I asked our developmental pediatrician how she felt about chelation. "Except in extreme cases, I'd be wary," she said, or something like that. "It can be quite dangerous."
The rooster's blood work came back, because I'd asked her to check for something or other, and she called me. "Can you come in sooner than our next appointment?" No one likes questions like this, but of course we say YES.
I was sure she'd say, whoa, bad mercury levels, how COULD you have gotten a flu shot while pregnant? Well, not exactly, but my guilt button was on high alert even though, as I said, I have no reason to believe anything other than genetics necessarily "caused" the rooster to have autism.
Well, the level for mercury was far to the left, like several other levels, clearly in the safe zone. Then, about four zones to the right, LEAD.
We have to have more tests. Add a trip to Children's Hospital to our imminent itinerary to the pediatrician for a physical, the dentist for torture, the OT, speech, and the eye doc. Then, the results will indicate our course of action. Might be okay, might be able to give him more iron, calcium, B6, and eliminate potential sources of lead in our home. (Read: expensive repiping coming soon to a home near ours.) But, then she said, if the tests don't come out looking good, we will have to talk. We will need to discuss chelation.
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5 comments:
OMG! How scary! I hope things are okay and he gets back to normal levels. Yikes.
That is scary. Chelation is actually a legitimate treatment for lead poisoning. But I hope it doesn't come to that.
One thing to check for with lead levels is toys and art supplies. I had a friend who had a lead problem with her child- turned out he was chewing on cheap crayons. Stick to the crayolas. (His levels came right down when they chucked the Chinese toys and especially the cheap crayons, but I'm not sure how high his levels were).
If you have to do it, just make sure you work with a doc who you're very comfortable with. Our naturopath, a DAN! doc, is wonderful - careful & gentle. She wouldn't chelate until Noah's body showed that it had improved in a couple key areas, and made sure his minerals kept up, etc. It was oral & topical chelation, and she was always on the lookout for it being too much for his body. It turned out to be a good experience. I've also heard some not-so-good stories about chelation, so just know that you can find a good partner if you need to go in that direction.
Two things. First, bloodwork shows only recent exposure to things. It wouldn't show the mercury from your flu shot when you were pregnant. I'm sorry - I really didn't want to deflate the "no mercury balloon," but I had to pass that along.
I hope you don't have to go the chelation route because any major drugs are scary to do, but please know that the one child who died from chelation was the result of an idiot doctor who gave the child not only the wrong chelating agent, but the wrong dosage. Chelation in itself is not inherently dangerous. Not that it's exactly desirable, however!
Just wanted to pass those two tiny tidbits along. I'll get off my podium now...lol! I hope the levels go down really fast without having to do anything drastic.
Good luck - am anxious to hear what happens next for you.
Wowzers. Truly scary. Keep us posted, k?
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