Ronnas

Alison, I is great to hear your son is doing well. On braintalk there is a Gluten Sensitivity/celiac Disease board. Their useful website's sticky is great and "jcc" is there and she is extremetly knowledgeable about gluten issues. I would post your question there. http://brain.hastypastry.net/forums/forumd...splay.php?f=141 Take Care, Ronna

Claire, I am glad to hear your son is doing better and that this is the last day for antibiotics. For colds, sinus infections or basically all illness we use white flower analgesic balm. It is a combination of menthol, menthol salicylate, eucalyptus oil, peppermint oil and camphor. It is not the most common thing and I know in our city I can only get it at one place but it is so worth searching for. At the first sign of illness I use it...it is oily and I rub it on the kids chest or you can use a few drops in a humidifier or put a few drops in the shower. Just sitting beside someone with this stuff on will clear your sinuses...sorry I wish I had thought to suggest this sooner. I LOVE this stuff! Take Care. Ronna

Claire, I hope your son gets well soon. Zithromax is a good broad spectrum antibiotic to be on and is effective for strep. I read at one time (can't find it at the moment) that the NIMH was going to do or was doing a study looking at zithromax prophylactically for strep as pen vk was showing to be ineffective in preventing strep. I am not sure where the study is at this moment.

Ha, Ha...it makes me laugh when I am referred to as a PANDAS expert...I don't feel like one...I've just been at this for a long time! On the old braintalk I started a thread about basic PANDAS information that you may want to look at... http://neuro-mancer.mgh.harvard.edu/ubb/Fo...TML/005700.html If you are looking for a physician who has experience with PANDAS try contacting the NIMH either by phone or e-mail... http://intramural.nimh.nih.gov/research/pdn/web.htm PANDAS certainly is not just about tics! Your doctor needs to start doing some reading! The journal article I mention below from the Canadian Medical Association would be a good thing to show him. PANDAS Red Flags The biggest difference between regular OCD and PANDAS OCD is the sudden onset. OCD usually develops slowly over weeks, months or even years; however, PANDAS OCD seems to come out of the blue with parents saying one day their child woke up a different kid. There are also other symptoms that help differentiate the 2 types of OCD. PANDAS OCD is also characterized by: Choreiform movements: involuntary or irregular writhing movements of the legs, arm or face Presence of tics and/or hyperactivity Irritability, temper tantrums, or mood lability Nighttime difficulties Severe nightmares and new bedtime rituals or fears Separation anxiety Age regression: going back to younger developmental stage New handwriting problems, loss of math skills, sensory sensitivities What to do if you suspect your child has PANDAS Contact your pediatrician. Advocate for your child by being clear about what you want your doctor to do. In some cases, you may have to find a sympathetic doctor who is willing to learn about PANDAS. The PANDAS Clinic at NIMH may be willing to consult with doctors. Have your pediatrician do a throat culture of group A B-hemolytic strep. Ask that the specimen be cultured, not just the rapid test. Your doctor may also do a blood test to assess elevated streptococcal antibodies (Anti-DNAse B and Antistreptolysin titers (ASO). You and/or your doctor can get information and treatment guidelines from the National Institute of Mental Health (www.nih.gov); type in PANDAS to access the appropriate link. Contact the OC Foundation to help locate an expert in OCD in your area. Have your child retested if there is a resurgence in OCD symptoms. Below is some information that I think is very important which I got from The Canadian Medical Association Journal...it is a very good and should be posted in every doctors office! CMAJ November 13, 2001; 165(10) Is obsessive-compulsive disorder an autoimmune disease by, Paul D. Arnold and Margaret A. Richter. http://www.cmaj.ca/cgi/content/full/165/10/1353 They have illustrated a diagnostic algorithm which is based on the literature summarized and their own clinical judgement which is as follows: Preadolescent child with sudden onset or exacerbation of OCD symptoms or tics. Screen for comorbid symptoms: separation anxiety, emotional lability, ADHD. Take medical history, focusing on a history suggestive of streptococcal infection and neurological problems. Perform mental status examination. Perform focused physical examinaiton looking for signs of streptococcal infection and abnormal movements (e.g., tics, choreiform movements). Take family history, screening for OCD or tic disorders as well as rheumatic fever or Sydenham's chorea. Is there evidence of a streptococcal infection temporally associated with symptom onset or exacerbation? OR is there a strong family history of rheumatic fever? NO: Initiate, augment or switch standard treatments (e.g., CBT or SRI's for OCD) according to established guidelines. YES: Take a throat swab and send for culture. Perform ASO titer. (an ASO titer is recommended because an antiDNAse B titer is expensive and not widely available in Canada). Is the throat swab positive? NO: Initiate, augment or switch standard treatments according to established guidelines. YES: Treat infection with antibiotics. (and initiate, augment or switch standard treatments according to established guidelines. Monitor symptoms over time Treat recurrent infections promptly with antibiotics Repeat ASO titers (suggest every 3-4 weeks for an additional 1-2 titers) and observe trends. Is there evidence of repeated exacerbations of symptoms associated with either increassed titers or clinical evidence of streptococcal infections? NO: Initiate, augment or switch standard treatments according to established guidelines. YES: Consider switching or augmenting initial psychotropic medications. Consider antibiotic prophylaxis in consultation with a pediatrician Consult with a child psychiatrist or neurologist or refer to the NIMH PANDAS study. Hope this helps...

