Health in the News: 21.Jan.03'MY
CHILD WAS LOST TO THE WORLD BUT AN OIL HAS GIVEN HER THE LIFE WE THOUGHT SHE WOULD
NEVER HAVE''In November 2001, Hope started a high daily dose
of fish oil supplement. Within 10 weeks there were some remarkable changes. "You
wouldn't know there had been anything wrong with her. It's miraculous. It seems
incredible that this kind of transformation could be down to something as simple
as fish oil. But it has given me my child back,"' says Hope's mother, Kate. By
the age of six, Hope Lewis was profoundly autistic and withdrawn, and doctors
could do nothing. As a last resort, her mother tried her on a fish oil supplement.
Victoria Young writes: When Hope Lewis was a year old,
her mother; Kate, would put her exhausted daughter to bed each night and pray
she's sleep. Instead, Hope would sit bolt upright in the dark, wailing incessantly,
banging her head against the bars of her cot for hours on end. When Kate replaced
the cot with a bed, Hope banged her head against the wall. When the bed was pulled
into the middle of the room, Hope targeted her knees, knocking against them repeatedly
until bruises and sores covered her face and head. Her behaviour was even
more distressing because she had been such a calm, quiet baby. "Until eight
weeks she hardly cried at all and always slept through the night. I thought I
had an exceptionally wonderful child," says Kate, whose two other daughters,
Jennifer and Tanya, are 13 and nine. "But in retrospect I realise she was
too calm and quiet. She didn't do anything spontaneously or respond to us at all." Within
a year of Hope's birth, Kate and her husband separated, in part because he found
it hard to accept his daughter's problems. "To see your child in such
a state is just devastating," says 28-year old Kate, a teaching assistant
from Kent. "She was so evidently disturbed but I had no idea why, and for
a long time no one could tell me. It was soul-destroying to stand in the dark
with her, trying to get her to stop. I felt totally alone." As Hope
got older, things became worse. "She has very little concept of what was
going on around her," Kate says. "I'd kiss and hug her but get no response.
It was as if she wasn't there. I'd have to explain things three or four times
for them to sink in and she was in a constant state of confusion. She'd say things
like, 'I fell down the stairs and broke my heart.'" What had been a
shy burgeoning vocabulary disappeared, seemingly overnight. While Hope's GP was
concerned at her loss of language, he was vague about a diagnosis. "He just
predicted that she would deteriorate and end up in an institution, but couldn't
say what was wrong," says Kate. "Another doctor told me that it was
my fault for comparing her to my other children. A third said that Hope was having
an emotionally disturbed reaction to the break-up of my marriage." It
wasn't until she was five that Hope received a proper diagnosis of autism, as
part of a school assessment. By then, her learning difficulties were so severe
that her comprehension of language was gauged at only eight per cent. Unable
to communicate, Hope became frustrated and violent, lashing out at her two sisters.
She was hyperactive, racing around, unable to sit still. Constantly exhausted
she spent night after night in a wakeful trance. While her classmates were starting
to read whole books, she could barely count to 10, and reading or writing even
simple sentences was beyond her. Out of her depth at school, she fell foul of
bullies. Pale and sickly-looking, she became hunched, hiding her face behind her
shoulder-length hair. ""All I ever wanted was for Hope to settle
down and have a family, possibly a job," Kate says. My biggest fear was that
she would end up alone, needing constant care, and that as I got older I wouldn't
be able to help her. I thought she's get in with the wrong crowd and be used and
abused. I was sure she's end up institutionalised." When Kate was at
her wit's end, a friend told her about fish oil. Kate was prepared to try anything,
so in November 2001, Hope started a high daily dose of fish oil supplement
containing omega 3 and omega 6 long chain fatty acids. Within 10 weeks there were
some remarkable changes. One day, Hope asked Kate's new partner, Vaughan,
how old he was, then counted up to 42 without stopping. In a turnaround that astonished
Kate and the rest of the family, her understanding of language accelerated and
her vocabulary increased overnight. She began reading at school, and delighted
in reading aloud at home. "Now she'll read a book from cover to cover,
with a bit of help, and she can write sentences," Kate says. "She's
still behind, but she's catching up. She's even started to become sarcastic and
argue a point. Suddenly she has very string opinions, which I couldn't be more
delighted about."
The supplement combines a fish oil particularly
high in essential fatty acids with vitamin E. Research has shown that it can help
modify the behaviour of children with various learning and behavioural disorders,
including dyslexia, dyspraxia and attention deficit disorder, as well as the autistic
spectrum.
Dr Carolyn Adcock is a consultant paediatrician who assessed Hope
before and after the child took omega 3. Although she was pleased at the improvements
in Hope's behaviour, she is quick to point out that more trials need to be done
on eye q before it can be seen as a "cure" for autism.
"Essential
fatty acids are important for normal brain function and there is a school of thought
that says children with autism and other related developmental problems may be
deficient in them," she says. "Some reports claim that dietary
supplementation causes an improvement in some of the features of autism, but it
is important to remember that this has not been observed in all children with
the condition. I was very pleased at how well Hope seemed to respond to the supplement,
but more large trials are required to establish whether fatty acids supplements
do have a definite role in the management of children with autistic features." None
the less, these days, Hope's violent behaviour is a thing of the past. She's charismatic
and engaging, and eager to please. She no longer hides behind her hair and stands
up straight and tall. Playful, with a mischievous sense of humour, she has made
new friends at school and is a picture of health. "She takes pride
in choosing her own clothes now," Kate says. "She's become her own little
person. She's incredibly sharp. I can give her a shopping list and send her off
to get milk and bread, or ask her to remind me about things, and she'll never
forget." In short, Hope is like any other outgoing seven-year-old.
A bit of a tomboy, she spends her weekends riding horses and swimming. She's fanatical
about animals and loves listening to pop music with her big sisters. "For
a long time, talk about Hope's future was taboo," says Kate. "But now
we talk about it all the time. I would be very surprised if she didn't go out
and get a job, and hopefully, she'll find herself a partner and settle down. "You
wouldn't know there had been anything wrong with her. It's miraculous. It seems
incredible that this kind of transformation could be down to something as simple
as fish oil. But it has given me my child back. "I'm so proud
of Hope. I chose her name because I've always liked it, but maybe I knew subconsciously
that it was the perfect name for her. It sums her up totally."
National Autistic Society, 020 7833 2299 (United Kingdom)
Source:
The Evening Standard
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