Hi ladies. I would like to give you a little background info before I ask my question...I have an 11yr old (6th grd)child that has ADD. She has been on Meds for @1 1/2 yrs. Over the summer we asked the Doctor to decrease her dosage, because she wasn't in school and didn't need to focus as much and we wanted her to be able to gain a little weight back. One of the side effects is decreased appetite and therefore weight lose. We also decided to try to keep her on the lower dosage since school started. I've noticed though she hasn't been able to keep up with remembering to bring home some of her school assignments or study material for tests. She's having trouble concentrating on what she's told to do at home and I have to keep on her about things. I find this extremely frustrating. I also can't hold her hand all day at school to make sure she's bringing things home. I will write her reminder notes and tell her what seems like 50 times to remember something. She also gets very annoyed with me when I do tell her so many times. Ok so my question is, does anyone know of any kind of special diet I could use as an alternative to increasing her medication that will help her concentration. I don't want to take her off the meds completetly though. Like I said earlier, her meds cause decreased appetite and she has lost so much weight already. She's finally gained a few pounds back and I don't want her to lose it again. Is anyone in the same dilemma I'm in? Has anyone tried diet in addition to or in place of meds, and your child has had success with it? I would greatly appreciate any info or good websites that will help us. Thank you so much!
Thank you for all the wonderful and even some straight forward advice all you wonderful moms gave me. I know it's been awhile since I asked about this, but I wanted to wait and give this an honest hard try before I told everyone what happened. Well.... my husband & I talked things over and decided that we would change our diet, the family's diet. We cut out as much of the artifical colors and flavors in the foods we bought. We would and still do read the labels on food. Of course with all the Holidays, we couldn't cut out those special treats. We have tried to find vitamins that didn't have artificail colors in them, but couldn't find anything that my 11yr old could take that didn't have it. I had no luck with that at all. So with all this we have done, plus providing her with a notebook to write assignments in, we had really hope to see an improvement, but have not. We still have issues going on. We plan to talk to her doctor about our options and see what advice she can give us.
I would suggest this book - The Ultra Mind by Mark Hyman.
I think diet does play an important role, and one should avoid artificial colors, flavors and additives as much as possible.
All the best.
Feingold diet would be good. Just remember to keep the petroleum products out of the diet. No dyes either. But honestly a good diet of protein and veggies and keep the processed carbs out or at least low is what you need to do.
We have an ADHD 10yo. We don't give him meds at all. I used to give him herbs and it was wonderful! We did the Omega 3 oil as well as some drops specifically for attention and he also took 5HTP for helping with going to sleep. These are things that you can find at your local health food store (not GNCs).
Also, what we do is non-medicated therapy. This place is awesome!! People come from hours away (it's in Duluth, GA) to get tested and for therapy. They are like no other place around here, although you can still get the therapy you need from other places...this is a one stop 'shop'. Anyway, they do not promote meds because of long term effects on organs, etc. They do help wean kids off of them too. And they do prescribe them too, so if you wanted to stay on, you could, but you might want to try the therapy.
My son just got finished with neurofeedback therapy, which helps with focusing and attention. It teaches them to deal with it and get back to focusing when they drift off, etc. It's neat how they can hook them up and monitor them while they are playing games, or watching a movie...things like that and the computer or tv will shut down if they lose focus, which they will, and they have to use their brain to regain focus and then the game will resume playing or their character will start going in the right direction again or the tv will turn back on, etc. It teaches them how to do it. They did as much as they could with my son (who also has an auditory processing disorder) and now my son is doing Interactive Metronome therapy. These therapies are really awesome. Eventually, your daughter is going to have to deal with this as an adult, so she needs to know what she needs to eat...how it will affect her as well as how she needs to function and the way to do it. Following is the website of the place that I go to (Psychological Sciences Institute aka Mind and Motion).
http://www.psycscienceinst.com/
Mother of 4
I have an adhd daughter. Cutting out sugar and red dyes can help. Also I know this sounds weird but when my daughter forgets to take her meds we give her a Coke zero. ADD/ ADHD meds are a hypersimulate like a big dose of caffeine. We give her the Coke Zero because it has the stimulate in it without the sugar.
I can highly recommend a book titled "Natural Choices for Attention Deficit Disorder" by Jane Oelke. Hopefully you can find it on Amazon.com.
