this post was submitted on 18 Feb 2025

38 points (85.2% liked)

Health - Resources and discussion for everything health-related

3405 readers

263 users here now

Health: physical and mental, individual and public.

Discussions, issues, resources, news, everything.

See the pinned post for a long list of other communities dedicated to health or specific diagnoses. The list is continuously updated.

Nothing here shall be taken as medical or any other kind of professional advice.

Commercial advertising is considered spam and not allowed. If you're not sure, contact mods to ask beforehand.

Linked videos without original description context by OP to initiate healthy, constructive discussions will be removed.

Regular rules of lemmy.world apply. Be civil.

founded 2 years ago

MODERATORS

WhoRoger@lemmy.world

RoyalEngineering@lemmy.world

Awa@lemmy.world

Parents say son with autism was nonverbal until trying an off-label drug that treats chemo side effects (www.cbsnews.com)

submitted 5 months ago by MicroWave@lemmy.world to c/health@lemmy.world

14 comments fedilink hide all child comments

Summary

Mason Connor, diagnosed with autism at 2.5 years old, was nonverbal until his parents discovered leucovorin, a folic acid-based drug used to counter chemotherapy side effects.

Within days of taking it, Mason spoke his first words. Dr. Richard Frye, a pediatric neurologist, believes leucovorin can help many autistic children but lacks FDA approval due to low profitability.

Nonprofit Every Cure advocates for repurposing existing drugs for new treatments.

Mason, now 5, is set to start mainstream kindergarten.

top 14 comments

sorted by: hot top controversial new old

[–] wesker@lemmy.sdf.org 16 points 5 months ago (1 children)

Can it help me talk to women?

[–] ThrowawayPermanente@sh.itjust.works 2 points 5 months ago

Sure, go to a compounding pharmacy and get them to mix it 10,000/1 with ethanol

[–] RobotToaster@mander.xyz 15 points 5 months ago

This is likely a case of cerebral folate deficiency, it's a pretty rare disorder, although possibly under diagnosed.

[–] RobotToaster@mander.xyz 8 points 5 months ago

Also known as folinic acid.

Problems in folate metabolism, like MTHFR mutations, are implicated in all sorts of neuropsychiatric disorders.

[+] AwesomeLowlander@sh.itjust.works -8 points 5 months ago* (last edited 5 months ago) (4 children)

I had not known autism was (potentially) treatable. Thank you for the info!

Edit: Jeez at the downvotes. I'll just tell my nephew to keep on being silent.

[–] NoneOfUrBusiness@fedia.io 16 points 5 months ago (1 children)

It's the symptom of nonverbalism, not autism itself, that's treatable with medication in this instance. This kid is still autistic, but it seems with this medication they can learn to speak.

[–] AwesomeLowlander@sh.itjust.works 6 points 5 months ago (1 children)

Sorry if I was unclear. I have a relative with this exact nonverbal situation, and we're really excited to know there's a potential treatment for it.

[–] NoneOfUrBusiness@fedia.io 5 points 5 months ago (1 children)

Oh, I see. Congrats, then; hoping it works for you. Also to explain the downvotes, implying that autism is curable puts you in the same group as some pretty bad people who have inflicted deep collective trauma on the autist community. If your nephew has autism then it might be a good idea to ask on nostupidquestions or one of the autism communities (or just look it up) for the details, as unfortunately I'm pretty hazy on them. It'll leave you in a better position to detect misinformation related to the topic, and this kind of drama just comes with being autistic.

[–] AwesomeLowlander@sh.itjust.works 5 points 5 months ago

Ah, I see. Didn't mean to step into any pre-existing drama.

[–] chuckleslord@lemmy.world 5 points 5 months ago (2 children)

Even if we believe this story, it would need studies to verify that it actually works and is safe to do.

[–] Dasus@lemmy.world 5 points 5 months ago

This headline isnt to be read as "autism can be cured" but that for this one instance of neuropsychiatric illness, what helped was essentially just a folic acid supplement. Not actually, but essentially.

Most autistic kids probably don't have the exact same condition and thus wouldn't necessarily (or even probably) be helped by the drug.

[–] AwesomeLowlander@sh.itjust.works 1 points 5 months ago

There seem to have been several small scale studies on it. It seems to work for a specific subset of the patients, and there are tests for it, but it seems to be pretty invasive.

[–] cynar@lemmy.world 4 points 5 months ago

Autism is a bit of a catch all term for a cluster of symptoms. Some of those can be treated, others can't, still overs are beneficial.

Depending on the aspie your talking to/about their views on treatment vary wildly. I'm personally a high functioning aspie. The downsides are a pain in the arse, and if I could take them away with a pill, I would. However, many of the downsides are tied to the good sides. If treatment would take both, I would refuse it. Too much of what I like about myself goes through it.

There's also a bit of a sore point with groups like "autism speaks". They claim to talk for autistic people. In fact they represent the parents at best. They often talk against what actual autistic people want. They often talk a lot about "treatments" which are just a way to keep kids quiet and out of the way, to make parents lives easier, rather than helping them cope with life themselves.

[–] RobotToaster@mander.xyz -1 points 5 months ago

Certain types that are caused by specific syndromes are. Unfortunately those (that have so far been identified) are the minority.