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A Story of Recovery: How Ionic Footbath Sessions Helped My Son with Autism Lose His IEP

My son Daniel was born in 1998 and was diagnosed at 2.5 years of age. I quickly explored all options and embarked on a biomedical treatment pathway to help heal the underlying issues that were contributing to his symptoms. I began with the gluten/casein free diet, added supplements, yeast and bacteria treatments, oral low-dose chelation with DMSA, speech and occupational therapy, along with Applied Behavioral Analysis (ABA). Over a four year time period, all of these treatments brought slow and steady progress. I was a mother that was willing to consider any treatment that might help my son, as long as it would not cause harm.

By the time he was in second grade, he had progressed well with his speech and language and academic skills, but he still had some ways to go with his ability to stay focused, and on task while at school, especially when working on assignments and projects. Homework was a struggle every evening. He would whine and ask for help, saying he didn’t know what each answer should be. He could only get through it with constant help and prompting from me. At my request, his teacher sent home daily notes ranging from 1-5 (with 1 being bad and 5 being good) to indicate what type of day he had, especially in regard to being focused and staying on task. He mostly received between 1’s and 3’s, with an occasional 4, but seeing the lack of progress in this area was very discouraging to me.

Daniel_-_before_small Daniel_9-13_after_small
Daniel – Then Daniel – Now

I first heard about the ionic footbaths from my boss, who is a PhD Biochemist and owner of a well-known specialty lab. He was at a conference and one of the exhibitors offered him a footbath. He had spoken multiple times that day, was not feeling well, was very tired and foggy headed. He accepted the footbath and later told me that he was amazed at how much energy he had, how clear his head felt during his drive home. Soon after that, two different parents with very severe children had tried the footbath for their kids, and were so excited about the changes in them that they went in together and bought a system to share. These kids were “non-responders” and found little to no benefit in the other biomedical treatments they had tried. They reported their progress through our special needs support group and this really got my attention.

I was seeing a chiropractor at that time who had purchased an ionic footbath for his practice. I then signed up for 10 footbath sessions to try with my son. Halfway through our sessions, Daniel’s reports from school started to change. Instead of getting the normal 1-3 ratings and comments on his need for continual redirection during class, he was getting “5’s” every day with comments such as “Daniel had an amazing day today!”, “He got his work done on time!”, and “Daniel was very helpful in class !”, etc. I was beyond thrilled! I also noticed that he began independently initiating doing his homework in the evenings, and the struggle to get his assignments completed disappeared completely! His brain seemed to be able to focus and find each answer without any problem, and when I offered my help, I was told “No Mom, I can do this myself.”

In the Spring, his IEP team convened and told me that Daniel had met all his goals, and was now performing the same as his “typical” peers, and would no longer need his IEP. I knew that the last of his problem areas had been completely eliminated as a result of the footbath sessions, because we were not doing any other new therapies during that time. I was so excited that I decided I need to invest in my own machine at home. I continued to use the machine for another year, and all his gains remained even after we stopped using it.

I am very impressed with the IonCleanse machine (amajordifference.com) and recommend it highly to any parent who is wanting to try everything to help their child improve. It is simple to use, and my son enjoyed doing the footbaths so it was never a struggle to use. I honestly don’t understand everything that the ionic footbaths did for Daniel, but what I do know is that it was the last treatment I did for my son that allowed me to finally say he had RECOVERED from autism.

Lori Knowles-Jimenez is the GM and Director of New Beginnings Nutrionals

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