Jump to content
ACN Latitudes Forums

Potassium Bicarbonate helping son's tics stay controlled


Recommended Posts

Hello Everyone,

 

I wanted to update you with some information that I have found very interesting. I had posted not too long ago, here is the original post http://www.latitudes.org/forums/index.php?...Carolyn+N\. , how N-Acetyl Cysteine (NAC) has been very effective for controlling my son's tics. Well I ran out of the original batch of NAC that the doctor gave me. I bought some from the Vitamin Shoppe, their brand, and was giving him 1200 mg a day (I always break his vitamins up by morning and night to keep it in his system the longest). Well I noticed that the Vitamin Shoppe brand was not controlling his tics the same as what I had been using from the doctor's office. I was confused because I was told by the doctor's office that typically their in not a difference in "grade" of NAC so the source should not have been too big of a deal.

 

Well the mystery was solved for me about two weeks ago. I completely forgot that when the doctor gave me the NAC he also had mixed into it Potassium Bicarbonate. Potassium Bicarbonate helps to keep your PH balance regulated. Since I have been giving him the combination again, I have yet to see one tic from him. For him, not compared to the average American diet, he has had quite a bit of artificial foods the last two weeks. The end of school party type of things, going to Birthday parties, having people come over with treats that I have not made, going to restaurants and drinking Sprite with high fructose corn syrup. The long and short of it again....no tics. There is no doubt with all he has had he would have been having some tics by now. Even with all the other supplements he is taking.

 

Why is this working for him? This is from my understanding, and again I may be completely off base, but this is what I can gather. If you read my original post above I explain that when your PH balance is high you are "high histamine". This means you have more histamine running through your body. More histamine means your sulfation system gets backed up in processing out neurotransmitters including dopamine. Dopamine is the neurotransmitter that ultimately is responsible for the tics. So by taking the Potassium Bicarbonate it is taking the burden off of the sulfation system in regard to the histamine load and allowing the neurotransmitters to be processed correctly out of his body.

 

So what seems to be effective is having the NAC along with the Potassium Bicarbonate. The NAC is providing the extra boast to help the sulfation process and again the potassium bicarbonate is lowering the PH. Again it is hard for me to pinpoint exactly what percent these two products alone are helping Daniel because he is on a lot of other supplements. For example, I believe Magnesium Taurate and B vitamins have been very important for him too. He has been taking these for well over 1 1/2 years now so it is difficult to measure where he would be otherwise.

 

I should also mention that about 3 weeks ago Daniel had a "tune-up" with the system similar to NAET called NEAT. He tested again positive to sensitivity to the artificial colors. So she "desensitized" him so this certainly could have helped him too. But I truly do believe the supplements are certainly working for him.

 

The other thing I have found interesting is since he has been on the NAC I have not had to give him as much GABA for anxiety. It seems to be really helping with this end. Daniel was definitely starting to have very obsessive thoughts prior to the GABA and, if I remember correctly, I had been giving him 1200 mg a day. Now I am giving him half that amount and he is doing fine with his anxieties. I had read some there is some research being done on the role of NAC in helping with OCD.

 

There is one part of the puzzle I have yet to figure out. I do not know how many mg's of Potassium Bicarbonate I am giving Daniel. I have a phone call into the office to find out but the doctor is out until Wednesday. His instructions were to take 1/4 teaspoon a day. When I find out I will post this information.

 

Has anyone else every used or heard of potassium bicarbonate?

 

God Bless,

 

Carolyn

Link to comment
Share on other sites

  • Replies 58
  • Created
  • Last Reply

Top Posters In This Topic

yes, me. .... but I wish I could say the same as you, that it helps in keeping the tics down.

 

Don't ask me why, but I keep a box of Alka seltzer gold (that is bicarbonate of soda and potassium bicarbonate, I believe, don't have any right now, so can't look it up, but pretty sure it has pottasium bicarbonate). I have used it spradically, sometimes almost everyday, and my reasoning was pretty much along the lines of what you are describing. I figured that it might counteract the effects of allergic sensitivities to foods, and the only reason this came to mind was that I read that in Doris Rapp's book that if a child is having an episode, to try giving bicarbonate of soda or the alka gold and see if it helps, if it does than it is possible it was an allergic reaction of the behavioral type.

 

Does this help? Again, I sure wish I could say a resounding "yes", but my son still has tics, and the big old head jerk at that. And just to add insult to injury, I have bitten the bullet and am giving him NAC, started wtih one capsule (600 mg) and now upped it to two. Its been almost three weeks, not seeing any miracles. But I am keeping on, because I don't want to give up too soon. Carolyn, I do believe there is some merrit to what you are saying, you are definitely on the right track. I have been looking at the salicylate angle for my son a little harder too and have cut the things I know of that are high in sals, so that's another reason I was looking at the bicarbonate. Don't know why, but one day I just started searching and did find that the bicarbonate seems to be used as sort of an "antidote" to salicylate poisoning, which would be the acetomenephon? or aspiron? forget which., but something like that. so that's where I was going with it. But again, my son is still ticcing (and his other issues of the ts syndrome ocd/add are starting to show more in the way of holding him back from completing things timely), and so I can't attest to any of this just yet.

