ADHD - vitamin supplements and so on?

[saw]

DS11 has been diagnosed with ADHD and has been taking a low dose of Ritalin on days that he is in school; I've now pulled him out of school and have stopped the Ritalin. He's home until the fall, when I will probably have to put him in school (single parent, work long hours, etc). 

I feel like I haven't really dealt with the ADHD; the psych basically said, here's the meds, give them to him. So now I've start doing more reading around ADHD and so on and have come across ideas that ADHD is related to vitamin and other deficiencies, and supplementing can help. DS has a somewhat complicated medical history, and is also hearing impaired, so I wouldn't be surprised if his issues are more complex than straightforward ADHD. 

Does anyone have recommendations on where to start? Where we live we do not have access to great neuropsychs or anything like that, but we'll be in the States this summer. 

[Ravin]

Magnesium is one we're trying. I wouldn't substitute it for meds, though--of course, I probably wouldn't go to ritalin as the first med to try, as it has more side effects than some of the others (such as focalin). And if he needs the meds to focus, he's going to need them to focus while homeschooling--at least, my DD does. Home has different distractions than school, but still plenty of them for an ADHD child.

[PeterPan]

I would suggest Social Thinking because it will teach him to self monitor.

 

I know someone who pulled her dc off colors and he improved noticeably. There can be methylation issues, etc. really though for just making it boom, go away, not really. Im now using 23andme genetics results to target supplements, but nope not gone, nope. But when demands are low and support is high they can get you enough that maybe the person can survive. School is high demand, low support. Unless you fight for a 504 or IEP. He might benefit from one. The school could do the Social Thinking.

 

Definitely look into Social Thinking. Straight ADHD kids sometimes make astonishing progress in short order. Like 6 weeks of a social skills class doing the materials. Or do them yourself and do check ins during your school day.

Edited March 20, 2018 by PeterPan

[Pen]

Some books on ADHD have suggestions on supplements to try. Daniel Amen in one of his books called something like the ____ types of ADHD, divides ADHD into different types, with different supplements that he thinks help more with various of the types.  Hallowell in Delivered from Distraction has a chapter that goes into supplements.  The two have overlapping but not identical info, so both might be helpful.

 

In my own family, including 3 different family members, fish oil, B-Complex and significant additional amounts of certain individual B-vitamins, inositol, multi-vitamins, multi-minerals, taurine, SAMe (which fits our methylation issues, but might be contraindicated for some people, definitely contraindicated in bi-polar or for overmethylators), Bacopa, and Ashwaganda have all seemed helpful at various times and with various family members.  

 

Bacopa has had some good results in studies with a number of participants. Ironically, it appeared on a Doc Martin episode where an herbalist gives it to a child with ADHD and the child gets worse and ultra-hyper.  Having a bad reaction or something causing the opposite of what one hopes for  I expect could happen with any individual child (or adult) on any supplement or prescription drug. So I recommend proceeding with caution.  I generally do not start more than one thing at a time so as to be able to know if there is a bad reaction, and I also tend to work up gradually in dose if I am going to use a fairly high dose.  But it sometimes takes being on something for a while, and sometimes some synergy between several things to see some improvement.  Especially if vitamins or minerals are low, just raising one may not help if others are also low.  I make sure I use B-Complex and C along with individual B vitamins so as not to cause a deficit in other B vitamins or C, which can happen.

[Pen]

There are also websites devoted to orthomolecular medicine where you can find some more information, especially related to vitamins, and I think Abram Hoffer MD wrote a book about vitamins for ADHD (now OOP, and when I tried to get a copy I could not find one), and there are some newer such books by other authors.

 

And there are websites specific to ADHD where you may find some more ideas on supplements.

 

Once you have things of interest, you can search them in google scholar to find more that is study rather than anecdote if that interests you.

 

Unfortunately I sometimes find that searching for ADHD supplements I do not discover some that may help a lot, but then when I am researching a particular supplement for some other reason, I discover that it has been found helpful for some people with ADHD.

