Phyl

Hi, We used vision therapy when my son was in 4th grade, and afterward the headaches that he used to get while trying to read completely disappeared. He need to learn to have his eyes track, change focus from near to far smoothly and work together binocularly so I did daily exercises with him which were prescribed by the doctor for about 13 weeks. It was very hard for him, but we found it to be well worth it. I think that it depends on your doctor as well as whether the child has other issues going on. Phyl

mylittleangel, I think that you will have success more quickly than we did, because you are starting with the right things more quickly. I said 3 years, because that's from the start of when we learned the results of the first microbial OAT panel to when he no longer had those issues. Our first doctor wasn't really trying to rid of him of the yeast and clostridia, but rather wanted him on omega 3's, lots of magnesium, zinc and other supplements. We were trying to figure out where the issues were and what was important to work on. My son used culturelle for a long time too(about 2 years), but it didn't seem to make his clostridia overgrowth go down. I also recall that the doctor who helped us most (the 2nd one) wanted to get rid of the clostridia first, before working on the yeast - something about it would not be possible to do them at the same time, but I don't remember why. (My son also had another parasite, Dientamoeba Fragilis, which the doctor eradicated before anything else). To answer your question about the reduction in his tics, I would definitely say that when we finally were on the right track, reducing the overgrowth of clostridia and yeast, his tics dwindled with a very apparent correlation. I was very skeptical that anything could be working, after such a long time, but it gradually became more and more obvious. This probably took about a year. One thing that may be helpful to you was a "conversation" I had way back on March 10 - 13, 2003 with Dr. McCandless on this forum, entry "Stubborn Clostridia". I hope this link works: http://www.latitudes.org/forums/index.php?showtopic=187 In this Dr. McCandless recommended Flagyl to get rid of the clostridia. In truth, I can't remember whether we used that, but think that we must have, though I can't find a notation in my diary that says we did. I did find a letter that I'd written to our doctor where I noted what Dr. McCandless had recommended and it was after that when we finally started to see results.

The Microbial Organic Acid Test by Great Plains Laboratory is the one that we used also. It is a urine test and so is pretty easy to do. Some insurance companies accept billing for this test (at least Blue Cross Blue Shield used to do so) from this lab which is a big help. As far as I know, though, this test needs to be done through a doctor - you cannot simply ask for it yourself. Colleen, I believe that my son picked up the parasites also through years of antibiotic use for ear infections before he had tubes put in. I wish I had known then... mylittleangel, my son also used to go through a wide number of different tics, often one right after another, though some stayed for a long time. He grunted, went t-t-t-t, blinked, looked over each shoulder, opened his mouth wide, touched his thumbs with the other fingers, lifted his hands in the air, and had a painful stomach tic among other things. One thing that I did that was very helpful was to keep a diary of what we did each day (which supplements he took, what he ate, any treatments or anything unusual that we did and how he reacted, what his tics were and their severity). This was helpful to try to track down what was beneficial, because after a while, everything was a blur as I was also very emotional about it all. After a while, when I looked back at the diary, I could see definite changes that I might not have observed had I not been writing things down. After a while, it was clear that the tics were fewer and fewer. You asked how long it took from the beginning of treatment to having no tics, and I think the answer was about 3 years. I switched his doctor after we started, because I found one whose outlook I preferred, but it was very slow going. My son is now 16 years old and he does not restrict his diet at all, though at home I don't buy any thing with artificial or processed ingredients. However, I know that he sometimes gets junk with artificial coloring and flavoring, and eats foods with nitrates, but he claims that it doesn't bother him at all now.

It seems that most people do use a special diet to get rid of candida, but my son's doctor did not suggest that. I believe that Chemar's son and several others here did use a no-yeast diet. My son's allergy test did not show him to be very allergic or sensitive to any particular foods, so that was not an issue for him. I know that there are now some good cookbooks available for children who are on special diets. Maybe you can find one that will be helpful so you'll be able to find foods that your son will enjoy while you are working on his health. I don't know anything about a correlation between how long one has had candida and how long it takes to get rid of it. We retested my son's OAT panel many times over the course of months it took and I recall that we did it after he'd gone through as much of the whatever treatment it was that the doctor had prescribed for him, to see his status. Then, depending on results she would continue with the same thing or try something different. Yes, his ticcing did wax and wane while he was being treated. However, gradually, as the candida and clostridia diminished, I could really tell that his tics were reducing in frequency too. One thing that I think was unusual about his tics was that almost all of his motor tics were bilateral or symmetrical, that is that whatever he did on one side of his body was repeated on the other (maybe not all of them, but the majority). He did have some very difficult times, and this forum was, back then, a place that helped me a lot. (That's why I come back here, though not as frequently, these days). Since your son has similar issues, are his tics also symmetrical? Your son sounds wonderful. I hope that you can enjoy him no matter what. Best, Phyl

