Chiropractic Changes Life of Autistic Boy

In a May 26, 2005 feature article from the "Health.telegraph" news service in Great Britain, comes a feel-good story of Max Willson, a young boy who had been labeled autistic. The story of Max's problems started at birth. Max was born in April, 1998 after a very difficult labor. The umbilical cord was wrapped twice around his neck. As he grew, Max's mother, Michaela soon noticed that Max was not developing in the same way that his elder sister had. His parents noticed that Max's eyes didn't focus, and his hand movements were more uncoordinated than those of other children his age.

Quentin, Max's father commented, "You never want to admit to yourself that you've got a backward child," he says, "but it was clear that he was very, very behind. He couldn't concentrate, was hyperactive and demanding." The Wilson's took their son to numerous doctors and received a variety of opinions including the diagnosis of dyspraxia and dyslexia.

Having tried all else the Willsons were close to placing Max on Ritalin when something happened. One day Quentin, Max's father, went to pick Max up from a birthday party he had been attending. Quentin noted that Max was acting up as usual, "he'd done his usual trick of sitting underneath the table for two hours". At that party, he met the mother of one of the other children who had been observing Max for the previous hour. She told Quentin that she thought Max's skeleton was out of alignment and suggested that he should see the chiropractor she had used.

Following that advice the Willsons took Max to see a chiropractor. Quentin recalls the first vist and day by saying, "It was just flicking the bones around his neck and shoulders, but that night, Max slept continuously until morning for the first time since his birth, nearly five years before."

Needless to say the Willsons were extremely delighted at their son's progress. Max's dad Quentin summed up their feelings by saying "He sleeps like a log and has lost all that weirdness. He no longer has a classroom assistant and we've taken him out of his second genteel preparatory school with five children in the class and put him into a little village state school where he's flourishing. He's still a bit behind because he effectively missed out on a couple of years of education, but you can reason with him and he's reading and writing and it's amazing. I can only put this down to the chiropractic."