Episode 263 — Take 3 VITAL Steps
Guest: Nicole Rincon • Date: July 8, 2025
Episode Overview
Nicole Rincon shares her powerful journey as a mom and PA navigating autism and recovery with her triplets. Her experience offers clarity and hope for parents ready to take action.
About Nicole Rincon
Nicole Rincon, MS, PA-C, is a board-certified Physician Assistant with a Master’s in Physician Assistant Studies from Western University of Health Sciences. She practices at Rossignol Medical Center, specializing in integrative and functional approaches for children with special needs. As a mother to triplets—two of whom regressed into autism—Nicole’s life changed forever. Her boys are now thriving thanks to personalized interventions, and her daughter has been seizure-free for over a decade. Nicole’s passion is empowering families to pursue healing and not give up hope.
https://www.nicolerincon.com/about
https://rossignolmedicalcenter.com/doctors/nicole-rincon/
You’ll Discover
Nicole’s Story of Regression - and What Most Doctors Missed (3:34)
The Unique Root Causes for Each of Her Three Children (9:19)
Vital Step #1 (13:04)
Vital Step #2 (17:13)
Vital Step #3 (30:00)
Nicole’s One Belief That Fuels Her Unwavering Commitment (41:01)
Referenced in This Episode
Common Testing and Treatments for Newly Diagnosed Patients with Autism, Nicole Rincon at TACA Now Conference, October 2019
Uncommon Living: Episode 5: Mitochondrial Therapies for Autism With Nicole Rincon
Autism Parenting Secrets, Episode 245,EVIDENCE-BASED Treatments FIRSTwith Dr. Richard Frye
Full Transcript
Len Arcuri (00:01.486)
Hello and welcome to Autism Parenting Secrets. This week, I'm joined by Nicole Rincon. She's a board certified physician assistant, microbiologist, and all in mom of 13 year old triplets. Her unique vantage point as both a medical professional and a parent on a healing mission makes this conversation one that you won't want to miss. Nicole's juror, I'll rewind now. Nicole.
Nicole's journey mirrors many of ours. Her children faced regression. Boy, if you don't mind, I'm going to start over. And that's the beauty of editing. Here we go again. hello and welcome to Autism Parenting Secrets. This week, I'm joined by Nicole Rincon. She's a board certified physician assistant, microbiologist, and all in mom of 13 year old triplets.
Her unique vantage point as both a medical professional and a parent on a healing mission makes this conversation one that you won't want to miss. Nicole's journey mirrors many of ours. Her children faced regression, gut dysfunction, and environmental toxicity. Yet today they're thriving. She didn't wait for answers. She took bold informed action. Today we will break down the essential steps that helped shift the trajectory for her kids.
insights every parent deserves to know sooner. The secret this week is take three vital steps. Welcome, Nicole.
Nicole Rincon (01:39.099)
Thank you so much for having me on. really appreciate this. Yeah, and thank you for my background. I do practice medicine. I'm a PA, as you mentioned, I've been a PA for 17 years, but I practice at Rossignol Medical Center. I work alongside the brilliant doctors, Dr. Fry, Dr. Rossignol, along with other practitioners. So we're all one practice and we also conduct a lot of clinical research too.
Just wanted to throw that out there. We're kind of wearing a lot of hats and it's quite a fun and rewarding job. So if you don't mind, I was gonna share my story with the audience. Thank you.
Len Arcuri (02:16.622)
Yeah, yeah, as you mentioned, mean, the people you mentioned as part of that practice, all dynamite practitioners, all with different ways of helping and serving parents. So I appreciate that you mentioned that. And yes, let's hear more about your journey as a mom of triplets. And again, I think our listeners would be very interested in knowing more of the backstory.
Nicole Rincon (02:36.899)
Yeah, thank you. So, you know, kind of the more abbreviated version. So my husband, I met my husband and I, we got married. After a few years of marriage, we decided we wanted to try and conceive and had some difficulty and underwent fertility treatments, essentially. And after basically the third time we got pregnant with triplets.
Len Arcuri (02:49.518)
Thank
Nicole Rincon (03:03.191)
Miracle, it was wonderful. And I go in through the pregnancy and it was a very difficult pregnancy as you can imagine, but they were born at 34 weeks, two boys and a girl. And they, you know, only spent, they spent about two weeks in the NICU for feeding difficulties, but we brought them home, very healthy, very happy babies. As a PA at home, I was monitoring their developmental steps and their weight and weighing them every week and doing all these, you know, measurements as clinicians do. And basically they were tracking normally.
and you know, so blessed. was so grateful. And then at around 18 months, I noticed my one son, started to have speech difficulties and, and he actually, woke up with a, in the mornings, he was starting to get a tremor strangely and he was going to eat his Cheerios or whatever he was eating at the time. and you know, he would shake. So we got a workup for, we went to the doctor and they said, well, maybe this is autism. sent us to the regional center.
