time, which caused her dysphoria. With the treatment, her situation has improved. She did not have to cover her ears when watching movies, indicating the noise has been reduced. I suggested her mother to take her to movies more often to let her adapt to her hearing improvements.
Financial difficulties, offered free treatment
The patient’s piano teacher told me that patient used to be very bad tempered during lessons. She would throw a tantrum with even the slightest irritation. With the treatment, her emotions and intelligence had improved. She was able to control her mood until after the class. I think this was because of the removal of a large amount of liver toxins, reducing irascibility and improving her temper. One day, the piano teacher came to my clinic with the patient, pleaded to me to reduce consultation fee for the patient. She said that her family saw her gradual recovery and wished for her to continue treatment. Unfortunately, due to financial difficulties, the family could not afford the treatment anymore. After hearing that, I agreed to charge for only the medicine, however, the mother still needed to borrow money from different sources to pay for that. At the end, when they could not afford anymore, I offered to treat her for free. However, bad luck continued to strike them. Later, patient’s father got a stroke and lost his job, the family fell into further financial difficulties. Nevertheless, her mother persevered and hung in there, hoping that her daughter’s disease could be cured.
Over the following treatment period, patient appeared to have some transitional behavior, such as talking to herself and hands tremor. Her mother said that the speech therapist at school had assessed her daughter, saying over the last six months, there was an obvious progress. She was able to carry out a conversation properly and she would ask more in-depth questions. The family felt that she could learn more quickly and had grown a lot. However, there was still a lot of things that she could not comprehend before and she needed to study extra hard and her mother said that she too had to be extra patient when teaching her daughter.
I measured patient’s height. In ten months, she had grown a total of five inches, indicating that the brain function had improved and the secretion of growth hormones had increased, helping her develop and gain height. One time her mother called and told me her daughter had won several prizes at her school, including outstanding primary school student award, environmental protection award and improvement award, etc. She was very happy. She even passed the second grade piano examination. When her mother talked to her, she often talked back, showing that she was beginning to have her own ideas. Her ability to handle matters had also improved, for example, in the past when there was no hot water in her shower, she would just complained that the water was cold. Now, she would realize that the heater was not on. Her cousin also felt that patient’s temper had improved, a very good phenomenon. I saw a lot of progress in her too. She was more focused than before and her ability to express herself had enhanced. At school, she would pay attention to the teacher, speak slowly, respond quickly and was very polite to people around her.
Remembered the past, became sentimental
At the fifty-ninth follow-up visit, I measured patient’s height again. She had grown three more inches. From May 2009 to May 2011, she had grown a total of eight inches. In terms of detoxification, the amount of liver toxins and dead cells discharged had reduced, urine samples were mostly orange or light orange-brown and less purplish. The only problem was with the heart and brain stasis. The liver blockage had been removed and its function restored. As a result, patient’s temper had greatly improved. In the past, her head seemed blank and had developed little cognition. Now she regained her memory and fragments of events began to come back to her and it felt sweet. Her mother noticed that she often had tears. One day, she was crying saying that she had forgotten to say happy birthday to her mom and she felt guilty, revealing her deepest feeling. She began to have feelings and emotions like a normal child, which meant that the right brain function had been greatly improved. The right brain is in charge of feelings and emotions and it usually takes a long time to recover. I believed that her illness would further improve. Her mother said that at her school, there were also other autistic children. Each child had a serious illness and it was obvious that her daughter was different from the others, she was getting better and better. Her mother repeatedly expressed her appreciation and gratitude to me.
Recently, patient and her family get along well and there is a lot of love among them, for example, she is very concerned about her father’s condition and the pain in his leg after the stroke, which had caused him his job. Before, she rarely showed her care. At the eighty-seventh follow-up visit, her cousin came with her to the clinic. I asked her cousin if she saw any improvements in patient. Her cousin said there was a lot of improvement. She said that patient is more understanding and easy going, her temper has become mild and will cry when she is sad. From her urine samples, we can see that tartaric acid crystals discharged has been greatly reduced. Relatively speaking, the brain development is getting better and better, thus patient’s thinking and learning ability has also improved. The patient was treated from 23 May 2009 to 2 September 2013 for a total of four years and three months and 88 visits.
By Dr. Au Sik Kee
Dec 13, 2016
Medical record number: 090523
For enquiry, email: sikkeeau@gmail.com