Pamela Kay

I never thought of organic and I never thought of hair dye not touching the scalp when she got her hair dyed. It is something to think about, my daughter drives me crazy if it's not one thing its the other. Right now I have to here how some of her friends are getting the belly button piercing. Thanks for info Ahh, things to look forward too.

They sell a hair dye at our organic food store. I have never tried it though. When hair is highlighted it technically should not touch the scalp. They start it down about 1/4 of an inch. So that could be why she did not have a problem. Just something to think about.

That is wonderful news. I just looked up "Front of the Class" on ebay. The video is going for an insane amount. I wonder how much it is at Hallmark. I wish I would have remembered to watch it.

My poor third child! I totally forgot to give an update about her. I guess it is because she has never been as severe as my son and I am more relaxed about the whole thing. A couple months ago she started her cough up again. It was kind of a cough followed by a panting sound. It was pretty constant for a few days and I called her pediatrician because I was concerned it was asthma. Well I was so mad I could not get in until the end of December. I then called an allergist and got in the next day. So she was tested for allergies and was positive for the typical dust mites, weeds, mold and grass. She was also tested for the common foods since my son was positive for corn. She did not have any food allergies but of course that was just with the scratch test. He prescribed her some Allegra and some sort of nose spray. Her cough cleared up within a couple days. So I guess I am just contributing her cough to allergies. I have not documented when she gets the cough but I believe it is mainly in the spring and fall so I guess it would make sense. The allergist did comment on her having blond hair and blues eyes. He said those were the ones to get allergies. I wonder if it really is more common for them? She does seem to have an eye blinking thing going on. I usually just notice it at church though when she is singing in the Childrens Choir. At this point I am not overly concerned.

Pamela Kay, thanks for your response. I am getting the allergy testing next week which may be helpful because I still give Nicky corn and took away dairy and wheat. I know he is frustrated with all the changes and unless I find he has an extreme sensitivity or I notic ticcing after certain foods I will slowly add back in nutritional choices. Did you use mag cream on his neck or chiro? abbe He did go to a chiropractor for a bit. I did not notice any improvements tic wise with it but it did help with his mood. I am not sure if you read this or not but even if he gets tested for allergies and they show that he is not allergic he could still have an intolerance. Just another thing to think about.

Your updates are making me a bit teary eyed! It is so nice to hear these stories. My son is doing so much better now too. This is the first year that his conferences have been so positive. He is a bit behind on reading comprehension but they think he will catch up quickly. He is also a quiet boy and they would like to hear him speak up more but besides that he is doing great. They did not even have a concern for his spelling this year. I am more than thrilled with how far he has come. His tics are mild at this point. I think for him the kids calm is a huge help. We still eat mostly healthy but he seems to be fine when we don't too. We eliminate most corn, and he has rice milk instead of cows. I don't eliminate it completely though, pretty much just in his cereal. I did notice that he has an increased amount of tics in the fall but I really think that is due to environmental allergies.

Abbe, I don't check in on this board as much as I used to but I wanted to answer the last question you had. Honestly for us it took about three years to get to where we are. My son started with a pretty severe neck twitch as well. We took him to doctors but they just said that tics are normal for kids. Well they may be but for my son they were severe and actually made his neck sore from the amount of ticcing he was doing. Eliminating Corn really helped, it was hard but so worth the effort. In our case we ate a lot of junk food and I did not appreciate the fact that junk food was just that. We have recently became a bit more relaxed on what we give him but I do make sure he gets kids calm every night. His tics are still mild to this day. I think that everyone will have a different story as to how long it took. Some people have figured out some of the puzzle but not all of it. There are just so many variables.

