It’s been a long time without an update, due to a complication with a “minor” surgical procedure on yours truly. Alex’s moods have been up and down, there’s not really much to say about them, but even so I’d prefer to say something certainly every month if not every week. However, I had a vasectomy recently and am one of the lucky few suffering a much longer than expected period of post-procedure pain. This cost me two visits with Alex, and has made other visits more difficult than usual. It also makes daily life very slow – my 1/2 mile walk to work (I work at a university, so I park pretty far from the building in which I work) is now about a 45-minute affair one-way. All of this combined has made writing about Alex one of the last things on my mind.
Alex’s moods have been, as I said, pretty up and down. But today was noteworthy. Not only did he have a good visit, but it was the first time we tried his tinctures (I started creating these back in early January). Each tincture started with some Black Domina kief mixed with glycerine, was rotated daily, and yesterday baked in the oven for an hour at 170 degrees Fahrenheit (to ensure no THC was destroyed). The weakest mixture was one gram of kief with 100 grams of glycerine, and I gave him a spoonful of this today. We can’t say if it was the strain, the glycerine delivery, or just plain luck (he arrived fairly content to begin with), but it was a really good visit. He was calm the vast majority of his time with us, and happy for a decent period of our visit. We’ll definitely be trying the tincture again to see if this is a repeatable experience. If so, I’ll have to mix a bigger batch, and soon.
Last weekend, on the other hand, was not so good. Alex was doing well at first, but had a terrible sore on his lip that had apparently started off as merely a split lip. We took him to the doctor, and the office was so busy we ended up waiting about three hours to be seen. Alex’s mood of course degraded during this period, and by the ride home he was venting his frustrations on himself as well as those around him. Usually his violence is directed inward, but when he’s really upset he lashes out at whomever he can, and he was hitting, scratching, and kicking anybody within his reach. And to top it off I hadn’t brought any cannabis with us (it’s often difficult to dose him at his home since it’s my understanding we can’t actually bring the stuff inside), so any hope of calming him that way was doomed before we even arrived.
Fortunately, after seeing the doctor, Alex was put on some antibiotics for the lip, and when we saw him today it looked a whole lot better.
Staph infections are quite common in severely autistic individuals who suffer from repetitive self injurious behaviors. I still think however, the real issue you are facing here is tuberous sclerosis. This is the targeted treatment. MMJ is a great rescue medication but it won’t make undetected or underlying tumors associated with TS go away. Your son desperately needs a full medical work up to rule out any and all underlying medical issues that could be tormenting him. I know it’s complex. But you must start there.