The Autistic Me

Our lower-level flooded again last night. We ended up calling a company dealing with such emergencies. A neighbor also helped me as I frantically tried to move important paperwork from filing cabinets downstairs to our dining room. Without my wife here, I did what I could on my own and it wasn't enough. Unfortunately, I lost some notes and research I was hoping to use in coming weeks. Thoughts cannot be replaced, while furniture and appliances can be. Earlier in the day, I had driven past our insurance agent's office. I had intended to obtain flood insurance this week. It probably wouldn't have been in effect, but I feel horrible. Why didn't I stop? Because I was coming from a medical appointment, which led to a referral to a surgeon. I'm losing a lot of blood. As readers of this blog might recall, I was hospitalized over Christmas Eve a few years ago with blood loss. I needed a transfusion. We're near that point again. http://theautisticme.blogspot.com/...

Tonight my wife told me that she has been experiencing stress, worrying about my health from afar. I have been having some minor health issues for the last month or so. Experience has taught us that I am not good at recognizing how serious an issue is or is not. I did go to a "minute clinic" after a week of coughing, and was diagnosed with bronchitis. However, other health problems have continued and I am set to see a doctor next week. One of the serious issues facing families of adults with autism is how to help an autistic person recognize and deal with health related issues. Because I am always in physical pain and discomfort is a constant in my life, it is challenging for me to recognize when a pain is something important. I have severe back pain and was even in a back brace as a teenager. I also have other injuries dating back to birth which cause shoulder and hip pain. For as long as I can remember, I have had headaches and migraines. With my complicated physical si...

On one of the many popular autism blogs, the old myth of "no autistic adults" once again made its appearance. The argument is autism is "new" and an "epidemic" — the proof is that there are so few adults with autism receiving services. Adults don't receive many services. The laws and supports are changing, though. For now, the best census of adults with ASDs was done in the U.K. by the National Health Service. The autistic adults do exist, they just were not counted in the past. Again, from 2009: On Sept. 22, England’s National Health Service (NHS) released the first study of autism in the general adult population. The findings confirm the intuitive assumption: that ASD is just as common in adults as it is in children. Researchers at the University of Leicester, working with the NHS Information Center found that roughly 1 in 100 adults are on the spectrum — the same rate found for children in England, Japan, Canada and, for that matter, New Jerse...

I posted a link to this article a few days ago: In Study, MRI Scan 90% Accurate Identifying Autism The full story cautions that this is merely one study, but it is interesting. From the story on CNN's website: Scientists are finding more pieces of the autism puzzle of with the help of MRI scans of brain circuitry, according to a study published Thursday online in the journal Autism Research.  By scanning the brain for 10 minutes using magnetic resonance imaging, researchers were able to measure six physical differences of microscopic fibers in the brains of 30 males with confirmed high-functioning autism and 30 males without autism. Here is my question: What is confirmed high-functioning autism? HFA is not a standardized diagnosis, as it does not appear in the DSM-IV. It is a subjective diagnosis, and there are constant debates as to what differentiates HFA from Asperger's Syndrome or PDD-NOS. I have even heard discussions claiming it is easy to confuse "moderate...

In Study, MRI Scan 90% Accurate Identifying Autism The full story cautions that this is merely one study, but it is interesting. From the story on CNN's website: Scientists are finding more pieces of the autism puzzle of with the help of MRI scans of brain circuitry, according to a study published Thursday online in the journal Autism Research. By scanning the brain for 10 minutes using magnetic resonance imaging, researchers were able to measure six physical differences of microscopic fibers in the brains of 30 males with confirmed high-functioning autism and 30 males without autism. The images of the brains helped researchers correctly identify those with autism with 94 percent accuracy, says Nicholas Lange, an associate professor of psychiatry at Harvard Medical School and one of the study authors. "No one has measured what we measured," says Lange of the MRI test he and Dr. Janet Lainhart from the University of Utah developed. While previous studies using different ty...

Right on the heels of my complaints about the anti-vax conspiracy radicals, who are so focused they often overlook issues of concern to all families and individuals with autism and related disorders, comes this twist. Certain to anger the anti-vax movement in the U.K., the National Health Service is considering changing the vaccine schedule. There are also discussions of what can or should be mandated . One-off 'six inoculation' jabs to be introduced to one-year-olds Last updated at 5:05 PM on 21st November 2010 Read More The decision to immunise all the diseases at once, including MMR will create concern with some parents about the risk of side effects with the added possibility that families will not allow their babies to be inoculated in this way. The joint committee on vaccination and immunisation who advised the government to combine the jabs said research found no safety issues with families 'expected to increase take-up' of inoculations. It does make me wonder ...

I won't delve too deeply in this, but I am familiar with the stupidity of people trying to prove I am someone else or the paid shill of this group or that. The basic story is that a blogger at "Age of Autism" (a website I do despise intensely), is trying to "prove" that Sullivan over at "Left Brain / Right Brain" is actually not the father of an autistic child, but is instead… well, I'm not even going to give it more credibility than that. It's stupidity and evidence of how conspiracy minded the extremists are. Sadly, these extremists seem to come from one side of the debate. They've sent people like me hateful e-mails, even threats. These are not people interested in learning or discussing -- they are like religious zealots. It is ironic that these zealots are often aligned with "progressive" politics. They find standing on Daily Kos, Huffington Post, and other forums. Let's get this straight, the political community gene...

Vaccination Rates Drop in Wealthier Kids: The Autism Rumors Take a Toll If there's one great truth of political debate, it's this: when noise trumps knowledge, someone's going to get hurt. That's been proven anew with Wednesday's report that vaccination rates for children with health insurance have been falling — due mostly to fears about the widely disproven link between vaccines and autism. If there was a glimmer of good — and surprising — news in the report it's that vaccination rates for kids on Medicaid are on the rise. I've read the more education one has, the more likely to embrace alternative medicine, too. I'd like to see this broken down by which academic majors these “educated” people studied. Yes, I do believe we'd find a difference between science majors and the humanities graduates. But, that's only my theory. I am a humanities graduate (English, journalism), but I found some very vocal academics upset that anyone questio...