Try adding Pycnogenols. A trademark name for the powerful ingredients in pinebark and grape seed. Thee helped my ADD son incredibly. They bond with the pathogens in the brain that put things into overdrive. Diet wise, I would eliminate gluten. But that is not an easy task with a child who already is underweight. You can get the liquid pycnogenols (just google) if she has trouble taking pills. Good luck.
We Have a 17 year old daughter with ADHD, more ADD than ADHD. We have tried on the meds off the meds for the summers due to weight issues. I know where you are coming from... in April of her Jr year, now a Senior she decided she just didn't want to take the meds any longer... She was experiencing stomach issues and headaches, some due to the fact that the weekend routine was so different and laid back it just didn't work for her to take the meds 7 days a week. So she went off and hasn't been on the meds this year at all. The biggest thing we did was have her evaluated through the school system and now have an IEP? A plan where a special education advisor and her teachers, and I confer on a regular basis as to how she is doing and keep her on task. She gets extra time on test, and in smaller group setting when necessary. She also opted for a resource class where she has help to keep her on task and that teacher is a laison with her academic teachers to keep her on top of her work. She is very bright and is a State Officer for FCCLA and misses days of school attending the training and events. These teachers help her keep up with her work while she is away from her regular classes learning leadership skills which are very important life skills.
If you find a diet that helps I would be interested also. Since she quit the meds she has put on a lot of weight. Especially this early in your childs education.
We are looking at college in the very near future and I'm very nervous about her in this new world of education.
Thanks and good luck!
M. Berryman
This isn't related to a diet, but I identify a lot with your daughter, being diagnosed with ADD in 4th grade. The only thing that has really helped me remember things is writing them down. Whether it's a list of what I need to do for the day, or items I need to pack, having it written down to reference back to saves lots of frustration. However, I refused to write things down growing up so, if she's like me, you may have some resistance there.
Another thing that has helped me focus nowadays is setting a timer for 15 minutes and knowing that I only need to focus on the item at hand for that amount of time. Don't know why it helps, but it does.
I hope changing her diet helps - I know how frustrating school is for her and I'm sure it's frustrating for you too. You can PM me if you want to talk.
K.
Hi A.,
It will be more than a diet, but there is much you can do! Diet, supplements, and a real plan for recovery are what is going to make a difference for your daughter.
Are you serious about helping her recover or do you want to just attempt a few bandaids? I don't ask that to be rude, it is the most important question, because to get real recovery, you need to get educated on the immune system, brain function, and get iwth a great physician which will mean some financial investment, most of it out of pocket. It depends on if the goal is to stop the symptoms (which is a lifetime of living with it) or heal and recover from it.
Here are some ideas to get started:
1) The GFCF diet is fabulous for many children. Even more for children that have trouble with proper weight. Parents are scared to remove the milk and wheat because they want the bulk - but the bulk is what is causing the digestive to be impaired and thus hurting the real absorption (add the meds, and you get worse). This will not solve her problems, but it will help her overall body get started. It is step one. Take 1 full month staging in the changes to do this. Plan on 6-12 months on the diet while implementing other improvements for her.
2) Get her started on the following supplements (these should be high quality without colors, preservatives,etc - I recommend Willner Chemists): Multivitamin (Child Essence by Learners Edge is a good one), Vit D3 (1000 IU per day), Proibotics - 2 caps at night (high quality in refrig section), for brain function: Coq10 (1 per day), 5Htp (1 per day), and Gaba (1Xd), and Adrenal support (I like Adren-all by Ortho Molecular). There are reasons for all of these which you can learn about.
3) Read this book (even if you don't like the character stories because you don't think they apply, read for the protocol learning). Healing the Childhood Epidemics by Kenneth Bock.
4) I can recommend a fab physician if you are committed
5) www.crossroadsinstitute.org - read about repairing the brain using this treatment for ADD.
Good luck to you and your daughter, J.
