The McGeary Story - Arbonne & Autism

Again & as always, I’m not a doctor. This is a telling of my story & experience. Speaking with your own doctor is IMPERATIVE in any treatment. Also, adhere to all warnings & label information on all Arbonne products, as they are not intended to cure any disorders or diseases.
I’m always interested in talking with other families & Arbonnettes about autism & its treatments. Please feel free to forward this onto friends, families and loved ones as you see fit. I can be found on Facebook (www.facebook.com/cindimcgeary1881900), or emailed at RecoveryNinja2012@gmail.com. Enjoy and thank you for giving me an opportunity where my experience and struggles can make a difference!

A lot of what you’ll find when you search for “Arbonne and Autism” or special needs, you’ll see a list of products that people have used to help keep their family healthy. You’ll read about how most of our products are no gluten. You’ll learn that we use no animal byproducts and are never tested on animals. Arbonne is vegan certified & uses botanicals instead of chemicals to make the purest, safest products you can find. And don’t get me wrong – I LOVE that Arbonne helps me to limit the chemical exposure my family gets, but that’s not what’s changed my life.

What has changed my life is the INCOME that comes with Arbonne.

The fact is that I’m on a mission to recover my son from autism. That’s right – UNDIAGNOSIS or bust, baby! And protein shakes and face wash will only get me so far – unless I’m on the business end of that deal! Recovery from autism is no small thing – there are A LOT of doctor’s appointments, various treatments and blood work and lab tests. For many there are speech therapists, behavior therapists, occupational therapists, music therapists. There are nutritionists and dieticians and ENTs and who knows what other specialists – which in many states are NOT covered by medical insurance. Then once you leave the doctor's office, there's vitamins and medications and supplements and organics and specialty foods. One doctor even suggested I replace all of my pots and pans with stainless steel and replace all of my plastic Tupperware with glass corning ware to avoid the chemicals found in those! On top of all that, in a lot of cases, one parent ends up at home because – seriously, with all of those appointments, when are you supposed to get to work?! And that would be assuming you could find child care for a special needs child.

So how do you make this work? That’s where Arbonne comes in. When you find a way to work your business around your life, instead of trying to make your life work around job (which stands for “Just Over Broke” in way too many cases!) and you can bring in $10,000 a month or more in income by doing what you’re already doing & caring enough about your friends and family to invite them to do the same, something amazing happens.

All of the sudden you’re able to make a decision about your child’s care based onyour values instead of the dollar value.

But here’s my story…

When the diagnosis for autism came back, I didn’t cry. I'm not sure I even blinked. I may have actually poked my husband with an "I told you so". That's kind of who I am. It didn't really seem like that big of a deal at the time. I mean, it wasn't like I could DO anything about it. My pediatrician wasn't acting concerned. The therapists weren't acting like it was a huge deal, so it must be ok, right? It was just before AJ's fourth birthday. I have a background in psychology, so along the developmental milestones I would get a little concerned, but I was always assured that it wasn’t anything I needed to worry about - every child develops at a his own pace, he's your first - you're just over reacting, Mozart didn’t talk until he was 4. I don’t even know if that last one is even true, but it gave me enough of a reason to push back bringing up the dreaded "a-word" to my doctor. Looking back I wish I had followed my instincts and at least gotten early intervention. But hindsight is always 20-20, so I just look forward.

The official diagnosis came in as "PDD-NOS with a prevalent speech delay". Basically, he's on the spectrum, but too high functioning to be labeled Asperger’s. The therapist encouraged me by telling me that with enough therapy, he'd basically "grow out of it". It sounded awesome at the time, but now it just sounds silly. Especially because they neveractually referred me to any actual therapists. And I didn’t even know enough to know I was supposed to ask! Again...20-20 hindsight. But we were referred to a school designed for ASD & other special needs kids. He was put in a small pre-K class with two of the most remarkable teachers we could ever ask for. Within two weeks we noticed that he was speaking more and adapting to change and transition easier. Within a month he was accepted into the inclusion class - a pre-K class of half ASD kids & half "neuro-typical" kids. And that was all I really thought about it. We met for IEP meetings here and there, but all in all just did what we could to raise AJ as "normal" as possible.

In November 2010 I got a call from a good friend of mine, Heather Dobbins, asking if I wanted to meet up for coffee. I'm a working mom, so any chance for girl time that comes up, you can count me in! It turns out that coffee was actually a meeting to introduce me to her new adventure with Arbonne. It was the first time anyone had ever explained to me that toxins - environmental and otherwise - may have an impact on our health and well being. I was glad for the information, but I was already working three part time jobs & I'd done the network marketing thing.

A few months later I was looking for a diet program, not necessarily for weight loss but to help with my migraines & other health issues I was experiencing. I again got a call from Heather with “Girl – we need to chat”. She introduced me to the 30 Days to Fit program. I did a little research about the gluten and diary free diet showing to improve migraine and anxiety symptoms, so I figured I’d give it a go. And to get the better discount, I opted for the Consultant Discount – as Heather said, “If it works, you’re going to tell people about it, right? Wouldn’t you like the chance to get paid?” Who says no to something like that?!

The products work, there’s no doubt about that. The 30 Days to Fit well EXCEEDED my expectations. I lose 25 pounds in about two months of the program. In the first 30 days I lost about 17 pounds, which works out to just over 10% of my body weight. When I hit my high school graduation weight, I knew I was on to something big! Also, I’ve never looked back at anxiety medication or migraine medications.

The 30 Days to Fit program took care of those concerns, but it opened my eyes to the possibility that there was a connection between diet and autism symptoms. As I began to read books on the subject I began to realize how little I knew about autism and how many factors that could influence general health – but could also cause potential dangers if not addressed. The resounding truth was that – ironically enough – the diagnosing therapists were right: Recovery was possible. But it wasn’t going to be easy or conventional. And it certainly was not going to be cheap! Along the way, Arbonne has been “spare time” – I take my business very seriously, and I fit it creatively into my day – and it has so far supplemented my family’s income to pay the doctor bills along the way. I look forward to the day where it begins to replace my income and my husband’s income as it has done for friends and teammates.

And as it can for you