Part 2 --ADHD J.C.'s Story

Part 2----ADHD J.C.'s Story

     When we left off in Part 1, I had gone over the research I discovered about the hypothalamus. That part explained why J.C. had uncontrollable heat issues, emotional problems and sleeplessness, but it didn’t explain his other issues. Diving deeper into the brain and the parts of our bodies that control other things would lead me to some needed answers.

     That itching problem.  If you’ve ever been around a nervous-nelly person you’ll understand the frustration of trying to teach a ten year old boy who just can’t sit still. The nervousness of someone else will eventually wear off onto you and then the battles begin. I seriously had to find the answer for this itching problem and find it fast.

     I found that Cortisol and a thing called the HPA axis were also closely related to functions like mood, motivation, and memory. The HPA axis is connected with parts of the brain that control body temp, suppress appetite and pain control. People with to low or to high levels of Cortisol are more prone to diseases that affect the memory.  Perhaps that’s why J.C. would often complain that he couldn’t remember things he was taught or would do. If it were just his saying it I might have not given it a second thought, but the problem was that I was witnessing it. I would teach him something and ten minutes later it was like he had never heard it before. It wasn’t an act. 

     The HPA axis and the SNS (Sympathethic Nervous System) are parts of the stress response in our bodies along with the hypothalamus. They believe that Chronic stress causes the activation of the HPA axis and the effects can be:

*Anxiety disorders

*Major depression

*Irritable Bowel Syndrome

*Insomnia

*Bipolar

*PTSD

*Borderline Personality

*ADHD

*Alcoholism

*Rheumatoid Arthritis (there seems to be lower levels of Cortisol in people with RA)

     So I’m looking at this list and thinking okay, so J.C. has a multitude of these symptoms. Keep on looking and searching for more. My question was how to control the Cortisol in your body.  Diet seemed to be a major factor. Processed foods caused Cortisol problems and not eating enough foods with high fiber content or essential nutrients was another. How many people today are stuck on fast foods where they’re saturating their bodies with highly processed foods and much of the nutrients are missing?  The major factors of high Cortisol and increasing inflammation seem to be; foods filled with high sugar content, too high amounts of refined and trans fats, too much alcohol, not consuming enough foods rich in antioxidants or vital nutrients, not enough fiber or foods with healthy proteins and fats.

     What did all this mean? Yep. Looking further into it. The HPA axis was responsible for controlling things like the heart rate, blood pressure and digestion. It also communicates with parts of the brain, including the part that controls; motivation, mood, the amygdala, which gives you that feeling of fear when you sense danger, it communicates with the hippocampus which is directly involved in memory formation and mood along with motivation. 

    When I began researching the connection between all of this it was connected to the hypothalamus. So I knew I was going in the right direction.

I started seeing things about Histamine, which intrigued me because of J.C.’s itching. One of the things I found really interesting was the fact that in schizophrenic people, metabolites of histamine were found to be increased in their cerebrospinal fluid. Because of this increase, a lot of the drugs geared toward helping a person with schizophrenia have the ability to increase histamine in an effort to bring a balance. This lead me to try and understand why histamine was so important because of J.C’s erratic behavior. 

     To my surprise, Histamine, plays a major role in at least 23 functions of our body. It is even believed that it controls the way in which our memory and learning works. And guess what? Histamine is released as a neurotransmitter  and the cell bodies are found in the back portion of the Hypothalamus.  

     One of the biggest problems with that HPA axis thing I was talking about earlier is that when it’s over worked, when stress levels are too high for too long it becomes a Chronic HPA response and the body can just continually dump Histamine until the body becomes Histamine intolerant.  They have found in people that Benadryl has positive effects in blocking the Histamine receptors and it:

*Decreases Anxiety

*Increases Serotonin

*Increases Dopamine

*Is useful in the treatment of people with OCD.

     As I learned more and more I came to realize that J.C. probably had food intolerances. The food intolerances could or most likely would produce an increase of Histamine. This in turn would cause a Chronic HPA response which would lead to Histamine intolerance. The food intolerances combined with a chronic Histamine intolerance would create all of the symptoms that J.C. experienced. I believe that no amount of a man made drug would be able to cure J.C.’s symptoms because the root of his problems were coming from deep within his body. Until we could get that happy balance back we were just shooting darts at a board that didn’t exist.

