Bold Mom or Crazy Mom?

Choosing alternative therapies & medicines for my daughter was not an easy road to travel.  It was scary leaving main stream medical & jumping into homeopathic and chiropractic care with little to no support.  However, the road we were on not only wasn't helping my sick little girl, I felt it was making her worse.  There had to be another way and I learned there were several ways.

My daughter was born healthy and exclusively breastfed until 8 months when we incorporated solids along with nursing.  Her first year of life was incredibly healthy, aside from RSV at 6 months she never contracted anything, not even a cold.  She was fully vaccinated at all the regular times and reacted harshly although I was told it was "normal".  Well, projectile vomiting, fevers and arched back screaming inconsolably for hours until passing out is not normal- wish I had known then...  Her 1st birthday marked the end of her healthy life as we knew it.  She contracted Roseola and suffered a febrile seizure.  It was downhill from there. 

I went back to work & enrolled my daughter in daycare where they gave her processed foods and cows milk.  Again, we continued with vaccinations, not knowing the part they played.  She began getting colds which then turned into upper respiratory infections which came with fevers and more febrile seizures.  Seizures would last 5-8 minutes, the 8 minutes ones being the scariest watching her turn blue.  The upper respiratory infections began to turn into pneumonia's and at one time she was hospitalized with pneumonia and influenza.  We thanked God if she went 2 weeks without some kind of illness.  Eventually the wheezing and allergies to cats & dust began and with it the eczema.  She was diagnosed with asthma at 18 months and put on daily meds.  The neurologist suggested we put her on a daily anti seizure medication to boot due to having approx 2 seizures per month for 9 months, even some without fevers.  By this time I'm a zombie, staying up nights making sure she's breathing, dreading any illness that would cause a seizure, scared to take her into public.  I hated how shaky and irritable the asthma meds made her.  I read the side effects on the anti seizure medication and that was the last straw or turning point, however you want to look at it.  The alternative journey began and we never looked back.

Feb 2008, 18mo

I began researching root causes for seizures and asthma as well as alternative therapies.  I eliminated certain foods and products known to worsen asthma and/or seizures and added organic whole foods, superfoods, herbs, essential oils & supplements.  I took her to a Cranial Sacral Therapist, a Homeopath and a Chiropractor.  I researched vaccines and adverse reactions & ultimately stopped vaccinating altogether.  I stopped giving her Tylenol/Motrin for fevers and used homeopathy instead...to this day, more than 2 years later I still get friction from family & friends on this even though homeopathy has more than proven to work better!  In all, within 2 weeks of alternative methods I was able to remove asthma meds forever.  In the 2-1/2 yrs since beginning alternative methods, she has had two short less than 2 minute seizures, and maybe 3-4 small colds.  Now that's nothing to sneeze at!  The knowledge I have gained on this journey not only helped my daughter immensely, but saved our pets too.  That's another blog down the road...

So, bold or crazy or both?  I've been called reckless, crazy, dangerous, but also determined, courageous, caring and super-mom.  Did you know that a pulmonologist can call CPS on you if they find out you stopped giving your child asthma meds?  I did what I needed to for my daughter, that's what moms do.  But what do I know?  I'm just a mom, not a doctor.  The proof is in the pudding, I have an incredibly healthy girl; asthma, allergies,eczema, illnesses, seizures are long gone.  She's my inspiration for this holistic blog :)

Christmas 2010, 4yrs old