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December 14, 2018

How To Stop Tics Naturally

Trying to figure out how to stop tics naturally? As it turns out, tics and other childhood brain disorders have a common root: inflammation in the brain. Whether the cause is genetic, autoimmune, or an infection – you can support your kid’s behavior with diet and supplements.

The first time I noticed my son had developed a tic disorder, I was terrified. Clearly, there was something happening in his body that he had no control of. It started around the same time he developed PANDAS symptoms, following a respiratory illness.

It was subtle, but there was no doubt, he was making a soft sighing sound at times when he otherwise should not have been making a sound: while sitting quietly watching TV or reading a book, for instance. I had no clue what this new and puzzling symptom was, but I knew it was neurological in nature, which was the scariest thing of all to me.

Since that initial development of tics, my son’s tic disorder has come and gone, usually after careful and deliberate supplementation. They have shown up as an eye-widening tic, a blinking tic, and a throat clearing or vocal tics at varying times, but no doubt, they are the worst when he is battling the most inflammation.

Not sure if what your child is struggling with might be a tic? Read on.

What is a tic disorder?

Tic disorders usually begin in childhood, from ages five to seven years old.

When your child has a tic, you see the body move suddenly and uncontrollably. Movements appear non-rhythmic and repetitive.

Tics that involve movement are called motor tics. Most cases start with simple tics like eye blinking and progress to more complex tics. Examples of simple motor tics include:

Nose wrinkling
Eye blinking
Facial grimacing
Shoulder shrugging

Tics that involve sound are called vocal tics. Vocal tics tend to begin one to two years after the onset of motor tics. Examples of simple vocal tics include:

Coughing
Throat clearing
Grunting
Sniffing

Three types of tic disorders

The American Psychiatric Association recognizes three types of tic disorders:

Provisional (or transient) tic disorder
Chronic tic disorder
Tourette’s syndrome

A tic disorder diagnosis is based on what type of tic your child has – motor, vocal, or both – and how long you’ve noticed it. Under one year and your child would have a provisional tic disorder. Over a year, and the diagnosis may be chronic tic disorder or Tourette’s syndrome.

Provisional tics are common and can affect up to 10% of kids. Chronic tic disorders – including Tourette’s syndrome – can affect 2% – 4% of kids.

For kids experiencing tics, they can feel them coming. It might start with an itch or a sensation in a particular muscle group. If a child attempts to stop a tic from happening, the sensation or itch may build up in intensity.

Tic episodes happen in clusters. In other words, they get worse, better, and then worse again as time passes. This waxing and waning of tics can happen at least three times a year.

Parents of kids with tics notice that tics tend to increase when their child feels tired or stressed. They also happen more often or with more intensity towards the end of the day.

What causes a tic disorder?

Officially, tic disorder causes are TBD – or to be determined.

But with that said, researchers have found interesting clues that can help parents learn how to stop tics naturally.

For example, there’s good evidence that the development of a tic involves the immune system. Mothers of kids with tic disorders are more likely to be diagnosed with an autoimmune disease like ulcerative colitis, rheumatoid arthritis, or multiple sclerosis.

How is this possible? Researchers suggest that antibodies moving through the placenta may be responsible for tics along with other related disorders, like OCD. These antibodies may activate the baby’s immune system and affect normal brain development.

In children with PANDAS and tics, the likelihood of autoimmune disease in the mother is even higher.

Moms, this does NOT mean that your kid’s tics are your fault. But it does give us information on how to stop tics naturally (more on that in the next section).

In addition to maternal autoimmunity, you’re also more likely to see autoimmunity in a child with tics and OCD. This includes autoimmune diseases like:

Sjogren’s syndrome
Celiac disease
Guillain–Barre syndrome
Crohn’s disease
Hashimoto’s thyroiditis

Non-streptococcal triggers like other bacteria and viruses can also activate the immune system and show up with tics and other neuropsychiatric disorders.

More likely, we’re seeing the effects of a cytokine storm.

Disorders related to tics

When you flip through the medical literature and listen to stories from other moms, you may notice that tics tend to show up with other disorders beyond autoimmune disease in the mother. This includes:

Obsessive-compulsive disorder, or OCD
Autism
Attention-deficit hyperactivity disorder, or ADHD
PANS and PANDAS

For example, roughly 65% of kids with Tourette’s syndrome are diagnosed with ADHD. Over half these kids also have signs of obsessive-compulsive symptoms while 30% can be fully diagnosed with OCD.

