How To Recover From AUTISM Naturally [Autism Recovery Success Stories]

When my own son was diagnosed with autism, I was told to just drug him and try behavioral therapies. Especially as a mom, I didn't want to just drug him. I wanted to find out what the causes were, the underlying issues. I began my own research because I really wasn't finding the help that I needed. He has actually had his diagnosis removed. He's no longer even diagnosable. He got his life back is basically what happened.

Hi, welcome to the show. This is Dr. Joy Kong. I am so excited that I have a very special guest today, Karen Thomas. I first met Karen actually at her podcast, which has a great reach teaching parents how to heal autism or how to recover autism kids naturally. I talked about stem cell treatments, and so many parents were able to reach me after listening to her podcast. But I also sent parents to her because I know what she can is so valuable. As powerful as stem cell therapy is, it can revamp the engine. It can cause some fundamental kind of a renovation in the body. But the disease is so complex and it has so many factors. So as many delving into as many areas and addressing those dysfunctions is really crucial. So I'm really happy that Karen is here to share her wisdom. Karen has a great story. I'll let you tell the. It starts with, well, you were a craniosacral therapist, right? That's how things started. And then your son was diagnosed. So I'll let you tell the story.

Okay. Yeah. And thank you for having me, Joy. I'm happy to be here. I do have a lot of resources and value to share, so it's nice to be able to do that because when my own son was diagnosed with autism, I was told to just drug him and try behavioral therapies and that there was nothing else that we could do for him. But especially as a mom, I didn't want to just drug him. I wanted to find out what the causes were, the underlying issues. Why was he having trouble focusing when I knew he was brilliant? Why did he have these tantrums and these, you know, this chaotic sort of life? He was very uncomfortable. He had a lot of digestive and health issues, sensory overload. These things just debilitated his life. He wasn't happy, and I wanted to help him. And so I began my own research because I really wasn't finding the help that I needed. And it took me a decade that I very slowly implemented things that I was learning and watched over time, how he became so much calmer. He could focus now in a classroom and go back to getting A's, because that's, you know, the type of. He's brilliant. The type of brain he has. And I knew it. I thought, okay. So I kept going. And as he calmed down and he started making more and more friends and his life just became really more normalized, I saw how beneficial this was to, you know, and I'll go through what I call the four stages. But he just. He got his life back is basically what happened. And now he lives a fulfilling life. He's now a college graduate, and he has actually had his diagnosis removed. He's no longer even diagnosable. So I was looking, what if I hadn't kept educating myself and researching and trying to figure it out, what would he be like today? So what I wanted to do is make sure that after I had taken now 16 years to find out all of this information and educate myself, why not share it with other parents who are out there struggling and searching like I was, so that I could help speed up their process of learning and help guide them through it as a mentor? Because I know how difficult the challenges are personally and help them get better results. Because I do what I call an A to Z approach. And as you mentioned, it's a very, very complex type of issue. And it's, you know, it's so much more. Diet is very important, and we can talk about why, but it's not. It's mostly what people hear about, but there's so much more. You know, there are toxins and pathogens and all of these underlying issues that are inflaming the brain and causing a child or a person to not be able to be who they are. And not every person's diagnosis is going to be removed, and that's fine. But I have helped parents who. They were told that their child would never speak, and now today their child is completely speaking. One of them, her son was 27 years old, still only at two word sentences. Now he's reading books with her, and she's just blown away. I mean, she's so thrilled, right? I mean, that's what it's about, is any amount of better is better to improve quality of life, help create independence for the individual, if possible, because you can have a better life. And that's what I really want people to know, is that all of these things are possible.

That's so hopeful. In the world where I don't even. We can talk about why autism is skyrocketing the rate. And so many people are just stagnating and just waiting for a life of not very much fulfillment and just kind of get through it. I'm curious about this 20 something year old that wasn't able to speak very much at all. What did he do to get to the point where he could read a whole book?

