In conjunction with the diet changes and supplements, I also sought out a HANDLE Practitioner. You may be asking yourself 2 things: What the heck is HANDLE and why is this crazy lady doing so much at one time to her kid? Well, I was grasping at straws and was a little unfocused in the beginning. This was certainly a journey and I was learning as I went and to be honest, things got worse before they got better probably because I threw so much at my kid at once. But HANDLE is an integral part to the puzzle and I really need to mention it and give it the credit it deserves.
HANDLE is a practice where you perform certain types of neurological exercises designed to strengthen the vestibular system and integrate reflexes. It does many other things as well that I am not able to articulate but go to the website and read up on it for yourself. Many parents of children with neurological issues have seen fabulous results by learning these exercises and performing them consistently on their children. I read a positive testimony on the Latitudes forum and looked into it in my area and luckily I found 2 practitioners to choose from.
In our first session Sarah Anderson (Handle Practitioner) evaluated Cole by just watching him and asking him to do some simple gross and fine motor exercises. He was all over the place and non complaint for many of her requests but she got a good idea of what his needs were. She told me that since he was a twin and I was bedridden for most of my pregnancy that he did not get vital in utero movement that would have helped to develop his vestibular system. He suffered more than Jake because of his position in utero. He was transverse and tucked up under my ribs. He was barely able to move and this caused major trauma. The C-section that I had did not help matters either because he missed out on the very important experience of going through the birth canal. There was nothing I could have done differently to avoid the C-section so I am not even going there. It is what it is and now we just need to keep moving forward.
Sarah chose about 10-12 exercises to do with Cole. She had me come back and she taught me how to do them one by one. She told me to practice on myself before showing them to Cole and once I do show them to Cole, I need to watch to see if he gets agitated by them. Because if he does, I would need to stop immediately. The exercises were very simple but yet had profound effects on the nervous system and if a child is in a state of stress and the exercise is still preformed, his nervous system can become more disorganized. So there was a lot of stuff to be aware of and most of all I had to take my time and go slow. This was not part of my plan because as you all know, the countdown to Kindergarten was in full swing!
To further complicate things, Sarah had me drive to Macon, GA in June to see a woman named Janet Oliver, a reflex specialist that practices HANDLE techniques but goes even deeper. On June 7th, Cole and I took the 2 hour drive to Macon and we saw Janet. Cole was awful. He told Janet he wanted her to die and would not cooperate with her at all! I have never heard those words come out of my angels mouth, ever! I thought my trip down there was going to be a big waste. He actually seemed possessed that day but I guess it was good that Janet saw this because she was able to get a good handle (no pun intended) on what his body needed. She saw that many of his infantile reflexes had not integrated and that his body was not organized in its movement. She gave us 10 more exercises to do at home and sent us on our way. She videoed the entire session so I could go back and look at what she did. It was amazing. I was to do these exercises for 5 months and I should start to see resolution with his issues. I wish I could share these exercises with you all right here on my blog but it wouldn't help because each child is different and no two sets of exercises will ever be the same. Each child will need their own unique regimen to address the neurological issues they are dealing with.
Over this past summer, Cole and I got comfortable with our exercises. I made them a night time routine and he looked forward to them. I did notice that a couple of the ones that dealt with the vestibular system were too hard on him and actually increased his tics so I had to back off. There were many setbacks this summer. Some days I felt like we were getting somewhere and others were just a night mare. But it was important that I mentioned HANDLE because without these 2 women we would not be where we are today.
If anyone who has a child with special needs related to neurological disorders and is interested in learning more about HANDLE, please visit www.HANDLE.org or contact me. I can help you locate a practitioner in your area. In my opinion, this was the most affordable part of our healing protocol. For $400, I was able to learn these exercises for indefinite use with my son. Its like teaching a person to fish!! There are other centers out there that claim to do the same thing (i.e. Brain Balance) but charge thousands of dollars for a 12 month program and they never teach you anything. You just bring your child to their center 2x a week or more and they do the exercises for you. Maybe that is appealing to some people but I enjoyed the freedom of doing the exercises on my son at any time of the day, any day of the week. It also served as a bonding experience for us. We are so incredibly close (not that we weren't before) but there is an internal connection between that I can't describe in words. I have learned so much about my child and its taught me patience, the one thing I have been struggling with my entire life. Its really beautiful.
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