Do you think that any of these disorders have something in common?

It appears that they do.

Even in the case of ADHD where the cause is unknown, researchers working together at the University of Texas have found that an increase in inflammatory markers correlates with the severity of ADHD symptoms.

This means that the immune system plays a role. And if you can work with your child’s immune system – whether the root is genetic, autoimmune, or an ongoing infection – you can stop tics and reduce other signs of inflammation.

How to stop tics naturally

Learning how to stop tics naturally is as easy (and difficult) as figuring out what triggers inflammation in your child’s body. It’s also about making sure your kid has the right nutrition to fight infection and soothe inflammatory fires.

1. Follow a gluten-free, casein-free diet. For this to work best, make sure that the whole family is on board. Both gluten and casein are major triggers of autoimmune disease and it’s essential to remove them from the whole family’s diet.

2. Ditch the food dyes, artificial sweeteners, and high-fructose corn syrup. Food dyes and artificial sweeteners are toxic to your child’s brain. While I also recommend cutting back on sugar to your support your kid’s immune system, artificial sweeteners are worse than sugar.

3. Make sure your child takes a daily DHA supplement. Omega-3s are anti-inflammatory and excellent for brain health. When it comes to omega-3s, plant and seed oils won’t cut it. For example, flax oil is poorly converted into long-chain omega-3s and do little (if anything) to raise DHA levels. (Read more about the truth about omega fats here.)

Get my favorite DHA supplement here.

4. Remember to include choline-rich foods. If you follow a restricted diet, eggs may be off the menu. They’re a common allergen and trigger food. But egg yolks are also the easiest way to get choline in the diet. Choline is critical to a healthy, happy brain. If eggs aren’t an option, be sure to include other choline-rich foods.

Click here for a list of foods high in choline.

5. Use Smidge Probiotic. Why probiotics? Because the gut-brain axis is a real thing. And a healthy gut means a happy brain.

But not all probiotics are created equal. Smidge is free of fillers or prebiotics and it gently supports your child’s immune system. Most importantly, it’s free of probiotic strains that produce histamine – a pro-inflammatory compound that the body works hard to get rid of.

Click here to start using Smidge.

My #1 tip: stay flexible

You may already know that there is no single supplement or cure that will forever stop tics.

Stopping tics and other disruptive behaviors is really about managing the underlying conditions that your child lives with. It’s also about creating a positive experience around these changes.

Being different – especially for a kid – can be rough. Whether it’s the actual tic or needing to reinforce a gluten-free diet for the sake of better health, how you frame each experience matters.

So stay flexible and stay open to discovery.

As the body changes, your approach will too. That’s okay.

There’s no finish line.

Encourage your child to check in with how he feels after eating an “off limit” food or skipping supplements. Explain why these foods are off limits or what probiotics do in the body. And allow him some room for making mistakes and making his own decisions.

As you and your child figure out ways to put out inflammatory fires with diet and supplements, be sure to also talk with your child about the importance of self-love and even humor when a tic shows up in public.

After all, laughter is the best medicine.

Not only does laughter combat inflammation, but it also helps your child celebrate differences rather than feel ashamed of them.

What have you done to stop tics naturally? Share in the comments!

November 29, 2018

PANDAS Symptoms Checklist

Obsessive clinginess, aggressive outbursts, repetitive blinking, and new problems popping up at school? If you’re nodding YES and looking for answers, read through this PANDAS symptoms checklist. It will help you figure out whether or not your child has PANDAS. And if so, where to start after a PANDAS diagnosis.

What is PANDAS?

According to Margo Thienemann, MD at Stanford University, PANDAS is defined by the sudden loss of appetite and the onset of an obsessive-compulsive disorder, otherwise known as OCD.

A PANDAS child must also show symptoms from at least two of the following categories:

Anxiety
Mood swings
Irritability or aggression
Poor performance at school
Sensory abnormalities
Sleep disturbances, bed wetting, or needing to pee frequently

One of the things that sets PANDAS apart from other forms of OCD like PANS (pediatric acute-onset neuropsychiatric syndrome) is that it’s triggered by an infection.

Specifically, a group A streptococcal infection.