Do you have a doctor to advise you? My son also had candida, clostridia overgrowth and leaky gut back when he was younger. It took years of work for him to get better, but we did finally remove the overgrowth of candida and clostridia and heal his gut with the help of a good doctor (and then both his vocal and his motor tics also went away). The good thing is that we were able to check the progress of his treatment by repeating the OAT panels, and as his tics diminished, the results on the OAT panels kept improving too. We tried to use Nystatin, and went through several rounds of it, but it was completely ineffective for him. The doctor prescribed S-Boulardii as well, but I had to discontinue that as it really exacerbated his tics. Our doctor did not prescribe any special diet, though I did keep him dairy free for a while because we found that dairy made his tics more severe. (Now he is fine with dairy). Also both artificial food coloring and msg really made him react strongly with heavy tics and adhd symptoms. The things that I recall helped him most were some homeopathic drops (by Pleo/Sanum) which are intended to counter candida, probiotics, and oil of oregano (which is so strong I had to put in empty capsules for him). He also took Bonnie's supplements (mentioned a lot in this forum), but he no longer does that either. I was extremely surprised that the homeopathy worked so well, but it did. We discovered the candida, clostridia and leaky gut when my son was finishing 3rd grade, and it wasn't until he was in the middle of 6th grade that his health improved, so you can see that we had a long time of searching and trying and retesting. Since then, he has not had this problem reoccur, nor has he had tics. Good luck to you.

In answering a question to someone, I recalled a suggestion that I wanted to make for anyone trying to help their child or themselves with tics. Keep a "tic log" to try to see any progress and any triggers. When my son had tics, upon a friend's recommendation, I was very consistent about keeping a log in one of those hard composition-type notebooks and that is how I could see which foods and environments were triggers for him. Eventually I could also see how much better he was getting with treatment. Truly, I had forgotten some of the horrible times he had, and so the log was very helpful to look back upon, both for reporting to the doctor and for understanding myself what was happening. ~Phyl

My now-16-year-old son had severe tics that started as throat clearing and eye squeezing in 1st or 2nd grade. These came on gradually just after we tried him on 10 days of the stimulant Ritalin for attention deficit problems. He developed both small tics like jaw stretching and finger to thumb rubbing, and full body tics, like doing pirouettes while walking and painful stomach tics. One of his most difficult verbal tics was when his speech became interspersed with "t-t-t-t's". Most all of his motor tics, however, were bilateral - he'd do them on both sides of his body simultaneously and symmetrically. Also, an important part of his history is that he had had numerous ear infections while an infant as well as fluid behind his ear drum that wouldn't go away. His doctor had prescribed him a continuous regimen of antibiotics to try to lessen the fluid, but of course that was useless and he had tubes put into both ears at 21 months old. After he would eat, I often thought that I noticed my son’s tics would worsen. Sometimes, his tics would seem to be taking a break, but they would develop again after a meal or snack. After a while, I could pinpoint certain foods in particular that would cause him to tic. Anything made with milk (like cheese that he loved), sometimes made him repeat a “hmm, hmm, hmm” sound, sometimes so quietly that I had to be very close by to hear it. We took away milk and milk products from his diet for a while, and if perchance he ate any dairy by accident, he’d get a violent reaction, clucking and almost retching. Also, whenever he had a food or candy colored with artificial dyes, these also caused his tics to accelerate. Worse, he’d behave uncharacteristically antsy, literally unable to sit still, and would wander around after ingesting these dyes for hours. Bright lights also were a trigger for him, as was even a tiny amount of MSG. When he was in 3rd grade we began to work with an MD here who practices holistic and orthomolecular medicine. She's also a DAN doctor. For a long time I gave him Bontech vitamins which seemed to help some. Through lab testing. we found that neither allergies nor heavy metals were causing him problems. Rather, he had a heavy overgrowth of both yeast and clostridia in his gut as well as other parasites (like Dientamoeba fragilis). The Microbial Organic Acid Test through Great Plains Lab was the check we used to see the levels of yeast and clostridia metabolites. Needless to say, he also didn't have enough good bacteria - all this was probably due to the excessive use of antibiotics. We tried large amounts of probiotics and also nystatin, but though we continued the probiotics neither of these helped reduce his tics or the metabolite levels. What did finally help him were a series of three different homeopathic drops by Pleomorphic that very gradually reduced his yeast overgrowth (they were Pleo Alb, Pleo Forte, and one other I've now forgotten) and oil of wild oregano that reduced the clostridia overgrowth. I was quite disbelieving that the homeopathic drops worked but they clearly did, because his tics gradually diminished as we verified that the yeast overgrowth kept getting reduced as shown through repeated Microbial OAT's by Great Plains. The oil of oregano was so strong that he couldn't abide it, so I put drops of it inside empty capsules that I got at the health food store. When the Microbial OAT results showed that he no longer had either yeast or clostridia overgrowth, his tics were at a very very low level and eventually they went away completely. By then he was in 5th grade. He has just completed 10th grade and has not tic-ced since probably the beginning of 6th grade. He can now enjoy dairy again with no repercussions. Bright lights (fluorescent or other) no longer affect him. He sometimes has food or candy with food coloring and they also no longer bother him. I believe that it was the lack of balance of good bacteria and the overgrowth of yeast and clostridia that made him sensitive and caused him these issues. We don't have tourettes in our family history, but do have some ocd. This site was very helpful to me back when he had tics and I still come here at times to check on things. I'm glad to have the chance to contribute and hope this can help someone.

Hi again. After reviewing lots of information, we did decide to start the Dore program for my 15 year old son who has mild inattentive add. (He no longer has the tics which I wrote about several years ago on the ACN forum). He began the Dore exercises in August. Within about 4 weeks his organizational abilities have amazingly improved - he has been cleaning and organizing his room and he's kept his notebooks way better organized than last year. Is this from Dore or just maturity, I don't know. It's still the beginning, so we'll see. He complains but has been good about doing the exercises which so far take about 5 minutes twice a day. Apparently many people don't see any changes until they've been doing the exercises for much longer. We decided to try Dore though it is expensive instead of Learning Breakthrough because of the feedback and check-ups they have.

Has any one here had any experience with either the Dore program or Learning Breakthrough program?

Kim, Yes, they both did have high markers for Candida, especially my younger son who had taken a lot of antiobiotics as a toddler for fluid in the ears. He also had very high markers (metabolites) for Clostridia bacteria - I think that was elevated DHPPA-like Compound, which Dr. Shaw from Great Plains Lab links to tics. A few years ago we treated for both the Candida and Clostridia, and had repeated Microbial Organic Acid tests. As the levels of the metabolites went down, so did the levels of tics for my younger son. Since then, I only very rarely see any tics. The correlation for him was very clear. The treatment was difficult and prolonged and I am very grateful to our doctor. (The things that actually were most useful, I think, as we could observe from the lab reports, were some homeopathic drops by Pleo and oil of oregano). My older son is also much better now, though he still has some difficulty with ocd. But he's 18 and heading for college away from home soon, so........ Phyl

Kim, Hi. You asked whether anyone who took the Organic Acid test didn't show low glutathione. Both of my sons had this test, several times. It was my older son, who didn't have tics, who was very low in glutathione. He did, however, suffer from ocd. My younger son, who did have tics for several years was in the normal range for glutathione. Our alternative doctor was much more concerned about my older son's issues and after almost 2 years of supplements (alpha lipoic acid and other things) he squeaked into just normal for glutathione the last time he was tested. Phyl

Kim, If you do the Great Plains (urine) OAT test for yeast, there are several fruits that need to be avoided 24 hours before because they increase arabinose. From memory, I believe they are apples, grapes and cranberries, but I can't find that for sure now though the directions are clear on their instructions. This page, from Great Plains re: their OAT panel http://www.greatplainslaboratory.com/Organ...-Acid-Test.html describes some information about their yeast sensitivity test, and how it differs from tests offered by other labs, including Labcorp. I think it's an important test, because the metabolites found might also indicate an overgrowth of clostridia which is often found along with an overgrowth of yeast. Having this information was very important for us in helping our son. Phyl

Hi Dara, We live in Massachusetts. I don't know of any books to recommend on all this except for the yeast book that Chemar recommends by Trowbridge(?) You are the first person who I found who also has a child also diagnosed with an overgrowth of clostridia as well as yeast. I suspect that my son had these issues because he was prescribed so many antibiotics when he was little for ear infections. He was on a prophylactic dose for about 8 months. Did your son have a similar history? Dr. Shaw at Great Plains Lab (where we did the Microbial Organic Acid Tests that showed these overgrowths) suspects that clostridia contributes to tics. He recommends taking a probiotic called Culturelle (Lactobacillicus GG) which you can find in many drugstores. I believe it is supposed to crowd out the clostridia bacteria by repopulating the digestive track with "good" bacteria. My son took Culturelle for over a year, but his clostridia didn't budge. We had the most success with some homeopathic medicines which our environmental physician prescribed for him. Even though I was very skeptical about using these, I will say I am very impressed still. They completely eliminated the clostridia overgrowth and greatly diminished the yeast overgrowth. Some yeast overgrowth, as evidenced by later testing, still remained after he took the homeopathics for several months, but it was at a much lower level. The homeopathic remedies my son took were liquid drops of PleoForte (for the clostridia, I think), PleoAlb (for yeast), and PleoPef (also for yeast) all by a company called Sanum/Pleomorphic. Since the yeast was still remaining, our doctor then prescribed drops of Oil of Oregano for 3 months. This is amazingly strong and bitter stuff and I had to put the drops in an empty capsule for each dose so that he'd taste nothing. I have not yet had him retested since he finished this, but I do feel concerned that since he has completed the prescription, the yeast may have returned, as I think I see a few more tics. They are all very mild. Sorry this is so long, but I do think it's all important to tell you.