Many children have difficulty sleeping because of the release of stress hormones during the day. The primary stress hormone is noradrenaline (norepinephrine) which is released in response to the low brain blood pressure problem commonly found in autism. As the blood pressure issue improves with recovery, noradrenaline levels decline, and the children can fall asleep more quickly and stay asleep longer.
Skype visits with Dr. Nemechek are used in 2 circumstances. The first circumstance is routine follow-up consultations after an initial face-to-face consultation with Dr. Nemechek in his Arizona (U.S.) office. Because of the initial face-to-face consultation, Dr. Nemechek can prescribe rifaximin and lab testing as part of these Skype consultations.nnThe second type of Skype consultation is for a one-time educational session for international patients. During educational sessions, Dr. Nemechek can review the case and help parents decipher and solve their child’s problems. Dr. Nemechek is unable to prescribe rifaximin or lab testing during the educational Skype consultation. Educational Skype consultations are not available to individuals residing in the U.S.
As with any medical regimen, occasional missed doses can happen to the best of us. Infrequently missed doses (e.g., one every few weeks) will most likely have no negative impact on the protocol’s effectiveness.nnBut as the frequency of missed doses increases (e.g., once every few days), there is a real chance inflammation may rise, and the protocol’s beneficial effects will be lessened.
The protocol will lower inflammation and, in general, has a very positive affect on other medical issues, including inflammatory skin conditions.
The Nemechek Protocol helps to lower inflammation throughout the body, and this can result in a wide array of clinical benefits for all persons.
Hyperactivity is a sign that your child’s nervous system cannot properly regulate the brain’s blood pressure. The brain forces the child to move their leg muscles in order to increase blood pressure and oxygen into the brain.
Using a nasal steroid spray (fluticasone) regularly can reduce sinus and middle ear infections. Discuss starting this treatment with your pediatrician.
The only effect I’ve seen in children is that VNS can drop brain blood pressure levels on rare occasions and lead to a slight increase in hyperactivity and maybe some anxiety. Shifting the VNS to bedtime when the child is lying flat and will have near-normal brain pressure (lying flat eliminates the stress of gravity) seems to alleviate this issue. After a few months, when the blood pressure regulation has improved, the VNS can be used in the daytime without any apparent side effects.
Generally speaking, there are few to no side effects from the ingredients used in the protocol but I’ll break it down into its components. Olive oil and fish are capable of occasionally causing nausea if too much is given at one time. Both of these oils can sometimes cause diarrhea and maybe a slight worsening of behavior as well. If this occurs, it is a sign that you most likely still have some degree of bacterial overgrowth and I’ll recommend to my patients to either switch from inulin to rifaximin or increase their use of rifaximin.nnInulin has been proven to be very safe in even neonates but in some children, inulin in doses greater than 1/4 or 1/2 a teaspoon might trigger an increase of hyperactivity, anxiousness and even trigger a little aggression. These issues will quickly resolve simply by lowering the dose.nnIn my experience working with children, rifaximin has little to no side effects since it does not enter the bloodstream. In adults, there have been reported cases of enterocolitis but I have never seen this occur in children.
The protocol can be continued even if the child is experiencing a common illness at home. If the child is vomiting, not eating, or experiencing diarrhea, it is perfectly acceptable to stop the protocol for a few to several days until they feel better.