My Green Family. ramblings of one family's journey to green living

I was actually excited for our follow up appointment with the pediatrician. Tristan’s progress since June has been incredible. And I was interested to see what the doctor would have to say given his opposition to biomedical intervention for autism and our obvious success with it.

We told the doctor about all the improvements we’ve seen in Tristan since June: better behaviour, less sensory issues and of course the speech. We told him we where doing some supplements and had started methyl B12 shots. He asked who had prescribed them and we told him about our naturopath. His first response was “Well she’s not a real doctor” in the snidest tone you’ve ever heard. Ooo did I get mad! But I kept my cool… surprisingly.

We went on to have a discussion about the biomedical approach to treating autism which led to talk about the causes of autism. We told him we believed that there are different causes to autism and you can’t treat two different causes in the same way. He strongly cautioned us against biomedical intervetntion and going to our naturopath. He believes that she may be giving us false hope and that this could be doing more harm than the good that we’ve seen.

I told him that I had done much research into biomedical intervention, reading books and studies. The doctor cautioned me on reading studies and that not all are scientific and it’s important to look at the peer reviewed studies, not just information on the net. This was said in a very demeaning way as if I had been reading tabloid autism research and I didn’t know what I was talking about. Eventually through the course of the conversation he remembered that Odum and I have honours science degrees (and Odum is almost done his master’s degree) and apologized for seeming to talk down to us. But what about parents that don’t necessarily have a strong science background, it’s not a great feeling to be talked down to and placated by your doctor when you’re concerned about your child. He even eventually conceded to our point about the possibility of different causes of autism. We where shocked to say the least.

We actually ended the appointment on a good note. The doctor even took down the name of the book that I consider my biomedical bible which has so many scientific studies to back up its claims. I think he realized we have differing opinions but he said he really wanted to keep up with us and follow our progress with Tristan as we do the biomedical intervention. He also told us not to hesitate to come in if we had any concerns about Tristan, which was fantastic! So we go for a follow up appointment in six months.

This guy really surprised me, and I really hope Tristan’s improvement has opened his mind a little bit about treating autism. That it’s very well possible that there are different causes and thus there should be different ways to treat kids.

I was really shocked though by his attitude towards our naturopath. I get that their approach to treating patients may be different. But does that mean he needs to undermine her credentials? Has anyone else come across such negative attitudes towards naturopathy? If so what was your response or what would be your response?