We were getting a workup at that time, but the diagnosis wasn't clear because he still had some speech, but it was getting kind of garbled. It was a little strange. And then about a few months during that, into that journey of getting him worked up during the summer, my son, over the course of maybe two to four weeks, just, we lost him, my other son. He lost all speech. So his regression was severe. He had two word sentences.
He basically went from no sounds even, just completely nonverbal, smearing his feces on the wall where he'd been potty trained. No eye contact, wouldn't let me hug him or touch him. And that happened over the course, like I said, of about a month. And then a couple weeks later, I noticed my daughter started having absent seizures and she would just stare at the wall and start lip smacking. I mean, this was all when they were about two years old. you know.
It was so devastating. had no idea even this could happen and the severity, mean the shock and the disbelief. So, you know, of course, as most parents do, I went into kind of a denial disbelief. I took about six months off of work. just, I was kind of drowning. It was a fog. And, you know, and I went to the neurologist and I said, what, can we do about this? Or I went to my pediatrician rather, and he just kind of shrugged and said, well, it looks like autism. This is what happens.
Nicole Rincon (05:24.987)
And then I went to a neurologist and they said, yep, this is autism. This is what happens. Here's some risperidone to stop the stimming and the spinning in a circle. And that's what you get. And I mean, that really, that visit was so, was just so vivid in my mind because I still remember it because I just, that was the moment that I decided this is not right. You know, when a child, when a,
when an adult loses speech regresses, you know, they do MRI, CTs, lumbar punctures, blood work, all this workup, you when a child severely regresses, they do nothing. anyway, I did what most parents do. I got online, PubMed, 2 a.m., sleepless nights, found some studies. The first one I came across was the apraxia study for omega-3 with vitamin E, started giving it to my kids, and I noticed that my son stopped.
stimming or reduce the stimming and his eye contact came back. He'd actually let like look at me now a little bit here and there. And I thought, my gosh, I turned to my husband. said, I think there's something, you know, there's something here. And, you know, we, basically spent the next six months from there doing it on my own, adding in things here and there. We added in some N-acetylcysteine, stopped giving Tylenol, little things. We did multivitamin with some folates, just a small dose.
you know, some vitamin D. Anyway, I decided along the journey that I really needed professional help. Like, this was too much for me. I was getting overwhelmed. I was crashing out. So I was just not sleeping. So I went to the MAPS, which is the Medical Academy of Pediatric Special Needs. I'm sure you're very aware. And I went up to Dr. Razignal. I approached him immediately. I said, who's the guy here? I didn't even know who he was. And I went to the first day on the first conference, and I said, you know, hey, I'm a PA. Can you hire me? And he's like, well, when? I said, well, now.
And he said, well, are you licensed? He said, yes, I've been a PA 10 years. So I got hired on the spot and I've been working there ever since. And so it's really been this whole life-changing journey for me to treat autism and also treat my children. And so I worked with him, we've uncovered a lot. We did every kind of testing that I could think of, lots of treatments. And now fast forward, they're 13, both my boys, they're obviously all 13.
Nicole Rincon (07:42.159)
But both of my boys are so much better. My one son that severely regressed, ironically, he actually recovered and lost his diagnosis as of a couple years ago. And then my other son is recently, he's doing really well too. He's in general ed, he has friends, getting straight A's, very smart, very verbal. So he's still kind of on the spectrum, but just barely. So I have hope that eventually we may lose his as well. And then my daughter has now been seizure free for a decade.
So there's, you know, this is kind of my journey and I really wanted to share it because, you know, I think that parents, I wanted to come on today to just let parents know this is possible. And of course we don't know the outcomes of every child and, you know, maybe I got lucky and maybe this is always gonna be, but I certainly could see, I feel like there were certain things I did. And ironically, it was different things for each child that really helped along their journey. So that's my story in a nutshell.
Len Arcuri (08:40.088)
Well, thank you for sharing that. And I'm sure our listeners, so many are relating to it because then everything that you described specifically with your journey, yeah, well, it's unique to you. The high level beats are pretty similar for, think, a lot of a lot of our listeners and including myself. And there's so many questions I want to ask you. And one that I know I want to know is for each of your your kids, you said that it was different for each of them. So can you touch on in terms of
high level root cause, was there a dominant root cause that now looking back on it for each child was most prevalent for each of them individually? Because I know it's multifactorial, but just high level.
