Some of you may be familiar with a recent study completed by the Thinking Moms’ Revolution on AMDs IonCleanse Foothbaths. Some of the changes that the mums in the study have seen in their children were improved communication, using the potty/toilet, greater engagement and generally being calmer. We were fortunate enough to be able to get into the second and final study which started this month, and goes for four months. We’ve been provided with a FREE IonCleanse footbath by AMD to use during the study, with an option to purchase at a discount when the study is finished. We will be tracking changes in our kids using the ATEC scores which anyone can do here, but also through general observations which may not be reflected in ATECs.

I am hoping that the footbaths will help with detox issues – our BuddyBoy reacts to so many things it’s incredible, whether it goes in his mouth or through his nose! We once had him completely lose control for several days due to the smell of a new air mattress, and his reaction to eating pure honey reminds me of a pinball ricocheting off walls. We know just how much these ‘toxins’ influence his behaviour, and I expected the footbaths to stir up some hyperactivity and affect his sleep.

One of my major worries was how to get him to put his feet in the bath! Some of the mums already doing footbaths had similar concerns, but the overwhelming majority of kids seemed to love the footbaths so much, that they started requesting them on ‘off’ days. When I read that, my first thought was “yeah, right, not with MY son” yet I couldn’t help but hope that maybe we would see a miracle, too.

We started off our first ‘cleansing’ session with a few models (aka older sisters) for BuddyBoy to examine. Which may not have been a good idea – the water changes colour and will usually have rather unattractive looking ‘goop’ floating on top. Despite his wrinkled nose, we told him it was going to be his turn soon, and soon enough, it was. Well, let’s just say that there was a lot of noise (my ears were ringing for quite some time afterwards), and the bribes didn’t work (nor did we expect them to), and it took two of us, but we managed to submerge his feet in the tub for 10 minutes. Towards the end of that time he was happy to leave his feet in without my holding them in there, and he had stopped screaming, but then it was obvious that he really wasn’t comfortable, so we called it quits. Lots and lots of praise and a few treats later, and he’d recovered completely.

About an hour afterwards, we had an ‘episode’. He lost it completely over an iPad app – shaking, hyperventilating, tears streaming out of his eyes and alternating wails with sobs. He was completely inconsolable and it took a good 10 minutes for him to recover, once we hid the iPad. It left me quite shaken as we’d never seen this reaction before, and I put it down to a detox reaction from the IonCleanse. So it was obviously doing something. Despite this huge reaction, we did our second night!

This time he knew what was coming, so we told him it was time for his footbath, pointed to the chair, and asked him to sit down. He did. Yes, you read that correctly, and I nearly fell on the floor when it happened, but he sat down on the chair. 🙂 He kept his feet up on the chair, so after praising him for being so brave and sitting on the chair, I asked him to put his feet in the water. He put one foot in gently, and gradually lowered it in the water. Unbelievable. He then followed with his second foot once I asked him to, reaching out to hold my hand as if he was a bit unsure. He lasted three minutes before it became uncomfortable for his feet – we could see the change. So we stopped right there. I am so proud of my boy for doing something that he would never ordinarily do, it is such a big moment for him and I don’t know that anybody else in the whole world will know just how much this means to me.

We’ve now been doing the IonCleanse for just over a week. What our session looks like now is this: we ask BuddyBoy to sit in the chair, he does. We ask him to put his feet in, he does. He happily sits there, munching on a chocolate bikkie and occasionally rubbing his feet. We use a visual timer, and on occasion he lets us know that he’s had just about enough by putting the next sticky dot on. We are now up to 15 minutes of him sitting there patiently, happily wriggling his feet in the water. Incredible!

Because our darling boy is very up and down in his behaviour, it is always hard to tell what effect a new protocol has on him. Most of the time we see nothing, but there have been a few things that have had good results, which didn’t always last. What we’ve seen over this first week of doing our IonCleanse:

• He’s happy to cooperate, not just with the footbath. Huge!
• He’s tired, and instead of spending half an hour bouncing on his bed, he will lie down and play quietly, often going to sleep earlier.
• He’s calmer during the day, especially in the evening after his footbath.
• He’s even snugglier than he was previously – which Mumma is enjoying very much!
• He is no longer pulling his nappy off, nor is he pulling his liner out (we’re using cloth nappies). This is a huge, huge, huge thing for us, as trying to stop him wetting everywhere has been an issue for quite some time.
• He’s had a speech explosion – the speech that has been coming on for a while now is back with a vengeance, and he’s adding new words and songs.
• He’s revisiting iPad apps and toys he used to play with and hasn’t for a long time.

I’ve learned over the years to keep a lid on any excitement I feel with a new protocol, so I’m going to see how we go over the months, and if the changes last. If he’s still like this in a couple of months’ time, then I will be jumping up and down with joy, but in the meantime I’m going to enjoy it while it’s here!