I've been trying to contact someone on this board for the past few days. I sent her a PM and an email and even posted a message for her to contact me but haven't heard back. I have seen her post and reply to other messages the past few days so I know that she has gone on the computer. I'm assuming that she just hasn't seen my message because she seems like a very nice person. I bought something from her on this board and paid by Pay Pal. It's been over 3 weeks and I still haven't received it. I really need it for my daughter whom I'm teaching at home this semester. They are tests for one of the books she is using and I will need the tests completed for when she hopefully returns to school in January. I've had to put off giving the tests but now I'm starting to get worried since we only have 9 weeks left of school. We have gone on with the lessons but I really don't want her to have to do a ton of tests in a row. I realize that Media Mail can take awhile but I just want to be sure when and if the package has been sent. Any suggestions?

Is he having insomnia or something else? My dd has had severe insomnia for 1 1/2 years and we just found out that she is gluten intolerant, which they think is causing the insomnia. It's the last thing I would have thought of but maybe something he should be checked for.

Please pm me. I've been trying to reach you with an email and pm. Thanks!

wow, just wow I don't even know what to say. She is amazing!

Are you talking about the St. Charles school? Isn't that unbelievable. Almost 1,000 kids sick out of a class just over 2000. I'm still so unsure about getting the shot. I asked my daughter's chiropractic neurologist and he definitely didn't think dd should get the shot because she is immunocompromised.

Would that cause pain in the calf too?

I will definitely keep him and his family in his prayers.

yogurt, cottage cheese, pudding, sherbet, jello, milkshakes made with Ensure or Carnation Instant Breakfast and ice cream, mashed potatoes, soup. I'm trying to get a similar list together for my oldest dd. She is getting her wisdom teeth out on Friday.

For the past two days I have had pain in my calf and heel area. It came on suddenly. I haven't been exercising and I don't remember bumping it. It seems to be worse first thing in the morning and then again in the evening. I'm not sure but I don't think I have any swelling. It really hurts to walk.

Thanks for the great replies so far. Does anyone have a good website where I can search to see if a particular food is gluten free? I think that is the part that is overwhelming me. I know to watch out for wheat but it's those other ingredients that I can't pronounce that I'm worried about.

My 14 year old dd just got diagnosed with gluten intolerance. She is upset but we are hopeful that going off of gluten will cure her of many of the problems she has been having. Now it's time for me to get busy with research. I'm going to look at a few of the websites that were previously posted here. In the meantime can someone tell me a typical day's diet. So far most of the gluten free food that we have tried is not very tasty. We are trying gluten free noodles with lunch. With Halloween coming up I'm wondering if she can have candy-especially chocolate. Does anyone know of a website where I can input an ingredient and find if it has gluten in it? There are so many items on labels that I have no clue what they are. Any other suggestions? Any would be greatly appreciated!

We're continuing trying to figure out what is wrong with 14 year old dd. We just test results back today and she is gluten intolerant. Her cortisol levels were also low in the morning and the chiropractic neurologist wants dd to see an endocrinologist. He is concerned about the possibility of Addison's disease. She has other possible symptoms too. Is anyone familiar with this and also what her levels should be? Everything I find online has adult values. Her values were 5 first thing in the morning and 3 at noon, which are considered depressed. Her results were normal at 4:00 with a 5 and at 10:00 with a 2.

I agree!!! Why do people have their kids participate in sports when they are obviously sick. A few weeks ago one of the kids on my son's baseball team was crying because he felt so sick. He was throwing up the whole day before and had a fever. His dad told him to "toughen up". The kids is only 10! Yesterday one of our players had a high fever and flu symptoms. Apparently he still had a fever this morning. The parents called the coach to tell him that their son wasn't going to be at the game today. Later they called him back and said that they changed their mind. I suspect that the fever came down with meds. He showed up at the game obviously flushed. He looked miserable. He is normally one of the best players and couldn't hit or field. Even if the kid really wanted to play why would the parents let him play when he was that sick. He should be home in bed. I also worry about these kids spreading germs. One of the kids on the team is immuno compromised. Of course I don't want my ds to get sick either.

Would it be possible for your son to email his teachers? When my daughter misses school (she is a senior) she emails the teachers. Most of the time she will email during the day that she is sick unless she is just too sick. Since it only takes a few minutes she is usually able to do this. She just says: Hello Ms._____________. I was sick today so I missed class. Can you please tell me any homework or tests that I missed? The teachers really appreciate the students taking the time to do this. It is also a lot easier then finding the time to talk to the teacher before of after class. DD also found this a lot less intimidating when she was a freshman and sophomore and shy. Most teachers will write back: "I hope you feel better". We did x, y, z today. If it is test or quiz they'll usually say for her to make it up within the next few days after she returns. Her school has a policy that if you miss one day you get one extra day for makeup work. If you miss two days, you get two extra days, etc. We've also found that having it in email is handy. For instance my middle dd is a freshman this year. She missed several days of school right away in September. Her teachers were being really cooperative because they knew it was an ongoing health problem. One of her teachers told her not to worry about two assignments and that she didn't have to do them. A week later she was asking dd where the assignment was. DD was able to refer her teacher to the email and it worked out fine.