 

Anything you could give that might help me fine tune this would be appreciated, maybe I'm missing something here too. I also give magnesium, probiotic and have also added a 100 mg. of B1 (thought it help with eye tics, but just anecdotal).

 

Also, you are giving these (NAC and bicarbonate) while his tics were already under some control, correct? Its harder for me to tell, because I don't see as much of a direct correlation to foods as you do. I mean, my guy is ticcing anyway, and I am still practicing good dietary (as much as I can, anyway, its not like I'm off the wagon, but I am always trying).

 

 

What say you?

 

Faith

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Carolyn,

The environmental dr. we first saw last Sept. gave me sodium potassium bicarbonate. He was suggesting it for any accidental food ingestions. I don't think for everyday use, but you may be onto something here.

 

This is what was written in my plan from the dr:

 

 

Clearing symptoms with sodium potassium bicarbonate:

Used to help alleviate the symptoms of any kind of hypersensitivity reaction from foods, beverages, inhalants, pollens, or even chemicals. Take 1/4 t. of bicarb in at least 6 oz. of water. This should help alleviate the symptoms of an acute reaction within 10 minutes. If the symptoms persist, repeat the dose up to 3 more times in 30 minutes. Some patients find they experience greater relief by using more than the 1/4 t. of bicarb. Experiment with 1/2 to 1 t. in 16 oz of water. However, take the smallest amount needed to clear your symptoms. We recommend no more than 8 doses per day.

 

How often do you give this Carolyn and when?

 

Mary

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Faith,

I have taken out wheat/gluten for the past week and the eye tics have gone way down. Before, he was blinking like every second or 2 and nose scrunching and winking. He is still head nodding occasionally- don't know why this hasn't really improved. And yesterday it sort of hit me that he has been calmer the past couple of days. He doesn't have ADD but can be rather hyper/restless at times and very aggravating to his sisters! I wasn't looking for a behavior change, but couldn't help but notice that he seemed easier going. I'm not sure if this is the wheat elimination or not, but just wondering right now. I know from past experience how hard it is to eliminate wheat, we'll probably keep at it a few more days and see how it goes. Just thought I'd pass this along.

 

Mary

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Mary,

Did you just do the gluten/wheat and not worry too much about the other stuff, or are you eliminating other categories at the same time? I mean really I don't give too much bread or grains anyway, we go long times without any actual bread or wheat cereal, so the drastic reduction is there, but not 100%. If I see any improvement with something, then I of course would go further, but this one is hard longterm.

 

I am really batting a thousand here, "nothing" that seems to help others works in my house. :(

 

edit: just to make sure above is not misunderstood, I meant we have drastically reduced "gluten" not that there was a reduction in tics.

 

Faith

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Faith,

Believe me, I feel like you and I are in the same boat. I am getting so tired of not seeing some sort of pattern here. Anyway, you say you do see a drastic reduction with the wheat limitation? Is that gluten reduction or just wheat? Have you done the IGG? That is my next step, and I am wondering if actually going gluten free maybe an even more reduction? I know it sounds hard. (It actually sounds easier than what we are doing now) no tv, videos, or anything for months and still tic, tic, tic! I went online and there are actually quite a few snacks and things gluten free. I could think of a menu in my head that seemed to work ok. With summer here almost, maybe diet changes would be a good time now. At least that is my thought. Has your son always had a worst time in the spring? I read that pollen and wheat ingestion could be connected. Anyway, this is a case of the blind leading the blind. I am tired of fumbling around and hoping a good DAN or environmental doc can be of some help. I just feel like I cant let it go. How do people accept that it is what it is? I feel like there has to be something someone can do!

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Faith,

 

I only have a quick minute and I will respond more later. But what I have to wonder is do you think it could be more environmental allergies you might be dealing with rather then foods. Perhaps could it be something like dust mites allergy or perhaps things like the chemicals you are using to clean laundry/the house etc.

 

What do you think?

 

Carolyn

Link to comment
Share on other sites

bmom,

 

NO, you got that wrong, sorry. I mean I felt I "reduced the gluten drastically" in that he hardly gets bread or cereals and only eats potato chips or gluten/wheat free cookies, just havn't gone totally gluten free with other products. But NO, there is not a reduction in ticcing, that is still there.

 

Yes, like you I do all thos "small changes", but why oh why is he not at a milder state, I say! :( Dont ge me wrong, he's not severe, but he's got a few tics at a time and I feel for his age, they are just under moderate.

