I got notice yesterday that we were going to Cleveland to visit a doctor associated with the Defeat Autism Now network. This doctor was recommended to my wife by someone on Yahoo’s autism group.

It was an interesting visit geared toward substances that my girl may be sensitive too. The book “Facing Autism” had mentioned that if digested improperly can react with neuroreceptors and simulate things like drunkeness.

I expected a standard allergy battery, where substances are injected into the skin and red dots flammed up with allergic reactions. This was different. Borrowing from Chinese acupuncture principles, they used a 5″ plastic-coated wand connected with wire to an 3″ x 4″ x 1″ aluminum brick with a grid of holes cut into it. The wand was placed in my girl’s sock, and the brick was put in contact with about 2 dozen 1-cc vials with various substances. Supposedly if my girl was sensitive to a substance it would indicate somehow in the vials. The doctor ran through the test very quickly and said, “Yes, sensitive to gluten and casein.” Also from the book, this wouldn’t be a surprise to some autism sufferers.

If the diagnostic test sounded weird, the first therapy is more so. About seven vials were placed in my girl’s sock for 15 minutes. After that, she was to have no food for 3 hours, which was about how long it took us to get back down to the Polaris Fashion Mall in Columbus.

Any results tonight? Well, for the first time my daughter asked to play “side-to-side,” where she wanted to be picked up so that her legs could swing freely. I’d never mentioned the term with this kind of motion, but it’s in one of her videos. When it came for her sister’s turn to play, I asked the younger if it was the older daughter’s turn, and she said, “No, (her name)’s turn.” That’s a first, too.

On the other hand, she woke back up at 11:30 and needed Mom to console her. She wouldn’t take any Motrin. She’s quiet now, so maybe she just wanted Mom and wasn’t in pain.

So what do I make of this? Yes, there were positives, but can they be attributed to this? It’s like flopping top pair in Texas Hold Em with straight and flush draw possibilities for everyone else. Are we going to win big, or is our money just there for the taking? Our insurance has been pretty good with some of this stuff, so maybe we can keep this up. Some would say, “well, it’s not hurting her.” Not directly, but money spent on this could be used for other things she can use. We’ll see how it goes.

The next time we’ll be spending a couple of days up there for more treatments in succession. It would be nice if we could get in touch with some of the Cleveland bloggers. :)