We are waiting for the results of the gluten intolerance test (stool and saliva sample which will also test for other sensitivities such as casein). She had a cortisone test (saliva) which showed elevated levels at 8 and noon and normal levels 4 and 10 pm. She had complete blood workup. Her triglycerides are high (192). Her cholesterol is high (180). Her lymphocytes were high at 45 compared to her neutrophils which were 44. He said that this is not normal. Her glucose was 85, which he said was pretty low for someone her age. Her vitamin D was low at 22. There are 3 pages of results but I think those are pretty much the abnormal ones. There may be one or two more.

I could really use some advice about dd. I'm very very overwhelmed with this and I'm not sure I'm thinking clearly. I've posted several times before about my 14 year old dd who suffers from severe insomnia. She saw a sleep specialist who tried her on several different sleep meds. None of the meds worked and most caused bad side effects. Then we went to the psychiatrist since sleep specialist was sure that the insomnia was caused by the depression. DD has only had about 4 hours of interrupted sleep a night for the past year-yes she is depressed. Actually she didn't seem depressed until a few months ago when she has really started to become desperate for sleep. The psychiatrist agreed with me that the insomnia caused the depression not the other way around. She put her on an antidepressant to help her cope with the depression. She had severe side effects with that too. It is obvious that she can't seem to metabolize medications properly. A few weeks ago her knee swelled up for no apparent reason. The following week her other knee swelled up. A few days later her ankles were hurting. Her sweat also seems to bleach everything (strange huh). Her whole body seems to be having problems. For the past month or so dd has been seeing a chiropractic neurologist. He is the only one who has really listened to us and seems to know what he is talking about. He really thinks that dd is gluten intolerant. We won't get the test results until next week. His theory is that the gluten is causing antibodies in the body to attack all over (her brain, her joints and cause other problems.) We got other bloodwork done last week and the test results showed several problems: Her cortisol is very low in the morning when it should be high. It was also abnormal at noon. She seems to be having trouble metabolizing glucose. She isn't diabetic but seems to be in a pre-diabetic state. She is low on vitamin D. The results indicate that she also has a virus, which has probably been present for several months. She also a high inflammation factor by not rheumatoid. Right now dd is on supplements to help with any brain inflammation. She started a supplement today that is supposed to regulate her blood sugar. She is on vitamin D supplements. Next week the doctor is going to start her on a regimen that should help her fight this virus. All of these are nutritional supplements-not drugs. Once we know whether or not she is gluten intolerent we can go from there. This doctor feels that if she is gluten intolerent and goes off the gluten it will heal her body. Her brain should start working properly-including letting her sleep. DH is a little uncomfortable with the fact that we are getting advice from a chiropractic neurologist rather then an MD. Quite honestly though this doctor is the only one who has given us any hope or guidance. I mentioned bringing dd to a endocronologist and this doctor didn't feel that would be of any help. After this doctor got the cortisol results he talked to an endocronologist. He suggested that we give dd cortisol supplements to increase her level. Our doctor didn't think that was very wise since it can cause the patient to be jittery and insomnia. Do you think it is ok to give this doctor another month? By then we will get all of the test results back and also see if the supplements are working. He is going to retest her in one month. Dh seems to think we need to take dd to an endocronologist or even a university hospital. I'm just worried that they won't be able to help her or will just want to give her more drugs.

My dd is a senior in high school and we are a bit behind on all of the college visits, etc. We visited a college last weekend and it wasn't a good fit. We decided to stop by a college about 20 minutes away from this one and dd loved it. The problem is the tuition is 24k a year. It is 2 hours away so she would need to stay in a dorm. DD really wants to stay in a dorm. Of course I would miss her terribly but I think it would be good for her. She really wants to go to a smaller school. This school has 6,000 students. I really don't think that she would be happy at a larger university. If she went to the university close to us it would only cost about 10K and she could live at home. She would commute about 30-40 minutes every day. The problem is that it is a lot larger. I believe there are 25,000-30,000 students. I really think she would feel lost in the crowd. My dh thought that perhaps she could go to the local community college the first two years and then transfer. If she was going to the university after that I think it wouldn't be a bad idea. If she goes to a private college I think it would be more difficult to transfer. I think she would have a similar experience as she did at the private high school she attends. She transferred sophomore year. Most of the kids had already formed friendships and groups to hang out with and dd felt like an outsider. I know it may be a bit different with college but especially with a smaller college I think it would be better to go there from the start. I went to a small college and I know that things were a lot different for kids that transferred in. I can't imagine missing my freshman year. Of course the bottom line is the cost. We are hoping that she'll get some sort of scholarship. She has a 4.1 average is in the top 20% of her class and an average ACT score (25) although she is taking it again in December and is hoping to raise it. She was sick the first time and did poorly on the math section. So even if she is able to get a $6,000 to $10,000 scholarship which is the estimate I am getting from a few admission's counselors, that would still mean we need to come up with $20,000 per year. We could probably afford to pay $10,000 per year but that would mean she would have to take a loan out for the rest. I really wish we were able to set aside money to pay for college but life just didn't work out that way. Would you send your child to the college they really like and have them take out loans or would you go the cheaper route? It looks like any private college she went to would cost about the same. By the way, she doesn't have a job but that was a mutual decision between her and my dh and myself. We felt that she needed to be able to concentrate on her schoolwork and she has also kept busy with the pom squad she is on. She will probably get a part-time job this summer but that won't pay enough to cover the tuition. I'm thinking that it will be more for her books, etc.

