Brain Balance Centers and Therapy

[susancollins]

Can you share your thoughts and experiences if you have gone through the brain balance center program or know anyone who has. I will give a little background.

My son Jackson was born at 35 weeks. I had pre-clampsia. He was born not breathing and was black and blue all over his face. He has had devlopment delays since he was a baby. He never liked to be held touched, and couldn't sit up till he was 9 months old. He has been in OT since he was a infant. He has been in speech since he was 3. He is now 7 years old. He is reading but he struggles. He is advanced in math he loves numbers and he tested at the end of kindergarten at a 2nd grade 4 month level on the Woodcock Johnson test. I want to give Jackson ever advantage to excel in life. He is very ackward social he still bites, and he has a hard time articulating what he wants. I was told he has Aspergers but he is to young for an offical diagnoses. He has ADHD for sure. He is all over the place. As a last resort I put him on Focalin last year and it has changed him for the better. He is able to focus and learn. We are thinking of going through the Brain Balance Center program it is expensive $ 7300. I would need to get a part-time job to help out with therapy can you give me some ideas on what you would do. I can work part-time on the weekend but want to make sure it is worth while for me to do so. If you also have any ideas for Jackson please share. If you got through this Thank you for taking the time to read and hopefully comment.

[susancollins]

Anyone :bigear:

[lulubelle]

Strange, but I just finished searching the board on this. I was skimming the book Reconnected Kids, as well. The little I found, it doesn't sound good. There are no quick solutions it seems. One woman wrote that she spent 6K with no results. Others feel it is a scam. Good luck.

[mommy5]

We thought about it but insurance didn't cover it and we were unsure if it would do anything ... so decided against it. You might get more responses on the SN section of the forum.

[susancollins]

Thank you both for your responses. Anyone else?

[walkermamaof4]

We are doing it right now. Remember to ask me in 9 more weeks as this is week 3. The igg test for nutrition was extremely helpful and worth every penny to me. I have friends doing BB who have had igg tests elsewhere and through BB and had exactly the same results but found the BB test to be more helpful because they tell you all vitamin deficiencies, test over 90 foods, tell you exactly what to buy and where and what dosage and which to avoid because they have something in them that your kid can't eat right now. They tell you how to reintroduce those foods back later and hopefully they will eventually not be sensitive to them any longer. So the nutritional testing was great, way better than anything I could find on my own. The bummer is they won't test my other kids so I have to find someone else to test them. They only test kids doing the program. The best part for me was the odd stuff they found that I could have never guessed. My ds is sensitive at this point to cinnamon and spinach and mustard seed but not gluten. If I had just eliminated gluten on my own, I would have gotten little gain since I would have missed everything he has actual sensitivities to. The fact that my friends (2 different cases) had identical results from 2 different labs with the igg makes me comfortable with the BB igg results. (DS also can't eat eggs, milk, and casein - but I would have never eliminated the eggs or the spinach and such on my own without this test! Oh, and sunflower seeds. Do you know that sunflower oil is in tons and tons of stuff and he is sensitive to it? Such a bummer, but I need to help this child and I am willing to remove this from his diet for 4 weeks and add back in for trial tests every so often to see if he can handle it again later. And that was worth it to me.)

 

The BB testing for needs/skills/brain deficiencies or whatever was amazingly helpful as well. So even if you don't do the program, if you can afford the testing it is worth it. They explained stuff about my ds that makes so much sense but I didn't know. They totally helped me in my expectations of ds. Then, read their book and do the exercise program at the back on your own if you don't want to pay for the program. My friend is doing that with her son with good progress. If nothing else, your child will end up stronger physically for certain. Everyone agrees, I think, that exercise helps any child with ADD or any other of those types of issues. I can't imagine how the lady on this board had no changes from BB. I'd want to hear BB's side of it and see her test results before and after and hear how much they did the program faithfully at home. Also, there is a list in the book of music for left and right brain struggles. Put it on grooveshark and have your child listen to it in the correct ear for 20 minute increments a few times a day. Plug the other ear. I think you will read elsewhere that this is helpful to train the brain. My friend told me other therapists had her doing it even before she did BB.

 

Our other friends just finished BB with their left-brain weak dyslexic dd. They said it was worth every penny. Another very close friend just finished with her 13 y.o. dd and said it was worth it. That child was told up front they'd need to do at least 2 sessions. They have only finished 1 but still have seen huge gains in maturity, ability to use puns and converse at a much more advanced level... Just to have her be able to do that was so huge for them. And older friends who hadn't seen her in a while and didn't know she was doing BB asked the mom what accounted for the sudden changes in her. That says a lot to me.

 

I just think - how can I not try? I understand some people just don't have the money, but then they can buy the book and faithfully do it at home. That takes hours a day. I understand they may not have hours and then they just really can't do it at all. We chose to do the full BB program because it is less time overall for me. The BB place is 45 minutes away, so it is still a huge time commitment. But I just felt like I had to try. I went because our BB offered a $99 deal on the testing. Maybe yours would do the same if you asked just because the test alone is so helpful.

 

HTH. Feel free to pm me. And ask BB for tons of names and #'s of folks to call. They had us sign something saying they could give our name and ph # out - but that was optional.

[susancollins]

My son is having his testing done on the 23rd. We are very excited about the possibility. I wanted to make sure it was worth it to spend the money. I will pm you with some questions. Thank you so much for all of your responses.

[walkermamaof4]

Feel free to pm me. We get our 4 week progress report tomorrow. So far I can honestly say it has radically changed our diet for the better in a way I think we will stick with for all of us. It has granted us a much better understanding of ds's issues. However, I can't say I see changes in him yet. They say the child will have worse behaviors for at least 2 weeks as their brain works so hard to deal with all of the exercising of it. We found this to be 100% true and pretty tiring. But right as that let up, we altered his diet and they said we'd see at least 2 weeks of withdrawals from all the items we removed from his diet. So we haven't really hit the period where things should supposedly get better. We are right at the cusp I hope.

 

I have a friend with a child with huge sensory issues. They are several weeks ahead of us. Her child, age 9, went upstairs on his own this week and put on a pair of his brothers' hand-me-down pants. It was the first time he has ever put on anything other than sweats. That was encouraging to her! I hope we can say in a few weeks that we are seeing similar progress in our own ds.