My advice would in the household to just buy foods that are okay. Our whole family eats the same way. That way there is no question as to what your husband can make. What I basically did was tell my kids we were on an experiment and going to eat differently for a while. My boys were six and eight at the time. They were not completely happy but I made sure I had really yummy alternatives. I baked a lot and bought things like breyers Ice cream. Breyers has a bunch without HFCS or artificial colors. I bought organic fruit bars and granola bars, they also have these fruit leather like things that my kids love in place of fruit snacks. They even have organic pasty tarts. I just made sure they did not feel deprived. The m&m trick sounds great and our health food store actually sells a great organic substitute for them. I think they taste better. Actually I think alot of organic substitutes taste better than regular brand. It is hard at first but if you have a health food store they can be your friend. Actually since I started two years ago our Meijer and another grocery store have started to carry a bunch of organic as well. As for going to your parents tell them what you are doing. Just tell them you don't want them to have the junk and take substitutes with you. My mom does not comply with my son's diet at all. I grew up eating fast food a few times a week for dinner. She just does not get it or have the desire to get it. So I usually pack for my kids when they go there. At school he eats cold lunch everyday. Now soon after we started eating better, I asked my son if he felt better. His response was yes. Just remember it will not hurt anything to just experiment. Give it a few weeks but I bet you will see the effects sooner. As for supplements we give fish oil ( I think it is health from the sun A+), animal parade vitamins, animal parade probiotics, occasionally psyllium, and occasionally kids calm. Oh and I give them enzymes for digestion. Since starting enzymes their stomachs are not longer bloated and are much less gassy. My kids are very fussy and the only things they are picky about are the psyllium and kids calm but they will take them.

Nope it is not impossible. It is a HUGE change but not impossible. I make a lot of things from scratch now and if it is not I usually buy organic. Then we have a bunch of fruits. Unfortunately I can not get my family to eat enough veggies though. Anyway, I remember when I first started shopping for no HFCS, or artificial ingredients I would come home from the store grumpy and crying. It was hard but so worth it. For us my husband was the complete opposite of yours and said "my kid is not going to be on meds". So that made me even more determined to find an answer. As for the testing our insurance does not require that we get a referral so I just went strait to an allergist. I was not sure if he does blood testing or not but I went to an alternative doctor for that. I would see if you have a DAN doctor in your area. They are more willing to look at alternative tests. Now I honestly hope you find the answers for your son. I know how hard it can be. I think you are in the right place though.

With my son I found out food was big trigger for him. Back when all his tics started, I thought he had a learning disability as well. Upon researching I found that food allergies could be a trigger for tics and cause learing problems. Well I decided to cut out High fructose corn syrup and artificial colors/flavors. He made a huge improvement. He was not quite tic free though but I eventually narrowed corn as his biggest trigger. I actually had him tested by a regular allergist, the skin prick way, and he tested allergic to corn as well as many environmental allergies. Since then we have had him blood tested for allergies and he is no longer allergic to corn he just has mild allergies to all dairy and wheat/gluten. He still tics spring and fall but I contribute that to his environmental allergies. So I guess I would get him tested for allergies if you have not already. We also do epsom salt baths. I usually just do this when his tics start up again though. I hope this helped a bit.

As some of you may remember, I went to a Chiropractor that practiced a/sert. An allergy elimination technique. Anyway I have not gone since Feb of this year. I just today got a bill for $250. I payed every time I visited with possibly the exception of the first time for the consultation. I may have payed that too, I will certainly look it up. Anyway now I am being billed for adjustments something the doctor never said. I thought I was just going for the a/sert not adjustments. He never said anything about adjustments. It was this little clicker thing that went up and down his spine. I figured it was part of the a/sert. Now why I was not billed then and there I have no idea and why it took so long to be billed is beyond me. When I called it was a new girl cleaning up the books. What can I do? Does this sound right?

Thanks, it does make me feel somewhat better. I keep trying to tell myself things could be worse. For the first year of her life she was on antibiotics for her kidney condition. Then at almost two I found out she had a lazy eye and needed glasses just like I did when I was her age. I was heart broken but we got over both of these issues. Now this. Right now I just feel like I did something wrong. Like maybe this is the price I have to pay for wanting a girl so much. I know it is all crazy thinking and I will learn something from this but I guess I just have to grieve a bit.

Yes it can be numerous times in a minute. Then at other times she can go a bit without coughing. It honestly sounds like a fake cough. It usually does not sound productive at all. Just a soft little cough cough. Usually she will cover it with her hand. I think it is usually worse towards the evening. I have thought of it being due to allergies but I just don't think it sounds productive enough.

Some of you may remember my son and the tic issues he has. Well last March my daughter started having this fake little cough it lasted a few weeks and went away. It is back again. It has been about a week ago and it is constant. I kid you not when I tell you it took me two years of research to get a hold of my sons tics. I feel like here we go again. Her tic is vocal and it is driving me insane. How do I deal with the constant coughing? I am honestly so sad. She had a kidney operation at one and now at four has a tic problem. I feel like she is being punished. I think I just need to vent.

