Model's Chid DX'ed With Autism

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http://www.people.com/people/article/0, ... 89,00.html

Jenny McCarthy vividly remembers the harrowing realization three years ago that her son Evan, now 5, had autism.

"It started with hand flapping," McCarthy, 34, told Oprah Winfrey on Tuesday's show. There were other telltale indications in her child's behavior, but as McCarthy said, "You only look for the good signs."

Then came the day when Evan suffered a seizure, which doctors – once she got him to the hospital – blamed on a fever. Three weeks later, however, Evan got "a stoned look on his face" while McCarthy and the boy were visiting her parents.

This was another seizure, she thought, "but this one is different. He's not convulsing." Instead, "foam was coming out of his mouth, (and) and after a few minutes, I felt his heart stop," she said.

When the paramedics arrived, she told them about Evan's heart. "They looked at me like I was crazy. I don't know why," she said. Only, as they discovered for themselves, the child's heart was no longer beating, so they administered CPR.

"Why, God? Why me ... Why? Why? Why?" McCarthy recalled thinking in those desperate moments, but then, she said, an inner voice came over her. "Everything's going to come out okay."

Because there was no pediatric hospital near her parents' home, Evan and McCarthy drove three hours back to Los Angeles, during which time Evan suffered several more seizures.

Initially, neurologists believed Evan had epilepsy, by McCarthy's "mommy instinct," as she called it, thought that not to be the case. Finally, a doctor said to her, "'I'm sorry, but your son has autism.' My mommy instinct said, 'This man is right.' I didn't want to believe him ... but ... this man is right. I felt like death."

McCarthy, however, sprung into action. She researched autism on the Internet and was struck by a message that popped up in a corner of the screen. Autism, it told her, "is reversible and treatable."

She worked diligently with her son, putting him on a wheat-free, dairy-free and artificial-additive-free diet to detox his system, and her mantra – which she says is producing results – is "hope, faith, recovery."

McCarthy, who first revealed Evan's condition last May on The View, has put her experiences down in a just-published book, Louder Than Words: A Mother's Journey in Healing Autism.

Evan is McCarthy's son with director John Asher. The couple divorced in 2005, after six years of marriage – which, McCarthy told Winfrey, was strained because of their son's condition.

But, McCarthy also said, there's a new man in her life: Jim Carrey. "He's the 'funny, cute guy' in the book," she told Winfrey and the TV audience. And, she stressed, he is there for Evan.

On the Web site for the Oprah show, McCarthy and actress Holly Robinson Peete, who has discussed her own child's autism with PEOPLE, will answer questions related to the condition. Click here.

"Keep going," said McCarthy as final advice to parents of autistic children. "And we're going to be there online."

Yeah saw her on some Sunday show as well. I kinda cringed and walked away from it. But I suppose everyone has the right to approach it the best they can. At least she cares, that's a start. I'd like to know where the profits of her book are going.

Well, the foaming at the mouth, and fever, and seizures are NOT autistic symptoms, and they make it sound like they are. I have a feeling that when they DO find a way of spotting autism, they will be surprised at who comes up positive.

Indeed! I know of at least 1 or 2 curebie celebrities who seem to have some autistic traits themselves. I'm not sure if I should name names but I do know of some.

What annoys me most is the false hope given to thousands of parents of children with autism. Telling anyone that autism is "reversible" and "curable" is bogus! I myself did the diets, etc. My son is currently on them. Did it help? Very much! Is it a "cure"? Well, I'm still aspergian, and my son is still autistic so you be the judge!
THERE IS NOT YET A CURE! There may never be. We need to focus on treatment, not false hopes.

Fascinating how when something happens to a family member or child of these self-absorbed egotists, it's the egotist who cries "Ohhhhh why does everything happen to ME!"

My own mother has done that my whole life. She's sitting pretty in the lap of luxury but she constantly whines how she doesn't have a bigger house, a fancier car, how dare she be forced to work, etc. When bad things happen to us, her kids, it's invariably "why does this happen to me!"

Yeah, really! How far up your butt do you have to be, to only have that self centered perspective! She's trying to play the "I'm such an intuitive and fantastic mother" bit, but she really comes across as a totallt self absorbed human being. And she makes autism sound like leprosy or something.

yup. way to make your child feel like if they touch someone in the street their hand will fall off.

What the uninformed call a disease, I call evolution in progress... That's why the NT's shun us as a disease. Deep in their subtle nonverbal social network, they are concerned... Concerned about the possibility that the autistic spectrum may represent the future of humanity...

Who knows? In a few eons, H. Asperigius may in fact be the newest sapient species on the planet.

How is autism a diagnosis for recurrent seizures? Yes, there are people with autism who also have seizure disorders- but autism doesn't *cause* seizures. How has her kid not been diagnosed with epilepsy, or some kind of seizure disorder? (unless they're febrile seizures, but it didn't sound like they were)

Also, while autism is "treatable" (and that's not even really the right word for it), it is not reversible.

30% percent of autistic kids also have seizures the doctor told her who said her son has autism.

sounds like rabies.


have a cat called samianther who foams at the mouth a lot [when asleep],shakes when she's itchy somewhere and can't reach it,and gets all hot and sweaty [when she's been curled asleep for too long],it'd be nice to know she was autistic from that.


foaming at the mouth is commonly a seizure thing,not autism.

Last edited by KingdomOfRats on 28 Sep 2007, 1:31 pm, edited 1 time in total.

LMAO! I'm sick, and tired of parents that act that way toward my kids. I always feel like screaming "It's not contagious!! !!" Of course they would pay me no attention either, as I've always been invisible to them at play groups, and such.
When my sons were diagnosed I did not shed one tear. It didn't even occur to me to cry. I went straight to the computer, and researched. I left the parenting ASD kids forums, because I just couldn't relate to the emotional mindset of most of the parents. It still mystifies me as to why parents go on tv with a tissue in hand to talk about their feelings about their child. It's all about the parent's (usually the mom's) disappointment.

Tell me about it... my mom actually tried to fish for an AS diagnosis rather than cry about it... This was around 1990-1992, when most psychologists didn't even know what autism was, and my mom only knew about it because she directs children's choirs at our church, where she found many children who fit the bill for AS, and ended up doing some research on her own for this "strange personality type"...

After my diagnosis, she got herself tested as well and it turns out she had AS too... traits run through her genetic family... people keep saying that I resemble my grandfather alot (well when he was still alive anyway), especially when it comes to personality...

Some percentage of NTs do ALSO! Still, Autism is pervasive, and involves the brain, so seizures could be expected. NOT as a symptom, but an indirect consequence. Especially with the foaming at the mouth, they should look elsewhere. BESIDES, Autism is NOT something that you catch, etc...