I am not counting meds out completely, I just don't want to start there. I would like to at least try without first. He's not bothered at all by his personality, he's quite comfortable with himself, or oblivious to it, so he's not being hindered that way. It's what I can handle and if it causes issues in his learning that will determine really how things go. If it's turns out that it's best for him, that's what I'll do, but I don't want to jump into that if not needed! ;)

I have a friend that just had a developmental op. look at her son, he has so many issues it's amazing. She started pushing me right away to be sure to do this with DS. So I am going to start that. I planned to discuss it with the Dr. when I go in but no matter what he says I'm doing it! The hearing was really just that he could hear, not a formal test. One mom in our co op does hearing stuff so I planned to go to her after talking to the Dr. too. He wants to medicate him because he's so severe, and I truly do see what he means. If we could get that under control it'd be easier to "retrain" his brain. However I'm more than willing to put in the work to keep redirecting him and keep him off the meds. He really was AWFUL at the eval but if it were work he was doing at home I know I could have redirected him and he'd have done better. I understand he can't do this while testing him, and he understands I'm willing to work with him. I know he's figuring on therapy also, and I'm all for that. We home school him and his older DS now, I'd never send my kids to school as long as I can help it :tongue_smilie: As I understand it he'll have things like this for me to do with him and therapy sessions to work on this type of thing. I'm very anxious to get started on this. I'm reading a book now that has some things to help with it too. Just haven't gotten to that part yet! DH was laughing reading the official report, asked if I hadn't somehow gotten the Dr to evaluate HIM, it reads exactly like what he'd get. Thankfully he agrees with me on the meds. He looks at it as DS is EXACTLY like him and he made out fine without meds or his parents doing anything to help him. So I figure DS should be fine without them, and do great with the help we are giving him.

UPDATE AND QUESTION OP again, sorry I still can't change the title to an update and didn't want to start a new thread and confuse anyone ;) Just a bit more. The official results came back and it has him with severe ADHD, just like the Dr. said originally. He figures him in like the 95%. It also put his overall IQ at 120, he's lower in working memory and processing speed surprise (not) :D It states he expects he'd be even higher if it weren't for the ADHD issues. DH looked up IQ ranges and I guess normal is up to 100 so he's pretty special. Not that we didn't already know that. No issues with depression or deep anger, again something I could have told him, but good to hear. Emotions are confusing to him and feelings threaten him so I will ask about this. It showed not really having hearing problems, though now that I've been watching him we think he has trouble hearing with background noises (DH does also). It did state his motor skills are not smooth and visual tracking is stochastic and inefficient. Definitely going to ask about that! So my point to writing this update, if anyone reads it, is that I have to go in in two weeks for a consultation with him about the results. I have questions I want to ask about different things, it's a nice, lengthy report, but I just thought I'd see if anyone had any opinions on things I should be asking about since I'm sure some of you have been there! Thanks again!!!

Thanks guys! I will start with one of these and just go from there! I have flax oil already, didn't realize what all was in it. I just got some for adding to my breakfast drinks. I'm expecting these things won't "fix" his problems but I'm hoping it helps. The gluten free diet has amazingly been a great benefit, but I didn't realize how much until we took him off of it to see. It's certainly not a complete fix. I guess my goal is if all these things help a little bit each it'll add up to enough to avoid meds:D

I've been looking and looking but not finding the info I need, thought someone here might be able to help. DS6 was just diagnosed with severe ADHD, Dr. said 95% and gifted (I guess). His immediate recommendation was meds of course, but he knows I'm not going for that yet ;) He told me about Omega 3 possibly helping but he said 2000mg a day. I finally found some with the epa:dha ratio I have been hearing about, but they don't come close to 2000mg a day! I thought maybe someone on here would have a better idea of exactly what is recommended to help. I'd like to get started on it, but they couldn't get me in for my consult for another 3 weeks. TIA

