After you received an autism or ASD diagnosis, you probably felt many emotions including a sense of loneliness or isolation. You might not have known much about autism or how common it actually is. AUtism is the kind of life changing disease that really gets parents and relatives motivated to act. Some focus only on treating their child, some seek to identify culprits, some are motivated to share what they know. With so much motivational energy, it is not surprising that there are autism support groups for almost every aspect of the disease. They range from international policy organizations to chat rooms. We have visited many of these sites and have found some very useful information.
Most importantly, we have found that talking to others who share our experiences with autism helped break us out of the post-diagnosis isolation. To hear how other parents made the decision to start biochemical treatments made the decision easier for us. Here are a few of the support groups we have found helpful.
Autism Speaks is a non-profit international autism awareness and advocacy organization. They fund scientific research into many aspects of ASD and sponsor fund raising events.
SafeMinds is a non-profit organization founded to raise awareness of the danger of mercury and Thimerosal in vaccines. They sponsor research and have been very influential in lobbying against mercury in vaccines.
Autism Research Institute / Defeat Autism Now (DAN) is a non-profit international organization focused on conducting research on ASD and communicating the results to parents and physicians. They sponsor fund raising events and conferences that parents, scientists and physicians attend to learn the latest techniques in treating the biomedical causes of ASD. This organization provides the specialized training required to be a DAN doctor and through the efforts of the Founder (Dr. Rimland), Director (Dr. Edelson) and hundreds of devoted members has provided hope that ASD can be conquered.
Talk About Curing Autism (TACA) is a California-based non-profit organization devoted to helping families from the time of receiving the ASD diagnosis to receiving treatment.
GFCFKids is a Yahoo.comŽ group with open enrollment and is very active and helpful. The main topic is coping with the gluten/casein/soy free diet.
Chelatingkids2 is a Yahoo.comŽ group that requires an application. They limit the group to people who are actively involved in chelation. Because of the limited enrollment, the discussion is very focused and usually very helpful. There is a fair share of newcomers asking very simple questions (the way we did at first) but there is also a level of knowledge and expertise that is superior to any other source of information available on this subject. Chelation is a serious medical intervention and you need this kind of support from experienced parents. Application is not a big deal, you just need to prove you have a DAN doctor and are seriously considering or actively involved in chelation therapy.