Nicole Rincon (09:20.519)
It is definitely there's, you there's a few key things that, you know, for each child and, know, so I've obviously thought about this a lot. So there was in my one son, there was a, that severely regressed, you know, he, I believe had a severe copper toxicity at the time and probably very losing because his hair was red. I mean, he was just really pale, very red hair. And, you know, my husband is Hispanic, I'm Italian, you know, this is very not like us to
to have this kind of coloring. So I think a lot of that set it up. Again, we were giving him a lot of Tylenol and he's my kid that kind of dipped in and out of abnormal liver function tests. So then we also, we had at the time of regression, we had a mold leak in our house, or I'm sorry, a water leak in our house behind the tub and we'd kind of busted open the wall and we didn't account for molds. We didn't know any better. My husband and I were young kids and we didn't remediate it properly. We just lived in it.
So I think that was what kind of triggered it with the acute onset. And of course it was diet. mean, we weren't eating any, we didn't have, we had no special diet. We were eating, our main oil was like canola oil at the time. And you know, we were just cooking with GMO foods and didn't really know the difference. So the short answer, so for my one son, I think that it was a little bit of metallopathy, like metal toxicity, definitely diet. And for him mold. That was kind of the kid that severely regressed.
For my other son, he had regressed a little earlier and I noticed even him early on, he had kind of a smaller head circumference. And he really, really picked up when we gave leukovorin, which was that high dose folinic acid. And I noticed, as we started to ramp it up, his cognition improved, his attention, his speech. So he had a pretty clear improvement with leukovorin. So.
Whereas my other son, didn't notice a lot of difference. two different interventions for two different kids with the same gestation, same pals, same mom and dad.
Len Arcuri (11:22.582)
and then for your daughter.
Nicole Rincon (11:24.793)
My daughter, so a lot of it was we did it with Leucovorin. I think that helped too. I think she also had cerebral folate deficiency. So treating that was helpful. Also, she had some pretty high fungal markers as well. So, and I think she had some mast cell activation. So I think basically treating the yeast, the fungus, kind of suppressing some of the histamines and then treating the folate was very helpful too for her.
Len Arcuri (11:46.094)
Great. Yeah, no. So I appreciate you fast forwarding. Cause I think high level, think I'm intrigued, right? have, you have such a controlled experiment, you know, unintentional, but three different kids, three potentially different root causes that really were more behind perhaps how they were presenting. the, um, with Luke of Orin that you mentioned and the whole folate, you know, opportunity. know Dr. Fry was on this podcast.
Nicole Rincon (11:55.001)
Yes.
Nicole Rincon (12:02.906)
Yes.
Nicole Rincon (12:11.461)
Yes.
Len Arcuri (12:11.66)
A of months ago was episode 245. I'll include it in the show notes, but if you want to better go deeper dive into that approach, Dr. Fry, I think there's no better expert to speak to that than Dr. Fry. So thank you for that high level. so now I'll hand it to you wherever you want to go, but I know you do feel strongly about that there were kind of three vital steps in terms of how you were navigating. Can you touch on those?
Nicole Rincon (12:36.493)
Yeah. Yeah. And again, they're not, you they don't have to be, you know, I think that I just think of my own journey and kind of in a linear timeframe. And, the first step was overcoming opposition, which frankly was probably the biggest step. And I know I've already kind of mentioned that of, the doctors telling, you know, the society telling, you know, you know, this is something to be celebrated. This is who they are, you know, and I, and I understand that, of course, we love our children for whoever they are, but
I want them to be as healthy as they can be. And it was clear to me that there was a very huge health deficit that they had when they regressed. This was not a typical development. And I did want to point out, too, that when you're overcoming this opposition from friends, from family telling you, what are you doing? Or you can't do this. Or whatever the kind of naysayers. I mean, there's a lot of studies. I found 29 studies on PubMed that actually discuss
recovery of the diagnosis of autism. And they'll either call it optimal outcomes or whatnot. And the studies show anywhere from 9 % to up to 25 % in one study, kids can lose their diagnosis. So my story is not necessarily a one-off. It is a pretty miraculous story because I honestly didn't believe it was possible. And as I started to believe, obviously it came true.
But it does, it is happening, it does happen. And you know, the studies show that kids that maybe are higher functioning improve, you know, greater or more likely to recover. And but you know, I kind of wanted to bring up my point that, well, for me, my children regress and one son had a severe regression. And that is statistically super unlikely to recover. So
You know, I'm glad that I didn't listen to the studies. I'm glad I didn't listen to the naysayers because, you know, I think that regardless of where your child's at, I think improvement can be made. you know, there are studies to back this up. So it's not just my story as a one-off, I guess, is my point there.
Len Arcuri (14:39.414)
No, I love how you phrased it. And again, even with my coaching and the parents I'm coaching, I see these incredible improvements time and time again, especially when the parent gets really equipped to navigate well, which none of us were really taught how to do that, right? Especially if you start like you did with more conventional practitioners who may not have the right toolkit or the right perspective and may not be very encouraging. But no, and I...
Nicole Rincon (14:53.689)
Yes.
