Our recent dr. vist

[Cj60]

Hello everyone,

 

I'm posting to share the direction our dr. has taken with our son.

 

Our first visit was around 7 weeks ago. It was just a get to know you kind of visit, but resulted in our dr. recommending two supplements in addition to what we were already using, all of which he approved of (the basics: kids calm, flaxseed oil, a clean multivitamin). I subsequently started supplementing a B6 vitamin, inositol for some minor ocd issues (I've been impressed with its effects even at low dosages), and almost nightly espom salt baths.

 

His recommendations back then were a probiotic which I started then stopped, fearing, as a newbie, adverse effects which may have been imagined, or not. I think I'll try starting it up again...

 

He also recommended, without a thorough explanation (time was growing short and I didn't really know what to ask) dimethylglicine (dmg). I started this only a week or so ago, having finally learned enough about what it does and how it was appropriate for our son.

 

He also requested a urine analysis to measure neurotransmitters.

 

At this week's visit, we discussed the results of the analysis, done through Neuroscience. In essence, our son's exitatory neurotransmitters (nt's) are elevated. And a couple of his inhibitory nt's were through the roof elevated. The explanation was that the body has raised the inhibitory nt's in an effort to counter the elevated exitatory nt's. A new supplement was recommended: Kavinace, from neuroscience. It's supposed to boost the inhibitory nt's.

(fyi, https://www.neurorelief.com/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=121&Itemid=47)

 

I also asked about how to know if there were a methylation problem, so the dr. ordered a second urine analysis to gauge the methylation pathway. When I read the instructions, I saw that it wants all supps, including vitamins, eliminated for 4 days prior to the collection day. The dr. says we can keep up the magnesium, since it doesn't interfere with the methylation pathway. We can't start the Kavinace until after the collection.

 

Q: So, is anything working for us?

 

A1: The dietary changes, including having eliminated certain foods and rotated many others, have definitely helped keep tics to a baseline level. Before these changes, we had noticed an appearance of a number of tics and no rime or reason to them. These changes have also helped us when we observe increases in tics, as we can try to identify suspected foods more easily.

 

A2: Supplements seem to compliment the dietary changes. Most noteably the Mg and the flaxseed oil. Inositol definitely helps the minor ocd events we've noticed. Not sure about the dmg yet; we're only a week into using it.

 

A3: Espom salt baths definitely help. If we go two days or more without them, a gauranteed rise in tics occurs. Which is what has led me to look at the possible deficiency in sulfates and the methylation process.

 

So, that's it from here! I'll be sure to follow up.

 

Chris

[mommyfor4]

Hi Chris. Glad to hear you feel like you are on the right track and that things seem to be working- at least to bring your ds to baseline. We have noticed the same results with diet, supps., especially mag and omega'a and epsom salt baths as well. We have the odd waxing but it seems to last for a shorter duration and as you said, we can usually find a possible culprit. Thanks for your update...may I ask what you learned about dmg? Hope things continue to move forward for your son. Best wishes. Megan

[Cj60]

Hi Megan!

 

I read about dmg on a number of websites. It is mostly associated with autism. I've tried it mostly because it is natural and purportedly harmless, and because I saw it as a way to assist the methylation pathway, which may or may not be working properly with my son. Our dr. recommended it, if I understand correctly (I'm not always sure I'm getting everything perfectly clearly) because he saw it as adding glycine, an inhibiting neurotransmitter. So I figured two positives (+ methyl group, + glycine), give it a try. So far, nothing definite on helping or harming. I've noticed a slight rise in tics the past couple of days after several noteably quiet days. But he's back to school today after a week off ("fair week," as it's lovingly referred to around here), so there may have been some underlying stress he was dealing with. I'm stopping with his supps for four days now in order to get an accurate urine test taken, so I didn't give it to him today, and may decide not to start it up again given that I'll be trying the new supp recommended by our dr.

 

Well, that's about that. I hope things continue to be well with you and yours, too!

Chris

[cory2605]

Chris,

 

My 8 y.o. son has tics and a little OCD as well. We are at the point where we notice additional tics or increase/decrease without rhyme or reason as well. We have elimintated Dairy and Soy and up until a week ago had eliminated Gluten. My husband felt we should try adding some natural gluten (from bread) back in as it was such as strict diet. We have added certain breads back in (I almost immediately noticed the spaciness and ocassional restlessness return. I was curious what your childs diet consisted of since it notice it keep the tics to a minimum.