It's his mom and it usually comes down to the parents, right? And his mom was searching on the Internet and found me and found my program and joined instead of just saying oh I've tried everything or she wouldn't stop. She was just a die hard mom who wanted to help her son no matter what. And she, she came in to get the education and started implementing what I was teaching her. And it really started the changes for her son, even started with the diet alone. Because there's a big connection between the gut and the brain. And people think, well why don't you know what's wrong? So why don't I want to eat wheat or dairy? So gluten and casein, which are the proteins in dairy and wheat, along with of course sugars and processed carbohydrates and all of these things, they will create a lot of inflammation in the gut and actually create leaky holes in the gut called leaky gut of course. And then the child's not absorbing nutrition. The gut is very inflamed. The gut makes up up to 80% of the immune system and it creates a lot of the neurotransmitters or brain messengers such as things like serotonin and dopamine that to do with mood stability and sleep and appetite and our ability to focus. So these things are made in the gut. So if the gut is really inflamed and not working properly, then you can see the connection with the brain. So these kids can't focus in school, in a classroom or they can't sleep well, speech is affected, all of these things. So we start with clearing up the diet to for one get rid of all the chemicals. Because I say our kids are like canaries of the world, the canary in the coal mine. They're ultra sensitive and our environment has a lot of toxins in it today. It is really the reason why the autism epidemic has skyrocketed and there are multiple environmental toxins and co infections. That's another thing. In one of the stages of stage three, basically I call is clearing the co infections. You've got mold biotoxins, which is actually a genetic issue that 29% of the world population has. And it means the body can't get rid of the excess toxins when we're exposed to Mold, like from a water damaged building. This is really, really common and much more common than we think. And it really prevents the brain from being able to focus. People can get heavy anxiety or depression. Depression. There are a lot of things behind that. Lyme disease, very, very common in autism and it can be passed from mom in utero and through breast milk. So there are a lot of issues with Lyme disease.

Do you think Lyme disease could be a triggering factor for autism?

Absolutely. And it mimics the symptoms of autism. I've got on my website there is a podcast that I did just click on blog what causes the symptoms of autism. I go through the dsm, the diagnostic statistical manual that the psychiatric department uses to diagnose autism. Those symptoms as then compared to and I go through Candida and then heavy metals like mercury, aluminum, all of the toxicity and then go through these co infections I'm talking about and I give the symptoms of each and every and under those you can see how the symptoms of those compare so much to the symptoms of autism. And that's why when we start to work with them and I mean, you know, thoroughly A to Z, not just a little bit because I always hate to see somebody just fall short of the results they could have gotten with their child if they had known the whole A to Z. So that's why I am just preaching it. You know, you've got to know all of the pieces because you don't want to be stopped short of the results that you could have gotten.

Wow. Yeah. So back to the 20 something year olds. So they went through the whole four stages with you.

Yeah, the mom is still in the program. You know, he started, it was about two months in. I interviewed her. Her name is also Karen. But I know that the link directly because it's so easy to remember is naturallyrecoveringautism.com 123. And she also did a brief video interview for us to just talk about it, which is on the testimonial page on my website. But she was saying how really it was about within two months into the program because this can take years. But within the first couple of months she started really changing his diet which she really hadn't known clearly all of the things to do around diet before. And as she really start cleaning it up, started cleaning it up, she noticed that he was becoming more verbal. And so for him, you know, some kids it might be in a couple of months you start noticing those changes. And for others it might be, you know, a few more months or Longer, you know, it just depends and then the more you do, the more results that you can get. I have another amazing story of this mom, Diana and I've linked directly to hers. Naturallyrecovingautism.com Diana her story is amazing. Her son only had two word sentences. He was four years old when she joined the program and she was. Steven said, I was very skeptical. I didn't know that I just found what you were sharing on the Internet. I wasn't sure this was real, but I was willing to do anything for my son. She joined and she's a health researcher by nature and actually has her Ph.D. and that's what she does for living. So she, and she still hadn't heard about what I was sharing. She didn't know any of it. So she again began implementing about a year in her son went from non verbal in a special ed class hiding behind her every day when they went to school, afraid of the other kids, wouldn't connect with them at all, wasn't able to academically perform, couldn't do anything, you know, screaming tantrums. She says 247 he was just wild and, and now he has, he's in a regular classroom functioning academically at the top of his class. His teacher tells her he is the leader in the class as far as socially he's leading the other kids, not afraid of them at all. Now he has friends, he has a life, he's calm and happy, no more tantrums and he's fully verbal and fine. I mean her story is one of those, you know, excessive ones. Sometimes I like to just share little bits and pieces of somebody's because somebody might think, you know, this sounds too good to be true and it just, it still blows me away. My own son's story blows me away. So there's, we know everybody's level of recovery is different, but there are just so many possibilities and I really want to encourage parents to just keep educating yourself. I've got a quiz on my right on the homepage of my website that you can go and learn where you fall into just a few questions and then answers and we'll all get back to you with a PDF that will help you understand what it is where you fall on the journey right now, like where you are. I do master classes a few times a year where it's a three plus hour free masterclass that I teach because I really want this education information out. So there are resources, you know, they exist for you. I know how hard it is to be that parent and feel so isolated and alone and frustrated and how challenging it is because there's so much information out there about it. Like what? What do you do?

