Barry Baines

Um, and so especially later in adolescence, of course, again, is another stressful thing, not to mention all the hormonal changes that people go through.

And these things can kind of unmask, uh, someone who either, um,

function very well, or they may have been aware, but also there are people that try to hide that they have autism.

And again, it's sort of that unmasking effect of these mental health issues.

The other quick two points I wanted to make is there's not a medication to give somebody to make their autism better, okay?

And yet their comorbidities can be more effectively managed, right?

Whether it's ADHD, depression, anxiety, those things, you know, again, our last show, Ellie, was on medication management.

So we were saying, well, should we just medicate?

But the thing is, what's important is that if people have those comorbidities and they are on some medication,

That doesn't mean you're not treating their autism, but in the broader picture,

The other piece, I just talked with colleagues of mine.

I'm a family physician by training.

I talked to some of my family physician friends.

I talked to three of my pediatric colleagues with autism.

I said, well, what do you do for autism?

Or where can I find a resource to get on health chatter, especially with all the stuff that's going on?

on the public health sphere.

And this is extremely perplexing for general pediatricians, for general

family physicians, practitioners, generalists, because it is, um, difficult to diagnose and the, the level of comorbidities though, and then the last piece, and then I'll be quiet for a while.

Um, I love the, uh, spectrum diagram that we have, and I know that that'll be posted, um, you know, on, on health chatter.