 

Sincerely,

 

Trish

 

Hello everyone,

 

I'm posting to share the direction our dr. has taken with our son.

 

Our first visit was around 7 weeks ago. It was just a get to know you kind of visit, but resulted in our dr. recommending two supplements in addition to what we were already using, all of which he approved of (the basics: kids calm, flaxseed oil, a clean multivitamin). I subsequently started supplementing a B6 vitamin, inositol for some minor ocd issues (I've been impressed with its effects even at low dosages), and almost nightly espom salt baths.

 

His recommendations back then were a probiotic which I started then stopped, fearing, as a newbie, adverse effects which may have been imagined, or not. I think I'll try starting it up again...

 

He also recommended, without a thorough explanation (time was growing short and I didn't really know what to ask) dimethylglicine (dmg). I started this only a week or so ago, having finally learned enough about what it does and how it was appropriate for our son.

 

He also requested a urine analysis to measure neurotransmitters.

 

At this week's visit, we discussed the results of the analysis, done through Neuroscience. In essence, our son's exitatory neurotransmitters (nt's) are elevated. And a couple of his inhibitory nt's were through the roof elevated. The explanation was that the body has raised the inhibitory nt's in an effort to counter the elevated exitatory nt's. A new supplement was recommended: Kavinace, from neuroscience. It's supposed to boost the inhibitory nt's.

(fyi, https://www.neurorelief.com/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=121&Itemid=47)

 

I also asked about how to know if there were a methylation problem, so the dr. ordered a second urine analysis to gauge the methylation pathway. When I read the instructions, I saw that it wants all supps, including vitamins, eliminated for 4 days prior to the collection day. The dr. says we can keep up the magnesium, since it doesn't interfere with the methylation pathway. We can't start the Kavinace until after the collection.

 

Q: So, is anything working for us?

 

A1: The dietary changes, including having eliminated certain foods and rotated many others, have definitely helped keep tics to a baseline level. Before these changes, we had noticed an appearance of a number of tics and no rime or reason to them. These changes have also helped us when we observe increases in tics, as we can try to identify suspected foods more easily.

 

A2: Supplements seem to compliment the dietary changes. Most noteably the Mg and the flaxseed oil. Inositol definitely helps the minor ocd events we've noticed. Not sure about the dmg yet; we're only a week into using it.

 

A3: Espom salt baths definitely help. If we go two days or more without them, a gauranteed rise in tics occurs. Which is what has led me to look at the possible deficiency in sulfates and the methylation process.

 

So, that's it from here! I'll be sure to follow up.

 

Chris

[Cj60]

Hi Trish,

I didn't mention diet specifics in the previous post because so far, we have not done as much as many other forum members have done, including you from what I can tell. This is mainly because we were overwhelmed at first with all the life adjustments we were going through, and could only handle so much. But also because the process of testing for foods and getting feedback from the practice we've been seeing has been a less than speedy process. It took our son's arms a while to recover between tests, and dr. appointments are like two months apart, which is of course understandable.

 

Anyway, since a little before joining this forum just over two months ago, we have done the following:

 

- eliminated all dairy

 

- eliminated all artificials and perservatives and any other suspicious ingredients from our son's diet (and ours too, for the most part). This was hard for everyone, especially my wife who does the shopping and had to spend so much more time scouring ingredients on everything we bought, not to mention preparing all the acceptable subsitutes for the things we were eliminating. In essence, if the list is more than several ingredients and we're not sure about one of them, we don't use it. No artificial sweetners like hfcs. We do still allow natural unrefined sugars, raw honey, pure syrups.

 

Following the allergy tests (skin, not blood), we were told to eliminate chocolate and rotate (on a four day schedule) around ten of his commonly consumed foods (chicken, corn, garlic, broccoli, grapes...). The up side of the four day rotation is that we can keep a closer eye on the rotated foods. For example, since we've started the rotation, we've nixed corn altogether, and tomatoes and watermelon as much as we can (I know, sounds like a salicylate issue, no?). Once we give these things a good time out of the diet, we may re-introduce them to see if they are triggers or not.

 

The potential down side of the rotation diet is that there are many foods, including some of the main culprits for many others, like wheat and gluten, that we have not tried eliminating. But we're at a place with the diet now that I can foresee in the not too distant future (maybe over the winter holiday) our being ready to take the next step and eliminate some of those things to see what happens.