So much information but so little solution, you know, that that's the problem. I mean, I was educated as a psychiatrist and I actually did not go into child psychiatry, even though that's what I thought I wanted to do. Because I got so frustrated watching how the psychiatrists were treating autistic kids. I was like they were just trying to shut them up. They were trying to make sure they don't cause any problems, that they're quiet and sedated and that's no way of improving the quality of life for them or their parents. I thought, how depressing. I can't deal with this to see that there is actually a way that doctors can't. I mean doctors, the patients, you know, can, there is hope. But majority of the doctors that these parents take the kids to don't have the right solutions. So they are the sedating method. You know, they throw antipsychotics at them, antidepressants, they throw some stimulants. So it's a concoction, whatever they can throw in to get that balance where they're quiet and they're not having all these self stimulation behavior, then they think that's success. There are a smaller group of doctors who are doing what's called biomedical model. They're actually looking at, from a more functional view, looking at the child's vitamin, their B12, there are all kinds of metabolic issues or genetic makeup, and then addressing the gut. And they're doing a lot of these holistic approaches. Of course it's nice to have one of these doctors, but for so many patients, and I've seen a lot of parents who don't have access to one of those doctors, they don't have a doctor like that near them. Having you to be able to help them, this is really helpful. But I also want to ask you about the differences between what you do and what all these doctors in the biomedical approach, what they do. Can you tell me a bit about that?

Well, for one, my program is online, it's a membership program and it's in over 40 countries. So the beauty of it is that you can do it from distance, you can do it from your own home. You don't have to try to get to an appointment. My goal is also to try and save parents a lot of the expense and the unnecessary expense of multiple appointments. And I hear over and over from parents, basically, which was like my own story that they go to a doctor and they just basically get handed a handful of supplements and go home and you know, here, do this or, or they get almost no help or they wait a year and it's like, okay, I finally got in and they said, well try to clean up their diet or you know, they just aren't getting any information really. It's just, it falls short of the actual process of I think all of the steps. Again, many will specialize in one thing, but they won't know the rest. And that's where my frustration and my mission came in. I was like, I need to help these parents. I want to mentor them, I want to show them all of the pieces, walk them through it, be a support. And so that's what I do. And so it's so rewarding. I mean the results and the gratitude that parents are giving. Even just today I was reading in my forum where they ask me their questions anytime. Thank you. You know, they're always thanking me for what they're what? How much simpler the whole process has become because I think it just simplifies it, it streamlines it more that, you know, it's like do this first and this and just kind of walking them through it. And of course there's troubleshooting to do along the way, you know, and it's not a quick fix, of course, it's not an overnight, you know, thing. This is human biology and it takes time and patience.

So what's the time frame usually when parents get to see results? What do you see usually?

Well, and as you know, Joy, this is so individualized, right? Every child is unique and no two are exactly the same. So one parent might see significant results of so much calmer, better sleep, better eye contact, improved language. They might see that in just a, a few weeks and for others it might be a few months. And then as they go on further, you know, maybe they're a year in, maybe more than that. They're really starting to see more leaps and bounds like how far you want to take it. Of course you want to go, you know, go through everything and to really detoxify the system properly, you know, even at a cellular level and then be able to, you know, clear out, you know, these co infections working with everything. And we do it all naturally and drug free to be able to do this in the right process. And as you know, that die off will happen which is when the system, for our listeners, the system is overloaded with toxins as it's detoxifying, it's having a hard Time. The liver and the detox pathways are having a hard time keeping up with all of the excess toxins as we're trying to get rid of them. So you have to take it very slowly and know when to back off. You don't want to go too fast. This isn't a let's do more. It's not a more is better still. People, you know, because then they regret it. They're like, oh my gosh, they thought, I'm going to try and speed it up. And now they have to like stop and like, let the child's body catch up and then resume at the, you know, starting or lower dose. And so it's a process.