Strep throat is the most notorious type of infection caused by group A strep. But there are other infections that can show up on the skin or along mucous membranes.

When trying to put the pieces together, it may help to know that group A strep can manifest as:

Strep throat: An infection at the back of the throat, including the tonsils. It can show up as fever, sore throat, red tonsils, and enlarged lymph nodes.
Impetigo: And infection of the skin. Shows up as yellowish crusty sores on the face, arms, or legs.
Vaginitis: Inflammation of the vagina. Includes signs like itching, burning, pain, and discharge.
Sinusitis: A sinus infection. Shows up as thick mucus in the nose or a plugged nose. There may also be fever, headaches, and a sore throat.

Note: Group A strep triggers PANDAS. It does not cause it.

Just because your child acquires a group A strep infection, this does not mean that it will automatically lead to PANDAS.

The following symptoms can also manifest in PANS as well, as the symptoms of PANDAS and PANS are generally the same, though the underlying causes are different.

A major hallmark of PANDAS syndrome is a sudden, acute onset of psychiatric symptoms, although it should be noted that some children do experience a slow decline. These psychiatric symptoms most frequently emerge following an illness like strep throat, though keep in mind that other infections and environmental triggers make provoke symptoms.

Your PANDAS symptoms checklist

If your child shows PANDAS symptoms that pose a risk to safety, you may want to seek immediate support. This includes physical violence, aggression, refusal to eat or drink, and suicidal behaviors.

It’s also important to note that no two PANDAS cases are the same. Your child may need very different care than another child.

What’s more, the come-and-go nature of PANDAS symptoms means that you will need to make periodic adjustments as your child gets better and appears to “relapse.” Symptoms might also change from one to another – for example, they might move from severe anxiety to aggression or depression.

This is to be expected. It’s not a failure of PANDAS remedies or of the parent.

Because PANDAS symptoms are never stable, be careful not to “chase” the illness and react with new therapies, new drugs, or higher dosages.

1. Sudden loss of appetite

A sudden refusal to eat or drink is a classic sign of PANDAS, even without OCD symptoms.

In this case, it’s important to focus on nutrition while addressing underlying inflammation. A shift in diet is typically necessary.

Click here to find out more about an anti-inflammatory diet for children.

Some PANDAS children may feel afraid of choking or vomiting. If this is the case, breathing and relaxing techniques can help.

2. Tics

As many as 70% of those with PANDAS develop tics. Common tics include eye blinking and throat clearing.

PANDAS children with tics are more likely to have a poorer performance at school, trouble with handwriting, a hard time with memory, and lower self-esteem.

In some cases, a therapy called habit reversal training can help get rid of tics by teaching the child to stare or look up during a blinking tic or practice slow, rhythmic breathing for vocal tics.

3. Anxiety

Anxiety, particularly separation anxiety, is found in most PANDAS patients. According to Dr. Margo Thienemann, over 90% of patients show signs of separation anxiety.

This means excessive anxiety when away from home or when away from a parent.

While entirely normal and healthy for small children ages 6 months to 3 years, separation anxiety in older children or adults raises a red flag.

This anxiety can be so severe that it interferes with you and your child’s day-to-day activities.

4. Mood swings

Mood swings and depression are common in a PANDAS child during the later stages of illness.

Depression can sometimes be the result of ongoing pain.

There are two types of pain in PANDAS children: arthritis and pain due to how the body processes sensations.

When a PANDAS child experiences pain, there’s often an increased sensitivity to light, sound, and smells. There might also be tummy pain, headaches, muscle aches, daytime tiredness, and brain fog.

With touch, you may find areas of tenderness that follow the same distribution as fibromyalgia.

5. Irritability or aggression

Irritability and unprovoked violence can be the most difficult on the PANDAS symptoms checklist because this type of behavior puts you or your child in danger.

As with mood swings and depression, sensory sensitivities, fatigue, and trouble understanding the environment can make a child feel vulnerable and aggressive.

Angry meltdowns can last for 45 minutes to an hour or longer. Typically, once the rage passes, your child is “back.”

Your child might feel remorse or not remember the episode at all.

In the moment, punishment is the last thing that you want to do. The best thing you can do is distract your child – if possible – and wait for the episode to pass.

Keeping a calm home environment without a lot of stimulation or demands can also help.

