This guest blog post, about how compounding pharmacies can be a tremendous resource for families raising children with ASD, comes from Ashley Dick, who is a practicing compounding pharmacist and co-owner of PharmaCare Compounding Solutions in Tennessee.
Helping the Medicine Go Down: Addressing the special needs of ASD patients
By Ashley Dick, PharmD
For the parents of a child with an autism spectrum disorder (ASD), the many difficulties that come with caring for their child can cause significant stress and frustration, to the point of being overwhelming. Often amplifying these feelings is the fact that the very characteristics of the condition make it exceedingly difficult to treat the symptoms or simply help the child to feel better. Because of the extreme sensory and dietary issues experienced by many ASD patients, traditional forms of medication or nutritional supplements are either difficult or impossible to administer, but there is a solution through pharmacy compounding.

I've been trying to find information on getting hospital accommodations. I mean for someone like me, I fear hospitals to an extreme, so much that I would probably rather die than set foot inside of one. It becomes a bigger challenge for my mom because she really doesn't understand me that well. My dad is handicapped because of tendinitis and doesn't like being in the hospital with me either.

Recently here at AutismSpot, we’ve been shining the spotlight on parents raising kids with Autism Spectrum Disorders. As we continue our “Spotlight” series in 2011, I am pleased to share Nancy Mandell’s (aka – Nance) story of motherhood. Actually, an AutismSpot reader who has been following our Spotlight Series suggested that Nance be highlighted because she is a trailblazer for many of the rest of us. Nance’s dedication not only to her two children, but to the many families she helps and inspires on a daily basis is inspirational and appreciated!
Story by Nance Mandell

I am the proud mother of Amanda age 25 and Ryan age 23 who is diagnosed with Asperger’s. My husband and I have been married 29 years and he is a psychologist. I got my degree in Counselor Education from UNT in 1986. I was a late bloomer; married at age 30 and had my children late in life at age 35 and 37.

A sensory issue will cause you to cover your ears and tear out of the kitchen to the opposite side of the house if your mom turns on the blender.
A sensory issue is being less afraid of an actual tornado than the “tornado bell,” the warning sound a weather radio makes when a tornado is approaching – so afraid of the bell in fact that you won’t enter the room that the radio’s in for days despite being told that the radio is off, that it won’t ever turn on again.