 

 

Faith

Link to comment
Share on other sites

my grandmother always insisted that a teaspoon of bicarb a day was "good for the gut and the brain" :(

(she drank a shot glass of cider vinegar each day as well)

 

amazing how so much of the "common sense health" I grew up with (I am 55yo) makes even more sense now that I get to understand more about how fine tuned the GIT is to the neuro system too

 

interesting info ....thanks Carolyn :)

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Faith,

 

I wanted to respond to you in a little more depth then before. You are correct Daniel's tics have been "under control" I would say since late February. Prior to that he was experiencing tics from all the junk at Christmas time and it just took a while to get out of his system. But it was during this time after Christmas I started realizing the sulfation correlation for him and he had started NAC and Potassium Bicarbonate back at the end of February/beginning of March. We then ran out of the NAC/potassium bicarbonate about mid April I would say. This is when I noticed just using the straight NAC his tics picked back up.

 

One thing I wanted to mention to you is my doctor had told me when Daniel has an MSG overdose or high tics for some reason to give him a TOTAL of 100 mg of B6. He said this is what he does for people when they come in with MSG migraines and he said it usually will help get rid of the migraine. So during the time when I did not know he was not getting the potassium bicarbonate and the tics started again I tried doing the 100 mg total of B6. As a quick side note, you need to check what other vitamins you are giving and how much B6 is already in them. For example Daniel was already getting about 30 mgs of B6 in Bonnie's vitamins so I would open the B6 capsule up and take some out to equal what I thought would be about 70 mgs. The B6 I bought are 100 mg's. This way he was getting again a total of 100 mg's and not over that amount (Daniel is 7 years old and about 52 pounds). Anyhow the increased B6 also helped to decrease the tics. Now the thing is I don't know that you would want to do this everyday but more as an add needed basis. I don't know at what point you could be over doing B6. But I would say I was doing it at least once a week.

 

The other thing I am wondering is what form of magnesium are you giving your son and how much of it? I found for Daniel Magnesium Taurate helped him more then Magnesium Citrate. I tried switching him last summer from Bonnie's vitamins, which have the Magensium Taurate, to Magnesium Citrate and found his tics greatly increased so I quickly had to switch him back to the Taurate. It makes sense, for Daniel, that the Taurate would be more effective from the understanding now in how it helps support the sulfation system.

 

Have you considered doing Bonnie's vitamins?

 

Also Faith do you remember how those Barbara Crackers (is that the name of them) increased his tics on two seperate occasions when he ate them. I thought about this after I posted to you my question regarding the environmental allergies. There has to be some correlation as to something in that product that bothers his system.

 

Was it you that told me when you went to the Bahamas, or somewhere like that, his tics decreased. If it is you that told me this, then I would have to think environmental allergies have to be some part of the picture.

 

 

Carolyn

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Hi Mary,

 

Thanks for the great information. I love hearing when other doctor's come to the same understanding!

 

Right now I am giving him the NAC twice a day and potassium bicarbonate just once a day in the evenings. I could easily break it up morning and night too but we have to package it in little capsule for him, because what we have is just the powder. For some reason I have just gotten lazy in not wanting to "package it up" twice a day in the capsules. But my guess is it would be more effective to break the dose in half and give morning and night.

 

Carolyn

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Faith,

I did not cut out any other foods - just wheat/gluten. I remembered reading somewhere like bmom that during pollen season there may be an increased sensitivity to wheat. There may have been other foods too- don't know offhand. I really have no idea what else he may be reacting to right now-feel like we should do another IgG- who knows -this can be so frustrating. I was wondering when you did your last IgG did you try eliminating EVERYTHING he was reactive to for a like a week or so? When we did our first IgG after eliminating everything on the list he had zero tics. I know it is extremely difficult, don't if its worth it, but that was what made me believe my sons issues are mainly food allergies and I suppose leaky gut or malabsorption or who knows what - but I'm hoping our OAT test results will point us in the right direction.

 

Mary

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Carolyn,

thanks for your ideas.

as far as environmental, :) I hope not, because my first suspicion would be our cat, however we did do environ. allergy testing with the DAN at the start and gave us a neutralization nasal spray to help desensitize, and at the time we used it for several months, but eventually I didn't feel it has much of an effect as far as tics go. Also, he was at times mild and doing well at times when we were "not" using the allergy spray, so ??? But, since I am a trouper, and will try anything "twice", I may get the allergy spray renewed and see what happens now. As far as anything else, chems, dustmites, .. who knows, but I do use all the tricks of the trade concering most of this stuff, don't think I can do anymore unless I knew specifically.

