What has helped with anxiety

[maize]

One of my kids is really struggling with anxiety lately. If you've had a kid with serious anxiety, what has helped? I'm open to all suggestions--therapy, meditation, supplements, medication...

[Pawz4me]

Fluoxetine and some therapy aimed mostly toward regulating breathing and mindfulness.

[PeterPan]

Oatmeal every morning for breakfast. You can laugh, but just saying. It supposedly does something magic to your rNA according to this (admittedly really weird) nutritionist I use.

 

Also split pea soup in copious amounts (like 2 cups daily for a couple weeks). Halibut. Calcium and magnesium. There are even homeopathics.

 

But definitely oatmeal. Try like 1 1/2 cups daily for a month. And do some garlic daily or take a probiotic to tamp down the bad bugs.

[wapiti]

Supplements/alternative approaches, I'll throw in my two cents.  Let's see... there are three interrelated angles that come to mind, methylation/B vitamins, gut health, and some natural anti-inflammatories.

 

Methylation is a can of worms but that seems to help some people; I haven't had the wiggle room for the necessary trial and error to address my kids' polymorphisms (MTHFR, COMT, MTR/MTRR, etc etc) with the "right" blend of the "correct" vitamins/supplements.  A slow ramp-up may be involved.  So complex.

 

Gut health, another potential can of worms, though certain probiotics have been studied for anxiety (e.g. Align, aka B. infantis).  Also consider food "intolerances" as nebulous as they may seem.

 

Natural anti-inflammatories might help if there is inflammation involved in the anxiety. 

 

My favorite new anti-inflammatory-ish supplement is pterostilbene, a concentrated form related to resveratrol but from blueberries.  There is a study involving rats and anxiety where improvement was seen at a super low dose.  There was also a study about this improving the microbiome, if I recall correctly, which really speaks to me.

 

Another anti-inflammatory we like is pycnogenol.  There is at least one study on pycnogenol on test anxiety.  (My dd asks for it on final exam days, then tells me it didn't do anything, then asks for it again the next morning for the next final, lol.)

 

Over the past few years, I've probably read about dozens of supplements that might have a role in helping anxiety, usually through one of the above paths.  As I think of them today, I'll try to add them here.

Edited January 14, 2017 by wapiti

[PeterPan]

wapiti, try vitamin d in sunflower seeds. I agree cheap/store vit d doesn't make me feel good. There is a brand (Food Form) I do ok with. But a trip to florida would work too. Supplement the better way, lol.

 

Theoretically your d store is regulated by kidneys, so eating more beets to improve your kidneys can help. And since our kids love beets (haha), it's a logical fix. Actually, ds really does like beets. But a trip to Florida is still better. :D

Edited January 10, 2017 by OhElizabeth

[PeterPan]

You could just eat the blueberries. They come frozen. Trader Joes are pretty good.

 

The blueberries will also help clean out the bowels, improving (over the long run), the candida. 

Edited January 10, 2017 by OhElizabeth

[wapiti]

The problem we have with D (we would only use a relatively high-quality D3) is that it stimulates the immune system to do more.  In our case, with an autoimmune situation where "bad" antibodies are a problem, in my experience supplementing D makes symptoms obviously worse, as in an appreciable rise in OCD.  Probably doesn't help that the person in question has a mutation affecting the vitamin D receptor.  It's controversial and confusing.  Supplementing D3 is another place where I'd go with trial and error.

 

On the blueberries, we don't have enough bushels for the amount that would be needed.

Edited January 10, 2017 by wapiti

[Seeking Squirrels]

Fluoxetine and therapy sessions. Not to put down the therapy because I think it's an important component, but for DD, meds were the key. She'd been going to therapy on and off for well over a year before we tried meds and she has since stopped going to therapy. It was clearly the meds that made the difference for her. 

[maize]

Supplements/alternative approaches, I'll throw in my two cents.  Let's see... there are three interrelated angles that come to mind, methylation/B vitamins, gut health, and some natural anti-inflammatories.

 

Methylation is a can of worms but that seems to help some people; I haven't had the wiggle room for the necessary trial and error to address my kids' polymorphisms (MTHFR, COMT, MTR/MTRR, etc etc) with the "right" blend of the "correct" vitamins/supplements.  A slow ramp-up may be involved.  So complex.  Along these lines, there's also the vit D angle, helps some people but makes my ds worse, long story.