We had a long discussion about this article on braintalk. http://brain.hastypastry.net/forums/showth...83&pafe=1&pp=10

Allison, Kurt was on prophylactic antibiotics for a year. Treating as needed is working well for us now. I had him on vitamins and had eliminated milk, chocolate, eggs and corn for about 4 months before we stopped the antibiotics. We then treated for yeast and used probiotics. It was was a long road but now things are so much easier. The baby and I are doing fine I am 15-16 weeks and hoping time goes fast. Ronna

It is important to floss each day to prevent bleding gums.

Allison...yeesh I just lost a long reply I was leaving...I will try and redo some of it...some of this is a repeat of what I posted on the anti-DNAse B thread but more specific to you. Overall it is recommended to use anti-DNAse B titers to confirm previous or recurrent strep infections but this test is not very accessible in Canada and is only done at certain centers, therefore a ASOT is used here. A throat culture is the most important test for confirming a strep throat infection. Neither a streptozyme (this test is essentially useless) nor a ASOT are appropriate for the diagnosis of acute streptococcal thoat infections. An elevated anti-strep titer such as an ASO or DNAse-B Antibody means the child has had a strep infection sometime within the past few months, and his body created antibodies to fight the strep. bacteria. Some children create lots of antibodies and have very high titers (up to 2,000), while others have more modest elevations. The height of the titer elevation doesn’t matter. Further, elevated titers are not a bad thing. They are measuring a normal, healthy response – the production of antibodies to fight off an infection. The antibodies stay in the body for some time after the infection is gone, but the amount of time that the antibodies persist varies greatly between different individuals. Some children have "positive" antibody titers for many months after a single infection. Streptolysin O Antibody (ASO): The ASO test is used to provide serologic evidence of previous group A streptococcal infection in patients suspected of havinga non-suppurative complications, such as acute glomerulonephritis or acute rheumatic fever. Use of the ASO for diagnosis of an acute group A streptococcal infection is rarely indicated unless the patient has received antibiotics that would render the culture negative. An ASO performed on serum obtained during the presentation of a non-suppurative complication that shows a titer two dilutions above the upper limit of normal is evidence for an antecedent streptococcal infection. It is recommended, however, to use a second test such as the anti-DNAse B to confirm antecedent infections. After being at this for nearly 4 years it has been over 2 years since my son has had bloodwork. I am biased in certain areas. I do not have Kurt on prophylactic antibiotics. We went through the exact same thing of the see saw effect on antibiotics. On them he did well...off he was worse. Probably a turning point was when we treated Kurt with clindamycin which is used to erradicate strep if you are a carrier. Kurt at no point ever responded to peniclllin though. Over the last 2 years I have probably had to treat Kurt with antibiotics 3-4 times for an increase in symptoms...he has always responded well within a few days. I think your doctor is correct in not treating based on #'s...just watch your son. You know after all of my time spend learning and reading about PANDAS I think it is inevitable that they do still tic sometimes...just last night Kurt was ticcing (some new ones at that) while watching TV and it is no big deal and he does not seem to care. It is my general feeling he will outgrow this as he get older. I post alot on the TS forum b/c I don't just see my son as having just PANDAS anymore. I guess what I am trying to say is that with time it will be easier.

