Vichaya Kiatying-Angsulee, freedigitalphotos.net

Part of the reason my own recovery has been at a turtle’s pace is the cost. Here in Canada, even though we have public health care, M.D.s are still being trained to believe that nothing can be done about autism.

To access several other kinds of health care, you need an MD to write a prescription. And if you want most kinds of health support, even with a prescription it wouldn’t be covered by public health insurance, so it comes out of your own pocket.

As a result, visiting a doctor for anything except a yearly physical had been counter-productive (and I’ve changed doctors looking for better help every time I’ve moved, which is a lot of times). Now, there ARE a few paediatric MDs who are starting to help the children with ASD, and this is wonderful… but it’s still more the exception than the rule.

What this means is that most MDs in Canada have little interest in or experience with ASD recovery. So in order to get good health support from most Canadian physicians (and I dearly hope it’s easier elsewhere), you need to:
a) have a good relationship with that physician
b) be willing to do the research yourself, and
c) have a physician willing to read the research you bring in.

Even then, most MDs are in a position where, if they do anything except diagnose or drug, they are outside the standards of practice for their professional association, and could find themselves being supervised or threatened with loss of their license to practice. Fortunately, it’s slightly more lenient for paediatricians.

Now remember from the free webinar, the top three most effective and indispensable actions to thrive with autism? These are to:

• minimize toxin intake
• love, and
• hyper-nourish.

None of these three require a lot of money, or even require more work than what you’re likely currently doing. They just require you to do things a little differently. If you haven’t yet seen the free webinar, I encourage you to register for the next one at http://tinyurl.com/thrivewautism. The free handout is available from my Thrive store.

When you’ve seen the Thrive With Autism Essentials presentation, access the books I’ve referenced in the handout, and go through the rest of my blog. There’s a LOT of information in the blog, some of which is bundled and packaged for sale elsewhere for people’s convenience.

Once you understand what the pain or stress underlying each symptom is, the unique symptoms, their frequency and their intensity become your guideposts for how well the little experiments you try are working. Make a change – a few months is better, because we take longer to show improvements than we do to get worse – and watch the symptoms.

The biggest expense you’ll face, doing things the way I did (the slow way), is food. Organic is harder to access, it is more expensive, and depending on where you live, it’s not always fresh.

So even though organic food has more antioxidants to support healing, aging may have destroyed most of its vitamins… but there’s a better way! Organic foods are more nourishing than conventional. Biodynamic foods are more nourishing than organic. But wild foods are more nourishing than biodynamic foods…

And let me tell you, if I can grow dandelion, wild lettuce, and chicory leaves through a Canadian winter in a pot on a windowsill, you can eat weeds even if you live in a concrete jungle. And sprouting seeds is a lot less expensive than fresh vegetables (and those seeds are really easy to carry, grin).

Don’t let a lack of money stop you. You have everything you need to start making headway. I’ll keep adding more resources here. The gains may arrive more slowly, but you, too, can thrive with autism!