I'm dying to hear about these four stages you mentioned here and there. Do people have to go through one stage first? They complete it and move on to the next stage. How do you maybe talk about the four stages, what they are, and then how do you navigate the stages?

Yeah, absolutely. I start by supporting the system first. And that begins with changing the diet and starting to stabilize the gut because again, back to the, you know, the immune system really is being stabilized from the gut, helping to absorb nutrition where it hasn't been absorbed before. So, you know, changing the diet. But along with some supplements and some things, binders, minerals, things that can help the detox pathways be supported so they can get stronger. We want to create some stability there. Then after a period of time with that and getting that more stable, then we're starting. I use some natural zeolites, not synthetic ones, natural zeolites that are very helpful for also getting out. There's one that helps as a binder, but then another one that helps getting out a lot of the heavy metal toxins, but naturally and safely because the drugs like DMSA that are often used for pharmaceutical use, those can allow for reabsorption of toxins back into the system. And they're not discriminatory. They'll also pull out calcium and magnesium and other minerals that we need out. So these zeolites are very safe and effective. To then start working with the heavy metal detoxification. Then we work on co infections with these.

So that's a stage three. So the first stage is clean up the diet, healing the gut. Stage two is to heavy metal detoxification, mostly heavy metal.

Right. Natural stuff kind of a process. Right. Then clearing the co infections. Mold, Lyme, of course, you know, strep, like pans or pandas. And parasites are a big, big deal too. And they don't show up in tests Just like Lyme really very commonly will not show up in tests. You can actually have your child tested for parasites or Lyme and they don't show up in the results. So you think that they don't have them. But these things are antibiotic resistant and they're very, very clever. They actually are sort of intelligent and they can hide and they don't show up in test often. So then you think, well, they don't have it so you don't do anything about it or know what to do about it. So that's a whole process.

How do you know if they don't show up in test? You just go by symptom and kind of treat empirically.

Well, because everything we use is natural and safe and broad spectrum. It only can help the immune system and help the body anyway, so there's no harm in using it and it can again only benefit. And I'll usually say, you know, those tests are very expensive. Some of them can be hard on the kids. They're time consuming, you know. So I say, you know, you can test if you want to, you know, that's up to you. But you know, you don't really need to spend the time or the money on some of these things, these things if you don't want to. Because we're not going to be using any drugs or any antibiotics or anything that would harm the system. So that you don't, you know, have to worry about, you know, any danger. We just move through the process to clean the system up and yeah, has a lot of benefits. I mean, basically you see the differences.

So these are things that they can get just as a supplement.

I lead them to very specific, either certain companies I work with and that, that I get very specific proprietary formulas from to these things that are very, very useful. And then once you have gone through the first three stages and really started to really clean up the toxins and the pathogens and everything else, then stage four is natural and safe again, brain support and repair. So now you're starting to really see who your child is. They're calming down, they're being able to focus. They're, you know, kind of, they're really more of who they are. But they might still need some support. Maybe they need to still build some more serotonin or dopamine or maybe they need like craniosacral is my background. Craniosacral therapy is very helpful later on. Again, once the toxins and inflammation are out of the brain's way. Neurofeedback is very Helpful. But I usually tell parents, don't spend your time and your money on it quite yet until we've gotten the, you know, these, this inflammation down because then you're kind of battling against it. Craniosacral work can be done from the beginning on any time. But neurofeedback is one of those that I say wait until you've really done some work, but that especially my son, had tremendous benefit. So there are a lot of really great things you can do that can make a really good difference there for them too. And ongoing support, of course. We want to practice maintenance. We want to eat healthy organic foods. We don't want to be eating junk food all the time. Right. I practice detoxification daily, you know, prevention, because we have exposure to so much every single day in our environment just from breathing the air around us, you know. So, you know, it's always good to help support yourself and practice maintenance and prevention whenever possible. And the whole family should work on themselves as well. Yeah, I was going to ask you.

