43 Years Later Questions Answered.

Rich's New Right side shoe modified to add 5/16 of an inch, solved a long term autism problem!


Autism's Hip and coordination stories , 43 years later (a cure?)

From the Dark Ages of Autism filtered threw this blog and other sources come the stories of Aspies NOT suffering any hip pain but yet having hip trouble. Most of us first figured this out in Kindergarten there was no pre school in those days (1960s) and we were the laughing stock of the class as we couldn't Skip or Run. Later on in gym class it was discovered yet again with tons of embarrassment we couldn't do jumping jacks either. My poor gym teacher in Junior-hi, tried and tried to get me to do them and gave me special instruction and it was to no avail. In a way it was good I was seen as "gay" as gay was and is much better understood than Autism. If I had been labeled "Autism" I might have been in Special Education.

None of us ever complained of Hip Pain so therefore we could not alert anyone something was wrong physically. Personally, I dreaded gym class and was known as "flash" a pun for my slow running ability and of course the lack of jumping jacks. This might indeed be related to the autistic pain tolerance. To counter this I personally took up long distance cycling and have rode some 10.0000 miles in my life by bicycle. I figured If I could not run one way I'd do it another. Bicycling did even more damage to my knees and legs as I never felt enough pain to tell me I was pushing too hard and' Ease UP'. I even pulled golf clubs with my bike. Finally when my knee was swelled so bad it could not be bent I had an operation to fix the joint and literally I shocked the doctor to death when I walked in the office for a 3 day follow-up and I was crutchless and Pain Fee. He was shocked I should have been too!

I have met 40 some others from this blog from teenagers (their Parents) to old folks like me and we all share basically that same story. We were not able to skip, run or do jumping jacks. In later life IF we had walking and standing type jobs the hip pain finally caught up with us and in many cases it was very debilitating. Many of us took to adding 3-4-5 layers of insoles on our Short sides and that was a great help. Many of us somehow had X-ray's done and IF they were properly read they show our pelvis' were two different shapes and thus one leg was in effect Shorter than the other. A casual glance from a novice X-ray tech showed they were FINE... My X-rays were at first were read as normal. However I took my films to a 25 year veteran of X-ray's who read them and she got out dividers and other measuring devices and said your off from side to side about a 1/4 inch. Well, that made sense!

All of us report one shoe on our short side being wore off (filed) smooth just from normal walking long, before the other show was ever wore out. It has happened on both left and right sides a casual observation (not at all proven) from my response seems to indicate girls have the short side on the left and guys had it on their right. The Transgendered that responded to my hip pain story, seem to have an equal incidence of left and right sides. Many of us had our legs measured in the doctors office at one time or another and those measurement seemed OK but they couldn't tell one hip joint was not in line with the other. As we have shared our stories and ideas with one another we inadvertently painted a pretty good case for Autism's pain tolerance. Of Course, many of us old folks with the hip pain do too normal of a life to ever be admitted to in autism circles. We even have and autistic mother with several kids in a standing job and she still survives! Many of us have been to doctor after doctor and have been Rx 'd all kinds of stop gap drugs and nothing has worked.

Finally, last week in kind of the day late and a dollar short type of thing I went to Goodwill brought an old pair of shoes ripped them apart and added the soul of that shoe to mine (Picture Above) and WALLA walking is now painless and walking and coordination has improved dramatically as well. I bet as soon as my hip quits hurting all together I will finally be able to do a jumping jack. I even have been walking long distances that just a few weeks ago were only possible with a cane. I added 5/16' of an inch to the shoe . As I get the money saved up I'll have all my shoes fixed this way.

Just where have been the Autism researches been hiding? Why is it we had to figure this out on our own? This might very well be evidence the Autism researchers don't have a clue to our key ideals or for that matter even care enough to dig down in the trenches and really figure out our insights. Just what is it they are doing? What is it don't they know? Just how can they ignore a living working past?

Rich Shull Http://prerainmanautism.blogspot.com