 

I should probably avoid using words like "baseline," since I'm not really sure what it means. But this is what I meant to say. Before we attempted any changes in diet or supplements, our son had a couple of tics that were not resolving. Our "baseline" was a regular manifestation of these two main tics (an arm stretch, and a neck stretch). When I started noticing the emergence of more than a couple of less prominent tics, I began to feel the need to do something.

 

Two months or so later, I can say that all tics, the prominent ones and the less prominent ones, while by all appearances on the increase before we started our changes, are more controlled now than they were before we started. They have not yet interfered with school or activities, which is what we were fearing before. The arm stretch would not be noticed by someone who wasn't aware of its history, and the neck stretch manifests mainly during forced quiet times, like reading time at school, but also is more noticeable when he is tired/bored.

 

So we're keeping up with the supplements, keeping a careful eye on diet, considering being more agressive with it if we feel we need to. We're going to try the new supplement recommended by our dr. and see him again in a couple of months. And I guess just keep at it.

 

And I can't say enough about our son, who has taken all these changes in stride, and is at times more aware of his diet and his supplements than I am.

 

Man, I write long long answers, don't I? I'll work on that, too...

 

Cheers

Chris

[cory2605]

Chris, believe me when I tell you at this point 'long answers' are welcome!!!!! The more I read, I'm not sure wheat or gluten is the main culprit but possibly the additives or preservatives in the items. I do know for certain, however, that Dairy and (and I think Soy) make the tics and fears worse. I will say that in the last week since we've allowed gluten, the tics have been a bit worse but more noticably his fears. But we complicated matters more by letting him have pizza when he had a sleep over which was dairy, gluten, and tons of other stuff and then he had a chocolate cupcake at school today for someone's birthday. Coincidentally, on both of these nights his bedtime fears have been the worst. What I would love to do is get a food allergy test done as well and start from scratch. But bless his heart, he has been such a trooper through all of this as well as his sister. Neither have really complained at the odd recipes I have come up with or the 'weird' sandwiches I send to school. What type of Dr. did the skin test for you? I think taking it slowly as you guys have is much more realistic as my husband and I (mostly me) have become so obsessed with finding the cause for all this that I might be adding to the problem. You mentioned salicitates or something like that. I'm going to have to look in to that as I've noticed tomatoes might make his tics worse as well (there I go, adding to my list of 'can't haves'. Tell your wife that Walgreens, if you have them where you live, has a wide variety of dried fruits ('Deerfield' brand) that most have no preservatives....but definitely read each box as a couple of them do like the pineapples. I use these in a trail mix I make with nuts, chex cereal, etc. Oh well, my heads spinning.....time for bed. Thank you for your time in answering my question and God Bless your family. All of our children are most definately going to end up exceptionally brave and strong! Trish

[Cj60]

It's hard not to obsess about all this new stuff, isn't it? My sleeping patterns have been really effected.

 

I think you're right in saying that our kids' unexpected new paths will end up making them stronger in unexpected ways! And us too!!

 

We have been going to a practice that involves environmental drs. and an allergist. It seems they work in tandem. When I had the wherewithall to ask the allergist what kind of allergist he was, I'm not sure I came away with a clear picture. But I believe he's a straight forward immunologist. That is, he gives skin tests for all different kinds of allergens, both food and environmental (we haven't gone through the environmental ones yet). For some of the environmental allergies I think he's able to give shots. While we were there for the testing, lots of people came and went, getting their regularly scheduled allergy shots from him. With the food allergy tests, he detected foods that were causing moderate allergic ractions with our son, none was an over the top, life threatening allergy. He found two 3s (on a scale to 5) and a number of other elevated foods. The 3s were eliminated (for 6 months, then reintroduce and see what happens) and the others were put on a rotation. The phrase the allergist liked to use regarding the food allergies was "there is no pill; the diet is the pill."

 

Thanks for your well wishes; we wish you the best, too.

Chris

[trggirl]

Hi Chris, thank you for your post. We just had the neurotransmittor and allergy testing done on our daughter too. We don't have results yet. This is actually the second time we've done the neurotransmittor test so I am curious as to what comes back. I'm not sure if I will use their products or not, but I do think it is valuable information to have. I am very interested in how the DMG works out and also Kavinace if you decide to give it a try. Again, thanks for sharing.