Because all these are natural enhancing health enhancing treatments or approaches and have the parents end up reaping the benefits from helping their kids? Have you seen that quite a bit?

Oh, absolutely. And they're like, some of them are like, should I do this? I'm like, yes, absolutely, you do this. And I like. And I don't charge extra for you walking for yourself or your other children or your spouse through this whole thing, this protocol. Have everybody do it because I encourage it because everybody, you know, we pass things around. I always don't share food. Forks don't share, you know, drinks and saliva because you're passing them. We also, by exhaling, we're spreading things. So, you know, it's just good for everybody to get healthy too because, you know, a lot of things are, have possibly come from mom and dad too. So they want to be healthier as well. Everybody's biology handles things differently. One child, they might have a child with more ADD type symptoms or adhd, and then the other one has full blown autism. It just depends on how much those pathogens and infections and toxins have affected the child's system or the parent system. And how would they handle it?

Yeah, and I can imagine it gets very complex because each child is going to present with very different symptom. I mean, doesn't it get overwhelming for you to try to help each one? And they're all so different. Like, how do you manage to help each person as a completely unique individual?

I walk through, as I said, with we get some real stability going at first, and we walk through the pieces kind of in an order. And then I have a forum in my member site where they can ask me their questions anytime. And we archive all of the questions and answers, which I think is really important too, because then they can go in the search bar and just type certain things in and there's a wealth of information. So sometimes it, yeah, it can, you know, their child's gone into extreme die off. I had somebody today, you probably know about mast cell activ syndrome, and I. And she was explaining her OTTER symptoms and what had happened. She. She was being. Trying to. As a mom, like she said, I thought, you know, I just try to do a little bit more. And I went too fast. And then she's like, oh, Karen, I, you know, now she's like regressing. And I said, you've learned a lesson. Okay, so now we're gonna step back. And I gave her a whole PDF. It's a bunch of information on mast cell activation syndrome. I go, go through these symptoms, and it looks like to me, I think she has this going on. So you need to get her on an antihistamine maybe, for sure. A low histamine diet, get her some heme foods in, get her on. There's other things to support, calm her down. There's cbd, oils, various things that you can do. And as she started implementing some of these things that I was telling, she just wrote me today, she says, oh, my gosh, I never would have even known about master Cell activation syndrome if you hadn't told me. I've implemented the things you had mentioned. And she said her daughter is now back to being able to go to school because the school wouldn't allow her daughter to come anymore because she had started just being too outrageous in the classroom. And it was all from just die off, too extreme to rapid detoxification, causing this whole, you know, dysbiosis issue with the cells and something called mast cell activation. You know, there are a lot of things that can happen. You can have pans triggered, which is where the immune system starts attacking the brain. So you've got to be really careful with this. So I'm, I'm often troubleshooting with them, what's going on, what happened to trigger it. Don't ever increase or add anything new in. When you see first signs of symptoms, you want to back off and make sure that you're letting their body catch up. If the symptoms don't subside, then, you know, we have ways of looking at the few different things that are usually going on and what then the solutions to do about them. But the parents, many of them said, oh, my gosh, I've learned so much here because, you know, we have to troubleshoot it. But it's up to them. I mean, I'm guiding them through it, but they're doing the steps.

Yeah, that's so amazing because I can imagine how overwhelming it is. I mean, even for patients, as doctors, I wish patients put more efforts into taking care of themselves.

Right.

Getting more educated and doing the right things. But for little kids, when the behavior can just be destructive or completely, it's scary for parents to take care of these little, you know, human beings and. And it's so complex because they may do one thing, and all of a sudden you got this whole behavioral change. So to have somebody that. That's like a coach walking them through, it's so crucial. And yeah, the. The technical side of the support, but also the emotional support. It must be so nice for them to have somewhere to turn to, because what a lonely battle it can be.