An elevated anti-strep titer such as an ASO or DNAse-B Antibody means the child has had a strep infection sometime within the past few months, and his body created antibodies to fight the strep. bacteria. Some children create lots of antibodies and have very high titers (up to 2,000), while others have more modest elevations. The height of the titer elevation doesn’t matter. Further, elevated titers are not a bad thing. They are measuring a normal, healthy response – the production of antibodies to fight off an infection. The antibodies stay in the body for some time after the infection is gone, but the amount of time that the antibodies persist varies greatly between different individuals. Some children have "positive" antibody titers for many months after a single infection. The lab at NIH considers strep. titers between 0-400 to be normal. Other labs set the upper limit at 150 or 200. Since each lab measures titers in different ways, it is important to know the range used by the laboratory where the test was done – just ask where they draw the line between negative or positive titers. It is important to note that some grade-school aged children have chronically “elevated†titers. These may actually be in the normal range for that child, as there is a lot of individual variability in titer values. Because of this variability, doctors will often draw a titer when the child is sick, or shortly thereafter, and then draw another titer several weeks later to see if the titer is “rising†– if so, this is strong evidence that the illness was due to strep. (Of course, a less expensive way to make this determination is to take a throat culture at the time that the child is ill.) Some basic info about the blood tests for strep Streptozyme: Detection of multiple antibodies to extracellular antigens of streptococcus. While the streptozyme is of some diagnostic value it should never replace more standard tests such as streptolysin O antibody (ASO) or DNase-B antibody. These antibodies may be detected in patients after streptococcal pharyngitis, rheumatic fever, pyoderma, glomerulonephritis, and other related conditions. In evaluating a patient with suspected acute rheuamtic fever or nephritis, determination of ASO, DNase-B antibody, and streptozyme will likely yeild a postive reult in 92-98% of cases. Streptolysin O Antibody (ASO): The ASO test is used to provide serologic evidence of previous group A streptococcal infection in patients suspected of havinga non-suppurative complications, such as acute glomerulonephritis or acute rheumatic fever. Use of the ASO for diagnosis of an acute group A streptococcal infection is rarely indicated unless the patient has received antibiotics that would render the culture negative. An ASO performed on serum obtained during the presentation of a non-suppurative complication that shows a titer two dilutions above the upper limit of normal is evidence for an antecedent streptococcal infection. It is recommended, however, to use a second test such as the anti-DNAse B to confirm antecedent infections. Elevated serum ASO titers are found in about 85% of individuals with rheumatic fever. When both ASO and anti-DNAse are used, the result is over 95%. Skin infecitons with group A streptococci are often associated with a poor ASO response. Reference Interval: (varies depending on the lab) 0-1 year: 0-200 IU/Ml 2-12 years: 0-240 IU/Ml >13 years: 0-330 IU/Ml DNAse-B Antibody: the majority of group A streptococci produce significant quantities of DNAse-B, while most other groups of streptococci do not. High levels of neutralizing antibody to DNAse-B are commonly found in patients following a group A streptococcal infection. Since it persists longer than other streptococcal antibodies (2-3 months), it is the preferred test in patients with chorea suspected due to rheumatic fever. Since it is not influenced by the site of infection, DNAse-B antibody is more reliable than the ASO test in providing evidence for streptococcal infection in patients with post-impetigo glomerularnephritis. Elevated titers are strongly suggestive of recent or current infection with group A streptococci. Fourfold increases in titers between acute and covalescent samples tken approximately 2 weeks apart are confirmatory. Reference Interval: (varies depending on the lab) 1-6 years: <1:60 7-17 years: <1:170 18 years and over: <1:85 So these are the "tests" for PANDAS which you will read about when researching PANDAS which are not actually tests confirmaing PANDAS but rather the presence of streptococci infection in association with the onset of neuropsychiatric symptoms in a child. Because your son is a bit older his titers are for the most part in the normal range. Personally, I have not had a titer drawn on my son in just about two years although he has had probably about 3-4 "PANDAS" outbreaks...we did have throat swabs done and he was started on antibiotics each time and the tics etc resolved. I prefer to focus on symptoms rather than rely on the #'s with the blood tests.