Nicole Rincon (15:04.91)
Yes.
Len Arcuri (15:07.072)
I get that this is such a point of frustration for many parents, this struggle with wanting something like recovery or healing. again, wanting more for your child, you never have to apologize for that. But in terms of what specifically you're aiming for, again, if you're aiming for, that has to be that this diagnosis is lost, that could create a lot of pressure and a lot of friction that doesn't help. So I think the way you described it really
resonated with me because what we really want as parents is for our children to thrive to be the best version of themselves that they can. And we can do that unapologetically, but to have some, know, I won't be happy unless this happens goal, usually as well intentioned as that may be really sets you up for a challenging journey.
Nicole Rincon (16:00.333)
Exactly. And you know, there's no real timeframe. mean, the studies show that it's recovery typically happens two to four years after diagnosis, but I'm so glad I didn't give up because you know, two years, I mean, my son barely started to make sounds two years after he regressed. I mean, it was two years of complete silence. And you know, so I'm glad I didn't give up and say, well, we did it for two years and now we're done. And so it's this kind of relentless, just optimism. And you know, you have to take breaks, like you said, and kind of be realistic, but at the same time, like,
you know, it's a journey, right? And that's why I call it the healing journey. And then, you know, I wanted to bring up the second point just to kind of, you know, tying in what we're talking about is that the second point is find your team. And this is a vital step because it really, I was trying to do it on my own. I know a lot of parents do and...
Len Arcuri (16:40.204)
you know, tell me what to
Nicole Rincon (16:53.645)
It's very overwhelming and it's very hard on me. mean, during this whole process, I got so stressed out, I had to get my gallbladder removed because I was breaking down. I wasn't sleeping and I was stressed out. so, we obviously are biased because now I work, I've worked almost a decade at an integrative medicine practitioner office. So we're doctors and PAs, but you can find a lot of different practitioners out there. try, obviously my recommendation is to do
utilize somebody that has some evidence-based medicine, like we're talking about that folinic acid to treat folate receptor antibodies, or maybe you treat some mitochondrial dysfunction or gut dysfunction, and really finding a practitioner that's going to look at all the systems. I think that's really key because when I see a lot of patients come in and when I first started looking, you kind of want this whole in one. You want the stem cell treatment that's going to
turn around my child, the fecal transplant that's gonna be the thing, the 40 dives of hyperbaric, whatever it is. But what I found in my kids certainly, and then in the patients I treat, is that, like I mentioned, it's different for every child. you really do need to look at, like in our clinic, we look at immune function in markers, we look at gut function in depth with organic acid stool tests, we look at metabolic.
Markers like we know zinc is often low vitamin D cholesterol iron. These things are all very strongly correlated with autism Follett receptor antibodies are positive and up to 75 % of kids with autism Approximately, we know mitochondrial dysfunction. We look at that frequently the energy production So and then we also look at metal like metal toxicities, you know and so it's it's really important to have a holistic view because every kid is
is like you said, it's a heterogeneous disease, which means basically there's different causes and different presentations. So, you know, having somebody that can really navigate you through the process will be really key. And I don't think I could have done it without the help of, you know, Rossignol Medical Center, Dr. Rossignol, Dr. Frye, and they navigated me and now after a decade, I'm helping navigate families. And if, you know, I did want to mention too, I have, I didn't want to go into the specifics of everything we do today.
Nicole Rincon (19:12.581)
But on my, I have an ex profile, ex.com or former Twitter. And on my profile is pinned my talk a presentation that I give that's an hour long about in depth of what I do for testing and treatment. So if you wanna get to the nitty gritty of what did Nicole test for, what does she normally do, what does a visit look like, you can look at that there. But for the purposes of today, I just wanted to say that it's important to look at everything. And again, because you don't know what your.
what your child's going to need. And then the other point to that too, is that you want to find a practitioner and maybe you need multiple practitioners because sometimes you'll find somebody that's good at, you know, we were just talking about this before our podcast, you know, someone good at Mito or metabolic or, or different areas, but maybe you need a nutritionist. Maybe you need a dietician. Maybe you need someone that kind of, you need a team. You know, I was very helpful or I was very grateful to have multiple practitioners I could talk to in the space.
And I did consult with them as to, what do you think? And how should I do this? Studies show that kind of throwing the kitchen sink at it, having a comprehensive approach can be helpful. So even ABA, speech, OT, those can be very helpful, I think, in conjunction. mean, alone, it may not be resolving the issues you're looking for in your child, like speech or fine motor. But certainly,
You know, looking, like I said, again, that's why I said, find your team because there's often needs to be multiple people working in conjunction that really resonate with you, that really work with you, your child likes you like. And, you know, don't be afraid to consult other people too. I mean, we've, we've saw GI along the way and endocrinologists and, you know, all kinds of specialists to help get second opinions. So.