     I started with foods. Each day when I gave J.C. foods that he usually ate I took note of his behavior before and after. Wow. It was amazing what you see when you’re really looking.  I began to whittle away at foods that seem to cause an increase in behavioral problems. One day he ate peanuts. About twenty minutes later his body itching, that stretching rubber band look came on. He couldn’t sit still to eat, do his school work or watch tv. I knew those had to go.  No more peanuts or at least not for a while and not on a regular basis.

       Talking with my oldest son he had told me that he’d heard that a couple handfuls of Cashews had the same effect as Prozac. I thought we’d see. Oh my goodness! I gave J.C. a couple handfuls the first day and noticed that he became more fidgety. The second day he was at my last nerve. The third day I wanted to throw myself off of our 14ft high porch to keep from hurting him!  Absolutely NO MORE CASHEWS.  Cashews ramped up the Histamine effect to the highest degree. J.C. couldn’t sit still, had trouble sleeping and his rage increased. 

     Hot dogs were another food that caused as much trouble as cashews. When you think about all of the processed foods kids eat today is it any wonder their little bodies have problems? 

     One of the things that kept going through my mind when I began the research journey was that years and years ago you rarely heard of kids that were uncontrollable. Most people have thought that it was because parents put a good whooping on them.  I’m not so sure. Think about the foods they ate. The majority of food they ate was straight from the field (and without pesticides or preservatives!) and straight from the cow or goat. There was very little ever brought into a home that hadn’t been raised by their family or someone close by. Processed food was not a staple in their cupboards like it is for us today. 

     I’m a firm believer that we are what we eat in one way or another. Even adults have symptoms that weren’t seen years ago.  Our dietary habits, the way in which our foods are grown and cultivated, everything we eat today has changed from what it was.  Everyday we see new and improved prescribed medications that are supposed to improve our quality of life or take away our ailments, but very few people look at the long term side effects. Yes I’d like pains and things to go away, but there are some processes inside our bodies that deserve more than just taking away the symptoms. I want to fix the problem if possible.

     So, what did I do with all that research information? How did I use it to help J.C.? To begin with I changed his diet. I paid close attention to the foods he ate and how his body reacted and then chose to keep or remove anything that caused a problem. His food intolerances, in my opinion probably caused a Histamine problem which would have lead to that itchy,  non-stop movement he couldn’t control. To help combat the histamine problems from foods that he might be intolerant to I choose to give him a daily dose of Benadryl. If he’s having a day where he’s ate something that makes him begin to feel that constant itch or uncontrollable moving sensation, he’ll ask if he can have a Benadryl. He understands how he feels now and tries to stop it before it becomes a problem.

     Through the research there were several other supplements that I discovered J.C. was probably lacking so I began a trial and error with the ones I thought might help. I finally hit on four things that have produced a major difference in J.C.’s behavior, attitude and learning ability. The Calm Keeper seems to be a major component for helping him feel more alive and more relaxed.  A vitamin B complex, a multivitamin, and his Benadryl.

These four supplements have changed J.C.’s world.

     If you remember from the previous blog post, when J.C. first came to us, he couldn’t read, couldn’t count to twenty, had psychotic outbursts filled with rage to the point that no one could control him. He had become a true social outcast with no one wanting to have to deal with him and he had problems finding friends because he couldn’t control his anger or emotions when he was around anyone. His school had determined that he was borderline mentally retarded based on his lack of learning and behavioral issues. He had become so out of control that he had four felonies hanging over him and was only ten years old!  The anti-psychotic drugs seemed to worsen his symptoms and his rages were more frequent. Daily, J.C. was saying things like he wanted to die and he wished his mom and others around him were dead, obviously something was causing his suicidal/homicidal thoughts. None of these things were normal for a ten year old child. 

