GROWING FAMILY: Nina and husband Tony and Eli and Christian
Bournemouth Daily Echo, UK, March 13, 2009
CAN autism ever be cured? That is the tantalizing prospect under discussion at a sell-out international conference in Bournemouth today. Doctors, scientific experts and parents are at the BIC for the two-day event, which is based around the theory that many cases of autism – a brain development disorder affecting communication and social skills – can be successfully treated. Among the speakers is Dr Andrew Wakefield, who controversially claimed more than a decade ago that there could be a link between autism and the MMR (measles, mumps, rubella) vaccination, leading to a huge drop in take-up.
Also at the conference, run by British charity Treating Autism, is Nina Lteif, a former Bournemouth school nurse and mother of seven-year-old twin sons labeled autistic.
Eli and Christian were born in Poole Hospital at 24 weeks, together weighing just over 3lbs. They spent the first seven months fighting for their lives, but then developed normally.
In September 2002, Nina decided to take the boys to join her husband Tony, who was working in Saudi Arabia. They were given the MMR, hepatitis B and meningitis C jabs, but a few weeks later, the boys picked up a tummy bug and spent two days in a Saudi hospital.
“I saw them disappearing in front of my eyes. They had been babbling, they were alert, looking at us and smiling. All that went. The lights went out,” said Nina.
Concerned about the changes in their behaviour, Nina returned to Dorset, where it took six months for the boys to be seen by a specialist. Nina and Tony were told their sons had autism; that it was a lifelong disability; that they would never speak and that there was no cure.
The boys became hyperactive and destructive. “They didn’t sleep. For nearly five years, I was up 10 times a night. I’ve been bitten, they used to smear poo on the walls and be sick three or five times a day. I couldn’t take them out because I couldn’t control them – they wouldn’t listen to me,” said Nina.
In 2007, her mother, who lives in Ferndown, told her about the first Treating Autism conference at the BIC. “I thought it would be another bunch of mothers in denial, but it was life-changing,” she recalled.
After hearing stories of US parents who claimed their children’s autism had disappeared through biomedical treatment – a mixture of detox and food supplements – Nina started giving the boys enzymes to help them digest wheat and dairy.
A few days later, one of the twins came out with his first ever sentence: “Mummy. I’m talking to you. Would you look at me?”
Next she tried a vitamin supplement designed to help their digestive problems and support their immune systems.
She also took them to the USA, where tests showed they both had bowel disease. Christian, who had always been skinny, was treated for parasites and Eli, who suffered from bloating, for an imbalance of amino acids. Nina also took them off wheat and dairy foods. They started to sleep through the night and became toilet trained. The boys are about a year behind in their reading and writing, but have been assessed as no longer autistic. They are being eased into mainstream education.
Now a trained health visitor, Nina says: “They’re such lovely boys and have got so many friends. I used to cry myself to sleep, thinking: ‘Please just say something’. Now they never shut up. Autism is recoverable.”
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