How old are your kiddos? Any of them old enough to help out? I hate cleaning my bathrooms. I realized DH8 (now 9) WANTED to clean the bathroom and I was being silly not to teach him! :001_huh: It's now "his" job and he does great, not complaining. I have him do it usually twice a week. If I feel it needs a "good cleaning" at some point I'll go over it, but he's really done a great job. For me, if it were just bathrooms and mopping I'd have them helping out. Well, the new house we're moving into I'm getting a robot vacuum gadget thing to do the floors for me :D, DS can still clean the bathroom! As much as I'd love to have someone clean my house for me, I have a terrible aversion to it. Just the thought of what they can do wrong drives me crazy...I have a hard enough time letting DS do it!

I forgot, I wanted to also say I do have the love languages for children, just haven't read it yet. I know the 5 love languages book is more than excellent and really works so I really need to push the children one up to the top of the list! He does have a very active brain and he really is a very smart kid. His mind works just like DH's, they can understand things by just looking at them. I think even if he is gifted he's still got ADHD, he really can't concentrate on something very long and can not, on his own, get back to what he was supposed to be doing. He has to be redirected. It's like his brain and mouth are not separate, the thoughts that go through his head MUST come out of his mouth, and he has LOTS of thoughts!

Yes, sorry I don't know how to edit the title to say I've posted an update:001_huh: My forum knowledge is pretty basic! Thanks to everyone who has posted book and site ideas. This is a great start for my lengthy research! I see I'm going to be offline and sneaking in my own reading a lot more... on top of preparing to move, doing the boys' school work and my own online classes! UGH, I so need a way to function without sleep! I think today will be a "sit and figure out a schedule" day. You guys have really helped make me feel so much better. I know in my mind that no one around here truly understands what I am dealing with, including DH. Fortunately he's a great man, understands he doesn't fully understand and is VERY supportive of me. Two nights ago I said I was sleeping on the couch because I "just need to be alone". He just said okay and left it at that. I do so love my DH :001_wub: Anyway, it's has been very nice to HEAR others say they are in the same spot, no one gets it unless they have one! It warmed my heart hearing the Dr. say I must be a very patient woman. Just to reply to a few questions by some of you, I do totally love DS. He's a sweet, loving, caring, helpful (well, his heart is there) boy. There is a lot of cuddling, hugging, kissing and smiles between us. We're always blowing kisses. He really is cute! (I keep saying it's what keeps him alive ;)). My biggest hurdle in dealing with him is his voice. He talks a lot, he talks loudly and yes this can be difficult, but it's not the main issue. Best I've been able to describe it is the tone of his voice drills right into my brain. Even as a baby, when he'd cry, it was so distracting. It was hard for me to drive when he cried... and he cried the entire time he was in a car. There is something about him that just totally throws you off. Even the Dr. said this. DS was chattering away in the session and the Dr. kept saying he (Dr.) lost what he was doing, DS is very distracting for some reason. And when I'm in one of my own depressive states, it's even worse. I am always reminding myself it's not his fault and remain very loving. There are times I have to tell him to please be quiet (which of course he can't do) or I send him to the game room to play for a bit, but I do try to be sure to discuss it with him, and he seems to understand. He knows his voice is loud and if I just tell him I can't have the loud noises right now he cheerily goes off and plays. But no, he's not generally a cheery child as one person asked. It's hard to describe. And it doesn't matter who's telling him what, he is the same with everyone. Since posting this the first time (which was certainly a bad mix of him being exceptionally difficult at the time, my being in a depressive state and frustrated and realizing no one has a clue what this is like and being tired of having the looks of it "being my fault" and not disciplining him properly.... I know you all know what I mean) I have looked even harder at making sure I deal with him calmly and lovingly and not that he's doing things to get away with something or to defy me. I've realized that asking him to go pick up toys in the living room or game room is too general. I have to ask him to pick up the imaginext toys. Then go pick up the Ben 10 toys. He does MUCH better this way. I also give him time, he has till I count to 30 to take the toy to the room, put it away and be back to me. I am against medication unless all else fails! I told the Dr. I'd certainly like to try to do all these things first. He couldn't redirect DS during the tests, that would defeat the purpose, but I can when I'm working with him and it does help. I agree, if I do the work now I think he'll get better. DH certainly had to be like this when he was little and even without anyone doing anything for him he "straightened out" Well, okay I did a lot of work on him :tongue_smilie:I can understand how this would be difficult if DS went to school, but since I do everything with him, I think it's better for him this way. From the time he was born I knew things were different with him and my first DS. I immediately fell in love with DS #1, couldn't stand to be apart from him one second. Yep, he was the PERFECT baby and still is pretty great. That connection was not there with DS #2, it blew me away how different things were. But I knew things would change and I made sure I told myself all the time, "I do love him, this shall pass" and it did. I miss him terribly when he's gone for the day, no matter how peaceful that day is :D His grandmother apparently had the same issue, and she to this day does not care for him much. I hope he never figures this out. I see I have a lot of work ahead of me but I'm so glad to have found some people that can give me ideas of where to look and just support that I'm not alone!!! You're all GREAT!!!!!!!

