My beautiful daughter Layla has a great story as well. Layla is recovering and healing with kefir and kombucha, she has autism spectrum disorder. When we found out that she had it, I did my research about it and found a book about one theory that said it came from a weak immune system and food allergies.

I treated my weak immune system with water kefir to start with. I had to have surgery for a stag-horn kidney stone that had filled my kidney and came close to shutting it down! In the process of removing the stone, I was given enough antibiotics to kill almost all of the good bacteria in my body. I was so sick from the lack of the good bacteria that I wasn’t able to get up and go to the doctor under my own power!

The doctor had to call in a special ANTIBIOTIC to kill the bad bacteria! Well,if that was not enough, I started to develop allergies like crazy. God had to be with me because I was at my wits end,he had me start looking at the evidence of my illness and found that it stemmed from ANTI-BIOTICS.(makes you wonder don’t it) LOL.

So I found this thing called kefir in my research and decided what can’t kill me might cure me, IT CURED ME!!! When I gave it to Layla with a lot of fruit to sweeten the deal.(most autistic kids crave sugar) she stated telling me how she felt. Did you know that a lot of autistic people have a burning sensation in their skin all the time? I didn’t, because Layla couldn’t tell me. She didn’t have the conception in her mind to be able to tell me. She let me know after the kefir started working!

When this child came up to me with a smile on her face and hugged me out of the blue, I cried tears of joy! She said “Mama, my skin stopped burning” I almost felt a little guilty because you never want your baby to feel bad ever,but then we started to see other changes. We don’t have to fight her to eat anymore,she started eating health food instead of craving the bad stuff.

The doctors had her on enough meds to kill the average elephant,one to give her an appetite,two for the AD/HD symptoms,and two so she could sleep at night like normal folk and last but not least, one for depression. The kid is only 15 years old and could start her own pharmacy!

The night she walked into the den and asked if she still had to take her sleep meds blew me away as well. I had to ask “Why sugar, do you feel like you can sleep on your own?” She had a big beautiful grin on her face and said yes. Of course I had the next question ready and waiting for her, “What do you think has changed baby?” She gave the reply kind of soft” I’m not afraid to go to sleep now” I never knew that she was afraid to go to sleep! I would have been spaying the room with lavender monster spray a long time ago!

How can any good mom not have a can of monster spay for monster emergencies? Another realization in the life of an autistic mind… She later told me that every night,she would lay in bed thinking the house would burn down with all of us asleep. You can’t help but cry thinking of all this worry she had and no way to tell anyone. My dear,we have the grand finale of all grand finales,”Mom,can I stop taking the Prozac?” You know that moment in you life when someone said something that made you almost snap your own neck just to see if it was the person you though it was?( You know I had to ask her why she asked me that…)

I felt so dumb afterwards when she said “I’m not depressed anymore!” Got to say it,God is good,and kefir is the best gift that he could have ever give this family. We are still working on ways to better our chances of recovery,such as an organic diet, and social behavior therapy. (in fact,we have the therapist using it too) You just have to see it to believe it! Zeus said he just might wear his durag for the picture,he’s such a ham…

Friends in kefir,

Leigh Porter