Ben Age Two: Diflucan

So after we removed wheat and dairy from Ben's diet we watched him go through this horrible, tantruming, spastic, crying, suffering from major withdrawals child for 4 or 5 days. We couldn't go out in public with him and when we had to my husband and I cried on the drive home from Whole Foods because we were so embarrassed, so frustrated, and so worried about what kind of future was in store for all of us. I remember trying to offer Ben some gluten free pretzels, a coloring book, his water, anything to get him to stop arching his back, screaming, kicking and flailing against the seat belt straps that kept him in his car seat. He wouldn't even open his eyes and look at what I was asking him / offering him. My husband yelled at me to just stop giving him attention. He told me we are going to have a very hard life. A tear rolled down his cheek as he told me that at least we would be able to experience a "typical" childhood with our second son and we should be thankful that so far, Jonathan seemed healthy. Of course, with Ben wailing in the background, Jonathan was screaming too, and I figured I might was well join in and we can all sob together on the way home. I remembered thinking that at some point Ben is going to get too big to handle and what would we do then?

Once the withdrawals past, we had that night that I refer to as "the awakening" and this is when we started to see Ben very actively trying to communicate with us, even cupping his hands on our face repeating gibberish, staring us straight in the eye. So you can imagine how scary it felt that the few words Ben had started to gain were lost after starting the VSL3 probiotic. Ben wasn't tantruming as hard or as loud, but he was having meltdowns all the time. I video-taped one of these meltdowns and I don't even have to rewatch it to clearly see that unhappy little boy who can't verbalize anything or even make eye contact when I can his name. He was zoning out again and we didn't know why. Dr Udell had a gut instinct that this was a result of yeast so we started him on Diflucan also known as Fluconazole.

The first night we gave him Diflucan we saw no reaction. We gave it right before Ben and Ben slept surprisingly well. The second night was a different ball game. Ben woke up an hour later and 2 hours after that - screaming, bloody murder. He sobbed and cried and just wanted to be held and after we got him back to sleep we did research. We wondered if this was another "die off" reaction. The second day he acted fine so we gave him another dose. This time he woke up 30 minutes later and was completely spastic. He was kicking us while we tried to hold him, took no comfort from being held, and continued to sob and wail and scream at the top of his lungs. 20 minutes of this and we got him back down and called Dr. Udell right away, and he told us that this is a very pronounced reaction so we know it's working. I've read online that when Diflucan kills yeast it's like popping balloons of acid and this acid can cause stomach cramping, which explained why Ben was curling in on himself, still moaning in his sleep. An hour later he woke up again, screaming even louder this time, unable to even open his eyes or take a sip of water. He was uncontrollable and at 10:00 at night we were about to fall apart. I texted Dr. Udell, again, and he called back and was able to "be with us" during this hard night. We gave him Motrin to help with the pain and spent the next couple hours co-sleeping with Ben in between us, whispering about how this Autism thing might just kill us all. I sincerely don't know how parents deal with their child head bashing, gnawing on their fists, having seizures all while being sleep deprived. As Dr. Udell stated in a recent post on his blog http://www.theautismdoctor.com/my-ten-top-autism-tweets/ "The Parents of children on the Autism Spectrum Disorder are the most patient people. Ever." I am going to admit right here and now that I don't think I'm naturally a patient or selfless person. In fact, I'm going to admit that I'm very impatient and often times prefer to be the selfish creature we so easily can become. Having Ben has taught me forced me to become more patient and more selfless. I think that statement is true for any parent, but especially for those who tend for children with special needs.

Long story short, the next morning we were too shaken to do another round of Diflucan and had to call it a day. We hoped that if there was a major yeast infestation the Diflucan did it's job. After that point, Nick became in charge of researching all of the meds and foods we gave Ben and continues to do so. He's become an expert (in my opinion) on which foods are inflammatory, which are not, which foods have the highest amounts of fiber, omega 3's and also what kind of diet / foods feed yeast or have natural anti-fungal properties. We have a better understanding of yeast thanks to Dr. Udell's posts The Yeast Autism Connection (Part One and Part Two) which cover the myths and facts on Yeast.

What's interesting to note is that many women take Diflucan after being on antibiotics in order to prevent yeast going out of control and causing a yeast infection, but it doesn't cause any cramping or pain for them. For us to see such a pronounced reaction, and so soon, we feel that Diflucan might have killed off MORE then just yeast, maybe some strand of yeast that we haven't identified yet and can't test for yet, or maybe some other strand altogether. However it works, we saw a progression after that and he quickly resumed where he left off and hasn't stopped progressing yet (knocking on my wooden computer table as I type on June 30th - 2.5 months later).