Imagine that you are an optimistic young woman whose hard work in college has earned professional credentials that allow you to pursue a fulfilling career. You have married your true love, a newly minted radiologist who just happens to look like Bryan Cranston of Breaking Bad fame. The birth of your first child, a boy, brings more joy than you had thought possible. You’ve got the world on a string.
But as time passes, your long-desired, deeply loved son shows signs of developmental changes: He is lost in throes of pain; he becomes aggressive, hyperactive, and sleepless. He is diagnosed with autism.
What would you do?
That story is Janet Lintala’s, a clinician of exceptional insight and intelligence, and she made a deal with God: She promised, if my son gets healthy and happy again, I will use what I learn to help others. With over a decade of helping autism spectrum disorder (ASD) children and their families, she has kept that promise. Now, with the publication of this book, Janet Lintala will help countless more families and children.
Dr. Lintala and her husband went to extraordinary measures to improve the health of their son, who is now thriving in college. Dr. Lintala, known as “Dr. Jae” to many of her patients, works in her clinic without a salary, helping parents discover underlying health problems in their children on the autism spectrum and strategically addressing those challenges. Her reward has a value beyond measure as she watches her patients become healthier and happier and their so-called autistic behaviors diminish.
Since 1976, when I entered medical school, the prevalence of autism spectrum disorders has increased by orders of magnitude, from one in 5,000 to one in 50 children in the United States, based on recent data from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. We know from careful analysis that the majority of this increase is not due simply to better diagnosis or increased recognition. I have felt impatient as environmental factors were overlooked during the search for “the autism gene.” Recently, evidence keeps emerging indicating that many genes and variables are involved in ASD and that a broad array of environmental factors needs to be considered before and after conception and birth.
Neurodevelopmental problems are increasing around the world, and concerned clinicians and parents are scrambling to find solutions. My keen interest in figuring out what is happening to this generation of children has led to invitations to lecture and/or mentor in eighteen countries. It has been an honor and a privilege to meet so many compassionate and extraordinary parents and professionals. But no matter where I go, adequate resources are lacking to respond to the tsunami of affected children and the impact on their families. That lack, and the extraordinary outcomes Dr. Lintala has helped hundreds of patients and their families achieve over the past ten years, is why I am delighted to see her accessible and affordable health support strategies gathered into a book.
Let me make it clear that neither Dr. Lintala nor I are trying to “fix” the Sheldon Coopers of the world who are a little quirky but have good health, a circle of friends, and jobs they do well. We feel called to help the little boys who cannot learn to talk until their metabolic pathways are supported . . . the little girls who suffer from horrible allergies and asthma attacks until their gut microbes and immune systems are balanced . . . the adolescents who have terrible anxiety attacks in social situations . . . and the children who bang their heads and bite their wrists until their inflammatory bowel disease is managed.
We believe that children are complex and wonderful creatures. A systems biology approach—like the one used by Dr. Lintala and other leaders in the field of ASD—that goes beyond “the shin bone is connected to the knee bone” is crucial. We must consider the effects of gut health on brain function, and that metabolic messages from the microbes that colonize us affect our cell functions. Sadly, this multisystem approach does not fit easily into our current paradigm of medical care in which short office visits and treatment of single symptoms are the norm as physicians are pressured to see more patients in less time.
Last, let me make it clear that neither Dr. Lintala nor I are opposed to the rational use of prescription medications. But rather than trying to find a “pill for every ill” or use different treatments for each individual symptom, we constantly seek the source of a health problem within the limits of our current knowledge, which is ever evolving.
The Un-Prescription strategy starts with Dr. Lintala’s extremely comprehensive questionnaire, designed to provide clinicians and caregivers with insights about what factors may be contributing to the challenges the ASD child faces. Factors in the medical history and symptoms the child may be experiencing serve as clues for the detective work that is required to get to the root causes of what is interfering with the child’s health and well-being. You’ll find that very questionnaire in this book, allowing you to experience a virtual office visit, including learning why Janet asks the questions she does and what the answers may mean.
As an ASD mom herself, Dr. Lintala knows the value of “different strokes for different folks.” Therefore, she has divided many of the clinical strategies into pathways that can be modified for the circumstances of any family—taking into account the severity of the child’s challenges, the family’s financial resources, access to extended family support, and the levels of household chaos and parental energy. Each set of recommendations can morph, depending on the response of the child or the needs of the family.
By reading this book, you can benefit from the lessons learned the hard way by a dedicated autism mom and savvy clinician. You may be moved to tears as you recognize your child or grandchild in these pages. You may gasp in horror at her description of the “poop piñata” episode or even laugh out loud at her descriptions of the strategies autism parents will resort to in order to maintain a sex life. Above all, what you’ll find here are valuable clinical insights that are packaged into doable action plans to help your child.
Similar to the way canaries in the coal mine are affected by low levels of toxic gas and warn miners before they are hurt, increasing neurodevelopmental challenges in our current generation of children should serve as a wake-up call for the rest of humanity. My fervent hope is that the protocols described in this book can help the medical, therapeutic, and educational communities respond to those challenges—faced bravely by these children daily—and that our patients can achieve health and happiness along with the opportunity to live a fulfilling life.
Elizabeth Mumper, MD, FAAP
President and CEO, Rimland Center for Integrative Medicine
Former Medical Director, Autism Research Institute