I think it is a good idea. My son has a March 31st birthday. Last summer he was the youngest on his baseball team. He just turned 11 and was playing with kids turning 12 and 13. He did fine with it but he is smaller then most of the kids. Here the cutoff for baseball is the end of April. He does really well but I'm wondering if it will be tougher in the next few years because some of his teammates are getting really big. My ds is still only 80 pounds and less then 5 feet tall. He plays with kids that are almost the size of an adult. My dd has a late July birthday. She is bright but has always been a little shy. She has definitely come out of her shell over the last year or two but at times she seems much younger then a lot of the girls in her class. She is a senior and will be 17 when she graduates. A lot of the girls she knows will be almost 19 when they graduate. Sometimes I think that being one of the oldest in class would have its advantage. Many of the older kids seem to have more self confidence. She is also tiny (90 pounds) so many people think she is a freshman. She was quite ready academically to start kindergarten when she just turned 5 but I often wish that I had started her a year later.

I agree that it could possibly be a tic. My ds went through that last year. It went from that to doing this weird thing with his eye. His cousin also went through something similar. They both grew out of it. If your son doesn't seem to have a cold or allergies and nothing is stuck in his nose then I think this is a good possibility.

This bugs me too. One of the kids on my son's baseball team had a 102 fever yesterday and flu symptoms. The mom couldn't get the fever to go down under 101 so she reluctantly kept him home. If she could get it to go down while using Tylenol she was going to send him anyway. Today he was at the game. Apparently his fever is gone but he wasn't feeling well. His dad is home with a 105 fever! Why would this family send their son to baseball when he had a fever less then 24 hours ago and why would they risk getting everyone else sick when something is obviously going through their family.

You have a good point but honestly I don't know. So far they are reporting that this girl was in good health, active etc. She was only 14 and it doesn't look she had any pre-existing conditions. It seems like that doesn't happen a lot with the regular flu.

So far I've been careful about this whole swine flu thing but haven't been overly worried. I just found out that a 14 year old girl died a few towns over from swine flu and it seemed to happen so fast. I'm still trying to keep level headed about this but wondering what other cautions I should be taking with my kids. We have been careful to use hand sanitizer after we leave any store but now I'm wondering about all the possible exposures we have had over the past few days. I took my dd to urgent care last week and there were several sick people there and I also took her to her pediatrician's office a few days ago. I'm really wondering if I should try to keep middle dd home as much as possible. She is really having a lot of problems from her insomnia but now the doctor is suspecting an autoimmune disorder. I also worry about my husband who rarely gets sick but when he does he gets really sick. At this point I'm wondering what else we should be doing besides the obvious-washing hands a lot, etc. Are you trying to stay out of public places? Are you giving extra vitamins, etc.? A friend of my oldest daughter's was diagnosed with swine flu a few weeks ago. Thankfully dd seems fine but I'm wondering if it is starting to go around her school now. I hate flu season!

I'm changing my 11 year old son from BJU math to Saxon 7/6 next week. He placed between 8/7 and 7/6 so I felt that the Saxon 7/6 would be better. I also want to supplement with Singapore because I feel that it is a good program. It has been several years since I used it with my oldest dd. Which level would you use for a 6th grader who is a little above average skill wise? (He was working in the 7th and 8th grade BJU books). He could probably test into level 5 but I'm wondering if it would be best to start with level 4 since he is new to Singapore.

I'm looking at their website and I'm confused about what materials I would need. Would I need all of the student books, teacher's manual, solutions, etc.? I will probably be purchasing 7/6.

My ds is in 6th grade. We have been using BJU for the past few years but quite honestly I'm finding it difficult to spend enough time using the teacher's guide and I usually end up just using the textbook. I know that he isn't getting a complete program this way so I'm thinking about switching to another program. I'm not really sure what it is I don't like about the teacher's manual but I find it time consuming and it just doesn't click with either of us. DS is good in math and we have been going over topics in both the 7th grade and 8th grade book this year.. I'm thinking about trying another curriculum but I'm wondering if it would be detrimental to change this late (6th grade). I was thinking about possibly using Saxon (I think he would do well with the spiral review) and possibly Singapore. Another problem is that I will probably only be homeschooling him for one more year, possibly two so I want him ready to start algebra in 8th grade. If I start with Singapore this late I'm not sure how much we can get done in the next two years. At this point we're not sure if we are sending him to school for 8th or 9th grade.