Re: Sick and bummed

[Guest guest]

I have nothing against therapy alongside biomed.  It seems like a logical thing to do.  But here, speech is $110 to $150 AN HOUR where I'm at.  It's just criminal how much it costs, when our children have a communication disorder.  Thing is that at this (insane) rate, you'd think they'd be terribly effective.  The ones that we saw weren't effective at all.  A $9 bottle of copper did more for my daughter's speech in four days than speech therapy did in an entire year. 

And I gotta get this off my chest, too.  A lot of the SLPs we encountered weren't terribly interested in seeing people unless they had insurance.  We don't have insurance.  There's no way in hell we could ever afford to pay over $300 per week per child in speech therapy.  I've got two kids with ASD, so that would be over $2400 a month for us, on top of paying the supervising clinical psychologist $320 a month for ABA (the ABA is publicly funded for now for about 2 years).  We still have to pay car insurance, the mortgage, clothe our children and other daily living expenses. 

We can't afford that.  The money just isn't there.  I've gone to support groups where parents have cried because speech therapy has literally bankrupted them.  That just seems so wrong, after having go through the heartbreak of getting a diagnosis to have to be bankrupted in the same breath.

I spoke to a psychologist who told me that speech is supposed to be naturally acquired in typically developing children.  So, you mean to tell me that if my child were typically developing, I wouldn't need a speech therapist. 

See how important those neurotransmitters are?

 

Although my son does in school as well as private speech, I personally believe the therapy will be more beneficial after recovery when he is more cognitive.  OT will cost us an additional $200 a week on top of the $70 a week for speech.  I will wait for a little more cognitive development before starting private OT. 

Just a thought.

Kerri

To: mb12valtrex Sent: Wednesday, January 25, 2012 10:01 AM

Subject: Re: Sick and bummed

 

I understand. We dd bio meds, supplements and diet change only. NO therapy. My son is doing great! A little OCD about germs, still plays alone n hs world at times, but will socialize well and speech, maybe at a 5 year old level and he is 7. He will catch up. He is soooooo much better and " with us " now. Personally, I believe we can give our kids all the therapy they need. After all, who knows them better than us. Just my opinion.

 

   Always Call

Christie Gravatt

We are not human beings having a spiritual experience, we are spiritual beings having a human experience!

 

 

 

Subject: Sick and bummed

To: " m12valtrex " <mb12valtrex >Date: Monday, January 23, 2012, 10:54 PM

 

I've just spent the past 3 months working on a killer project for work and I'm just approaching the final phase and waiting for some stuff from a client and I came down with a flu that's somewhere between a stomach flu and an achy headachy kind of flu.  I don't normally feel bummed but I think the flu's got me feeling bummed about everything in general.  I kind of want to get some stuff off my chest that's been bugging me in the last while so I can just have it off my chest and move on...1. It really bugs me that the ASD parenting community around me in the real world thinks that EVERYTHING revolves around therapy.  It's really annoying.  The only answer to our children's issues from many people around me is to pump hundreds of thousands of $$$ (which, btw, we DON'T have) into more therapy.  From everything I've encountered for us, a large chunk of it involves neurotransmitters.  Pediatricians spew

this crap that just doing more therapy alone will make our kids ok and, for us, this is just not the case.  For a lot of kids of parents in many of these groups, that's not enough.  I've heard stupid things being said like, " Oh supplements won't get your child to speak, THERAPY will... " They didn't see my daughter in therapy w/o supps.  She is definitely showing early signs of language and I've worked really hard at this to squeeze out those first few sentences that still require ginormous amounts of effort from her to make.  In fact, I'm starting to think that w/o biomed to address our very real MEDICAL issues, doing therapy without making neurotransmitters, I might as well hire an exorcist to exorcise the " demons " of autism and apraxia out of her...that's how much sense it makes to me.  I really hate a lot of pediatricians where I'm at.  

[Guest guest]

oh that is a great idea...wow, you go momma bear

To: "mb12valtrex " <mb12valtrex > Sent: Thursday, January 26, 2012 12:01 AMSubject: Re: Sick and bummed

That is so unfortunate that the school has let you down. Even though we do not usually take the advice of the "regular" doctors, we use a neurologist in the Texas Med. Center to simply get a prescription or referral stating how many hours of OT, speech, ABA, etc is necessary for our child. If you have this in hand, the school can not decline him the services. Request an ARD and go in with the written recommendations from your doctor and see what happens. I am armed with them for our ARD in Feb. Momma's packin the ammo! LOL!

Kerri

To: "mb12valtrex " <mb12valtrex > Sent: Wednesday, January 25, 2012 10:23 AMSubject: Re: Sick and bummed

that gives me so much comfort christie thank you for sharing that....my son has no therapy at all....the school didnt give my son any services at all...i knew a autism mom who told me that the school got really nasty with her when she had to fight so hard to get services and i decided i would pick my battles and as long as the school respected my wishes about his food i was goin to leave the rest alone..

but it left me sad thinking my son was somehow missing out on all these services he doesnt get...

i just have to get off my butt and start doing therapy with him myself..

channa

To: mb12valtrex Sent: Wednesday, January 25, 2012 11:01 AMSubject: Re: Sick and bummed

I understand. We dd bio meds, supplements and diet change only. NO therapy. My son is doing great! A little OCD about germs, still plays alone n hs world at times, but will socialize well and speech, maybe at a 5 year old level and he is 7. He will catch up. He is soooooo much better and "with us" now. Personally, I believe we can give our kids all the therapy they need. After all, who knows them better than us. Just my opinion.

Always Call

Christie Gravatt

We are not human beings having a spiritual experience, we are spiritual beings having a human experience!

Subject: Sick and bummedTo: "m12valtrex" <mb12valtrex >Date: Monday, January 23, 2012, 10:54 PM

I've just spent the past 3 months working on a killer project for work and I'm just approaching the final phase and waiting for some stuff from a client and I came down with a flu that's somewhere between a stomach flu and an achy headachy kind of flu. I don't normally feel bummed but I think the flu's got me feeling bummed about everything in general. I kind of want to get some stuff off my chest that's been bugging me in the last while so I can just have it off my chest and move on... 1. It really bugs me that the ASD parenting community around me in the real world thinks that EVERYTHING revolves around therapy. It's really annoying. The only answer to our children's issues from many people around me is to pump hundreds of thousands of $$$ (which, btw, we DON'T have) into more therapy. From everything I've encountered for us, a large chunk of it involves neurotransmitters. Pediatricians spew this crap that just

doing more therapy alone will make our kids ok and, for us, this is just not the case. For a lot of kids of parents in many of these groups, that's not enough. I've heard stupid things being said like, "Oh supplements won't get your child to speak, THERAPY will..." They didn't see my daughter in therapy w/o supps. She is definitely showing early signs of language and I've worked really hard at this to squeeze out those first few sentences that still require ginormous amounts of effort from her to make. In fact, I'm starting to think that w/o biomed to address our very real MEDICAL issues, doing therapy without making neurotransmitters, I might as well hire an exorcist to exorcise the "demons" of autism and apraxia out of her...that's how much sense it makes to me. I really hate a lot of pediatricians where I'm at.