 

Gut health, another potential can of worms, though certain probiotics have been studied for anxiety (e.g. Align, aka B. infantis).  Also consider food "intolerances" as nebulous as they may seem.

 

Natural anti-inflammatories might help if there is inflammation involved in the anxiety.  (This would include in the gut; regarding inflammation generally, I am perpetually coming from a perspective of pans/pandas in terms of big picture possible mechanisms - neuroinflammation)

 

My favorite new anti-inflammatory-ish supplement is pterostilbene, a concentrated form related to resveratrol but from blueberries.  There is a study involving rats and anxiety where improvement was seen at a super low dose but not a regular dose; I tend to think the regular dose (one of these, for my other ds13, who is around 115 lbs) seems in my limited experience to be more likely to help (e.g. maybe not all of it gets where it needs to go).  There was also a study about this improving the microbiome, if I recall correctly, which really speaks to me.

 

Another anti-inflammatory we like is pycnogenol.  There is at least one study on pycnogenol on test anxiety.  (My dd asks for it on final exam days, then tells me it didn't do anything, then asks for it again the next morning for the next final, lol.)

 

Over the past few years, I've probably read about dozens of supplements that might have a role in helping anxiety, usually through one of the above paths.  As I think of them today, I'll try to add them here.

 

Thank you so much.

 

This is the same child who had what we think was a  PANS/PANDAS flare up last year, OCD symptoms that appeared suddenly; fortunately most of those seemed to resolve after a couple of months but the inflamation connection is something I need to consider seriously.

[maize]

Fluoxetine and therapy sessions. Not to put down the therapy because I think it's an important component, but for DD, meds were the key. She'd been going to therapy on and off for well over a year before we tried meds and she has since stopped going to therapy. It was clearly the meds that made the difference for her. 

 

I'm a believer in medication (although cautious about it with children) but my husband wants to try everything else first (dh himself has been on an SSRI for many years, but he retains an irrational bias against them).

[Seeking Squirrels]

I'm a believer in medication (although cautious about it with children) but my husband wants to try everything else first (dh himself has been on an SSRI for many years, but he retains an irrational bias against them).

 

I get that. I was the same. I've been on and off ADD meds for 12 years but I was very reluctant to put DD on anything. It feels different giving them to a kid. Some I've been on make me feel disconnected and I worried about her not being able to tell us if it was making her feel off. So I get it, but I wish I'd given in sooner. 

[wapiti]

In that case, I'll add a fourth dimension to keep an eye on - I'll call it germs LOL (viruses, bacteria, whatever).  On top of that, the balance of microbes with yeast, though maybe that comes more under the gut angle.  This is not easy to sort out.  I think it makes lots of sense to try to get a kid with pans/pandas tendencies sorted out before some unfortunate infection comes along.  I'd go with some combination of gut and anti-inflammation.  The methylation angle can be really important for some people but there's no sure-fire way to address it; if you want to peek down that road, throw in a 23andme test.

 

A fifth angle, kind of related to the methylation angle, is that it seems some kids like mine have trouble with liver detox (there are also polymorphisms at work).  This is where supplements like NAC or Broccomax (sulphurophane) come in.

 

Curcumin might also help a liver angle and is a potent anti-inflammatory; the best value I have found is the Meriva version by Jarrow; if you've done any reading in pandas world, Enhansa is a common brand but more expensive.  As we didn't have much luck with either, I can't say much, except that I like the Jarrow Meriva for myself for general anti-inflammatory use, i.e., it works for me.  Kiddo says he likes it too but it doesn't show the objective results I am looking for; I have no problem throwing it in the pot on occasion.

 

On the med angle, keep in mind that for ssri, there is a study with a 13% chance of mania in pandas patients.  That's one reason we have put that off, especially when I'm not at all convinced that serotonin is necessarily at the root.   There have been some recent positive studies on minocycline (glutamate modulator) and OCD and yet for some people apparently it makes things worse.

Edited January 14, 2017 by wapiti

[zarabellesmom]

Medication. I tried supplements and therapy. Sadly, the only thing that has worked here has been Zoloft. I avoided even considering it for a very long time, but in the end... Her quality of life was more important than my resistance to medication. For sure, try supplements and therapy. Lots of people have success, but don't discount the need for medication if those things fail.