It can be very isolating if you're on your own. And that is one of the reasons I knew, not only for the health and biological issues, but exactly like you're saying, that the emotional support is so important and somebody who understands and isn't judging them and is helping them find solutions, walk them through it. Because, and I always say your child's not an angry person. They're, you know, these emotions and things are coming out because their body is so toxic and inflamed and their brain that it's creating these behaviors that they can be calm. So, you know, some parents, you know, their children are violent and it's scary, especially as they get older. And, you know, they really are so just grateful, especially when, you know, they see them, wow, they're really calm, calming down, because it's frightening. And then, you know, for a parent also, the biggest concern really is what is going to happen to my child or who's going to care for them when they get older and when I'm not around someday, you know. So, you know, you do all you can now to get them to their most independent, most healthy and fulfilling place that they can be in their life. And, you know, really just give them as much as you can while you're here. Yeah, absolutely.

So in the last, you know, five or five to 10 minutes, I would love to just hear a little bit more about how you helped your own child. But, I mean, that must be a lonely Journey, right in the start, I don't even know how you started. So you had experience as a craniosacral therapist. I don't think many people really know exactly what that is and how is that contributing to you helping your child and really maybe tell us a little bit about the journey. What did you notice in your son and then what did you do to go about helping him?

Well, we noticed that when he had actually a little bit of regression at one point, and he went from being this bubbly, outgoing kid to being more introverted. He wouldn't. He was losing eye contact. He wasn't listening to us. No matter what we said, we could not discipline him. He wouldn't pay attention to us anymore. He was having sensory overload that was just, you know, making it hard for him to sit still or especially in a classroom. But we really started.

Was speech okay? Was he. Did you feel like he was a normal child? And then he kind of went backwards?

We did, and we saw this regression, and he was our firstborn, so we really didn't have anything to compare it to. I didn't have that much knowledge on that aspect at the time. I had been doing craniosacral therapy for over a decade. When he was born, I believe it was. Yeah, right. About that. So craniosacral therapy is where we work on the bones of the head to gently. We don't say adjust, but to help them balance into their normal. They have extension and flexion patterns, and when they do that, the brain is then affected. Well, it's very common for the bones to get faulted, as we call it, out of position, and then the brain can't function at optimum. I had known also a lot about holistic health and how, you know, about toxicity and about how basically the brain can and does heal. It's a scientific fact. But when he finally. We took. Started taking him to therapists when he was 5 and 1 after the other kept saying to us, you know, I think you just need to be firmer with discipline, and you need to really just, you know, basically they were telling us we weren't good enough parents. Over and over, you know, you're just. You're just not trying hard enough with him. And I was like, what do you want us to do? So over and over we heard this. And finally we had one that said, you know, this was again in the early 2000 now, 16 years ago. And they said. He said, it was one man. I remember, I'll never forget. And he said, I think he has Asperger's or autism. And he said, but I don't know that much about it. You'll need to research it for yourself. So fortunately, the town I live in in California, I went and they, I couldn't find any books on it. And that next weekend I was going up to a craniosacral class. All of my courses were up in Berkeley, which is a college town in Northern California. And it's a college town. So they have bookstores, more of the multiples, right? So I went into one and I said, do you have any books on autism? And the woman said, yes, actually are. The owner of the store son has it, so we have a couple. And I was, so what are the chances, right? And I. The first book that I picked up off the shelf, it was like I was reading about my son. I thought, oh my gosh, this is what is going on. And you know, the spectrum, it's called a spectrum for a reason. Every child is very different. Some will have some symptoms and not others. And you know, it's just there. Everybody's all over. So you have to look at where your child is. But I could, I was like, this is what's going on. So I came home and I have a friend who actually happens to be a neurologist in town where I live, and her son has autism. And our kids were in the same class at school. So I went up to her and I said, who do you see for diagnosis of this? She told me of the specialist to go to in our area. And I went and they went through the process and she said, yeah, he has autism. And you know, at first, you know, there's the shock, like, oh my gosh, really, this is for real. And then a bit of relief, like, oh, I have an answer. And then you go through the grief and there's all of the stages to process the emotions around it. But then she really said, I don't have that much information to help you. You can try. Here's a behavioral therapist name. And that was it. And then the behavioral therapist is telling me I should drug him and that I was actually doing him a disservice to not drug him. And I thought, what is. This is all their answers. This is nobody knows anything. And I started searching and seeking out other practitioners. I really realized they don't know even well meaning people. They just didn't know what to do. And I thought, I've got to figure this out for myself. I want to find out what the causes are of his symptoms. I don't want to just drug things and mask them. I want to help them get better. So, again, that's where my research started. And, you know, my last trip, literally to the ER with my son, when he was screaming in stomach pain that he used to get randomly and nobody would do anything. And I was like, don't you even want to, you know, test for white blood? I have a new white blood cells. Maybe he's got some, you know, maybe he's having an appendicitis. And they were like, well, no, that's not what we think. And no, we're not going to do any tests. And they were just. Just so really rude to me as a parent. Like, I was just some stupid, unknowing parent. And I thought, that is it, you know, when you just get to that breaking point, you're like, I am done with this. I am going to figure this out for myself. And so then I began my journey. And it took a long time and a lot of trial and error and a lot of expense to figure it out. But I remember that isolation and that feeling of desperation for answers and wanting them sooner. And so when I went through all of this and got my son better, I wanted to be able to help other parents who were experiencing the same thing and on the same journey that I had been on and help them to make it easier and to support them. Because we have a tremendous community now in this membership program. And so there's support because there's other people who, you know, it's nice to talk to somebody who actually gets it and understands what you're going through and offers that support. So that's why I've made it my mission to just help millions. I mean, as many people as I can reach.