Our son had ADHD and we had terrific sucess with the Feingold diet. It is difficult to get others on board but it really worked for him. No artifical colors, flavors etc can be in this diet. The big key was no salycitic acid in his diet as well. We noticed a marked difference in behavior with this diet believe me. Salycitic acid is found in most fruits so it does limit what you can give them. The safe fruits were, pineapple, any type of melon and pears. We also made rye bread which contained no preservatives as most breads from the stores do. You can also check with a bakery for the bread as that worked for us as well. What really helped us besides the diet was a very strict routine in his life. He had charts that had to be followed and checked off (i.e. brush your teeth, make your bed, toys picked up etc.) We also had the teachers on board with these charts to remind him to bring home his school work etc. We were able to limit the medication for him with the structured environment. We ate dinner at the same time (I know that is difficult for some), he had set times for homework, reading etc. We made the charts a reward system in that he would do/get something at the end of the week if he did not have to be reminded constantly to do these tasks and the tasks were complete. It is a lot of work but it may save you both a lot grief in the long run. If you would like to speak to me more feel free to e-mail me. Our son is now 30 and states that he still lives a structured life to help him get through the day!
Hi, A.! I am 35 and I have ADHD myself. I remember when I was 11 and had such a horrible time trying to focus on my homework. I would sit at my desk for hours and hours just trying to do one homework assignment. Somehow, I was able to cope without meds for most of my life because I was undiagnosed until adulthood, and my parents had no idea. Here's a list of some suggestions: (Good luck!)
- A low-sugar, BALANCED diet. She will need SOME carbs for energy. She seems like one of those who has a high metabolism and can't keep her weight on. Same with me. I naturally preferred certain foods. I ate a lot of rice rather than bread, lots of fish/chicken, fresh vegetables, fruit for dessert, veggies for snack, and juice was diluted if I had any. Sugar makes me sleepy and poor-functioning. I was also lucky enough to have been on an organic diet since childhood. Avoid junk food! Yuck!
- Charts, checklists, homework logs, and calendars! I like the checklists that someone suggested below for daily activities like brushing teeth and getting ready for bed. Have a separate notebook to write down all homework assignments and keep up with it everyday. That way you can check to see what she has to do and can check off on them as she completes them.
- It takes a team! Get with her teacher to see if the teacher can help keep up with it to make sure she is writing her homework down. Talk to the school counselor and teacher to implement some educational accomodations to help her out in class.
- Break up tasks! No way was I able to complete a ton of homework in one sitting at age 11. Find out her threshold using a timer and break up her assignments into increments, giving her frequent breaks. Have her eat a snack, do some jumping jacks, get some water, etc. Movement breaks are the best for getting the blood flowing to the brain!
- Positive words of encouragement! This, I lacked as a child and paid for it emotionally. ADHD kids respond best to praise. Try not to make a big deal if she forgets something and praise her when she does something right. Tell her how proud of her you are and how much you love her for working so hard to get things done.
- Get her to write things down into a calendar/organizer or punch it into some electronic device. Keeping a calendar with a section on notes and lists of things to do kept me on track. I used my laptop in college. If she has a cell phone/PDA, she may be able to link it to the calendar on her computer and keep up with it her at all times. If you can't afford an electronic device, help her learn the paper calendar/organizer system.
Ok, I'm sure there's more, but that's all I can think of right now. Find a good support group like CHADD to join to get more ideas from parents going through the same thing. Good luck to you and your daughter! :)
I've heard good things from people about Feingold:
http://www.feingold.org/
We have a adopted our 4 yr old son with ADHD and PTSD. On the recommendation of his psychiatrist we have placed him on a dye free, perservative free organic diet. We have seen some improvement, but not a whole lot. We also tried a Gluten free diet that is supposed to help kids with Autism and ADHD...however, he did not like the food and lost 2 pounds so we stopped that pretty quick. Hope this helps at least a little.
Hi A.,
I don't know much about the topic from personal experience but I am very interested in the topic of how diet effects behavior. I just started a distance learning program in integrative nutrition so I imagine I will be studying this more.
I did find this online for you http://www.cspinet.org/new/adhd_bklt.pdf.
In my mind, there is no doubt that cutting out all processed food (esp sugars, and wheat and soy derivatives) ) along with dyes and preservatives will help. Good luck!
What is her blood type? I highly recommend the Blood Type Diet to my clients and have quite a bit of success with it.
Not knowing her blood type, I would suggest eliminating all sugars, white flours, carbonated drinks, food colorings, food additives, artificial sweeteners, and all food allergens from her diet.
There are several herbal supplements that support the brain and nervous systems that have been very helpful to clients with ADD/ADHD that include a formula called Focus Attention and GABA Plus (taken with Flax seed oil). There are also homeopathic formulas available that can help.