FJ has posted tons of information about pyroluria on braintalk. She recently started a new thread on the braintalk ADHD forum that I thought was very good. You can find it at: http://brain.hastypastry.net/forums/showth...ead.php?t=10946 Ronna

Although Lattitudes is mostly about alternative therapies etc. I thought this might be of interest to some...it had my jaw dropping and I think it is very significant for those interested in PITANDS. 1: Psychiatry Res. 2004 Dec 15;129(2):119-125. Related Articles, Links Mycoplasma pneumoniae infection and Tourette's syndrome. Muller N, Riedel M, Blendinger C, Oberle K, Jacobs E, Abele-Horn M. Hospital for Psychiatry and Psychotherapy, Ludwig-Maximilians-University Munchen, Nussbaumstrasse 7, D-80336 Munchen, Germany. An association between infection and Tourette's syndrome (TS) has been described repeatedly. A role for streptococcal infection (PANDAS) has been established for several years, but the involvement of other infectious agents such as Borrelia Burgdorferi or Mycoplasma pneumoniae has only been described in single case reports. We examined antibody titers against M. pneumoniae and various types of antibodies by immunoblot in patients and in a sex- and age-matched comparison group. Participants comprised 29 TS patients and 29 controls. Antibody titers against M. pneumoniae were determined by microparticle agglutination (MAG) assay and confirmed by immunoblot. Elevated titers were found in significantly more TS patients than controls (17 vs. 1). Additionally, the number of IgA positive patients was significantly higher in the TS group than in the control group (9 vs. 1). A higher proportion of increased serum titers and especially of IgA antibodies suggests a role for M. pneumoniae in a subgroup of patients with TS and supports the finding of case reports implicating an acute or chronic infection with M. pneumoniae as one etiological agent for tics. An autoimmune reaction, however, has to be taken into account. In predisposed persons, infection with various agents including M. pneumoniae should be considered as at least an aggravating factor in TS.

Allison, Thanks for the update and I am so glad to hear that your son's tics are improving. Our son's have so many similarities. You are doing a great job! Ronna