I remember when my son was about that age or maybe a bit younger, we got him a big boy bike for Easter. It did not have training wheels but we planned on putting them on. He was so mad and flipped out. "Why did you get me a bike without training wheels?". Well we were patient for a couple years. He actually learned last year at seven. The first bike we got him was actually to big and we had to pay a bit extra to get one that was not a typical size. He could reach the ground though and it made him feel much more confident.

My oldest son has gone through times when he frequently felt the need to urinate I am pretty sure he does not have pandas either.

Did you travel far away? Could it be environmental allergens? I remember a couple years ago when we traveled to Tennessee from Michigan my sons tics went away. We even ate out and had whatever. The only thing I could think of was environmental allergens.

He has had dairy and wheat since. We just kind of rotate it in and he is usually fine. We did go camping a couple weeks ago and he had lasagna so that had wheat, dairy and tomatoes in it. He was not such a good boy after that but I really don't recall seeing an increase in his tics. He did get sick that night but he ate way to much way to fast so I don't know if I can blame it all on the food and allergens.

We had the testing done now because he still had puffy eyes every morning when he woke up. He was also still having issues with bed wetting and I was hoping that this test would shed a light on things. I have not been on any schedule and I just try to make sure I limit his allergens. Things have been going really well. This was the first time he has had the IgG testing. His tics have been 95% better since we cut back on all the allergens. His eyes are also not puffy in the morning. As for bed wetting that is about 80% better now. I think that is pretty good for not going 100% on a strick allergen free diet. We quit the A/sert because my husband could not get past the quackiness of it. '

He actually did not have anything other than low and very low. For very low it just showed VL and for low it showed 1+. The lab was Genova Diagnostics and the test was called the IgG food antibody assessment. We did get information regarding a rotational diet plan but was just wondering how closely I should follow it since most things were very low. He tested positive for everything in the dairy category and a lot in the grains so I am trying to aviod those but not completely.

We recently got back my sons IgG food antibody results he showed low 1+ for: Cheddar Cheese Cottage cheese Grapefruit Sole Everything else that showed a reaction was very low but included: Casein Cow's milk Goat's milk lactalbumin yogurt orange tomato cod red snapper tuna egg white egg yolk turkey gluten oat peanut rye sesame soy wheat Now if we eliminate all that I think I would go INSANE! How important is it to eliminate things that only show up very low? Also about two years ago or so my son was scratch tested for corn and found allergic. According to this blood test he is not. Do you think he grew out of it? I know when he had the blood testing done he had trace amounts of corn in his diet.

When I first found out about my sons tics etc. I was so very mad at God. My son was already having issues with learning why would he do this to him too? I researched a ton and was lucky enough to find this board, but when I say I researched my husband would say I was obsessed. I made a promise to my son that I would help find answers for him. Along the way I came to realize that his tics were a clue, they helped me learn about allergies/intolerances and how they can really mess with the mind. I have come so far in the past two years and I have learned so much. I know now that it all is a lesson that God is teaching. My husband who thought I was losing it and was obsessed learned not to question me anymore. He is behind me 95% of the time now. The rest of the time he knows just to let me be. Sometimes when my son gets moody or emotional I wonder what is going on what did he have to eat etc. but then I have to stop and remember that he is a kid and kids do just have meltdowns and attitudes on occasion.

My kids don't wear contacts quite yet either. I just wanted to add though, that I do and some times they do make my eyes quite dry and I have to blink alot. I would not call it a tic however, more an irritation. My contacts are hard though, and I bet soft ones would be less of a problem. I also want to add that when I got my contacts I was a whole different person. I hated my glasses with a passion and really came out of my shell when I started to wear contacts. If the look of glasses bother your son I would seriously give it a try I know many kids want to feel "normal" any way they can. I of course don't know your son and his personality but I wanted to add my experience. I think I was about 13 or 14 when I first got them.

Caryn does your son have yeast issues? I am wondering if it could be a problem with that.

I am seeing an increase in tics with my son lately too. He was on Trienza for the past seven or so weeks but his bedwetting got worse so we discontinued it yesterday. I know last August things were really bad for him allergy wise and his tics were really bad.