     Today, seven months later, J.C. is a typical ten year old boy. Yes, he still gets frustrated when he can’t go out and play or can’t do something that he wants. That’s a normal behavior, but his response to it is manageable. It’s usually something like, “okay, but can I watch……? , or “will you play a game with me?” These are normal behavioral responses to being disappointed about not getting to do something or go somewhere you wanted to go. He no longer has psychotic break downs or angry outbursts that are destructive or harmful to him or anyone else. If he has an off day, after he’s been disciplined by not being able to watch his tv or play his video games, J.C. will usually come from his room and tell me he’s sorry for misbehaving. His behavioral problems will take a little more time to mold because he’s had ten years of bad learning experience and has to be retrained in the right way. Consistency and making the discipline fit the crime or the misbehavior is the key to that I believe. Hopefully, it won’t take ten years to retrain, but even if it did I would be happy because he’s improved so much. It warms my heart when we get out of a car and he grabs my hand to hold it as we walk. I’ve never demanded that he do this. He chose to do this on his own. He used to wonder away from me at stores and go to the aisles where he wanted to look. He doesn’t do that anymore because I’ve been consistent in what I tell him will happen if he does. If he walks away from me he knows not to ask me to buy him anything because the answer will be no. I need him to understand the word “no” and accept it based on what his actions and reactions are. Every day I see improvement and growth. 

     When I first started teaching J.C. how to read the struggle was hard. I understood he couldn’t help the majority of his behavior. I could see his inner struggle and the pain of it in his eyes. It was painful for me to watch.

     Today, J.C. is learning so much. He’s getting really good at sounding out words and understands how the letters combined make words. He still  struggles because he’s so far behind, but he is far from the child he was when he first came. He’s a fast learner when he understands the concept. His math skills are improving greatly. He not only can count to one hundred and beyond, but he’s learning place values now also. He’s learning the tens, ones and hundreds place value at the moment.  He seems to find it easier to sit a little more still for longer periods. A lot of that is dependent on his diet. When he eats things that aggravate his system he fidgets and I regret the choice of food  he was given, but the thing is that I and he now understand that we can control that issue to a large degree by just changing a food. 

     All of these learning experiences have happened over seven months. J.C. had six years in a traditional school setting and hadn’t learned any of the basics. I don’t believe that it was because the school was bad or that the teachers didn’t know how to teach. I believe it was because no one had found the root cause of J.C.’s behavioral, emotional, and learning issues. Everyone was treating his issues with outside, man made solutions, man made medications,  when I believe the issues were rooted within his mind and body.  When our bodies are out of sync, out of whack, we need to look deeper at how to control things from within our bodies. If J.C. had stayed on the course he was on, I doubt he would have ever had the chance to learn and grow into a productive person.

     I’m sure that there will be some who will say that because I believe that supplements and nutrition are the sole reason J.C. is doing so well today that I’m like the snake oil peddler of the olden days. If you don’t believe in the mainstream way of life, the modern way of medicine, you must be crazy. Right?

     Well, for me, anyone can dismiss what I tell  about my experiences with supplements and nutrition. I’ve always said that the proof is in the pudding. With J.C., he’s like a fancy banana pudding with extremely rich cream, lots of whipped cream slathered around the bowl and topped with the decadent cherry.  People can deny anything they don’t understand, but if you’d have met J.C. before and then saw him today-----you would swear I had switched kids somewhere along the line. Most people who see him today tell me they can’t believe he’s the same kid and oh how I love to hear that! Now, I’m not saying that J.C. is perfect now. He’s still got a long way to go because he’s so far behind in life. I keep telling him that because of this “He” has to try twice or three times as hard to catch up and prove the people who didn’t believe in him wrong. 

     Please share this journey, J.C.’s story with others so they can see that there just might be hope after all. If you have a child with ADHD or other issues, be ruthless in their care. Ask questions. Demand answers beyond “we don’t know, or we think……”  

     I know that these last two posts have been a little heavy, a little less humorous than I’d like, but this was such an important issue to me that I needed to share it. My hope is that from this front porch talk, you’ll take a little of Mama’s advice and look a little deeper for answers when the solutions aren’t working as well as you’d like. 

     Feel free to join our email list and keep us up to date on any stories you’d like to share with us.  

     My coffee cup’s empty now, so we’ll see you soon back here on the front porch!

     

     ****Please note that nothing within J.C.’s story should be mistaken, misconstrued for sound medical advice. I only speak from my experience. Please do not stop taking medications without the advice of your physician. I am not a doctor and do not advise stopping medications cold turkey (some medications can be extremely harmful if stopped suddenly!), so please seek the guidance and advice of your physician before beginning any new treatment.