Has anybody used Brain Strong for kids from Amerifit?

[wy_kid_wrangler04]

I ordered 2 bottles for ds from the health food store 2 weeks ago. I thought I was over reacting but today we saw his OT for the first time since June and she said she was 'shocked' (her words) to see his inability to focus and pay attention compared to last year :001_huh:. It has really been bad. Not exactly sure what has changed to cause this. So, if you have used it, can you share your thoughts on it?? No telling me about better products for about 2 months though until these are gone (just found out they are back ordered until Sept 28 :glare:)

 

 

Michelle-- I am up for words of wisdom from you!! ;)

 

[PeterPan]

Well I haven't used that one, but it says it has DHA. Many people use that straight or the omega 3 to get it. It's WIDELY known that those good fats (found in fish, flax oil, etc.) help our kids. Definitely affects attention in my dd, and it's RADICALLY beneficial for my ds' speech. So you're not crazy. :D

 

Have you been seeing noticeable results in your home or was it just the therapist? Just asking, because of course a therapist's opinion alone, if she hasn't seen him in a while, might be skewed by age, him having a down day, whatever. However when that dose is right (or he goes off), you'll probably see a difference yourself as far as when you teach him. I give my ds 2 tsp. flax oil a day. That's as much or more than I take a day (because I take it in capsules, 6 a day as is typical for an adult, and he gets it on a spoon. Nevertheless, that amount does wonders for his speech. And if my dd misses her flax oil, ooo MAN is it a bad day in our house! She takes 6 a day like me. I tried her on more, but too much can mess with hormones, etc.

 

So you're not crazy. Congrats on finding something helpful! :)

[justamouse]

We love it.

[wy_kid_wrangler04]

Yes I notice a difference for sure. That is why I decided to order the supplement in the first place. I was just hoping it was something I was expecting to much. He just seems more dazed and in a cloud than normal. (if that makes sense!)

[PeterPan]

Hmm, well you're saying the result is good or bad? It should only be good. If he seems foggy or cloudy, he might not be digesting it well.

[wy_kid_wrangler04]

Hmm, well you're saying the result is good or bad? It should only be good. If he seems foggy or cloudy, he might not be digesting it well.

 

 

 

Oh no we haven't tried it yet. It is on back order. I sure hope it helps. He is on a gummy fish oil now. I hate the gummies (to much like candy) but it was all the store had in stock when we went.

[NittanyJen]

Well I haven't used that one, but it says it has DHA. Many people use that straight or the omega 3 to get it. It's WIDELY known that those good fats (found in fish, flax oil, etc.) help our kids. Definitely affects attention in my dd, and it's RADICALLY beneficial for my ds' speech. So you're not crazy. :D

 

Have you been seeing noticeable results in your home or was it just the therapist? Just asking, because of course a therapist's opinion alone, if she hasn't seen him in a while, might be skewed by age, him having a down day, whatever. However when that dose is right (or he goes off), you'll probably see a difference yourself as far as when you teach him. I give my ds 2 tsp. flax oil a day. That's as much or more than I take a day (because I take it in capsules, 6 a day as is typical for an adult, and he gets it on a spoon. Nevertheless, that amount does wonders for his speech. And if my dd misses her flax oil, ooo MAN is it a bad day in our house! She takes 6 a day like me. I tried her on more, but too much can mess with hormones, etc.

 

So you're not crazy. Congrats on finding something helpful! :)

 

If she misses, is it worse than before, or just like never having been on it? As in, do you think there is some kind of withdrawal effect?

 

I ask, because I had always avoided fish oil/flax oil for DS, because although he is in a category of kids who could benefit from it, but one doc he has worked with hinted at "not yet published, but coming soon" studies she was privvy to that showed profoundly bad effects of fish oil on kids with seizure disorders, and she warned me not to give him any, and I had listened. Well . . . several years have gone by, and I have yet to see any such study actually reach publication, so my suspicious radar on the truth of that statement is kind of pinging, and I'm considering giving it a try after talking to his neurologist soon to check on interactions with his other issues/meds first (the neuro was not the doc who warned off of it).

 

But I would want to know first if it's something that you can't leave once you start it.

Edited September 15, 2012 by NittanyJen

[PeterPan]

If she misses, is it worse than before, or just like never having been on it? As in, do you think there is some kind of withdrawal effect?

 

I ask, because I had always avoided fish oil/flax oil for DS, because although he is in a category of kids who could benefit from it, but one doc he has worked with hinted at "not yet published, but coming soon" studies she was privvy to that showed profoundly bad effects of fish oil on kids with seizure disorders, and she warned me not to give him any, and I had listened. Well . . . several years have gone by, and I have yet to see any such study actually reach publication, so my suspicious radar on the truth of that statement is kind of pinging, and I'm considering giving it a try after talking to his neurologist soon to check on interactions with his other issues/meds first (the neuro was not the doc who warned off of it).

 

But I would want to know first if it's something that you can't leave once you start it.

 

Well for what it's worth my nutritionist (the one I've used for 11 years now for myself and trust a lot) is down on fish oil too. She has her theories on the ills it will cause (liver cancer down the road) and her reasons why she thinks that. I was desperate enough to do things to help ds when he was little that we did it anyway. It made him fussy, so we stopped. Flax oil doesn't make him fussy unless we get the amount too high. Fish oil did even when the amount was quite low. Whole fish did then too, though it doesn't seem to now.

 

Her recommendation was to eat low mercury fish and eat the whole fish rather than taking just the oil. Her sense was that it would have the enzymes and whatnot that way. She also has theories on mercury (in case that's your next question) and says fish should always be eaten along with veges so the metals chelate out and don't stick. Like I said, lol, she has theories. :D

 

So that's why we take flax oil, not fish. Flax oil is processed, when you think about it, but that doesn't seem to bother the nutritionist with the contradiction. Whatever. The omega 3 in flax converts over less readily to DHA (the end goal) than taking the DHA directly. It's all chemistry stuff that I researched a couple years ago and gave up on. Some people say they take flax and don't get any behavior or symptom changes. I'll just point out that there's a conversion there and all people are not going to convert equally well. That's going to be connected to the rest of the person's diet, overall health and functioning, etc. etc.

 

The algal DHA is a curiousity to me btw. I think when I researched it for apraxia, they said it works but not as well as fish. When the algal source came out years ago, there was some controversy. I'm really not sure what came of it. I haven't really tried it. In the back of my mind I'm always open to new wonder cures. It's not like we've reached perfection. My dd was on the flax oil when she got her evals and still got diagnosed, where they say if you're on the meds the attention issues literally change in testing. So it's not like it's some complete cure we're talking here. But when she's OFF the flax oil (which happened for a week when I forgot to order more), it's AWFUL. And when she misses a dose, the next day is awful. So it definitely has an effect. It keeps her functional enough that the np pretty much looked at me like I had 3 heads when I asked if I ought to be opening my mind to meds. He said what we were doing was working and to keep up with it. But off the flax, uh yeah I'd be opening my pocketbook for meds. She's taken flax since she was little, so she's never been another way.

[NittanyJen]

I picked up some flax oil today at BJ's. Maybe we'll give it a whirl.