Testimonials

“Dr Ari Calhoun has literally been a god send. We were going through multiple behavioral issues with my 4 year old and felt hopeless. I finally felt hopeful after our first appointment. She was so compassionate to what we were going through. Her treatment plan was so detailed, thorough and easy to follow. 3 weeks into his treatment plan/ protocol he is a changed boy!!!! I honestly can’t believe I’m seeing drastic changes so soon. I can’t wait to see how he continues on this health journey and I’m forever thankful I found her!”

— Heather

“We needed someone who could help us figure out why our son was having such difficulty with sleep and emotions. Our son had severe emotional meltdowns multiple times a day and was very sensitive to his sleep schedule and levels of stimulation.
After 4 days of treatment he was in a tantrum and we actually could speak into it and he was able to calm himself faster than ever! The frequency, duration and intensity of his tantrums are now vastly improved!

We now have normal breakdowns that he is able to work through. He is also better able to tolerate changes in his schedule and more stimulation within a day.
I was amazed and actually cried the first time he let me talk him through a meltdown. He let me hold him. He was able to calm himself and get through it in a reasonable way. This was only 4 days after starting treatment.

We are so deeply grateful for the work and focus of Dr. Calhoun. We are actually considering having a third child and that is only because Dr. Calhoun was able to help us help our son. We are so grateful that he finally feels better and can enjoy his life as he ought to!”

— Katiya

“Prior to working with Dr. Calhoun, my 8 year old was having extreme mood swings. Most of the time, he would be reasonably balanced, but when he went out of balance, he would have explosive outbursts which included large amounts of negative (and scary) self talk. Dr. Calhoun had correctly guessed he might have had Kryptopyrrole syndrome and she was 100% correct. With some additional bloodwork, she optimized his B vitamins, Zinc and copper and he is a different child now.

After a month of no explosive outbursts, we were just in disbelief. He has no explosive outbursts and no scary negative self talk. On normal occasions when he does get upset, it is not explosive and he recovers quickly. This has been life changing for our son and our family. Outbursts were embarrassing for him if others happened to be around and he felt shame after they passed. Without the support of her, I truly believe someone would have wanted to manage this via medication down the road. While medication is necessary for some, we were hopeful he was just somehow out of balance, and he was!

Dr. Calhoun has been such a gift for our family. She is extremely intelligent and well researched. She is a thoughtful and curious listener. She is thorough in her care plans and follows through. She is always well prepared before each visit. We can’t recommend her highly enough!”

— Andrea

We began working with Dr. Calhoun and following her treatment plan and within 4 days the bouts of rage, the anger and the violence had stopped. Within 10 days it had all stopped.

I remember calling my Mom in tears and telling her “We have our Reesie back!!”
Dr. Calhoun has changed our lives and the life of our daughter forever. I can’t imagine where we would be now if we hadn’t found her. She’s given us our family back and we are eternally grateful.

— Whitney

“Dr. Calhoun was recommended to me by our psychiatrist because we felt that my child was suffering from PANS and traditional OCD treatments were not succeeding. Dr. Calhoun took the time to understand my child’s whole history and complete profile, not just what might be specifically related to the symptoms we were seeing. She worked collaboratively with my child’s other doctors to ensure treatment directions were in alignment and took significant time and effort to do additional research and consult with additional experts to get a complete picture.

Before working with Dr. Calhoun, the PANS/OCD and related issues dominated my child’s life and mine. The flare ups were severe and dramatic, OCD symptoms would get markedly worse overnight, never resolving to a normal baseline. There were also behavioral symptoms of irritability, aggression, extreme anxiety, inability to tolerate any level of distress, insomnia, and lots of fatigue, leaving my child depressed, exhausted, hopeless, and sometimes suicidal. At their most severe, my child was stuck in the shower for 8 hours every time they had to use the bathroom. My child was trapped upstairs, having such severe contamination fears that there were only three rooms in the house they would go, and didn’t leave the house at all for several months. My child’s world was getting smaller and smaller and as they retreated into themselves there was increasing talk of suicide, self-harm, and hopelessness.