6. Poor performance at school

In a set of guidelines published in the Journal of Child and Adolescent Psychopharmacology, Dr. Margo Thienemann explains that many children with PANDAS need some sort of accommodation at school.

Often these kids feel challenged (and challenge their teacher) with PANDAS symptoms like:

Handwriting difficulties
Trouble paying attention or staying focused
Difficulty with math
Memory issues
Physical pain (more on that below)
Frequent absences

Hyperactivity may be caused by anxiety, a complex tic sequence, feeling tired, sensory overload, or the urge to pee.

The inability to focus in school might be caused by lack of sleep, mood swings, intrusive thoughts, or “brain fog.”

If you suspect PANDAS or have received a PANDAS diagnosis, there are some things that parents and teachers can do together to help a PANDAS child.

Excuse absences and dismiss required makeup work or tests
Allow the parent to be in or near the classroom
Excuse the child from activities and approve alternative methods, like typing rather than writing and erasing or listening to audiobooks
Work with the frequent need to pee and allow the child to leave without asking permission
Have a notetaker in class, enlarge worksheets, use large grid paper, allow a keyboard or voice recorder
Permit the child to use a calculator and times table
Encourage rest periods during the day and less homework

A PANDAS child’s needs change from day-to-day. As PANDAS symptoms improve, parents and teachers can work together to shift the level of support available at school.

Note: many parents to choose to pull their children out of public school in order to homeschool after PANDAS symptoms begin to crop up. This can be an excellent choice for some children if you’re in a position to do so.

7. Trouble sleeping

Trouble sleeping is often interwoven with PANDAS symptoms.

For example, sleep trouble may be the result of separation anxiety or OCD bedtime rituals.

Bed wetting, nightmares, and sleep apnea from enlarged tonsils can also interfere with sleep.

REM sleep behavior disorder is also common in the PANDAS child and is linked to an inflamed brain.

With REM sleep behavior disorder, your sleeping child might act out his or her dreams. This could involve screaming, shouting, laughing, crying, kicking, punching, or getting out of bed.

Sometimes a solid bedtime routine is enough to improve sleep. This includes:

A regular bedtime, even on weekends
A consistent and pleasant set of activities before bed
A cool, dark, and quiet place to sleep
Zero caffeine, high-energy play, or heavy meals before bedtime
No electronic games, television, or screens before bedtime

Each case and each child is different.

Your child may exhibit a combination of the above symptoms, or variations. You may be certain the symptoms emerged following a strep throat infection, or you may be unsure of exactly when or why they began. Regardless of the trigger, if your child exhibits any of the above symptoms, it’s worth further research to see if PANDAS or PANS might be at the root of your child’s behavior. Once you have a better idea of what you’re dealing with, your child will have a much better chance of recovery.

Would you add anything to this PANDAS symptoms checklist? Share in the comments.

January 11, 2016

Heal Behavioral Disorders: Remove These Ingredients from Your Child’s Diet NOW

While we may hear often that children’s behavioral problems are caused by genetic factors, that is far from the whole story. In the process of parenting and healing my child with multiple behavioral disorders, I have learned and can definitively say that there are further causes behind these disorders, which means they can be healed.

That’s right: autism can be healed, and so can ADD/ADHD, ODD, OCD, dyslexia, and a number of other childhood behavioral and developmental disorders.

If you have decided to seek out natural alternatives to medication for your child, you will find many, many suggestions, but before you can begin “treating” your child, you have to accomplish a few things: reduce inflammation, eliminate toxins, and strengthen the immune system. The good news is these can all begin with some simple changes you can make in your child’s diet.

Below, I’ll give you five ingredients to cut out of your child’s diet NOW, which will not only begin the path to healing, but will likely result in improved behavior almost immediately.

#1- Food dyes

Artificial food coloring is responsible for a host of behavioral and learning problems in children, including symptoms of Attention Deficit Disorder, hyperactivity, autism, aggression, and much more. Because they are a neurotoxin, food dyes can cause headaches and migraines, as well as mood imbalances. Removing food coloring is one of the main components of the Feingold diet, a popular diet used to treat behavioral disorders and learning problems.