You went through the four stages with your son first. Is that what you did?

I did. And it took me about a decade. It took about 10 years. Yeah. To go through all of it, figure it out for one.

Because an improvement with each stage, the gut repair and then the heavy metal detoxification and then the CO infections and then the last part is the whole brain. Brain repair stage.

Yeah. There were little, like, improvements over time. Like, he started connecting more with his sister, he started making more friends. He started being calmer and could focus in the classroom. His grades were improving. He was happier overall. You know, just, you know, it wasn't like, oh, one day he just started talking. You know, he actually was always pretty verbal, but he had lost connection. Like, he wouldn't look at us and he wouldn't. He had what's called hyper focus, which means he would be locked into something and be focusing to the point where we could talk to him and he literally wouldn't hear us. And he would be really disruptive in the classroom because sensory overload of everything coming in was just overwhelming for him. And so you know that you're constantly dealing with the staff at school and trying to work with it and oh my gosh. And so, yeah, when it all calmed down and some of like, wow, he's really, you know, making some good strides and you know, again, this was over years, you know, then I saw this really works. And so I just kept going and going. I'm like, what else do I need to learn? What else is there? You know, that's the thing. As I didn't just stop and go, oh, he's better. Is there more I need to know? And so, yeah, I mean, interviewing experts all the time on different, you know, subjects now, like, you know, the things that I continue to do help just keep me, you know, up on the most up to date things that are going on. And I always want to keep educating because you can never have enough education.

Yeah. Wow. It sounds, I mean, it sounds like a long time, 10 year journey. But, but, but is it worth it? I mean, you're transforming his life. He is a functional, well adjusted human being. You know, he's living out his life and pursuing dreams and yeah, that's, that's 10 years of hard work can really pay off.

It does pay off. It does take persistence and resilience. And there are times you have to pick yourself up off the floor and dust yourself off. But you know what, you just keep going and you look at any of those subtle little changes that make all the difference. But I look back and I cannot imagine what his life might be like today if I hadn't done what I do. And that's what other parents are doing it for. Like they want to do anything that they can't. This is your child, you know, you're just desperate to help them.

I've never been more impressed by patients or parents of patients, you know, as these autistic kids, parents. Because I can't imagine anyone that's more loving and more courageous. Just the amount of hardship that they are enduring and the effort they're putting into. I mean, that's love that can only come from a place of love. It's really beautiful to see how dedicated they are. And I hear over and over again when they come to me for stem cell therapy, they said, Dr. Kong if there's any improvement, we're happy. It doesn't have to be life transforming, it doesn't have to be cured, but any improvement, we're going to be happy. And it just, you know, you know, it just, yeah, it's very moving. You know, these parents, it is.