[Pawz4me]

Fluoxetine and therapy sessions. Not to put down the therapy because I think it's an important component, but for DD, meds were the key. She'd been going to therapy on and off for well over a year before we tried meds and she has since stopped going to therapy. It was clearly the meds that made the difference for her. 

 

We did it the other way around -- Medication first, got the dosing figured out so that he was in a good place as far as his daily routine, and then did a few sessions of therapy to give him some tools to deal with those extra stressful type situations that life invariably throws at us.

[Guest]

Oatmeal every morning for breakfast. You can laugh, but just saying. It supposedly does something magic to your rNA according to this (admittedly really weird) nutritionist I use.

 

Also split pea soup in copious amounts (like 2 cups daily for a couple weeks). Halibut. Calcium and magnesium. There are even homeopathics.

 

But definitely oatmeal. Try like 1 1/2 cups daily for a month. And do some garlic daily or take a probiotic to tamp down the bad bugs.

Actually oats are a nervine tonic. You can get the good stuff there with milky oat tops tea or tincture, too :-) it's very good for everyone (because it is a tonic), but especially the anxious or the restless. The problem, so far as restless etc are concerned, is it's usually consumed with shooga, with of course is a ZAP! When you need a shhh!

[fourisenough]

Zoloft + the (very) occasional Xanax for panic

[PeterPan]

Okbud, we use honey or sucanat, so not quite as nasty as straight sugar. And we'll pretend the local raw, unheated honey is doing something for our allergies, right? :D

[Guest]

Plus someones got to keep those lazy bees in biz.

 

Catnip, my favorite herb, is also a tonic nervine. So is lemon balm.

Edited January 11, 2017 by OKBud

[PeterPan]

Uh, do humans do anything with catnip? You sniff it?   :lol: 

 

I have no clue what to do with catnip. Lemon balm probably shows up in soap. Guess I make a better horse.

[wapiti]

There's a nice calming roll-on that I always thought had lemon balm but I was wrong - has other stuff instead.  Ds-with-issues won't let me put it on him of course, but both another ds and I like to use it to calm down at bedtime sometimes (I put it on the inside of my wrists).

[PeterPan]

Ok, I confess I've never done ANYTHING with essential oils. Well, that's not true. I went to a party someone generously hosted and we made nifty things. We made a lavender lotion that I rub on my kids for calming. And ds has lavender bubble bath. You can laugh, but it's a good part of our evening routine, lol! 

 

Anyways, that's kind of interesting! I give my dc Calm Child (a chamomile tincture) when they're pushed that far. But the roll-on would be good too, yeah.

[PeterPan]

Fwiw, the oats thing isn't fast. You eat the oatmeal in copious amounts every day for a month. Then you'll look back and see the shift. And you can also load up on peas, split pea soup, that kind of thing. I did split pea soup after Oregon; that state REALLY induced some anxiety, with their narrow, winding, treacherous roads, oh my!  But same gig, eat 2-3 cups every day for a month. It's not like shazam.

Edited January 11, 2017 by OhElizabeth

[Guest]

Uh, do humans do anything with catnip? You sniff it? :lol:

 

I have no clue what to do with catnip. Lemon balm probably shows up in soap. Guess I make a better horse.

Tea.

[eternalsummer]

I was very anxious as a child and am still somewhat anxious.  While I was anxious from the time I can remember, it was worst during puberty (say age 10-13).  I don't know how that would help you even if your kid is around that age, but there it is.

 

As an adult, I am massively better off of drugs (caffeine especially) and away from triggers.  My main anxiety as a child was related to being the victim of violent crime; as an adult I am careful not to watch or read anything scary.  I know generally the treatment for phobias is supposed to be to confront them, or something, but I do a lot better avoiding them.

 

My parents had no idea I was so anxious and to the extent they were aware of it, they just accommodated me (which was very kind of them).  So kudos to you for being proactive :)  I agree with your husband about the meds, though.

[maize]

I agree with your husband about the meds, though.

May I ask why?

