PLT Test Blog

Previous posts showed how pollen allergies can lead to summertime flare-ups in autism; most noticeable are violent/aggressive behaviours, but there is actually much more going on. I established that Verapamil, the calcium channel blocker, and surprisingly also a mast cell stabilizer, can very effectively extinguish the aggression, but without really solving the usual allergy symptoms like itchy eyes.  As a result, you need to use a convention anti-allergy treatment as well. Asthma/Pollen Hot Spots Any asthma suffer will be able to tell you about the places that make them feel worse and the places that places that reduce their symptoms.  It seems that pine forests high in the mountains and on certain coastlines are best. Forested areas around cities are not good for asthma, Berlin being an example.  So you can easily check if you live in an asthma hot spot, or in a better place. Cognitive Impairment We just spent two weeks under the olive trees beside the sea in Greece, wh...

Last summer, I wrote a lot about autism getting much worse in that time of the year and how I found that common “24 hour” anti-histamine drugs seemed to have a magical effect; but one that lasted only 2-3 hours. There were only visible signs of a mild allergy, which could indeed easily be overlooked. I did later receive a message from a reader who noticed his child’s ASD behaviours were greatly improved by Zrtec and his doctor agreed to prescribe this H1 antihistamine all year round. Recently, I stumbled upon a blog, rich with many comments of parents of kids with severer types of autism.  Here I noted some parents referring to “summertime raging”, and I thought to myself, I know what they mean.  Fortunately, I found out how to make it go away. Ant-histamine drugs The two most common antihistamine drugs are Claritin (Loratadine), its active derivative Aerius ( Desloratadine) and Zrtec (Ceterizine) and its active derivative Xyzal ( levocetirizine). The main action of an antihis...

You may be wondering why, with so many research papers written about autism, so little progress has been made.   It is a very complex task, but nobody is coordinating it. How do you find a Boeing 777 missing somewhere in Asia?   Another daunting challenge, but with the right people and resources it can be done.   With the wrong people, it will prove to be impossible. Ashwood et al have documented the level of various inflammatory markers in autism.   Very helpfully, they created three groups: typical children, children with non-regressive autism, and children with regressive autism. Elevated plasma cytokines in autism spectrum disorders provide evidence   of immune dysfunction and are associated with impaired behavioral outcome Table 2, on the third page, tells us what we need to know.   Certain cytokine levels are markedly elevated in regressive autism, including IL-6 and TNF-alpha.   Furthermore, the difference between the two types of autism is dram...

You might be wondering the relevance of arthritis to an autism blog. Rheumatoid arthritis is an inflammatory condition in which the body's own immune system starts to attack body tissues.   It is often co-morbid with inflammatory bowel disease (including Crohn's disease and ulcerative colitis ).   IBD is comorbid with autism.   The study below shows how many autoimmune diseases, including arthritis are connected with autism.   Association of Family History of Autoimmune Diseases and Autism Spectrum Disorders RESULTS: A total of 3325 children were diagnosed with ASDs, of which 1089 had an infantile autism diagnosis. Increased risk of ASDs was observed for children with a maternal history of rheumatoid arthritis and celiac disease. Also, increased risk of infantile autism was observed for children with a family history of type 1 diabetes. CONCLUSIONS: Associations regarding family history of type 1 diabetes and infantile autism and maternal history of rheumatoid ar...