They're wonderful and amazing people. So, you know, that's why I always encourage parents, you know, don't listen to naysayers or negative people. You know, just, you know, do your own due diligence, try to stay as positive as you can, get support. It's really important. And I, you know, I work a lot with mindset and working on clearing old emotional patterns and subconscious beliefs and things to, you know, make sure that, you know, you're, you're really able to keep moving forward and keep your own health as well.

Yeah. And you wrote a book about. Was it how many books?

It's one big book. It's a lot of what and why. Yeah, it does have some steps in it that you can implement. That's why after I wrote it, I had a parent. He was actually in Africa. It was actually a dad said, karen, I read your book and it's great. It's helped me so much, but can you just create a program where you can walk me through the steps? I am overwhelmed and I need. I just want somebody. And he was the one who really. It took me about a year to create the membership program. The whole website put it all together in the order like. And of course, it's been going about six years now. So I've refined and you know, see. Okay, this question keeps coming up a lot. So we'll either make a PDF on it or, you know, something that will make sure it's addressed. So. But he, he was like, please, I need help. Can you please create something? And his son had a wonderful experience as well. His son is. Had most of his. I don't know if he's fully had his whole diagnosis removed. It doesn't matter. But he, you know, his son got his whole life back as well from, from his dad doing the work that he did with him.

How beautiful. Yeah. So what's the name of the book.

And where can Naturally Recovering autism. Just like my website, Naturally Recovering Autism dot com.

Yeah, fantastic. And I know people tune into your podcast all the time. How long have you been doing the podcast?

Boy, I think it's been about three, three or three plus years, four years maybe now. I've kind of lost track. But yeah, there are a lot of experts like yourself, you Know, people ask me about stem cells, so I send them to Joy Kong, you know, go see, go listen to this webs, you know, this interview that I did and her links are on that page. And so there's a lot of great, you know, resources that I make available to parents from interviewing people like yourself who are experts in certain things that they want to know about and need to know about that can be helpful. So, yeah, there's a lot of information just even on my website in general. Go to blog and we put all the podcasts on the blog on a blog page so that I can put not only the recording of it, but links to, you know, like resources so that they can reach out to that person. And I interviewed if they, if they want to as well.

What a contribution. Yeah, that takes so much work and so much heart to create all this. And it must be continuously very rewarding to be helping all these people because I know how it feels. Right. I mean, my clinic helping patients and that's what's driving me. I'm pretty sure that's what drives you, is individual. You know, all these different parents, little kids, and seeing them improve, that's what keeps you going. Probably keep making new PDFs and adding new programs and yeah, it's a. Yeah.

It'S definitely worth it. Yeah. I mean, like you said, there are times again, when it can just be overwhelming or a lot, but you're, you know, you know, you're doing things to, you're helping them and especially when you see it kind of smooth out and you know, and how hard they're trying, you know, that, you know, it's nice to be able to be a support system because, you know, you want them to have the resources they need. They're wanting to do it. They're not just saying, oh, there's nothing I can do for my child or that's ridiculous. Which is really sad to me when somebody says that because their child's not going to get the help they need. And then you find these die hard parents that are like, I will do anything for my child. And you know, and just anything, you know, some get in like, oh, there's nothing wrong with my child. You know what? There are underlying toxins and pathogens and things that are actually making your child sick. They're not. Well, health wise, if you clear these up, then they're going to be able to be calmer, sleep better, maybe have more friends and connection, maybe speak. You know, there are a lot of different things. Why wouldn't you want to make somebody's life better, especially your own child. You know, help them in any way you can just to improve their quality of life.

Well, it takes perseverance, takes work. Just like how patients sometimes don't want to do what's right for themselves, they may not want to put in the work for their own child. So the ones that actually found you and found me are really just the wonderful ones. They really want to do everything they could, so. Yeah. So it's nice to be there for them. So, anyhow, this is an incredible interview. I think it's so informative and just really grateful that you're there to be, you know, to be, you know, a guide for so many parents who are struggling. So I'll link your, you know, where people can find you, your book all in the. In the link below and. And continue your wonderful work.

Thank you so much, Joy. Yeah, I appreciate what you're doing, too. We're all out there to help as many people as we can. So thanks for having me on. I'm happy to be here.