 

There are very clearly some genetic factors at play here. My husband comes from a large family, very stable, supportive parents. Of the nine children, however, at least six have suffered from serious anxiety and depression as adults and have needed medication in order to function at least at some point. Before my husband started taking Zoloft at age 26 he was completely incapacitated by mental illness--he was literally sitting in a corner of the house curled in a fetal position all day every day. By the time he started getting both pharmacological help and counseling, he had been suffering the effects of a poorly functioning brain for so long that the necessary rewiring may never be completely possible.

 

How much better could it have been if he had started receiving treatment back in junior high, when he now recognizes his depression began?

 

Knowing this history and also that of a couple of my own siblings (yep, mental health difficulties on both sides of the family) ignoring the current treatment options and advances in brain science that we have seems profoundly foolish to me. If we really knew how to cure the underlying problems it would be wonderful; we don't, but we do have some quite effective medications that allow us to manage neurotransmitters in the brain and re-establish functional capability. I see this as very similar to pharmacological intervention for thyroid problems--we can't cure the underlying issue, but we can manage it.

 

Brains are amazing and we are learning more every year about their capacity to heal themselves given the proper stimulus--cognitive therapy that teaches us to re-route our thoughts, mindfulness meditation, exercise, good gut microbiomes, sunshine and vitamin D, exercise--there is a lot we can do to support the healing of a brain. Medication is also an important part of this picture and in many cases needs to be a first step to increase functionality to the point where some of the other therapeutic behaviors can be implemented.

 

It's tricky. Every medication has side effects and doctors mostly guess and shoot in the dark trying to figure out what might work for an individual patient. I have no doubt at all however that my husband would not be alive today without medication.

Edited January 11, 2017 by maize

[PeterPan]

Doesn't matter what alternative things could work, if you can't get compliance. At some point reality kicks in. Like you say, better on an SSRI and functioning than not on one and not doing the other things either.

 

[Pawz4me]

FWIW -- I had pretty severe anxiety as a child. At the time I didn't have words for it, and I guess maybe I just thought it was normal to worry about everything. I was a quiet, shy kid who kept things to myself so I never even said anything about it to my parents. Other than frequent "stomach aches" (my go to excuse when I was too anxious to go to school) and insomnia they probably never had any suspicion of what was going on with me. And to be fair to them my childhood was long enough ago that it was back in the time when mental health wasn't nearly as recognized as it is now. In hindsight I know I missed out on so many fun and interesting things and on being able to enjoy much of the normal day-to-day fun stuff. My childhood wasn't horrible at all but it would have been infinitely better had I been medicated.

[eternalsummer]

I don't think psychological medications are always an absolute impossibility or the worst thing or anything - my half brother is on lithium most of the time and when he is on it, he is mostly functional (he has bipolar 1).  If I were severely depressed for a long time and nothing else worked - exercise or vitamins or whatever - I would definitely consider drugs.

 

I just don't like them as a first line treatment, and I am glad my parents didn't medicate me as a child (my anxiety was manageable with accommodation, and though it was often somewhat miserable, it wasn't debilitating).

 

I don't know how severe your DC's anxiety is, though, or how thoroughly you've gone through the other options.

 

One thing that helped a lot for me, when I was older, was to pinpoint the source of some of my various anxieties.  A good counselor could maybe have figured these out when I was younger but I was quite resistant to therapists, having been to a couple of stupid ones.  While I was generally anxious (and am generally anxious), the worst of the anxiety was tied to various childhood experiences and once I knew how the experience related to my anxiety, that particular anxiety lost a lot of its power.  

[maize]

My son's anxiety is unfortunately profoundly impacting his life--his ability to engage socially and make friends, and to participate and progress in activities that he very much wants to do. At home I can and do accommodate a lot, but he badly needs to be able to interact with the world beyond home.

[katilac]

Medication.

 

[PeterPan]

Maybe all of the above. Meds and therapy and foods and...

[popmom]

Jumping in late here, but... if your child suffers from anxiety/panic attacks, I recommend reading Hope and Help for Your Nerves by Claire Weekes. Yes, its dated in it's language, but it was very helpful to me in getting my dc through her anxiety/panic attacks. I would not have let my teen daughter read the book herself though because I didn't want to expose her to all the miserable possibilities that anxiety can induce in a human body. She wasn't ready for that much info at that age. But I read it, and it helped me to talk her through those late night anxiety/panic attacks. It's an old book, but it's helpful.

