Improved Gut Health, Sleep, and Physical Development for Child with Down Syndrome

When you work with Belen, it's a no holds barred operation. It's extremely thorough, it's very measurable, and it's very comparable to what you've done to date. His sleep pattern has been fantastic, therefore, he is more energized during the day to do the things that we want to do as a family. He has the energy for it, and we're tied to less routine, less structure, and actually more fun, so it's a win-win. Hi, my name is Colette Trout, and myself and my son, Eddie Trout, attended Belen at Optimum Health last year. We are based at the Kinsale area, and I'm a craniosacral therapist myself. My son, Eddie, has Down syndrome. He is eight years old, and at the time, he was aged seven and we were having difficulties around weight gain. Failure to thrive in that his absorption, he always had circles under his eyes. He wasn't sleeping well. He wasn't absorbing his food enough. His gait and toilet training and speech, very difficult to get a handle on. Even though we had different therapies in place, it was very hard to kind of get ahead. The weight on my mind during that period was, "Will we ever pull up out of this?" Or, "What will Eddie's future look like?" And also, he's a little boy. He just wants to play. He wants to have fun. He wants to play in the green. He loves golf. He loves hurling. When his physical capacities were coming against him, he was actually very, very hard on himself as well, and his little heart would go down. Getting gut right so we can work on his core tone, getting his gut right so synapses in the brain were firing better. Toileting became more predictable. Now we've started toilet training, which is great. Socializing, birthday parties, everything is up for grabs now, so it's wonderful. What I really liked about Belen was probably her no-nonsense attitude. I really enjoyed that this is black and white. This is the stool test for this. This is the blood test for that. And to do a comparative then against what we had found in Crumlin or in Temple Street, they're the hospitals here in Dublin, the depth of her work we would have never achieved through even the private system in Ireland, wouldn't have gotten there without Belen's input. Belen is fantastic with children, and even though Eddie mightn't have been at every appointment, we would check in over Zoom around maintenance and around the things that I was seeing throughout his day. What I would encourage parents in that, sometimes when you're booking in, you might see it, it is a whole process. It has to be a process, because to change anything in the gut can take months. It can take years to get on top of. We were lucky. Within three months, Eddie was on a whole different schedule, and it's just the understanding and her willingness to go, "This marker indicates this. How far do you want to go as a parent? What's going to work with your family or with your lifestyle or with your food shop?" Et cetera, et cetera. "How much time have you got for prep? How can we make this... How can we streamline it?" Just do it. Yeah, just, it's so doable. You just have to knuckle down and get a hold on it at the start. And actually, when you apply it to your whole family, everyone feels better. The difference in myself and in my daughter, Hannah, as well, just taking that down meant probiotics and, or nutrition uptake was far greater, calmer, sleeping better, et cetera.