Food dyes, unlike many other ingredients, are easy to spot and are often found in foods marketed to children. Besides the obvious baked goods and candies, artificial coloring is often found in juices, pudding, and even in vitamins. Look for them under the following labels:

blue, red, yellow or green (any combination, sometimes followed by numbers)
FD & C lakes
citrus red 2
artificial color

#2- Monosodium glutamate (MSG)

It’s what makes Chinese takeout so tasty, bland foods not taste like cardboard, and is the reason you can’t stop at just one chip or cracker.

Monosodium glutamate is a common flavoring additive in many packaged foods, especially soups and flavor packets, and can be linked to a number of health problems, including migraines, as well as behavioral problems in children, because, like food dyes, it is a neurotoxin.

The very tricky part about MSG is that it can be hidden under a number of names, so you need to be familiar with its aliases, which include:

Any ingredient containing the words “glutamate” or “glutamic”
Yeast extract and other yeast ingredients
Anything hydrolyzed or autolyzed
Calcium or sodium caseinate
Some gelatins
Textured protein or protein isolates

MSG is responsible for making you crave junk food. It is formulated to make foods taste irresistible, causing you to eat more and more and still remain unsatisfied. As you crave these fake, artificially-flavored foods, real, whole foods are less appealing.

MSG can totally change the way you eat and what your body yearns for.

#3- Artificial sweeteners

Like artificial colors, artificial sweeteners affect brain health, and can contribute to behavioral problems in children.

Additionally, they can retrain our taste buds to prefer the intensely-sweet flavor of fake foods over the natural sweetness of healthy, whole foods like fruit. And like MSG, they cause us to crave more sweetness than we were ever supposed to, because the unnatural sweetness is like nothing found in nature. There are many artificial sweeteners, under a number of brand names.

Watch out for these:

saccharin
acesulfame
aspartame
neotame
sucralose

Artificial sweeteners are most commonly found in “diet” or “sugar-free” foods.

#4- High fructose corn syrup (HFCS)

You may recall several years ago when the Corn Refiners Association put out an ad that insisted that high fructose corn syrup was not harmful, but simply “natural, and, like sugar, fine in moderation.”

This unfortunate half-truth has perpetuated the idea that HFCS, also known as isolated fructose, high fructose syrup and corn sugar, is somehow part of a healthy, balanced diet. This simply isn’t true.

High fructose corn syrup contributes to hyperactivity in children and other behavioral problems. Because it is chemically-derived from corn starch, it has a much higher sugar content than sugar itself. The high-fructose makeup of this syrup means that instead of our bodies processing it slowly, as with regular table sugar, it goes straight to the blood stream.

#5- White bread (and other refined grains)

After eliminating the above ingredients from our diet, the next thing we did was to remove refined, white flour. This was a bit of an adjustment, and at first, it just meant that we didn’t eat bread at restaurants. From there, I started using whole grain flours in my home baking.

I will always remember early in our real-food journey, we were eating at a restaurant with family and my dad offered a roll to our son. I said no, but he blew me off and went ahead and gave it to him. Within minutes of finishing the roll, our son had gone from being fairly calm to running around and under the table, shouting, and being overall crazy! My dad believed me then and has never offered our son bread again!

While this may seem like a tough step, it was necessary for us to take on our way to better eating and better health. If you are eating white bread right now, switch to a whole grain or gluten-free version as a baby step to eating better.

Don’t be complacent

It might seem like making these changes aren’t worth it, and you might want to quit before you even try. Don’t.

Once you remove these ingredients, one by one, you will start seeing changes in your child and you will be motivated to learn more and do more- I promise! When I interviewed Gordon’s mom, Tracee, she told me that eliminating red dye for her autistic son’s diet completely eliminated his tantrums, practically overnight. She went on to completely heal him from autism. You have to start somewhere, so choose an ingredient and get it out!

Read Gordon’s amazing story of healing here, then go over and read Brendan’s story of being healed from autism here.

It’s important you learn the truth about these toxic ingredients because, as Dr. Mark Hyman says, “Doubt and confusion are the currency of deception, and they sow the seeds of complacency.”

It’s up to you to learn all you can about these ingredients and make healthy choices for your family. Food manufacturers will do everything they can to convince you that eating these things is fine “in moderation.” If they can confuse you, they win; if you feel overwhelmed by sorting through information and are uninformed, you will have little will to make changes.

Make the changes your child needs and experience health and freedom for your entire family!

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