I strongly believe that the combination of supplementation and medicines allowed my child to come to a place where we could start to do the behavioral therapies that were needed. The initial supplementation program Dr. Calhoun prescribed very quickly started to show a reduction in aggression and irritability levels, and vast improvements in sleep.

The first major improvement came shortly after starting with the behavioral coach. We had been very worried about pushing my child too hard and causing dissociative episodes, which had happened in the past frequently when we tried to address the OCD behaviors with ERP methods. This was when showers had been 8 hours for several weeks. In desperation I asked the behavioral coach to help with showers and explained my fears. She said this would be stressful but we would proceed carefully. We started a week of “shower bootcamp” For the first time, it didn’t break my child. There were no dissociations. And every day progress was made. Within that week showers went from 8 hours to 30 minutes. We went from using 5 bottles of soap per shower to less than 1.

When my father, the behavioral coach and I discussed how rapid this progress was, I think we all felt confident that without the medical and supplemental interventions my child never would have been able to handle the pressure of “shower bootcamp”. This bootcamp happened 2 months after we started the medical/supplementation regimen that addressed the underlying causes of the inflammation in my child’s system.

Now my child is able to attend in-person school – there are still issues we are working through and the school they go to is tailored toward kids with similar challenges, but my child can now go anywhere in the house, touch almost anything, do normal activities like shop, go to doctor’s appointments, use the restroom at home without showering, take a normal shower, and has even, one time, used a public restroom (which is still hard). My child has hope now – they talk about their future now, we haven’t had a dissociative episode in over a year, there has been no talk of suicide or self harm for months, my child has been able to make friends and while they still have a ways to go on the biggest OCD triggers and developing distress tolerance, they are able to participate in life again.”

– Carrie

“Our son was primarily suffering from multiple motor tics, manic behaviors, tantrums, and irritability. Within 2 weeks of starting Dr. Ari’s recommended treatment and protocol his motor tics ceased and his mood, disposition, and behavior improved. On top of that he began eating more diverse foods, was less picky with his food choices, and started eating a larger quantity of food.

Our son had a tough time with transitions. For example: leaving school, leaving the park, leaving a friends house, turning off the TV, etc. it would cause a major meltdown that would cause him to get manic. I would limit going places because I was embarrassed and I didn’t want to deal with the mania. I remember a few days after starting our protocol we went to leave the park and I was bracing for the usual hysteria and he willingly “transitioned” or left the park without becoming manic. My husband and I were shocked. We noticed this more regularly when leaving activities. Our neighbors were even aware that his meltdowns, when it was time to leave, stopped. I no longer have to worry about telling him when it’s time to go or turn off the TV, etc. As I write this, I can’t even remember the last time he was manic. We are so grateful!

I’ve learned there’s two types of Doctors. Doctors who already KNOW everything and Doctors who want to LEARN everything. Dr. Calhoun was the first doctor who asked in-depth, detailed questions to better understand everything that was going on.
Not only has our son’s life changed for the better, but our lives as parents and a family have improved. It was heartbreaking to watch him struggle and I am so grateful for Dr. Ari and her help getting this remedied so it is behind us.”

— Shalane

“I had been pushed off by our pediatrician when it came to my concerns over my son’s obvious neurological issues. I wanted to get to the root cause as quickly as possible and loved that Dr. Ari had knowledge and training in understanding childhood neurodiversity.
Before working with Dr. Ari my son’s memory was very weak.

We have seen improvements in this area which has led to him having a better understanding of cause and effect (a huge deal if you have a child that doesn’t even remember his own pain when he touches something hot), he can follow rules better because now he remembers what I say, his vocabulary is now at grade level and his ability to have a conversation is quickly catching up too. He has been behind in reading, but over the last year has made some amazing improvements and even his IEP case manager is thrilled with the rate he is going.

The first noticeable improvement came when our son woke up one morning and gave us a really detailed and lengthy explanation of the dream he had just had. He had never even remembered a dream before! This was only a few days of him starting Synapsin.

