I am trying to remain positive.Thus this entry's picture of Alex giving his "bunny backpack" a kiss (it's actually a plush kangaroo, kid's backpack his Dad brought home from one of his trips to Australia) . Very handy for carrying his bottled water and allowed snacks... and adorable as heck.
But, lately anyone looking at a copy of the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders and observing Alex's behavior the past couple of days without taking into account his gut dysbiosis would say he's bipolar. One minute he's laughing his head off at nothing (like the car hitting a small bump in the road) and the next second, he's crying and/or angry or vice versa and he can not vocalize why or what he wants. He's a mess. Out of nowhere he'll scream at the top of his lungs. Like today... in the middle of the grocery store. Alex let out an angry shriek that made people around us jump. I told him, "No. Quiet mouth." He settled down, lower lip out and looking like he was on the verge of tears. Then, like someone flipped a switch, he was smiling and giggling. Back and forth.
"Being difficult" doesn't quite describe it. Worse, we've slipped back to yanking even familiar one-syllable words out of him like we're pulling teeth and having to redirect/repeat things to him since he's back to "receiving transmissions from his mother ship."
Besides the sudden Jekyll & Hyde attacks, he has physical symptoms like a severely cracked, bleeding, swollen lower lip. Cracking and bleeding of the skin at the corners of his mouth with pus. Bad breath. I'm loathe to even mention finding tiny pimple-like growths on his back (which has gone away thank goodness). He is on Nizoral and while it's helping it doesn't seem to be enough.
You know what this is?
Candida flare up.
*bleeping bleeping bleeping bleep!!!*
The combination of his system just recovering from being on Augmentin for klebsiella oxytoca then getting (a necessary dose of) glutathione plus having something he's not supposed to (a gut bomb of a pastry made of wheat flour, milk and refined sugar). I am NOT kidding when I say he absolutely can not have this stuff. This is not a "diet" where having "just a little" of something he can't have won't hurt him. I'm thinking of carrying around a picture of the lining of a damaged gastrointestinal tract to show just to show people how bad it is and to take this condition seriously. It's like feeding someone Dave's Insanity Hot Pepper sauce knowing they have a bleeding ulcer in their stomach.
So, back to square one :(. Trying not to think of it that way but it's like we'd lost all the gains we'd made from the work we'd put into this since April. Alex will have to go back on Diflucan on a higher dosage for a full 3 weeks to get this back under control.
Thinking... it could be worse. It could be like when we had little to no idea why he was behaving this way. Subject to fits we couldn't head off or know what to do about them. Thus not be able to go anywhere because of their very unpredictability. Flip a coin... would today be a good day or a bad day for Alex?
At least now I know what's likely to be going wrong, what's worked as treatment and doctors who can give me insight on what we can do next to set things right.