 

We eventually ended up trying Zoloft. It helped. She gained a little weight but no other negative side effects. After about a year, she came off the zoloft. I thought she might need it again when she started college, but she's coping.

[Guest]

Jumping in late here, but... if your child suffers from anxiety/panic attacks, I recommend reading Hope and Help for Your Nerves by Claire Weekes. Yes, its dated in it's language, but it was very helpful to me in getting my dc through her anxiety/panic attacks. .

 

It's on audible, too, with the author reading. Her accent, tone and whole manner are very soothing :)

[drjuliadc]

I know this is a bit old, but I didn't have time to reply when it came up.  I had recently started taking Broccomax after knowing almost nothing about it and I am getting very good results with it.  Not for anxiety, but it surprised me to see it come up on this board since I had never heard of it before seeing an ad for it.

 

With any neuro symptoms at all I would investigate gluten free, if not already, then dairy free. When someone makes antibodies to gluten, the brain is a very common site of autoimmune attack.  In celiac, which I am not suggesting, but there is a lot of research on it, neurological symptoms are MORE common than gastrointestinal symptoms.  Dairy is just an extremely common gluten cross reactor.

 

Supplement wise I would always recommend Magnesium first with anxiety.  Then either try to raise GABA or Serotonin or both.  A group of herbs that raise GABA is in Gabatone by Apex Energetix.  It works quite well.  It has lemon balm, Melissa and L-theonine, which are calming.  Phenitropic by Biotics Research also works well. To raise Serotonin I use 5-htp.  It takes a minimum of 200mg per day for an adult.

 

It is difficult for people to figure the magnesium thing out themselves because most mag sold in stores is not the right kind.  It is mag oxide and poorly absorbed. In addition to that, rarely does someone figure out how darn much magnesium it takes to relieve symptoms.  I use Magnesium Malate by DFH and it takes 2-4 pills per day with food for most adults to have enough.  People just aren't thinking they need that much of one thing.  It is just so voluminous of a mineral.  The more calcium someone takes, the more it works against magnesium levels too and everyone is so calcium oriented.  I don't often find people need calcium supplementation except when pregnant.

 

There aren't enough people knowledgeable about non-drug treatments for anxiety or depression for people to get real help, then they have no other option than to resort to drugs.  I think it is good for the drugs to be available, but magnesium alone has 300 known functions in the body and if someone is taking an anti-anxiety drug when they really need magnesium there are potentially 299 other things wrong with them that aren't getting addressed.

 

I don't usually find that anxiety is low magnesium alone, but it makes for a good example of why ONLY knowing the drug option is bad.  I have zero judgement of anyone who has resorted to drugs for themselves or their children because they do work and you can't just be curled up in a ball, but if there were no drugs available people would be figuring out the causes and effective non-drug treatments because they do exist.

 

There are compliance issues, especially since drugs can be like one pill a day and supplements can be so many pills.  Diet changes can also be hard for people.

 

I also want to note don't ever fall into the "genetic" trap.  Yes, things are genetic, but I think drug companies push the idea that something is genetic so the only thing you can do is take a drug.  You can't inherit a trait without inheriting the MECHANISM through which that trait expresses itself.  You can always interrupt that mechanism.  There aren't nearly as many people investigating those mechanisms as those pushing drugs.

 

[Guest]

I know this is a bit old, but I didn't have time to reply when it came up.  I had recently started taking Broccomax after knowing almost nothing about it and I am getting very good results with it.  Not for anxiety, but it surprised me to see it come up on this board since I had never heard of it before seeing an ad for it.

 

With any neuro symptoms at all I would investigate gluten free, if not already, then dairy free. When someone makes antibodies to gluten, the brain is a very common site of autoimmune attack.  In celiac, which I am not suggesting, but there is a lot of research on it, neurological symptoms are MORE common than gastrointestinal symptoms.  Dairy is just an extremely common gluten cross reactor.

 

Supplement wise I would always recommend Magnesium first with anxiety.  Then either try to raise GABA or Serotonin or both.  A group of herbs that raise GABA is in Gabatone by Apex Energetix.  It works quite well.  It has lemon balm, Melissa and L-theonine, which are calming.  Phenitropic by Biotics Research also works well. To raise Serotonin I use 5-htp.  It takes a minimum of 200mg per day for an adult.