Dr. Ari is a dream to work with. What I get out of a 30 minute apt with her is invaluable; so much more than the years of working with traditional doctors. She is humble, even when she has a deep understanding of the issue being discussed. Because of the work she has done with my son, I now go to her for the chronic issues I have lived with for over a decade. It is not something she even specializes in, but I have healed more over the couple years working with her than I had the 10 years of frantically working with others. My reserved hope when I first found her has been blown wide open and now I have the biggest hopes that my son and I can both heal is truly amazing ways with her steady guidance.”

— Jessica

“After we had moved across country our son was having daily violent outbursts, the school was telling us that he was hitting other kids. I knew all the change had a huge impact on him and he was under a lot of stress.

Dr. Ari diagnosed our son with Pyrroles Disorder and helped us with a supplement plan. Within about 6 weeks he was his old self again: caring with other children, willing to compromise, in control of his feelings, able to communicate with us. Working with Dr. Ari has improved his behavior and his ability to deal with everyday stress. He is in better control of himself. She helped us help him be his best self.

Dr. Ari is wonderful and an amazing resource of knowledge. I love that I can entrust her with my concerns even when I just have a “feeling” something is off. It’s a delicate dance figuring these things out and we feel so supported by Dr. Ari!”

— Stephanie

“After feeling so discouraged with Nathan’s western medicine providers I wanted a more holistic provider who would look deeper into the root causes of what was happening with Nathan. I wanted someone that would treat Nathan as an individual and not focus on his diagnosis of autism. Which is why I decided to work with Dr. Ari. Calhoun.

It has been amazing to see the changes in Nathan since we started to work with Dr. Ari Calhoun. As an autism mom all you want is your baby to need you and ask for your affection. So to have Nathan want me to hold him and tell me “come play with me” was amazing. My husband also noticed the change with Nathan.

The biggest difference has been in his social and emotional behavior. His relationship with his younger brother has truly blossomed. Nathan used to be in his own little bubble with only wanting to play on his own, never really giving any attention to me or his brother Matthew. Now you see them both running and chasing each other and pretend playing with their toys. It’s amazing to see how Nathan now looks for Matthew and myself and is always saying his sweet little phrase “come play with me”.

Nathan used to have daily meltdowns and now they rarely happen. He went through a period where he was stimming all day long and now he maybe stims once every few days if that. He used to be very hyperactive where he couldn’t sit down and focus on one activity and now he is able to sit down and give me his full attention as we pretend play or do a craft.

Dr. Ari Calhoun has been amazing to work with. She listens and validates your concerns and you know she truly cares about her patients”

— Darlene

“My 3 yo son was having significant delays in his expressive language, social, and attention skills. I wanted Dr. Ari Calhoun to work with my son, because I believed in her approach in targeting specific symptoms by investigating what is really happening in the body with a thorough history and appropriate labs. My philosophy is to use the least invasive approaches first when possible, and it aligned perfectly with hers.

Before we began seeing Dr. Ari Calhoun, my son was unable to express himself aside from basic food choices. We saw a huge boom in his language and mood shortly after targeting his deficiencies and changing his diet. His treatment plan was thoughtfully planned out and tailored specifically to him.

His expressive language has improved dramatically in the past nine months since working with Dr. Ari Calhoun. Currently, he is able to speak in full sentences, ask questions, talk about his day, express if he has pain or hurt himself (huge for us) and is beginning to recognize his emotions. His meltdowns have been reduced drastically from around 5 a day to 0-1 a day.

My husband and I saw his progress was occurring, but when we began getting really positive feedback from his therapists and Preschool teachers, we knew it was true. Our son has been meeting all his behavioral goals and is able to move quickly through his program and had a reduction in hours after only six months of therapy. His preschool teachers have noticed major changes in his joint attention skills and social skills at school.

Our son is a really happy child who brings joy to so many people who meet him. He has made beautiful friendships and shows leadership with his academics at school. I’m so grateful to Dr. Ari Calhoun for helping Austin heal and for always believing in his potential.”

— Claire