The biggest change in my daughter's behavior started changing 3 years ago, when she was almost 6. Her behavior when from unbearable to a child that I could correct when she was misbehaving. And that's when the speech really started to come in. She had a case of head lice. Darn little menace bugs. You can get lice shampoo and that's what I did. Bad news is that it didn't help. I had to call our pediatrician and get the over the counter nuke them shampoo.
Luckily I have a best friend that is a nurse and I got to talk to her about this whole lice thing that was awful, causing me to spray the entire house, mattresses, furniture and anything else that wouldn't fit into the washing machine with bug spray. She informed me that I really needed to be careful using bug spray on anything that my doodle opp touches and the nuke shampoo (as I call it), that it causes cancers. Well of course I just wanted to find a corner and cry. I could seriously have hurt my child because of the school nurses advice of using bug spray on everything too large for the washing machine and a lice shampoo that was noted as being able to kill the super lice bug. So that day I took off from working on the projects that I had for my business and began researching ways to get rid of the lice bug. Granted it was gone at this point and time but I wanted to make sure that it didn't come back EVER again.
At this point this is where I learned about tea tree oil and eucalyptus oil. This stuff was great for cleaning counters, floors, door knobs, put a few drops each into your child's shampoo and so forth. I've been using it for almost 3 years now. According to the research that I have found the lice bug hates these essential oils. I throw in a little lavender to take away the hospital smell from the essential oils. Those were the first three essential oils that I bought from the health food store. The more I researched the essential oils and found out them I was loving essential oils. The next oil for me to get was not an essential oil it was the super expensive coconut oil. I was reading forums about essential oils that helped children on the spectrum. About this time I had read in the news that Johnson and Johnson's baby shampoo contained formaldehyde. That was a nightmare in itself because I was still using the baby shampoo on my doodle opp. She has super fine hair just like me and I really trusted Johnson and Johnson. Now could this have been one of the reason's why she had autism? Not sure but possibly.
Don't believe me on the news article about that one? Well here is the link for you to read from Huffington Post back when I found out about the cancer causing shampoo. http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2011/11/01/johnson-johnson-baby-sham_n_1069123.html
As of this post that I am currently writing back in January of 2014 they have changed their formula for their baby shampoo. Here is the link from the NYTimes article about it. http://www.nytimes.com/2014/01/18/business/johnson-johnson-takes-first-step-in-removal-of-questionable-chemicals-from-products.html?_r=0
I'm really glad they changed their formula. But the damage had already been done for me. I no longer trust Johnson and Johnson. I did find at the health food store my second trip around a bar of shampoo made by J.R. Liggett. Love this shampoo bar. Of course switching to this shampoo bar took some getting used too. I wanted to go back to a time when Autism wasn't much of a factor. My daughter was the first child in my entire family history that had autism. On her father's side there was one child already that had been diagnosed and was a few years older then my daughter.
Now going with a bar shampoo it takes about a month for your hair to get used to this type of shampoo as your hair learns to make its own oils. It's one of very few shampoos that I have found that do not contain the chemical sls. Sodium lauryl sulfate is a highly dangerous chemical that is added to everything from shampoo's toothpastes, body washes, conditioner, washing detergent, laundry detergent and the list goes on and on. This is a chemical that gets into the bloodstream through our pores and through our mouth. Did you know that it is recommended that when you clean your counters with lysol you're suppose to wipe down the counters with soap and water afterwards. Yes, using this product to clean our home as a convenience we all love to clean again afterwards for the safety of our children.
This sls chemical could be another reason why my child has autism as I have used nothing but products that contained these chemicals when I was pregnant with my daughter and that includes Crest toothpaste (I've used since I was little). Only God himself knows how and why a child gets autism. It's my job as the parent to make life easier for her and her sensory issues. And I will admit that since I have gone sls chemical free the sensory issues that used to trigger the most horrendous tantrums no longer happen. Another thing that really helped me to better understand that what I was doing as right was I discussed this issue with people on the spectrum that spoke very clearly and I had the wonderful opportunity to meet. They have also agreed that removing all the sls chemicals was a great way to help my child as they were having issues with the same chemicals and their own sensory issues.
Creating your own cleaners is not your thing like it is mine, try this website to help you http://slsfree.net/. Find the products that you want to be able use to clean your house and your child.
And not only are essential oils helping children on the spectrum but they also can help children that have ADD and ADHD. I was informed by the doctor that diagnosed my doodle opp, these three live in the same family. That's really not surprising considering that they same problem, concentration and focus.
Well, that's all for now. More posts to come and they will be about all the essential oil and things that I do and use to help not only my daughter but myself.
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