 

It is difficult for people to figure the magnesium thing out themselves because most mag sold in stores is not the right kind.  It is mag oxide and poorly absorbed. In addition to that, rarely does someone figure out how darn much magnesium it takes to relieve symptoms.  I use Magnesium Malate by DFH and it takes 2-4 pills per day with food for most adults to have enough.  People just aren't thinking they need that much of one thing.  It is just so voluminous of a mineral.  The more calcium someone takes, the more it works against magnesium levels too and everyone is so calcium oriented.  I don't often find people need calcium supplementation except when pregnant.

 

There aren't enough people knowledgeable about non-drug treatments for anxiety or depression for people to get real help, then they have no other option than to resort to drugs.  I think it is good for the drugs to be available, but magnesium alone has 300 known functions in the body and if someone is taking an anti-anxiety drug when they really need magnesium there are potentially 299 other things wrong with them that aren't getting addressed.

 

I don't usually find that anxiety is low magnesium alone, but it makes for a good example of why ONLY knowing the drug option is bad.  I have zero judgement of anyone who has resorted to drugs for themselves or their children because they do work and you can't just be curled up in a ball, but if there were no drugs available people would be figuring out the causes and effective non-drug treatments because they do exist.

 

There are compliance issues, especially since drugs can be like one pill a day and supplements can be so many pills.  Diet changes can also be hard for people.

 

I also want to note don't ever fall into the "genetic" trap.  Yes, things are genetic, but I think drug companies push the idea that something is genetic so the only thing you can do is take a drug.  You can't inherit a trait without inheriting the MECHANISM through which that trait expresses itself.  You can always interrupt that mechanism.  There aren't nearly as many people investigating those mechanisms as those pushing drugs.

 

 

 

FYI, Lemon balm is Melissa.

 

...and I agree it's wonderful. In addition to having a calming effect, it's also good for attention spans, thyroid function, mouth sores, stomach aches AND it is anti-viral :-)

 

 

 

 

 

 

[drjuliadc]

Gabatone has valerian, Passion flower and l- theonine. It doesn't even have lemon balm in it. I must have still been thinking about your reference to lemon balm, OKbud, which is also an herb to raise GABA. Maybe it used to have it. My twins will eventually sleep through the night consistently and I'll have a brain again.

[Guest]

 My twins will eventually sleep through the night consistently and I'll have a brain again.

 

That's the can-do spirit :laugh:

[katilac]

 

 I have zero judgement of anyone who has resorted to drugs for themselves or their children because they do work and you can't just be curled up in a ball, but if there were no drugs available people would be figuring out the causes and effective non-drug treatments because they do exist.

 

 

 

 

I'm all in favor of low-intervention and non-drug treatments, but I think it's inaccurate to say that people would figure out non-drug treatments if drugs weren't available, in the sense that many people have tried everything under the sun with no good results before attempting medication. 

 

Also, people need to keep in mind that herbs, supplements, essential oils, and so on ARE drugs. A drug is just a substance that has a physiological effect when applied or ingested, so it's a mistake to think that something is not a drug just because a doctor does not prescribe it. 

[drjuliadc]

I was talking about prescription drugs. Properly prescribed prescription drugs kill over 100,000 people per year in the US. Zero people die from herbs and supplements per year in the US. The 100,000 figure does not include medical or pharmacy mistakes or improperly prescribed meds.

 

I live in an area with a population of 1,000,000 people. I know one medical Doctor other than me who knows how to help someone with neurobehavioral problems with supplements. There might be some practitioners who I am not aware of in the area, but I've been practicing here for 24 years, so I'm pretty familiar with what is available here.

 

The vast majority of people don't have access to real professional level information about anything other than drugs.

[Guest]

So here's a link to support the above figures for scripts. Full disclosure, the author is an osteopath and I know some dismiss them out of hand. (I am in agreement with the author.)

