Is any research being done anymore on non-inherited EM?

General
21

We have seen a neuro-geneticist at the Mayo Clinic in Rochester and they have been over our DNA with a fine tooth comb and can't figure out where it went wrong. I had no symptoms at all my whole life, and my two oldest children were born fine, and stayed fine, playing out in the sun, running, you name it, and then in 1995 I began to show some symptoms and so did my two oldest kids....about the same time for all three of us. Then my son was born in 1997, and I began to get more affected but had another child in 2002 and both the two youngest had symptoms early in life. During all this time I was going from doctor to doctor with me and the kids but was dismissed as a bored housewife who had too much time on her hands. I feel strongly that the two older kids and I were exposed to something in or around the mid 90's that damaged our DNA, then I passed it on to the two children who I had after exposure. That is just my thought. My geneticist shrugs and says it doesn't really matter what started it, but when it is happening to you a person wants answers. All I know is we were normal once, then we were not, and both children born to me after that happened were affected. Needless to say, none of my children will be having children of their own. It is not recommended by our geneticist and they would never do that to another person now that they know.

Jane said:

Wow, Moongirl! That IS amazing. No one before you has it but all 4 of your children. I'm really sorry.

I'm just a retired LPN (the bottom of the nurse-heap), so truly I am not "learned". But it really does seem you COULD be manifesting a new family link of mutation. That all 4 children, yet no one historically, in your family has it!!

Can your parents think of any toxic exposure when your mom was pregnant? Or do you, when you were pregnant? Or disease, maybe viral, or medications?

It's so rare, yet it's been happening for hundreds of thousands of years. I think that's how modern humans came about.

I just started reading a book on Epigenetics, which is where the DNA does not mutate, but the processes due to the DNA/genetic code, get mixed up and cause changes that are not genetic, yet can be passed on sometimes. I suppose your situation could be genetic mutation OR epigenetic alterations or misreadings. Or, some mystery way beyond my imagination.

I hope the best for you. You can get genetic, and maybe even epigenetic (if not now, someday) testing. But it still leaves you with the problem.

Thanks, Mick. I always fear I'm making no sense.

Love Jane

22

I'm really sorry for you and your children, Moongirl. That's so difficult!

In the book I'm reading on epigenetics, they talk about identical twins where one becomes schizophrenic and the other is normal. They explained that DNA is a long code chain that is the blueprint for everything about a person's body, and that for cells to differentiate into skin here and liver there and bone and feet, etc., each cell has to have most of the DNA blocked or turned off, in order to allow just the tiny section for "skin" or "liver" to be able to make skin or liver cells. Epigenetics is how this is done, with special molecules growing to attach to DNA and turn off parts of it. Sometimes the necessary DNA parts don't get turned off, or sometimes too much is turned off.

They think Autism could be caused because too much of the DNA is left "ON" so that special processes can't happen, like too much information to do anything. And if they could figure out how to use special molecules to turn off what needs to be turned off, in the brain, autism would cease.

Maybe something in your epigenetic system got messed with by toxins or meds or virus or whatever, and that message also was passed to your last two children? Maybe the geneticist at Mayo was only thinking DNA, not epigenetic control of DNA. Unfortunately, maybe that's something they can't even tell for sure yet. But the epigenetic field is a BIG one and growing. Maybe when your children are older, help can be given.

I sure hope so.

Love Jane

23

Thank you, Veerla. What you said made sense to me. I have one of those inquiring minds that likes to know the why and how of things. I began to have mild symptoms of EM at 34, my daughter was 10 when she did, my first son at 5, then one at 3 years of age and the last child at 9 months of age. Who knows what happens to trigger it, etc. I think genetics is so interesting, even if I don't understand it all.