Len Arcuri (21:00.526)
Yep. I love everything you just shared. And the team is so incredibly important. So you started off, right? I'm going to do it myself because your other practitioners who are more conventional weren't really helping, didn't have many solutions for you. So you did it alone and then realized, okay, I need to formulate the team. And what you just said toward the end, I thought was the most important in that for a parent to do that, it's important for them to think about
What are they looking for? Which I think a lot of parents don't think about because they just want to know who's that doctor, who's recommended, who is hot right now, or who are people with positive word of mouth. And I think that's the key is for a parent just to take a little bit of time to think, what am I looking for? What are the qualities I'm looking for in a practitioner? Which might include their philosophy, their approach, more integrative or functional.
Or, you know, because otherwise, what do people mostly do for practitioners? It's like, where do they go to school? They go to a good college. Like, no, you want to make sure someone's a fit for your philosophy, your strategy. And then things like, do they listen to you? Do they actually want your input and feedback? You know, the dynamic in any kind of relationship can vary wildly. So if a parent can do that, then again, they have a much better chance of then finding a practitioner who's a good fit for them instead of just who somebody recommends.
Nicole Rincon (22:26.233)
Yeah, absolutely. Yeah, I mean, it's wonderful working at like a practice, you know, because I'm a mom and I have my mom's stories and I'm giving, how do you make banana pancakes that are gluten-free, dairy-free and, know, and, you know, I have a lot of navigation through my own diet and things like that for my kids. You know, whereas like obviously Dr. Fry and Dr. Rossignol, while we all conduct clinical research, you know, they're...
They publish 80 plus studies and whatnot. it depends on, know, and they're all very useful. Like you said, it's a very much a, yeah, what are you looking for? And often, again, you can always try different people out. you know, it doesn't have to be this like, okay, I'm committed to you forever for the next 10 years indefinitely, you know? So I love talking to everybody about it. Hey, what do you think? What do you think? You know, that's my approach.
Len Arcuri (23:09.666)
Got it.
Len Arcuri (23:15.55)
And is there anything that jumps out at you as being like a big mistake that parents might make with respect to the team? So it's one that jumps out at me is the obvious one, which is abdicating decision-making to some medical professional as opposed to the parent really understanding and owning and being that true decision-maker. So I know that's, I mean, I wanted nothing more than some doctor just please tell me what to do because I don't want to make the decisions. So I know that
it's something I would recommend to parents. No, no, you want to always have that team, have great advisors, but you're the decision-maker. So would you agree with that or is there any other big mistake that you think parents might make with respect to their team?
Nicole Rincon (23:47.055)
Yes.
Nicole Rincon (23:54.991)
I think that's really key. And to kind of add to that, what I find is that parents, you know, they come in and they're very overwhelmed by the process as understandable and as I was. And so, like you said, their communication, you know, they may not want to say the right, say the wrong thing. And maybe, like you said, they don't feel good about something you've recommended or that you're looking at, but they don't say anything. And so that communication piece of just like, basically, like you said, speak your mind and say, hey, I'm not sure.
What about this? Or can we look at that? I love it when parents come to me and really drive, you know, I think this happened and what about that? And I'd like to try this. And obviously, you know, we'll have a discussion, but yes, being able to be, you know, don't be afraid to communicate with your provider. And like you said, if you're not getting that communication feedback, it should be a feedback loop of they're speaking, you're speaking, you listen, and you're making a plan that everybody's like, this is a good plan. Okay, let's move forward. And you do it again and again, when you meet up.
So yes, the communication is the key. again, like you said, feel free to, know, a lot of parents I find too, they get really stuck with, well, there's one provider or, you know, I don't want to make them mad. It's like, no, see everybody, talk to everybody. I tell them, you know, please, like, this is a team. I want as many people on the team. I want to have a think tank for every patient, you know, because some are a lot easier to, they respond very quickly and some of them are a little trickier.
Len Arcuri (25:23.726)
Yeah. the right practitioner will not get mad at you, right? Like in other words, they'll want your input. Now that said, I know there's many parents who might go to a meeting with a practitioner and be presenting lots of things to them that isn't medical related that might be tangential. So again, think take the time that you get with a practitioner, make the most of it, be prepared. But otherwise the right practitioner will also be curious, will want your input.
Nicole Rincon (25:23.739)
Absolutely. Yeah.
Nicole Rincon (25:28.097)
No, no, no. Yeah.
Len Arcuri (25:51.93)
and again, that, that might be one of those underlying qualities that you may not think of before you choose who's on your team, but that really, really does matter, including, you know, for those consults for enough time to be given, you know, for you to have that kind of dialogue. So, I think that that's all very helpful. And again, it's an underappreciated aspect of this journey is that, you know, you get to hire and fire that team and the quality of that team and how good of a fit are they for you and your specific child?
is something I think that I wish I gave more attention to earlier on before a lot of starts and stops with practitioners who weren't really a fit.
