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| Happy Halloween! |
Anyone who is part of my Facebook group will recognize these photos, they were worth re-sharing here, I just love them so much!
Lucas has been working very hard on ice skating! He starts formal lessons December 5th, but already I have been faced with "Mom, I play hockey too?"
Of course Lucas, because having only two children in travel hockey leaves Mommy and Daddy with way too much free time on their hands.
This is Lucas post skate.
If he looks like a hockey player and smells like a hockey player......
Although Lucas's overall health has been exceptional (yes another calendar year without illness of any kind - brings the tally to 4.5 years!) and his learning incredible, I have been stymied by the question of growth.
It never made sense to me that short stature was "just Down Syndrome." Maybe, but why? Everything I had read pointed to one of three things was at the heart of the issue - Thyroid, Disgestive system function, and nutrition.
For over two years his thyroid has been very stable (all measures including thyroid antibodies). Today at the biomed she even commented that we don't want it too low, his TSH was well under 1.0.
I can honestly say in Lucas's 6 years of life he has never had an issue of a gastrointestinal nature. Most likely a combination of his diet and supplements, his digestion process is excellent.
And as far as nutrition, I should be so lucky to have the willpower to eat as cleanly and properly as Lucas. (This includes monthly bloods, analysis, and supplements).
So then why was growth still lagging?
At our August visit to the biomed, she recommended we look at Human Growth hormone levels (Which surprisingly came back WNL's) as well as optimize methylation. (
For those wanting information about the processes of methylation I would direct you to Andi Durkin's blog, DS Daytoday - it is a virtual encyclopedia of explanations and simplifications! She also has full bibliographies for further research.
Prior to today's visit I was alerted to an incredible Doctor out of Oregon who posted this article in The Down Syndrome Treatment Center of Oregon group:
Global DNA Methylation: Nutritional Correlates and Child Growth.
http://deepblue.lib.umich.edu/handle/2027.42/97956
click "download" for full dissertation
It wasn't news to me that hypomethylation was a huge problem in children with T21, but I didn't ever realize the direct correlation to growth - so I thought this information worth sharing.
In August, in addition to all of the methylation boosting we were already doing, we changed 2 things:
1. We replaced sublingual methylcobolamin with B12 injections 2x/week (Not sure who loves this more, Lucas or I)
2. We switched to MSB methyl plus from MSBv7.
Today, 2 months and 5 days after our August visit?
3 Inches of Linear Growth!
I did see the clothes getting shorter, but there is a certain quality to this growth spurt. Lucas's hands and feet looked not only bigger, but more mature (if that makes any sense).
His running is solid and in fact he now runs a 13 minute 15 sec. mile. If anyone would like to be his new running partner let me know! :)
He loves to ice skate and is able to do so without the pusher for short distances..ankles strong, no pronation.
His body feels solid, his thighs and arms feel muscular, and he flies down the 18' of brachiation bars with only minimal support.
This also has come at a time of most impressive intellectual change from maturity, to sentence structure, to academics (who knew Home schooling would be my very
favorite thing in the whole world? Wish I had a do-over with my other boys...their school is wonderful, but this journey with Lucas makes me miss not having it with them!)
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| Lucas and Ryan working on their individual dioramas |
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| Lucas's Finished Product |
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| And summary! |
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| Not sure if this means Lucas is a genius or a smart ass. Most likely a little of both. |
I wish everyone a Happy Halloween as we creatively try to keep the sugar and dyes away from the kiddos!
