The Body as a Whole
I find it fascinating that many of the techniques I learned to help my daughter with SPD are also good for my daughter with trauma. Our brains are fascinating things, and our bodies work in such an amazing wonderful way. I'm constantly in awe of how God created us to have everything in our bodies function in a perfect orderly way. Nothing random about it.
Brains that don't make connections due to trauma mis-fire the same way brains that lack enough oxygen saturation, or have a sensory processing disorder. Mis-firing brains whatever the reason are greatly helped by a balanced food diet, as well as sensory therapy and play. God made children with a need to play. It's so funny to me, as we all know children are meant to play, but we don't all realize how important play is and how it literally forms connections in the brain. While this makes since, we in America send our kids to a school to sit in a classroom the majority of the day without the ability to play. We then rush to activities or hand out I-pads to pacify and entertain our kids, again not giving them what their brains so desperately need.
Recently, I was further amazed by the way our bodies work perfectly together. I went to an orthodontist and he looked in my SPD child's mouth as her teeth are crowding. He showed me how narrow her palate is, and how she is "tongue tied". He went on to tell me that based on what he sees she probably had a hard time learning to nurse. Yes! He is right, she was horrible at learning. I wanted to give up. I cried a ton. I had to wear a shield, and help her as she wouldn't latch right and become an inconsolable mess. He went on to explain that being tongue tied causes the tongue in resting position to sit in such a way that it blocks the lower airway a bit. Then he looked in her nose and pointed out that the turbinates, or little ridged bones in her nose are larger than "normal" and block her upper airway. He asked if she had asthma problems when she was younger. Yes! He explained that she wasn't getting enough oxygen saturation. As I heard this I thought of the many hospital visits we had when she was a baby and toddler. We would go in because of an asthma attack but they'd keep us because her oxygen saturation wasn't good enough. Recently she's had passing out spells. We've had EKG's and other tests done that show nothing wrong. He said, "It's one in the same. The oxygen saturation level is the cause."
He went on to explain that he believes many of our processing and spectrum disorders stem from pour oxygenation to the brain. Who knows how accurate this is, but it clicked for me. She was a baby that had such a hard time with airway distress and passing out and oxygen problems. It makes sense to me that the biology of how her body is could have lent to all those things and that the lower oxygen could have caused more SPD. Makes me wonder! It also makes me wish that when you had a baby or went to the doctor that you could be looked at by multiple kinds of doctors, so that each person in their specialty could tell you the trend they see. I really don't like that most doctors these days just push medicine and don't bother to explain what's happening in the body as a whole. My little meeting with the orthodontist told me more than any pulmonologist or pediatrician ever did about my child. Crazy how that works!
Brains that don't make connections due to trauma mis-fire the same way brains that lack enough oxygen saturation, or have a sensory processing disorder. Mis-firing brains whatever the reason are greatly helped by a balanced food diet, as well as sensory therapy and play. God made children with a need to play. It's so funny to me, as we all know children are meant to play, but we don't all realize how important play is and how it literally forms connections in the brain. While this makes since, we in America send our kids to a school to sit in a classroom the majority of the day without the ability to play. We then rush to activities or hand out I-pads to pacify and entertain our kids, again not giving them what their brains so desperately need.
Recently, I was further amazed by the way our bodies work perfectly together. I went to an orthodontist and he looked in my SPD child's mouth as her teeth are crowding. He showed me how narrow her palate is, and how she is "tongue tied". He went on to tell me that based on what he sees she probably had a hard time learning to nurse. Yes! He is right, she was horrible at learning. I wanted to give up. I cried a ton. I had to wear a shield, and help her as she wouldn't latch right and become an inconsolable mess. He went on to explain that being tongue tied causes the tongue in resting position to sit in such a way that it blocks the lower airway a bit. Then he looked in her nose and pointed out that the turbinates, or little ridged bones in her nose are larger than "normal" and block her upper airway. He asked if she had asthma problems when she was younger. Yes! He explained that she wasn't getting enough oxygen saturation. As I heard this I thought of the many hospital visits we had when she was a baby and toddler. We would go in because of an asthma attack but they'd keep us because her oxygen saturation wasn't good enough. Recently she's had passing out spells. We've had EKG's and other tests done that show nothing wrong. He said, "It's one in the same. The oxygen saturation level is the cause."
He went on to explain that he believes many of our processing and spectrum disorders stem from pour oxygenation to the brain. Who knows how accurate this is, but it clicked for me. She was a baby that had such a hard time with airway distress and passing out and oxygen problems. It makes sense to me that the biology of how her body is could have lent to all those things and that the lower oxygen could have caused more SPD. Makes me wonder! It also makes me wish that when you had a baby or went to the doctor that you could be looked at by multiple kinds of doctors, so that each person in their specialty could tell you the trend they see. I really don't like that most doctors these days just push medicine and don't bother to explain what's happening in the body as a whole. My little meeting with the orthodontist told me more than any pulmonologist or pediatrician ever did about my child. Crazy how that works!
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