Nicole Rincon (26:31.611)
Yeah, I mean, I'm a stubborn, I mean, I'm the worst patient because I'm a medical provider. like, you know, early on in the journey, Dr. Rossignol would recommend things and I'd be like, no, not gonna do that. You know, and I'd tell him, I know, but this was, yeah, no. But you know, because I intuitively, I think parents intuitively know, I mean, obviously they don't, it's, I don't want to put all the onus back on the parents, but you know your child, you know when they eat these foods or when they're here or whatnot, or you have some intuition as to what happens.
you know, and what's happening and you know, you're not, no one's going to know your child better than yourself. So if you're doing something and it doesn't feel right, they're not responding well and you know, maybe your guts telling you like, you know, I don't think this is it. Then, you know, maybe move on, tell the provider that, you know.
Len Arcuri (27:17.902)
Yeah, I think that's a really important point. And if I could just throw out a comment on that, you know, there's the parents intuition, right, which is extremely important. you just as Nicole said, you know your child better than anybody. Nobody comes close. So there is this intuition that is worth paying attention to. But what I've learned is that sometimes parents like myself may feel like they have an intuition to maybe not do something, but it's not because of their sense of what's right for their child. It might be
that they just don't want to do it. It might be laziness, oh, that sounds hard. So what I seize on is that for parents, the key is informed intuition. Like for you to trust your gut, but take the time to understand what the doctor is recommending, ask why, really understand it. Because if it's just kind of like, oh wait, that special diet sounds super hard. My intuition says, no, we don't want to do this. Then again, you may miss an opportunity. So I think that that's the key. Trust your intuition, but if you're unclear,
Get more informed, go to PubMed, ask lots of questions repeatedly until you have that good base level understanding. It won't be as expert as maybe the provider you're working with, but from that greater informed place, yes, then tap into your intuition and that will guide you.
Nicole Rincon (28:33.433)
Right, yes, Yeah, intuition's huge. You know, and like you said, that discernment is obviously very key. And yeah, it can be very hard. I have sympathy because I've been there, you know, like what is my fear talking and what is my intuition talking? And it can be very difficult to navigate and know the difference. But you know, for me, you know, I would try things and if I saw some improvement, I think, okay, I'm on a-
Len Arcuri (28:50.754)
Right, right.
Nicole Rincon (29:03.043)
track, you know, you know, you give things a few days grace or however long they tell you, but then you give yourself a time plate like, okay, there's die off for this, this medication, for example, and you give them three days, five days. And then it's like, well, they're not really improving. And as a matter of fact, they're getting worse. I'm inclined to not push that anymore. Okay, there's no more die off. Let's know let's move on. I'm not, you know, maybe, and maybe it's the right med, but the wrong time when we're giving it, you know, in the journey. So my point is, yeah, there is a point where you have to
Call it.
Len Arcuri (29:33.88)
Right. All right. Well, that covers a lot of really important concepts. So I think we're are we moving, are we arriving at the third step?
Nicole Rincon (29:41.819)
That's third step and that's exactly, so it is a good natural transition. Because the point is basically that change is needed for change. So essentially you have to change or some things have to change in the family in order to see change in your child. So this is kind of that acceptance of, okay, some of these things might be lifelong. Like for example, when I cut out all of the flammatory GMO oils out of my house, we switched mostly to coconut oil and ghee.
and a little bit of tallow, really we just, and sometimes some olive oil, if we don't cook it, like unheated. But when we switched oils, I found that their attention, they calmed way down, their attention went way up. And I just found that they were less stimmy. And I notice now when we eat out, because we rarely eat out, we cook all our meals, I can see that they get hyper afterwards and they're kind of bouncing off the wall. I'm like, oh yeah, because we ate out. So basically,
The changes that you find in your kids, I realized early on the diet was important and especially healthy fats, particularly for me. now we just, it's been a decade and we still cook this way. And this is probably gonna be a lifetimes change for us and it has been. Because when you find something that's working, unfortunately, it's not like we can just go back and now we can eat canola. now we're gonna eat McDonald's french fries. so the change has to be lifelong for things that you think are meaningful for your family.
You know, I love that whole, that whole Hippocrates, you know, before you heal someone ask him if he's willing to give up the things that are making him sick, you know. and you know, for my kids, a lot of it was screen time too. And I know that it's, you know, when they regressed, they were too, we were staring at a lot of screens and I don't know how much that really had an impact. they, I'm, I'm, I'm on no high horse. They still get screens today, but, I really try, I get them outside every day. We have to do some kind of exercise activity every day. I feel like, you know, for.
a lot of it's kind of back to basics to really optimize their health. it's difficult. I wanna just give them screeds and do my laundry and you gotta, but a lot of these healthy choices, I I kind of see myself as trying to biohack. I'm in the longevity biohacking space now for my kids. How are we gonna make them the healthiest versions of themselves? So a lot of things are the supplements. We were able to back off of a lot of what we were doing.
