Eat Dirt by Dr. Josh Axe

Author:Dr. Josh Axe
Language: eng
Format: epub, mobi
ISBN: 9780062433664
Publisher: HarperCollins
Published: 2016-03-11T16:00:00+00:00

9

Medication Nation

June and her son Ben came to see me when Ben was six years old. He’d been diagnosed with a learning disorder and autism. June told me that Ben had been developing normally until he was about two years old, when he got an ear infection.

For the next year, he was on mega doses of antibiotics, one after the other—but nothing would control his infections.

By the time he was six, Ben was only saying three words, total: “yes,” “no,” and “Mom.”

As we watched Ben line up his toy cars on my examining table, we talked through some suggested changes. June left with her marching orders, and when they came back in two weeks, she was elated.

“After just a few days on the program, I walked into his bedroom one afternoon, and he turned around and said the first full sentence of his entire life,” she said. “He’s talking, really talking—he’s gone from two words to forty words in the past two weeks.”

Working with Ben was an ongoing process. Because of his sensory issues, he was extremely restricted in what he ate. When he first came to me, he was only eating one food—chicken nuggets. And only one specific brand.

The first thing we did was shift to a gluten-free/dairy-free diet. That took a little bit of adjusting because of Ben’s restricted eating. But June stuck with it and together we devised a homemade chicken nugget using organic chicken and almond flour for the “breading.” He would also eat french fries, so we gradually switched him over to sweet potato fries, cooked in coconut oil and sea salt. Ben also began to drink smoothies, which was a blessing because we could squeeze some different foods in there without his really knowing. We made those smoothies with fruit, collagen powder, probiotic powder, and coconut milk. Occasionally, he would acquiesce to eat chicken bone broth soup with carrots.

Although this was not a very diverse diet, Ben was getting so much more nutrition than before that we considered it a huge win. Even more important than what he was eating was what he wasn’t eating—the gluten and dairy that had been harming his gut.

As soon as he could tolerate swallowing pills, we started him on a regimen of probiotic capsules, digestive enzymes, fish oil, and a B-complex vitamin. June was committed to the Eat Dirt philosophy. She swapped out all their household cleaners with essential-oil-based cleansers. She had a diffuser for essential oils in the house, and together we created blends to help support a more serene environment for Ben. We also created an essential oil blend from frankincense, vetiver, chamomile, and cedarwood that June dabbed onto Ben’s neck before school to help him stay calm and focused.

I continued to see Ben for about five years. I ran into June in the grocery store recently, and she told me that he was doing great. His diagnosis had changed from moderate to severe autism to high-functioning autism/Asperger’s subtype. He’d transferred from his adaptive school back to their neighborhood school, and he was able to transition into a full-inclusion classroom.

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