What a SPECT scan looks like!

Let me say for the record "I love Providence Med. Center!" I got the disc within just a few days of requesting it. They are so wonderful to work with long distance, and Brent said the Radiology staff was really great with N. Two thumbs up!

Okay, so here is a sample of what they scanned on my boy.  What you're looking at in the first photo is just an indicator of which portion or 'slice' of the brain they are showing. The next photo is the scan that corresponds. I actually zoomed in and cropped it as two photos so we can really see a clear shot.

Okay, now how to find the profusions: The green part is where the radioactive tracer did not flow. The large green area across the middle is his eye socket/ sinus area. However, the green parts in the middle of his brain above the eyes are the profusions.  In some shots it looks like one big blob of inactivity, but in some of the others, you can see the definition that shows it as two separate profusions.  Now the radiologist actually says in his summary, "Brain SPECT study is within normal limits. No convincing perfusion abnormality identified."  This confused me because it was obvious to see the perfusions, and he identifies them in the main body of his report. But then I remembered that he is assessing it with the normal goal of looking for actual brain injury or seizure activity, not just inflammation. I was informed that we are some of the first ones to seek this test  from Providence in Anchorage for Autism in spite of it becoming more routine down south. And as I mentioned in my last post, it makes sense that N's are "subtle profusions" because he is a verbal, engaged, high functioning case.  I wish we could have done this sooner in the protocal since we are already seeing so much improvement and activity in those lobes after just 2 months. I am sure the profusions would have been larger and more defined, but at least this gives us somewhat of a baseline to compare with later down the road!

Hopefully this will help for you to understand a little more about what we are dealing with in NIDS cases.  I am excited for the day that his scan shows nothing but pink and orange in that upper portion! :)

Oh! And in a fairly unrelated note; N has been complaining about his headaches again the past few weeks. We thought it was only related to his neurofeedback sessions since that is when he first complained about them, but now he has told me that it's pretty non-stop.  We thought that it might be related to seasonal allergies or air quality, but after addressing those, he's still dealing with it. Well, tonight as I was flipping through Dr. Goldberg's book, "The Autism Myth" I saw a passage that referred to one of his case studies having headaches during the period of recovery when she was making rapid gains. That would certainly make sense in N's case since they started about the time we started the NIDS protocol, and he feels it in the area of his profusions. I'm going to question some of the other parents in the NIDS yahoo group about whether or not their children experienced this, but it definitely seems plausible and logical!

Havea a great rest-of-week, and thank you again for your support and encouragement. We appreciate you!

Blessings,
Hillary