Just in case anyone has been wondering, I figured I'd put in an update. I've been totally off these boards (not that I was very active on them, mostly reading) since I posted this to work with DS. He just finished his last evaluation session this week. Due to illnesses we took awhile to get this done. The Dr. still needs to check all the results for a full report, but at this time he thinks all his issues are related to his ADHD. No doubt he has this! Dr. and I were both exhausted after this session! He thinks he's in the 95%, he's so bad with it. Although he doesn't normally suggest this, he thinks we should medicate DS so it can settle him and we can work with other things. He feels if you medicate younger they can totally be off of it in a year or two. Not my first option. Since we home school I feel I can work with him enough to try the other things first. So, off to research what all to do with the boy :) He has been on a gluten free diet and it has seemed to help his temper tremendously. He has been off of it a week or so and I could see a great difference in him this session at the Dr.'s compared to the previous session. He could not sit still to save his life. So I do think that has been a great help. The Dr. also suggested Omega 3 supplements, so I'm going to start that also. He thinks if there is anything aside from ADHD it will come out later, after we get this under control. And so many times he said "You must be a patient woman." during the evaluation. That made me feel better! So I wanted to send out an update, everyone was so helpful on here and really got the ball rolling for us. I immediately started looking at DS differently and handling him differently after posting this. You have no idea how great all you comments and suggestions were. Thank you all so much!!!!:001_wub:

I've used picmonkey, so it will work at sometime! I have also found the sites below. I haven't really played with them a lot, I am thinking I decided picmonkey was the best one. It has my favorite effect, Orton. http://fotoflexer.com/app/index.php?integration=upload http://lunapic.com/editor/?action=motive http://ipiccy.com/

:grouphug::grouphug::grouphug::grouphug::grouphug: Sorry to hear, prayers to you and your family. We lost our fabulous lab in Nov, it was awful. :grouphug::grouphug::grouphug:

Yeah, even immediate incentives don't work on him. GRRRRRR I'll be checking this site out tonight! UGH, if he talks any more than he does already, I may go deaf! It'll be good if he can communicate BETTER though....

After all the responses I'm going to look into doing this... getting him evaluated. I can have all the want in the world to do what will help him, but I gotta know what the problem is first, right!? Thank you for directing me as to where to look for info!

I just sent a message to a friend of mine. Her DS has aspergers (he's her Sheldon! ;)) and she has a lot of family members with a variety of issues. I asked her if she has any potential Dr's or suggestions to start. I have no delusions that anything will make life easy with him, but I want to make life easier FOR him. If I'm doing something that is detrimental, I want to stop. That Explosive Child sounds good, I'm going to go see what that's about. I was debating on posting this here or the special needs board, just wasn't sure. I'll have to venture over there and look around.

:lol: yep :tongue_smilie: