Heather

Claire, Do they believe that manganese aggravates tics? I haven't done any research on this so would appreciate hearing what you know about tics and manganese. Heather

I am only giving him 2 mg a day. It is just the amount that is in the children's multivitamin....perhaps not enough but I don't want to give any more without testing. At least the 2 mg will be better than nothing. Heather

With that said, manganese can be toxic so if you are considering using it, it is best to follow the guidance of an expert in natural remedies. Heather

Hi Everyone, Just wanted to add a post here for anyone supplementing with Zinc. My son has been taking B6, Magnesium and Zinc since August and the tics are completely gone. I believe he may have Pyroluria but haven't been successful in getting a urine sample sent to the States from Canada in its frozen state. Anyway, the tics are completely gone and have been now for awhile. However, in late October he developed a tingling in his fingers. I thought I was giving too much B6, however recently we made a trip to the MD and he believes Will has Carpal Tunnel Sydrome. He has never seen it in child, however, all the tets appear to show this and the telltale sign is that the tingling happens in all fingers but the pinky. The median nerve that causes Carpal Tunnel does not affect the pinky finger. Since my son has stopped ticcing he has been playing gameboy for hours after receiving a couple of new Pokemon games that he loves. The repetetive wrist and finger action as caused this syndrome....at least this is what my doctor believes. Well, when I started to reserch nutrients used for Carpal Tunnel, along with B6 it said Manganese. I had never used manganese but had read that sometimes it is needed for the treatment of Pyroluria. I came a accross a website that said if you are supplementing with zinc, you should also supplement with manganese as megadoses of zinc depletes the blood of manganese. There are many other disorders and symptoms associated with manganese deficiency as it is a vital nutrients linked to the use of many other nutrients in the body. Just wanted to point this out to anyone using zinc supplementation. A good article to explain it is on the following website: www.orthomed.org/links/papers/pffschz.htm. Heather

EFGH, B6 is supposed to help with remembering dreams for those who don't have any recall. Your comment confuses me. How do you know you are dreaming all night if you can't remember even one bit in the morning? As I say B6 is supposed to help you recall dreams but if you are dreaming too much or they become nightmarish then you should cut back on B6. Heather

Hi Marina, That is great news re the screens. I am sure it will be uphill from now on since you have figured this out. Keep us posted how your week is going. I have also been wondering how your son has been. I believe you are from Australia. Is that correct? If so, I guess it won't be Thanksgiving for you this week....not for us either. It is only the US that has their holiday this week. Heather

That is great that you are so supportive to her. Believe me, this stuff really does work as you will see from reading the posts. My husband was not so supportive when I started and it was a struggle to get him to believe in the natural way of healing. Now he is my biggest supporter as he has seen the results. Like Natalie, I would stop at nothing to help my son and with perserverence you will find the answers. It has been a year now since we have been treating naturally. For yeast, we used Threelac which is ordered through a direct marketing company. There are no corn derivatives...at least not that I know of. The makers of this product makes astounding claims as far as yeast goes, although I don't know anyone else personally who has used this product and been tested for yeast. It did work wonders for us as far as symptoms go but we didn't have formal testing done. Another product my naturopath prescribed for yeast was called Candicin by Genestra. She said she has had enormous success with this product for killing yeast. There are many other yeast killers on the market. We used a probiotic along with the Threelac to promote healthy bacteria growth. The tests you are having done on December 1st sound like they are what you need. Let us know if you have any more specific questions. Otherwise I encourage you to read back posts to learn all that you can. Heather

Hi Natalie, Welcome to the forum. Don't worry about the length of your post. You are right...the more details the better in trying to help. I wish I had quick answers for you. It sounds like you are doing all of the right things. With the antibiotic use for long periods I would guess that he probably has a yeast problem so that testing would be beneficial. If he does have a yeast problem then his digestive system could be very disturbed and he may not be getting all of the benefits from Bonnie's pills. My naturopath's protocol was to first clear out yeast from the digestive system. She did not even prescribe a multi-vitamin until we did an antifungal because she said he would not be digesting or absorbing much. With that said, I feel the multivitamin is a good place to start as over time, the nutrients will eventually take effect. It will just take longer. Once we had my son's yeast cleared, he was put on cal/mag/zinc and B6 and the tics went away pretty quickly. I am not much help on your other questions....sorry. I am sure there will be others with answers for you. Good luck and you are definitely on the right track to healing. Heather

Hi Guys, I am playing hockey on a team called the Red Wings. My team is doing pretty good. Dylan, I have Yugio and Pokemon cards too and I love to battle. I have a Pokemon game for my gameboy that is my favourite but my mom won't let me play it too much because it makes me tic. I hate that. We had snow here last week but it is all gone now. Steven, where do you live in Canada? I live in Ontario. I hope you guys keep writing because I like to talk to people who tic like me. Will

Dylan, I sent you an email. Let me know if you don't get it. Will

The above information comes from the Feingold Program booklet.

LuLu girl, The following contain naturally occurring salicylates: Almonds Apples Apricots All berries Cherries Cloves coffee Cucumbers & pickles Currants Grapes and raisins Nectarines Oranges Peaches Peppers (Bell & chilies) Plums and Prunes Tangerines Tea Tomatoes Your child may be sensitive to only 1 or 2 or these or none. It is a testing game. My son handles most fruit well but can't tolerate grapes or strawberries. He eats loads of blueberries with no reaction. Bananas, Melons and Pears are good fruit choices with little or no salicylate content. Heather Heather

sorry, message sent twice by accident

Chemar. That is great your son does not react to the fruit and I didn't mean to imply that perhaps he was. I just want others to be aware that this could be a very real trigger for tics and is for many. There are hundreds of posts every day on the Feingold site from parents whose children react to grapes and strawberries especially. These are parents whose tests did not show an allergy to these foods when tested. When you were saying that you didn't really agree with that part of the diet since you considered these foods very healthy, I just wanted to point out that even though they are extremely healthy foods, they can pose a problem for many as triggers for tics or ADHD symptoms. Yes, it is everyone's metabolism that makes these children react differently to different fruits. For example, my son can eat apples but not grapes and strawberries. Others can eat grapes and not apples. Feingold's advice is to eliminate them all and then reintroduce them one by one to determine what specifically your child is sensitive to. I just had a child in a classroom the other day tell me she can't eat fruit (when they were passing out watermelon) because she breaks out in rashes. It is a highly individual area of sensitivity. Mercola has never written anything about salicylates or amines so I guess it is just one of the areas he has never researched. With all of the research being so new and anecdotal, it is really impossible to find one Doctor who has studied it all. Heather

Yes, I think we all realize that many of the foods we have to eliminate on the Feingold diet are also very healthy to "every" family. It is unfortunate that our children have to miss out on the healthy nutrients that these fruits provide. However, that is the sad part.....that these same healthful foods are a trigger for tics because of the salicylates in them. It is proven by many on here. They aren't necessary allergies per se, but have a substance in them that is just not digested properly. I don't believe that the foods with salicylates show up on allergy testing even if you may have a sensitivity to them. Heather

Kirkman Labs have some excellent products....very specific nutrients put together into their supplements. I am travelling 2 hours to buy some of their vitamins next week because they have a multi-vitamin with no copper and no Vitamin A and D. My son is getting the Vitamin D in a Calcium/Magnesium combo and I don't want to overdo the Vitamin D. Heather

Hi Connor My name is Will. I used to be embarrassed when I ticced. My mom gives me vitamins too to help me stop. TV makes my tics worse too. I can't eat certain things and it kind of bugs me. The thing that I hate the most that I can't have is corn syrup because all the candy that I want has corn syrup in it. My mom makes cookies for me instead of candy for a treat. My mom said you live in Australia. I live in Canada. If you send an email to my mom through this site, I can give you my email address if you would like. I am 8 years old. Will