I only have a second but I would encourage you to read through the threads here and at braintalk and order the back issues of Lattitudes. For us it was a long time before I saw that there may be a connection between my son's tics and food sensitivities. A book called "Is this Your Child" by Dr. Doris Rapp certainly made a big difference for us. I would NEVER have seen a correlation between food sensitivities and my son's tics had I not done a food elimination diet. ew have done many things over the last 3 years but eliminating milk (casein), eggs, chocolate, and corn made the largest and quickest impact for improving behavior and tics with my son. At present my son is doing well...we can rotate most of the offending foods back into his diet...even milk a bit which I thought would NEVER happen and he is doing very well. This was recently posted on braintalk and I thought it was well written... QUOTE from braintalk..." for the right supplement regimen for the individual, one needs to get the correct nutritional testing done. When people say that vitamins have not worked, ask them if they have had the proper clinical testing done and 99% of the time, you will find out that they have not had the testing done and are trying to "experiment" with vitamins on their own. If this is the case, don't blame the supplements for not working. They are using the wrong approach to finding a solution to the problem. Please keep in mind that conventional, traditional medicine does not train physicians to do the proper vitamin testing during medical school. You need to find a physician, usually an alternative medical physician, who has had about a year of extra medical trainging specializing in supplements, to do the tests and to know how to interpret the tests. These physicians are hard to find, but you can start with ACAM.org. Be sure to interview the staff or physician about their training and experience in nutritional supplementation before agreeing to tests. If you can't find someone locally, then the better thing to do is to contact a regional center for vitamin testing, that is, if you can afford it. I highly recommend the Pfeiffer Treatment Center ( http://www.hriptc.org/). They have many years of experience treating all kinds of disorders with supplementation. So they know what tests to order, depending upon the symptoms. I think it is a 2-3 month wait for an appointment and you need to fill out forms in advance. All of this is described on their web site. They also have traveling clinics, so it may not be necessary to go to Illinois. If I had followed my own advice initiallly, then I would have saved my family from suffering for over eight years. I just didn't know how or where to find appropriate help. Please keep in mind that when a child needs vitamin supplementation, it does not mean that they are eating a poor diet. There are many medical reasons why a child could be deficient in all vitamins (intestinal infections, malabsorption disorders, genetic disorders) or deficient in a critical subset of nutrients (pyroluria, allergies, viral infections, bacterial infections, stress, long-term medications such as pyschotropics, genetic disorders), etc. Once a supplement plan works, you will really need to spend the time to find out why the child was vitamin deficient in the first place, to make sure you can eliminate allergies, intestinal parasites or infections. There isn't much that can be done if the true nature is genetic, but a treatment, even if it is for life, is better than no treatment at all." QUOTE from braintalk

We have used Bonnie's vitamins for just about 2 years. It's a long story but in the end I ended up looking at what was in her vitamins and adding them one at a time for my son so that I could make sure he was not reacting adversely to anything in them...THEN when i knew he was ok with everything I gave him Bonnie's supplements for no other reason than I found her's easier than giving them separtely. We knew my son was reacting to something and it ended up being the fish oil. I now have him on a different essential fatty acid with good results. At present my son really does seem to need the efa's but I think we are at the point that we can switch to a good multivitamin. My son though eats very healthy and is not a picky eater. I hope you can find something that helps soon.

Hi Alison, It is good to hear that your son had such a good day on Monday and that the teacher noticed is great. Back luck with the stomach virus. When my son is ill I just stop the supplements until he is feeling better and then I restart them. It does sound like you are on the right track. It does take awhile to fine tune everything to find a balance that works. I soooo understand the "good" days/"bad" days thing. When Kurt is doing well I feel like I have won the lottery. To give you hope our ups and downs are much further apart now and stability is more the norm for us now. I am always struck by the similarities of our sons. In the beginning for us my son's tics were ALWAYS worse as the day went on. He'd start out in the morning not too bad and then with fatigue and/or the stress of the day he would tic more. My youngest daughter was only 5 months old when everything with Kurt started. I think back now and it seems like a blur. I lived on 2-4 hours a sleep/night for about 2 years. I LIVED on advil and the stress was incredible and I was obsessed with being online and finding answers. About a year and a half ago this all took a terrible toll on my health. It took me about 4-6 months to regain my health. If I could go back now and do things over I would have developed a much stronger support system. I am full of pride and HATE asking for help...so when we realized that the stress in our lives was too much I made arrangements with a good friend to help me with the kids so I had somewhere to take the kids on the bad days. I got a cleaning lady once every two weeks to help keep up, started ordering groceries online and basically did everything I could think of to make our life less stressful including quitting my volunteer stuff for a year. Although this was drastic I quit my part-time job as a nurse (no more shift work), we sold our house and downsized so that we were not "house poor" and did not have financial stress. We bought a house across the street from our new school (I can see my son playing at recess from my front door). So I guess what I am trying to say is to remember to take care of yourself, supplements really did help ME, and try and build as much support around yourself as possible and ask for help when needed. At one point my exhaustion was extreme...don't let it get to that point. The best thing I ever did for Kurt was take care of myself. Take care!

