Mutterings Of A Mindless Mommy

This may sound weird but one thing I have come to learn in the past four months since my daughter’s diagnosis is that there is some divide in the autism community. There may be more than one division but the one that keeps coming back to me is the division of those who feel that autism can be cured vs. those who feel that it can’t. If you say a child has autism it leaves one thinking that there is an affliction that can be cured. If you say that a child is autistic then, in my opinion, it seems as though an acceptance has been made about the disorder and that there is no search for a cure.

This topic can get very heated, I have seem some very distinct arguments on both sides - both from the biomedical minded parents and those who have either tried biomedical interventions and have had it not work or those who after reading about them decided to go the more traditional route with therapies, etc. I typically fall on the crunchier side of things; that is to say that I like to look at things from a natural perspective. With my son we started out with dietary intervention and other non-pharmacological methods before we ended up going the route of a medical intervention. For him, and for us, that was the answer. With my daughter I have done a lot of reading about chelation, diet changes, healing the gut, etc and I have chosen to start with traditional methodologies - therapies, school, etc. This is not to say that I think any of the biomedical interventions are just a waste of time, that is hardly the case. I just haven’t come to that point in my journey where I am ready to accept that the biomedical route is for us. I am a firm believer in “to each their own”.

In roaming the web I found that the founder of the quite popular Autism Hub community has started a new message board for parents of autistic children. Did you catch how I said that? “Parents of autistic children.” Not parents of children with autism. Prior to my journey down this road I’d have not noticed the fine nuances of those two statements, but now they speak loudly.

Dictionary.com defines comorbid as:

pertaining to two diseases which occur together, such as ADHD and depression

and also as:

existing simultaneously with and usually independently of another medical condition

ADHD isn’t always seen alone, very often there are comorbid conditions present - from sensory processing disorder to autism spectrum disorders to anxiety. In my son’s case he presents with ADHD (primarily hyperactive/impulsive type), sensory processing disorder, and childhood anxiety. According to an article “ADHD with Comorbid Anxiety” by David Beck Schatz and Anthony L. Rostain “ADHD is often comorbid with anxiety disorders, with rates approaching 25% in many samples.” That means that as many as 1 in 4 people afflicted with ADHD also suffer from anxiety, that’s quite a high rate.

Now let’s pursue other conditions which are often found alongside ADHD. In my reading I saw mention that somewhere between 50% and 90% of people diagnosed with ADHD will be treated for a second condition at one point in their life. The more commonly diagnosed comorbid disorders are depression, bipolar disorder, anxiety, learning disabilities, and oppositional defiant disorder. This makes me wonder what it is in these individual’s brain wiring or genetics that leaves them open to additional diagnoses above and beyond the initial diagnosis of ADHD. This also makes me wonder if my son has a more arduous road ahead of him then I initially thought.