Len Arcuri (32:00.577)
Yeah.
Nicole Rincon (32:09.029)
but there's still some key supplements that we still take and we'll probably take for life. Like the Omega, some vitamin D, maybe some zinc, the Leucovore, and we're still on after a decade. So, know, some things you can, you know, cause parents get really worried. They say, my gosh, am I gonna have to do all of this forever? And how are we gonna do this? And I say, well, some things you're gonna be able, you you're gonna have to keep and some things we can discard. And so, you you take it day by day and understand that.
that it is a lifestyle change. And that's okay. And that's, and you you have to be willing to accept that and just kind of roll with it. Cause I, I want to have healthy kids and I love when I, every day I look at them and they're, mom, you know, and I almost start crying. I mean, the gratitude for me doesn't go away. So like, of course I'm going to make them food. And of course I'm going to do what I can. So it just kind of having that, that mindset of this.
You know, when you get to the point where you're happy, it's a marathon, know, just, okay, well, here we do, this is what we do now, and, you we're changed, you know. So that's, and you know, and obviously too, I do wanna say one thing too, as far as the symptoms are concerned. You know, I don't wanna paint this picture that they're all perfect, and, you know, we skipped off and lived happily ever after. I mean, you know, my son, we still have a little OCD symptoms, and we still have some stimming, and we do have things that are...
you know, a little bit of opposition. so basically, you mentioned this earlier on the podcast, which I think is brilliant, is that, you know, expectations are huge. You know, I don't expect my child, my children to be this idea of perfect, you know, and it's okay that we still have issues going on and we're always going to work on them. I'm just going to keep looking at it forever. As long as they're 18, as long as they let me, we'll keep doing labs and just kind of, just kind of tricking along. But, yeah, it doesn't have to be perfect to have a
know, optimal.
Len Arcuri (34:02.284)
Right, right. Yeah, no, I think that all that is, very helpful. And again, I made the big mistake that yes, all roads had to lead to my son being quote unquote normal and not having this diagnosis and being indistinguishable compared to other kids. And that was a real lousy thing to cling to because overall my son has progressed incredibly. And by the way, right now, I think even his nervous system is still, you know,
kind of ramped up and it's because I'm sure the screens, because you know, my wife, Cass and I played great defense for a long time, but now he's 18 and he's using, and I can see the impact. and I try to like balance screen time with outside time, but guess what? I'm not balancing it. You know, I might be offsetting some of that screen time, you know, so, but, but yeah, I think the ultimate goal is that just to ditch this perception that it.
an expectation that you want your child to be normal. Again, the goal is to help them be the best version of themselves that they can be. And my son is absolutely extraordinary in terms of gifts he has and how he, you know, he's the nicest kid. Most people aren't, that's not normal. You know, he's got incredible memory powers. And so that's where you can really look at your child. They're going to have superpowers. They're going to have gifts. They're going to have aspects of how they operate that may still be, you know, rooms for improvement.
And again, you can kind of delight in just your child's progression wherever they're going and just knowing that you're just trying to help them be better versions of themselves, not to become something that they're not.
Nicole Rincon (35:41.113)
Yeah. Yeah. I mean, and it's like you said, it's enough to know that you're doing what you can. mean, I, I wake up every morning and go, well, you know, I can honestly say I did my best and that makes me feel good. And wherever that lands, then that's, that's what's, know, that's what's, what's meant to be. I mean, that's, that's, that's what I can do. Like you said. and so that, you know, gives me a lot of relief and, you know, again, knowing that I have that team to go back to if I'm having problems, I mean, it's, then, so, you know, the, anxiety has
Len Arcuri (35:46.67)
That's all we can do.
Nicole Rincon (36:10.147)
it's so much better than it used to be. mean, a decade ago, I was just so ramped up about this. so, just kind of learning these, having these coping strategies, again, as our really healthy, having a healthy attitude and having steps and having a team and again, all these steps that I had, they kind of need to happen in order of the journey. And you end up in a place where you look back and go, wow, that was really difficult and it was totally worth it. And...
You know, that's life, right? I mean, this is why we're alive. So I'm trying my best. And so just trying to share that journey that, you know, there's hope, there's people to help you. Yeah, there's a lot to, there's a lot you could do.
Len Arcuri (36:49.31)
Well, I appreciate you sharing the details of your journey and I can only appreciate how extreme it felt for you at times. And it sounds like you were in some significant degree of fight or flight, you know, yourself, right, for years. So how much do you think you shifting into being calmer, more focused, more present, how much do you think that really impacted your three kids and their progression?