Alison, Here is some information about the efa I use... http://www.turnerdrugs.com/item147.htm Per day my son gets 8 capsules. On the actual bottle it will say to give 2 softgels twice per day. I give double this. This product was developed by Dr. Micheal Lyon, MD and he has several books but one to start with is "Is Your Child's Brain Starving"...he became involved in nutrition and alternative therapies when his own son had ADHD. In his book he suggests a starting dose of 8 capsules for the first 3 months. My son has shown alot of improvement academically with the increase in efa's. Therefore in a day he gets... Cis-Linoleic Acid 960 mg Gamma Linolenic Acid (GLA) 120 mg (from 1200 mg evening primrose oil) vitamin E 120 mg tuna oil: 2080 mg (providing: Docosahexaeoinc acid (DHA) 520 mg and Arachidonic Acid (AA) 41 mg Thyme oil 8 mg More info on Dr. Lyon...(he's Canadian also) http://www.naturalmed.faqs.com/foodnotdrugs.htm As far as food sensitivities go...my son was tested as a toddler for many things as he had asthma...nothing positive. Reading the book..."Is this your child" by Dr. Doris Rapp but me on the food path. Eliminating milk has been especially important for my son. http://www.drrapp.com/ We did not use an LCD screen. Over time as we dealt with yeast issues and diet my son could tolerate TV again. Keep in mind that if my son has any milk he will tic while watching TV (although it is so minor only I would notice). If we avoid the offending foods he will not tic while watching TV. Ordering all of the back issues of Lattitudes also gave me tons of information to work from. Ronna

Allison, My son does take Bonnie's vitamins. He is 8 years old and is about 60-65 lbs. He has been on up to 15/day but at this point I give him 4 in the morning and 4 in the evening. He has no problem with this as he has always been able to swallow pills. He swallows 2-3 at a time. I also give him the efa's at the same time (4 in the morning and 4 in the evening right now). We use natural factors...learning factors/school aid which is a combination of tuna oil, evening primrose oil, vit E and thyme oil. My son does well with this combo but each child is different. My son had a bit of a cold over Xmas and had very few tics. It is the best he has ever done with an illness. A year ago I discovered he had several food sensitivities and eliminating these foods has made a HUGE difference for my son. I recently saw an LCD screen at the Future Shop which was cheaper than costco. I order bonnie's vitamins and it has never been a problem to get across the border. As well I get anything else I use from Sangster's. I hope you continue to see improvement. Ronna

Alison, I am not sure which homeopathic treatment you are using. I have never posted much about our experience with homeopathy. It is hard to think of the exact thing we used now but I think it was streptozyme drops. We used them for 2 days and Kurt had a horrible setback with them...it took about a month to get over it. I understand completely wanting to do a bunch of stuff at once. I have been there and at one point went bonkers doing everything. In the end we had to start over so we could figure out what was helping and what wasn't. Kurt did react to fish oil with increased hyperactivity and a few tics. Having been there my best advice is that the "turtle" wins the race. Take time to do things one at a time...it will be worth it in the long run. Ronna