 

Carolyn, what do you mean by potassium bicarbonate "mixed in with the NAC"? Is the supp the doc gave you already have that as an ingredient or did he concoct this mixture himself? or are you just supposed to give it together (both at same time)? And why do you have to put it in capsules, can't you just mix the powder in something on a spoon?

 

re mag taurate - I personally have not felt any benefits from the Natural Calm at all. the times I have used thaqt or kids calm, I use it and use it, and never felt the benefits others here have relayed. So if you say you have tended toward that with your son, perhaps I'm not unique, however, once again, I also have tried the mag taurate a little while back, and then just regulare Taurine and didn't feel the love there either! But I do have some capsules left, and so I'm gonna try switching again.

 

re the B6 - is this supposed to be a rather quick benefit, if any? Okay, I'll bite, just happen to have some nice B6 tablets in the cupboard (carlson brand) and gave 100 mg. this evening Do you have to give that everyday? He is still eye twtiching as of tonite. (I'll give another tomorrow and for next few days) I have always been leary about B vits for my son, thought I felt he did better on low or no B's some time back, so that is why I haven't wanted to try the Bontech, that, and my son won't swallow pills, so afraid opening them will be nasty as some have attested too, and then he won't take it. And then there's the fear of increase that some seem to experience too. But it may be my last ditch effort.

 

re the Barbaras crackers, yes, remember that? well the only thing i can come up with there is the soy lecithin? If that is of soybean, maybe that was it, as this came up on his recent Igg. If it is, then perhaps giving the crackers (5 or 6) for quite a few days in a row had some affect? There is also honey listed as an ingredient (salicylate?) but I'd doubt if that little bit would be problematic, but its anyone's guess.

 

As far as what I observed on our Carribbean vacation, I don't think I feel that he only did well while we were away, he was pretty well for a couple months before then, and I've looked at my notes from back than, and I see that I wrote he was doing well (never perfect, but mild with mostly vocal as the main tic) prior to the trip. He does seem to be milder in the early summer. I think what I observed was that he was not making too much vocals, just some at night before bed. (p.s. I feel his vocal is 95% quiet right now, but we have the head/eye, so its opposite of this time last year).

 

Edit *** I was also pointing out the observation that being in swimming pools everyday on vacation did not seem to affect him adversely.

 

But, its certainly possible that I am just not seeing the environmental connection cleary enough, I mean how do you figure out what it could be, and how do you remedy it, for pollen and dustmites are pretty much a fact of life. Any suggestions? And my cat-- I do what I can (vaccuum almost everyday with a hepa vaccuum, keep her out of his room, and I do have a product called Allerpet that your supposed to wipe them down with to keep the dander down, but I only have done this a few times, however there is room for improvement in this area). I did research a little about thier shedding times, but even if, I see in my calendar that last year at this time, I was noting "doing well" for him, so again ???. I mean, I love her, I can't get rid of her if I just don't know for sure if she is a problem for my son, for if she was, wouldn't it be at a constant, she's been here since before he was born. Even if she were out of the house for several months, the dander is still around, that would take some time to really be gone. Maybe I should do a trial of keeping her confined to the spare bedroom for a week or so, she does shed alot of fur that I have to keep on top of, I keep a sheet on my couch cause she likes to lay there.

 

I'm going to keep looking, making a list and checking it twice..... I'll certainly light up the board if I reach any conclusions!

 

Faith

 

 

 

I

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Mary ,

We had a recent Igg test done in April. I have not totally eliminated all of them because he had like all the main groups, gluten/wheat, milk/casein, soybean, canola, beef, corn, egg,, I have done most of it, but I will be honest in that eliminating all that right now is just not realistic, I could never keep that up indefinitely. The lab said it ws okay to remove several items for the six weeks, and then observe, and then try the other items. I figure I'll do the best I can with most, but the gluten thing, I just don't know. And again, as I stated in my above post to Carolyn, there were times he was doing okay, like on our vacation and he did have some infractions there, and I did not see any detrimental effects happen right away.

 

Have you challenged the gluten yet? or do you still adhere to all the restrictions?

 

 

Faith

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Carolyn=

 

I don't know if your post was the one about apple cider vinegar and NAC a couple of months ago, but that was the one that led me to NAC. That night I purchased NAC and Aceytl - L carnitine and a couple of weeks later his tics were almost gone. They are almost non-existent since I have added these last two amino acids.

 

I give 250 of one and only 100 of the other...can't remember which is which...but it is working wonders!!!!!!! I have not tried the bicarbonate (?) but will keep it in mind!

 

I have been out of B vitamins for almost two weeks and have had a small nose wrinkling every once in a while this week.

Tracey

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Create an account or sign in to comment

You need to be a member in order to leave a comment

Create an account

Sign up for a new account in our community. It's easy!

Register a new account

Sign in

Already have an account? Sign in here.

Sign In Now

×
×
  • Create New...