More Wind Shield Wipers: Autism and Omega 3's

Here is Barret with his regular stick wind shield wiper. It's especially fun if he can see it's reflection in the glass. The second one was funny because he was turning his gummy Omega 3 vitamin into a tiny wind shield wiper.

Which reminds me, this is the one thing besides therapy that we have found to be effective for him. I read about how autopsies on autistic people have shown that they have evidence of life-long brain inflammation, keeping them in a hypersensitive state and functioning in "survival mode". They found that this was sometimes genetic, and sometimes because viruses that couldn't be fought found their way to the brain and became a part of the nervous system.

So, I thought that if there was brain inflammation, and you can't give a kid Motrin or Tylenol everyday, that you could fight it with food. So I looked up foods that fight brain inflammation and found that most of them I couldn't get into picky picky Barret. So, I tried DHA Omega 3's, which are great at fighting brain inflammation. Horizon milk has a DHA variety, so we switched to it. Barret started talking that day and started making eye contact THAT DAY. So we stuck with it. When we can't find the right milk, or if he's sick, he falls back into stemming all day with the wind shield wipers. So, we're pretty sure that the DHA is helping.

Note: Publix is about the only place that I can find the DHA variety of Horizon Milk. But, I'm reluctant to plug them right now because Publix just refused to make a donation to the Autism Walk. Take that Publix! Ha!

Back to business, Barret used to always regress over holidays, on trips or after illness, but he hasn't since we started the DHA milk almost a year ago, he's only progressed. We had these Omega 3 vitamins, but he wouldn't eat them because they had a sugar coating on them. He hated the texture. Then I checked out the label and they were AHA Omega 3's, which is basically vegetable oil and we get a lot of in our diets anyway, so they weren't what I was looking for.

OneSource Omega 3 DHA & EPA Gummi vitamins are the best ones. No sugar coating, they taste like regular gummies, they're not mushy or hard and he just thinks they're candy. So, I highly recommend them to those of you who want to try it. I couldn't find them online to link to them, but you can get them at Wal-Mart for $9 a bottle, 160 gummies in a bottle. It says to eat one 2-4 times a day, so you can use them for potty treats or rewards for other behaviors if you want.