Hi Alison, As I said on braintalk I don't know anymore what exactly has made the biggest difference for my son. We have done so much at this point. In hindsight I can see that his food sensitivities/leaky gut may have always been a problem and was made worse by the antibiotics he was on. As a toddler my son had delayed speech. At about age 4 (maybe a bit earlier) my son was a HUGE milk drinker. He was ill one night and threw up a bunch of milk and after that night would not drink milk again. He has never been one to eat cheese etc. Well, it was shortly after discontinuing milk that he began to make real progress with his speech. There is alot to be learned from reading about autism and I have read that many parents report improved speech in their autistic childen with the removal of casein (milk). My son NEVER ever responded to penicillin. He was started on Keflex for a post op infection and then we saw a dramatic improvement. We did try switching him to penicillin several times and he always immediately got worse. I think a turning point for us was actually doing a course of clindamycin...this is a more intense antibiotic and is used to erradicate strep in carriers. At this point we only use antibiotics if needed at any sign of increased tics, definite exposure. My son has a dx of rheumatic fever due to a mitral valve regurgitation. We recently saw our cardiologist and he said that the normal recommendation is prophylactic antibiotics but our cardiologist and infectious diseases doctors agree with me that there is no studies that support the use of prophylactic antibiotics in the prevention of strep. There was one study done in the 60's that did show prophylactic antibiotics are effective but I think the majority of doctors agree that the study is outdated and was very poorly designed. As well my sense from the information coming out of the NIMH is that pen Vk is not effective in preventing PANDAS out breaks. In terms of my son I do think that the clindamycin may have really helped erradicate all of my son's strep. We are also from Canada. It is difficult to get many of the docs really on board with PANDAS. We have settled in nicely now with our docs but this took a huge amount of effort to find a team that we worked well with. The majority just did not want to believe the improvement we saw with the antibiotics. We went through a whole year of my son't symptoms returning with the discontinuation of the antibiotics. I think giving my son suppplements has been really beneficial for him, especially the essential fatty acids. It took a LONG time for me to get to a place where I understood what I needed to do in terms of supplements. With the improvement on antibiotics the urgency to find a solution was not as necessary to me for a long time. Over time though I realized we needed to really look at "why" my son was vulnerable to strep and try and encourage his body to be as healthy as possible. Keep in mind though that my on was on much harsher antibiotics and that if penicillin is working for you...I think it is more tolerable prophylactically. Prior to working on healing my son, changing his diet and adding supplements, TV was a trigger for him but over time this is no longer a problem. I wish I had more answers for you. We were in your exact postition 2 years ago and with time my son has healed and is doing very well. This fall he had one sudden onset of tics but the decreased after another round of clindamycin. Currently he is tic free and his behavior is stable. Let me know if there is anything I can do to help. We live in Sk. Ronna

My 8 year old son uses Bonnie's vitamins and I think they help alot. I certainly can notice if he does not get them especially if we miss for a few days. My son initially got worse on them and then improved. My son does not do well with fish oil so I give him another blend of essential fatty acids which also seems to help lots. Ronna

My son also does better with a combination essential fatty acid supplement. This is the one we use. http://www.naturesnutrition.com/SKU/32371.htm Ronna

We sure do miss pizza! My son is sensitive to diary so we avoid pizza. My son reacts to corn syrup.

Hi Dara, I don't know if I have any advice but just wanted to let you know that I hope you see some results from everything you are doing. I do know and remember well how overwhelming all of this is. Did the doctor really mean...no sugar at all. Maybe he meant no sugar as in all artificial junk etc. Overall it may not be realistic to expect total elimination of all sugar. My son responds really well to the elimination of milk, corn, eggs and chocolate but there are times that he gets some of these. Over the long term the diet is more manageable if I am not strict ALL of the time. For example, I am pretty strict at home but when we are at my in-laws I let him have what he wants (within reason). Eliminating milk has been the number one important thing for my son. I have said this in the past and it is just my own personal opinion that changes in diet, adding supplements etc should be done one at a time. It may take longer this way but in the end you will know what is helping, what is not, and what is making things worse. As well I think it is just too overwhelming for a 4 year old to do it all at once. At one time I went nuts trying everything and in the end had to back up and start over slowly. My son could swallow pills at 4 years old...it takes some practice...I know you are not suppose to have any sugar but I taught my kids how to swallow pills with M&M's. I know this seems overwhelming but you are on the right track. I did the no TV cold turkey but everyone is different...go with what you think...maybe ease up on it this week...ie. no TV in the morning. We did have very good results from eliminating screens! TAke Care, Ronna

The only time we see rage/anger with my son is when he has had milk. Eliminating all dairy has made a big difference for him. His vocal tics also disappeared with the elimination of milk.

Thanks! Kurt has had a GREAT weekend. Seriously I can't remember the last time his younger siblings were in more trouble than him over a weekend! Last week I also doubled his essential fatty acids so maybe this is also helping. I am so glad I decided to go further with the reflexology etc. He still has some tics but I could care a less about them...I am just so glad to see Kurt have some stabil-ity with his mood! Ronna