Yes, it is somewhat comforting to know that this condition is reversible when the B6 is stopped, although it freaks me out a little that this fidgeting with the hands has been going on for a couple of weeks. My son is reluctant to discuss his tics these days and just wants them to be a non-issue. He has always said they don't bother him and he just doesn't want to talk about it. So, when this hand thing started, I just didn't want to bring it up since I didn't want to stress him out about it. When I asked him last week after school one day, he just said "mom, I don't want to talk about it". So I dropped it. Then last night it seemed to be worse so I pursued it and told him I just wanted to ask a few questions. Thank God I did!!! I say thank God in literal terms since just yesterday afternoon I prayed asking for guidance in what step to take next with the fidgeting. I knew I was going to get some testing done but was in a quandry of what to do in the short term. Well, for some reason I just felt the need to question Will last night and force him to tell me about the feelings he was having with his hands. This is when the tingling issue came out. Now I feel awful that I didn't pursue it further before with him. I have now discussed with him the importance of telling me about anything odd or different that he might be feeling. He does say that it hasn't worsened since it started and there have been periods when he hasn't been doing it at all. He said it is not constant, just every once in awhile. I am eager to see what happens over the next couple of days with no B6. Heather

After what I have observed and learned over the past year I would tend to agree with Ausclare. If you are talking about Halloween treats, it is probably other things that are causing the reaction. Although sugar does increase the overgrowth of yeast which will worsen the digestive tract absorption, the reactions to foods are usually the common triggering foods that are hard to digest for our kids (artificial additives, preservatives, dyes, etc). Keep at it and you will find those triggers. Heather

My son's tics have no genetic link, although my nephew did have some other issues (very mild OCD) and some scary sleeping walking stories which he outgrew. I breastfed for about 9-10 months. Don't beat yourself up about not breastfeeding EFGH. There is so much that we didn't know. Just be thankful of the knowledge that we do have NOW to help our children. If this happened at the time of their birth 9-10 years ago, where would we be now without the Internet and the more recent advancements in Alternative treatments. Heather

By the way, I have also been using digesitve enzymes with his food so perhaps this is causing extra absorption of the B6 and also adding to the problem.

Hi, Yes, the dream issue appears to be a marker as I have read that in many different pieces of literature. Here is my problem. My son is having tingling sensations in the tips of his fingers. He describes it as an itchy feeling. This is why he has been squeezing his fingers and pinching and rubbing his jeans. I thought it was just fidgeting and he told me tonight that it isn't an uncontrollable urge he is having. He is doing it because it alleviates the itchy tingly feeling in his fingers. This has me now thinking that I am giving him too much B6 (100 mg) plus 40 mg P5P since this numb, tingly feeling is a symptom of too much B6, is it not??? Any other thoughts here. He is still not recalling any dreams. The other thing is that I am not keeping up with the multi vitamin since I am having trouble finding one that doesn't have copper. So perhaps the mega dose of B6 is causing a deficiency in other B's. I have read the importance of a multi B while using high B6 but before tonight he wouldn't swallow pills and I had such trouble getting him to take the multi B since I had to crush it in applesauce and it tasted horrible. This is why I persisted with the pill swallowing tonight and he finally did it (combination of using a straw and trying first with a Sundrop chocolate candy). So now I am going to give the Multi B and back off on the B6 and see if this helps. The tics are now completely gone. It is only this tingling that is bothering him. Heather

Wow, I haven't had much time over the last week to keep up with the posts and coming on this morning was overwheming. Yes, you do need a degree in biochemistry to understand all of this. As I have reported, my son's tics are pretty much gone with B6, magnesium and Zinc. However, over the past couple of weeks he has started this fidgeting with his hands. He pinches his jeans and sort of rubs his fingers together. I was thinking this was still a minor tic and I should keep upping the B6. Now, I am wondering if this is a reaction of too much B6, causing the imbalance somewhere else. It is a never ending process trying to figure it all out and waiting for reactions. I am very curious to get the hair analysis back next week. Heather

Caz, I did use the Reverse Osmosis water with the drops but didn't change to using Alkaline water after the first urine. I used reverse osmosis water all day. Not sure if this made a difference in the effectiveness or not. The hardest part was getting him to drink enough water. I felt like I was always telling him to drink. I sent his hair away yesterday to Doctor's Data for another test. This will be the first test done since using the NDF so I will let you know in a couple of weeks how it comes back. I used NDF since I really didn't like the idea of chelation and this seemed like something worth trying as an alternative. Heather

ADS on my post above should read ASD (Autistic Spectrum Disorder)