 

 

You can also use regular google to help find things --  such as I just searched ADHD and Taurine and got many hits, but some include other things besides Taurine, for example:

 

 

5 Nutrients That Can Help Kids Labeled With ADHD - Healthy ...

blog.naturalhealthyconcepts.com/2014/.../adhd-nutrient-deficiencies/

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May 27, 2014 ... All 20 amino acids have an important job to do. Amino acid deficiencies arecommon in kids with ADHD. Especially DMAE, 5-HTP, L-thianine, tyrosine, theanine, taurine, glycine, GABA, L-glutamine, serine, and tryptophan. These amino acids have been specifically linked to our mood and behaviors. Without ...

Natural Product-Derived Treatments for Attention-Deficit - NCBI - NIH

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4757677/

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Feb 4, 2016 ... Amino acids, glycine, L-theanine, L-tyrosine, taurine, acetyl-L-carnitine (ALC),GABA, 5-hydroxytryptophan (5-HTP), and s-adenosyl-L-methionine (SAMe), are all considered potential complementary ADHD interventions [9, 10]. A significant portion of studies on amino acid supplementation has focused on ...

[Pen]

also to add, I usually look up contraindications in anything I am going to try as well as symptoms of side effects and whether it is considered something that is simply excreted if taking more than the body uses, or whether it can build up in some toxic way if there is too much.

 

If possible, I do this both for things described by doctors and for OTC remedies, both, and include anything I know our family members in general tend to have or the particular person who will be using the thing has that could affect dosage or response to a medicine or supplement.  That is on the caution side.

 

On the positive side, if something turns out to help several problems that someone has, I would tend to prioritize that higher as I am looking for what might help.  So, for example, if something looked like it both helps ADHD and may help hearing, I might put that up my list of considerations if I were dealing with someone with a hearing impairment.  Or if a child got frequent canker sores or leg cramps and some vitamin or mineral were both indicated as sometimes helpful for ADHD and canker sores and leg cramps that would get my attention.

[Crimson Wife]

Our integrative neurodevelopmental pediatrician, Dr. Sanford Newmark, is a graduate of Dr. Andrew Weill’s integrative medicine training program. He wrote a book on natural treatment of ADHD.

 

That said, we exhausted his list of suggestions and DD still was experiencing major symptoms. So even he told us to medicate. He is not anti-pharmaceutical when nutritional support has been tried and isn’t enough. He just thinks meds should be the last resort rather than the first thing tried

 

 

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[Crimson Wife]

Also, depending on the degree of hearing impairment, you might want to look into a cochlear implant. The criteria is a lot less strict than it used to be.

 

A lot of what got chalked up to the ADHD was actually my daughter reacting to not being able to hear properly. Now getting the cochlear implant did not eliminate all the symptoms and she still has to take medication. But it did lead to a big improvement in focus and behavior (especially in noisy environments like the classroom).

 

 

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[exercise_guru]

Crimson your post is so helpful. My son has auditory processing and was very inattentive but once we could resolve the hearing processing issues that really helped with the behavior. 

[seema]

Crimson your post is so helpful. My son has auditory processing and was very inattentive but once we could resolve the hearing processing issues that really helped with the behavior. 

 May I ask, What helped with auditory processing? we may have similar issues with our dd.

Thanks.

[PinkyandtheBrains.]

 

 

Meds are supposed to be used with other efforts to help the individual learn to navigate adhd. Sounds like the doctor didn’t help with with the additional supports :(

[Crimson Wife]

 May I ask, What helped with auditory processing? we may have similar issues with our dd.

Thanks.

 

I am considering taking my oldest (whose physical hearing is fine but has suspected Central Auditory Processing Disorder) to Able Kids in Colorado for an evaluation and, if clinically appropriate, fitting with their ear filter.

[saw]

I am considering taking my oldest (whose physical hearing is fine but has suspected Central Auditory Processing Disorder) to Able Kids in Colorado for an evaluation and, if clinically appropriate, fitting with their ear filter.

 

I took my older DS (not DS11) to Able Kids years ago for APD. Able Kids were great.