Cyndi Newton Wins The Poop Blog Contest!

I'm very happy to announce that Cyndi Newton of Springfield, Virginia, has won The GFCF Poop Blog contest! Cyndi kindly submitted 2 great poop photos to boost the usefulness and variety of this site. Of 12 entries total, it was Cyndi's name that I pulled out of the hat! (well, it was my husband's shoe because I couldn't find a hat! ha ha ha)

As her prize, Cyndi will win a month's supply of diapers and pull ups for her sweetie pie son, Matthew.

I asked Cyndi to let us know a bit about her, and here's what she wrote:

I'm a 37 year old stay at home mom of Matthew, age 3 (my only child who took 7 years to make!) who was diagnosed with "moderate autism" at age 2.5. He is currently in the Fairfax County, Virginia, PAC program (preschool autism class) and also receives 6 hours/week of ABA at home (thankfully paid for by Tricare insurance!). My husband John is active duty Navy and is currently attending some schools in preparation for his return to the submarine force.

We knew from about the time Matthew was 18 months old that something was not right. He never pointed, only had 5 words at 24 months, and just didn't act like his peers. I called Early Intervention and he starting receiving speech therapy one hour per week. It was his speech therapist that first mentioned the possibility of autism and thanks to her, we took him to several doctors (a neurologist, a psychologist, and a developmental pediatrician) that all confirmed the diagnosis. I was actually hoping one of them would say, "no, your son is fine...he's just a late talker" but that never happened.

So after 3 opinions, we accepted the fact and pushed on. We immediately put him on the GFCF diet and saw results within two days of removing dairy...his language doubled! He is a lot more "with it" now and can focus better during therapy. We also saw a DAN doctor who put him on many supplements (there's about 15 of them) and antifungals for his gut yeast. We are still battling the yeast and will eventually try chelation to remove the toxic heavy metals from his system.

It's been 9 months since the first diagnosis and 6 months since going "bio-med" and we have seen good results. I continue to learn more every day and couldn't do this without the help of my on-line support friends like you (yahoo groups rock!). This has been a difficult year for us and it will be even more difficult when John deploys next summer, but I try to stay positive and learn and do everything I can to help Matthew. We hope that one day he will be mainstreamed but more importantly that he will lead a healthy and happy life. Here is our blog address to keep up with his progress: http://matthewsautismjourney.blogspot.com/

Congratulations to Cyndi, and thanks to the others of you who submitted poop photos for the contest! Your efforts will help many!