 

http://ethics.harvard.edu/blog/new-prescription-drugs-major-health-risk-few-offsetting-advantages

 

But you're plain wrong about herbs and supplements being harmless. We can't have it both ways. Many herbs overload the liver or kidney. Many should never be taken with sundry heart issues present. Several are abortifacients. Etc. To say nothing of allergies. I'm the family herbalist here, but no one gets echinacea, chamomile or related, because I just love to breathe so much.

 

Self-care and plant love are beautiful things, but respect for the power of the plants, and the relative fragility of our earthly bodies, has to be part and parcel of the whole endeavor.

Edited February 8, 2017 by OKBud

[lewelma]

Reducing expectations across the board. For behaviour, chores, academics, all of it.

 

For my ds, once the anxiety was under control (took about a year), we slowly ever to slowly built the expectations back up (took 5 years).

[drjuliadc]

That was a good supporting link to Harvard. Thank you.

 

I definitely don't think supplements are harmless. I've hurt myself many times with them, self experimenting. The harm is usually pretty self limiting and temporary. They are 100,000 times less deadly than prescription drugs, however.

 

This is in no way a criticism of any parent who has to make a choice to use medication. I do think there is a powerful system in place to keep people in the dark about any solution that doesn't involve profitable prescriptions.

[maize]

They are 100,000 times less deadly than prescription drugs, however.

 

 

You pulled that number out of a hat, and it would be impossible to support scientifically because supplements are not subject to the tight regulation and intensive data gathering requirements of prescription drugs. We have no way to determine how many deaths result from them.

 

Multiple studies have shown higher death rates among supplement users than among non supplement users when other factors such as age, gender and health are controlled for. Here is one:

 

 

http://www.livescience.com/19000-vitamins-supplements-earlier-death.html

 

I am not anti-supplement, I use them myself. But I don't stick my head in the sand and pretend they are without risk because they are natural.

Edited February 10, 2017 by maize

[Guest]

Maize she's saying that study has determined 100,000+ deaths from legally and conscientiously prescribed medications, where 0 confirmed similar herbal deaths.

 

It stands to reason that people who feel unwell have something wrong with them, but don't know what specifically, and therefore do "healthy things" like take supplements, no? Especially at the age of that study.

 

I think no one here so far takes a hard no-herb/supplement stances, nor a hard no-'scripts stance. We are all reading the same book, if not on the same page.

[Paige]

My DD was seriously struggling academically and socially with anxiety until this fall. She could not complete a test, could not complete an assignment, felt sick at the thought of entering a classroom or group of kids- even playing outside with the neighbors. Therapy alone made it worse because the act of going to therapy and being with that person was a trigger. There was absolutely no reasoning with her, and in an attempt to help we'd tried supplements for years with no or little benefit.

 

Within 2 weeks of starting medication she began completing her assignments with no tears and every test she's taken since she's completed quickly and with high A's. We monitor her closely for side effects but life with vs without the medication are drastically different and it would be a crime to deny her of the benefits of them. The risks of not considering prescriptions are high as well.  She is now successful and happy. She is playing outside again and is starting to make friends. She is full of confidence and I am sure she will eventually be able to come off the medication.

 

She still does not go to therapy because it was a huge trigger, but she honestly doesn't need it. The only time since starting medication that she relapsed was when she was sick and hadn't been taking it for a few days. 

 

[cherylswope]

Bumping this because a free 5-day podcast on the topic of Children Who Struggle with Anxiety was created during the time of this thread, but the series is just now releasing. It will air all week, May 1-5, in two-minute segments and will then archive for listening later.

 

No easy answers, but someone here might find this conversation informative or encouraging.

 

This online article, Hope for the Worried Child, prompted the series.

 

 

Cheryl Swope, M.Ed.

 

Simply Classical: A Beautiful Education for Any Child

[Guest]

Thank you for sharing that, Cheryl! I'll be following.

[clementine]

We cut nitrates out of her diet.  Lavender oil on her temples at night.  Added some sort of exercise during her day.  

[Guest]

deleted for privacy 

 

Edited August 14, 2017 by Guest

[maize]

OP here so I thought I would update. We are trying fluoxetine, about one week in and there does seem to be some improvement.

 

Hoping to get to a place where CBT techniques can work; I'll look into some of the resources mentioned here as this child is not yet able to work with a therapist (shuts down completely).

 

We're also doing NAC supplementation as there are some tics and OCD issues involved.