Nicole Rincon (37:18.351)
Yeah, you know, I don't think I've told this story like publicly on a podcast, but basically I think it was around the pandemic. so the kids would have been about eight and they were doing okay, but they hadn't lost their diagnosis yet. You know, we were still kind of in that in-between. And I really, felt like we needed to get out of Dodge. I really, was feeling overwhelmed. I was just kind of crashing out, you know, and...
Len Arcuri (37:19.039)
No.
Nicole Rincon (37:43.555)
And I thought, just need a change. So we ended up moving to Las Vegas, Nevada. My mom has like a retirement home there. So we thought, well, we'll be with my mom. And I just needed a change of scenery. And we moved and I was still working and seeing patients remotely and we had new services, but I felt like I had a fresh new start, you know, cause there were family issues and things going on. And it really helped calibrate me. You I met some new friends, some new people. We'd bought a home because things were much more affordable there.
You know, because you know part of it with a financial crisis of Southern California is always a difficult thing to navigate So just a leaving soda some of that financial pressure just you know It really helped me and I found we were there only like a couple years But I really got grounded there and it was so strange It was almost like my own little personal journey where I had to go to the desert and like a refined myself You know and then come back to the real world and it was very much like that because you know halfway through You know what when we were in the desert, you know in Las Vegas
My kids were just better and we got my son evaluated at the regional center. They said, oh, he doesn't have his diagnosis anymore. said, he doesn't? Like, no, no. And when we stuck him in school and they said, no, and he was getting good grades and they put him in gen ed. so, it wasn't like they were gaslighting me. mean, he genuinely was better. And I had found that working on myself, like you said, we needed some financial security. We needed some separation from family struggles. We needed just a little time with our nuclear family.
because we really needed to come together, the five of us, my husband and I and the three kids. And I felt like we needed that time of just us. And it really helped. It really helped bring us together. I felt more grounded. So yes, absolutely. Helping myself really helped progress my kids. I don't think, yeah, I mean, if I'd just been tailspinning and kind of staying in the same patterns.
Again, that's that change is needed for change, that third step of like, okay, I gotta do something different. Like this is, I'm in that same pattern with, you know, whatever we're doing and, and, you know, let's just, let's just change it up for a second, you know, see what we can do.
Len Arcuri (39:47.982)
Yeah, no, think it's a powerful perspective because parents show up with a certain level of capability, certain habits, certain ability to problem solve. But none of us can see our blind spots and we all have them. So again, what's in your way as a parent navigating the journey? That's going to be very unique to you. But if you just say, no, I'm only going to focus on my child, forget about me looking at myself.
Nicole Rincon (40:10.597)
Yes.
Len Arcuri (40:16.512)
and getting, as you did, more grounded, more present, and in a clearer position to really discern what's going to help my child the most. Because as you know, as I know you talk about, where you focus and how you help your child with your team, that sequencing really matters. So being able to make clear decisions is just the most important thing a parent can really focus on.
Nicole Rincon (40:40.783)
Yes. Yeah, absolutely. It was, yeah, like looking back in retrospect, it was probably the best thing. You know, mean, obviously there's, there's other, medical interventions that were very, very key, but yeah, I mean, you know, yeah, you cannot neglect yourself and expect to heal your kids. Absolutely. I mean, it's a big message.
Len Arcuri (40:45.654)
Yeah.
Len Arcuri (40:56.526)
Okay.
Len Arcuri (41:00.878)
It's an important one. think that's a fantastic one to end on as we just, you so I really do appreciate you sharing your personal perspectives because again, even though they're unique to your journey with your triplets, everything that you shared, I know in some way can really benefit a parent to better understand and again, better take action, whatever it is for you to ground yourself, to get yourself into that stronger position.
And also I just think that with you, with your controlled experiment showed that every child so wildly unique that what worked for another parent and another child may have nothing to do with what's happening with your child or what's going to help them the most, which is why that team that you mentioned is so important.
Nicole Rincon (41:45.615)
Yes, absolutely.
Len Arcuri (41:47.47)
All right. Well, fantastic. Well, yeah, I'll include in the show notes that talk a presentation that you mentioned and where people can where people can better find you. I appreciate so much how you're serving parents, you and the entire Rossignol Center. And thanks so much for sharing your voice today.
Nicole Rincon (42:03.365)
Well, thank you for what you do, Lynn, and thank you for having me on. I appreciate you advocating for these parents and these kids and the families. It's crucial work, so thank you.
Len Arcuri (42:11.361)
Absolutely. These parents deserve to be supported and it's great that there's people like you out there, again, with perspective. And again, you are unique, right? With the mom hat and the professional hat. So again, I think your perspective truly is going to resonate with our listeners. So thanks again.
Nicole Rincon (42:28.741)
You're welcome.
