Adult Testing for Autism

The autism test has about 500 questions (or 600?), and it is given to the person being tested, as well as to the main adult in that person’s life. Such a maddening test for an autistic/AuDHD person to take!!!

A god-sent resource:
On Facebook “Ask Autistic Adults, resource for parents of autistics”
ABA and CBT are not recommended by this group.

Useful website:
https://www.additudemag.com

Your OH can go the genetic testing route - a relevant mutation is the MTHFR gene, and GABA levels. Or, easier would be to test for:

  • levels of vitamins B, like folic acid and B12, if they are low, supplement, because if this gene is impaired one needs more of the vitamin, or in some cases it’s better to use the methylated form of it (methylfolate instead of folic acid, same with b12, use the methylcobalamine) to make it available to the body, also B6
  • iron and zinc levels
  • vitamin D, especially at this time of year, but year around for autistics
    Add magnesium, too, especially glycinate which helps with sleep, citrate with bowel movement (if tissue issues).

Even easier, start supplementing with these things and see if there is any difference. These are all water soluble (except for D), excess will be eliminated, basically expensive pee. Still, use judgement - take every other day, or half the pill when the units are too high, and go from there.

Autism can come with a host of other comorbidities: intellectual challenges (very high IQ or below ave IQ/dyslexia/dyscalculia/…), dyspraxia, OCD, anxiety, connective tissue disorders (EDS or HSD, gastro issues leading to eating disorders), sensory issues, ADHD (for this one look up resources in the AuDHD community), etc.

One drawback to an official diagnosis is discrimination, which I can turn into a positive, because who'd want to be in a discriminatory environment anyway?

Can you give a link to specifically the section of your link which explains that autism is treated with vitamins?

If you are actually thinking of ADHD treatment then please could you start another thread - this one is confusing enough with KiwiSteve's posts about ADHD and the merging of two threads.

I appreciate that some people on the autism spectrum also have ADHD but that's along with many mental conditions.

Vitamins don’t take away the autism, but they sure help improve a few things when absorption is impaired, or the affected person will eat only a restricted diet due to sensory issues. No single link will say that yet, although there are a few meta-studies.
https://scholar.google.ch/scholar?q=…=1&oi=scholart

Some time ago I did a deep dive looking for solutions. I joined a few groups, and after enough digging and research, I found the least harmful and most impactful was supplementation, well, in tandem with a supportive family and work environment. It is more challenging for women, who are forever gaslighted by the medical community, to find proper solutions.

Anecdotically, my own family - we eat a balanced diet but have tested low on D, B12, ferritin, and zinc “for no reason” since very young, and we had to regularly supplement, with prescription from the doctor. The doctors have had no answer to why that is, so it falls on me to make sure that my kids are aware, and learn how to deal with it.

For scholarly research, I use pubmed, enter keywords and sort by year. Sift through the papers, some have just the abstracts, some more. Thankfully, there is an uptick in research on issues associated with autism since 2010 or so. To get around paywalls, get creative or patient. I haven’t been successful using Sci-hub, but if I dig around hard enough I find a copy of the paper somewhere.

ex:
methylcobalamine autism
https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/?ter…5&sort=pubdate
Choose one:
https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/35631176/
Or another:
https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/34442428/

low zinc
https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/36964812/

Basically, do your research.

It's been a very long time since I've posted on this forum, and I really could never have guessed all the years back when I signed up, that I would be trying to find help on this subject, but as a community you were all great back in the day, so I'm hopeful that one of you might be able to help me this time around.

I'm still in the Romandie area of CH and it's maddeningly difficult trying to find a touch point for discussing the road to late adult diagnosis. All the resources are centered around kids/young adults. I've tried reaching out to some associations/orgs based here, and essentially either received no response or was told that they only deal with families with kids, or support for young adults in higher education.

I'm struggling at the moment, and any pointers/definite contacts would be very highly appreciated.

Have a look here:
https://mediversite.ch/bilans/

Hello and sorry if it has been asked before.

If I get an official diagnosis of Autism/ADHS/... can anyone then "force" me to e.g. reduce my workload from 100% or other stuff?

Thanks