Sunday, September 27, 2009

Mona Vie?

So, my friend called me over a few weeks ago and showed me this "wine bottle", or so what I thought was a wine bottle anyways. Wine gives me a headache just looking at it, so I was immediately turned off.     :)

She then said that it is MonaVie, a powerful, antioxidant-rich superfood berry blend that is helping thousands of people with all sorts of different ailments around the world. It has the Acai Berry in it and about 17 other fruits in it. It also has preservatives though, which I found a bit odd. She then said that it was preserved because they have to ship it from whatever jungle they pick the berries from in Asia. The berries go through a "flash freeze" and then are brought back to be bottled from what I understand, so I'm not sure why they would add preservatives if it is frozen. Anyways, apparently it has been "known" to help people with autism, adhd, depression, diabetes, high blood pressure, cancer, etc. etc. etc. I googled it (isn't google wonderful?) and found about 7 google pages FULL of nothing but negative things to say about MonaVie. Saying that it is a pyramid scheme/scam and the juice is no better for you than drinking a glass of Welch's Grape Juice a day. Men's Journal even did an article saying that the amount of antioxidants in MonaVie are less than that of Welch's Grape Juice. I also have found some Acai Berry juice blends from various stores around here that are certified organic and have a TON of great superfoods in them, probably somewhat comparable to MonaVie's ingredients and WITH NO PRESERVATIVES at all. May I add that a liter of this juice from Wal-Mart is $6.99 vs the MonaVie price of $40 a bottle ( One bottle lasts 1 person 7 days), so that adds up to about $170 per month for one person drinking it. Very expensive stuff. My friend is now a "distributor" for MonaVie and they are telling her that she will become a millionaire in no time because this MonaVie is the next biggest thing and will pretty much cure anything you have wrong with you, more or less.


Now, I'm very open-minded when it comes to trying or learning about new things, especially when it comes to treatments for Gabe and I am not against this MonaVie juice...... If I knew that it worked like people who sell it are saying it does. I'm just wanting to find out more about it. Everyone who sells this juice seems to know nothing about what they are selling. I asked a guy who claims to be earning over $60,000 a year selling MonaVie if the preservative in it is aluminum-based or not and why they even put them in the juice if it is supposedly so "natural". He couldn't tell me and had no idea there were preservatives in it until I asked him about it. Strange....if I were making a living off of selling a product I would want to know any and everything about it to be sure I didn't get up in front of people and end up looking like a dummy, right? Clearly he is in it for the money and not the "health benefits" they claim.

One interesting fact is that Jenny McCarthy does reference it in her Mother Warriors book saying that has been known to help children with autism. I also found some testimonies online from autism moms saying that it has really, really helped their kids with speech, socializing, concentration, etc. I LOVE Jenny and usually take her word on most things, but I am a bit hesitant to believe that this really helps that much and if it is just as beneficial to drink the "so called off brand" that I found at Wally World the other day?

Any thoughts? Anyone else heard about or looked in to MonaVie?

:)

Friday, September 4, 2009

Kindergarten

No, this was not a typo. Yes, Gabe is now in Kindergarten. It seems so weird to say that, and even more strange to think about how old I'm getting. :) It seems like just yesterday when I was sitting in the hospital waiting for him to finally decide to come out. In his defense, there really wasn't much room for him to work with on the coming out part. Before I had him I never really knew what true love was. He amazes me more everyday and I love him more and more everyday.
Anyways, enough of the mushy stuff, I'll get to my point of this blog. We met with Gabe's new teachers, he will have one for his Life Skills (special ed) class and one for the reg. kindergarten class. He is splitting his time between the two at first with the end goal of being in kindergarten at least most of the day, if not all day. I would love to see him grow and improve so much that he no longer needs Life Skills class, but right now that is definitely the best place for him to be to get everything he needs. He has now been in school for almost 3 weeks and he is doing really, really well so far. His new teacher seems too good to be true. She teaches almost exactly how we parent Gabe. She doesn't baby him or treat him like he is different just because he has autism. She pushes him just as much as she would any other child, which I think is what a lot of these kids need. Usually, when Gabe has goals and is pushes to achieve them, he always exceeds them. He is so smart and loves school! He continues to use his words a lot at school, but a little less at home. I think that by the time he gets home at night he is just so exhausted that he tries to get lazy on us. ;) Once he gets use to his schedule I think he will jump back in to the swing of things. We have also slacked a bit on watching his sugar intake. We were doing really well there for a while and then school started and it made it very difficult to send snacks that didn't contain sugar or carbs. We are currently trying to find some snacks that he will enjoy, but that are also low in sugar. That could prove to be a challenge.

We are still doing the MB12 injections and they are going really well. I think for a few weeks I was injecting them too deep and they weren't as effective. It's almost like when they seem to burn and itch more, they are more effective. I wonder why that is...because the times that he doesn't cry after are when I don't notice as much effect from the shot.


Our DAN! Dr recently put Gabe on Naltrexone cream to see if it would help with Gabe's tippy-toe walking. Anyone else heard of this before? It doesn't seem to be doing anything thus far.....