Hi... new here | ADHD Information

I am new here too. My 8 year old son is on med and what a difference it made to our lives..............well lately we have been trouble because I think maybe he needs to have med's changed but I would be very interested in hearing if the Omega 3 helpsracerwife, welcome. I use Omega 3's. For my whole family. My daughter who does have ADHD takes Omega 3 +Joy (me too). She is on prescriptions meds also, Strattera currently. I recently added Omega'sMor EPA minis) to my younger daughter age 5 as she is high energy anyway and was having some adjustment issues to Kindergarten. The Omega's havent been this "miracle cure" for sure, but in my younger daughter she is adjusting better to the structure of Kindergarten and is behaving more maturely. She does not however have an ADHD diagnosis. I heard from school about her recently, inability to stay on task, sit still, et.c, etc, but after a couple of days it subsided and shes seems back to being able to do what needs to be done. So, mostly I wanted to say welcome, and you are right, the Omegas wont hurt. We did not see a huge change and my daughter with ADHD could not get by with just Omegas.

We use Omega's, 3-6-9. We have had good luck with them, but you have to make sure it is a therpeutic dose(720EPA/480DHA), or you will see nothing. Aldo, it will take 3-4 months to see results.

Btw, teachers cannot suggest a child hasADHD or that you should consider meds.

I wouldnt be posting "no child left behind" as baloney. Those of us with kids with LD's wouldnt get any education if we didnt get TONS of extra support. Not really fair to want money not to be spend on children who need extra support so kids who are above average dont get bored. The point of no child left behind is exacly that NO child get left behind, we give all children a chance...................... [QUOTE=4myson]

There are other forms out there too, I believe ...so if they don't have the Hawthorne ask if they have any other type of form that is similar.

Oh and not only did I take this form to the doctor but we did a QEEQ test. This test helped us in making our final decision. Not all doctors use this test and it is very expensive even with insurance. I had to pay 0 out of pocket, but I found it too be very informative and helpful in making my decision to medicate or not. It gave me a visual and not just words to see what was going on with my son. Hope this makes sense. You can google QEEG and find out what it involves. Basically they connect cords to the brain and measure brain waves. The patient has to remain still in a chair for a bit and then the equipment picks up on impulsive and focus issues. How I don't quite understand but it does. They have a very detailed report that you get back from the test and it is used to help make sound decisions about the ad/hd etc.

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Good to know. Thank you.

...I'd be HAPPY to pay 0 for the QEEG. We paid ,500 out of pocket for him to see the neuropsychologist back in 2006 because our insurance only covered either neurologists or psychologists.

Interesting! I did look up the QEEG test and got some pictures of the graphs as well as topographic maps showing the different responses. ...Interesting!
[QUOTE=edbson]

We use Omega's, 3-6-9. We have had good luck with them, but you have to make sure it is a therpeutic dose(720EPA/480DHA), or you will see nothing. Aldo, it will take 3-4 months to see results.

Btw, teachers cannot suggest a child hasADHD or that you should consider meds.

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Thanks for the info on the theraputic dose. I meant to ask that and after writing that long post, must have forgotten.

Note: his teacher didn't suggest that he might have ADHD (did I say that?

) His teacher this year wanted us to "revisit our pediatrician and talk to her about our options". And one of his kindergarten teachers didn't ever SAY that, directly, but she seemed to be leaning in that direction. When I came out and said it, she told me that she wasn't allowed to say something like that because it might come across as a diagnosis and she wasn't qualified to give one. So, I guess she did the right thing.

Also, I hadn't mentioned... his first grade teacher used to give him extra work when he finished his classwork early - extra math worksheets (he loved math last year)... stuff like that. She was pretty good at keeping him busy. THIS year, his teacher has a lot more difficulty keeping him quietly busy. And he hasn't finished his work early like he did last year, either. She has resorted to giving him something she calls a "fidget" - some kind of sensory thing he can hold that seems to keep him occupied (for now). I'm sure he'll get bored of it soon. Not much holds his attention for very long.

I have issues with our school system (as awesome as it's supposed to be) NOT having a G&T program or what they call "enrichment program" in place until at least 3rd grade. When we were told in kindergarten that he was exceptionally smart and needed lots of challenging work, I went right to the principal and enrichment teacher asking what we can do for him. ....In first grade?... NOTHING. They spend so much $$ dealing with the remedial kids, they don't have the funds to deal with the G&T kids at this age level.

So, he was left out in the cold. And I believe he suffered, as did his education because of it. Can we PLEASE get RID of that idiotic "No Child Left Behind" baloney??? (That's what's causing the downfall of the G&T program in our schools. The federal government mandated that ALL schools comply with this. But, they neglected to fund it. So, kids like OURS have to suffer. SO not fair.)

AARRGGHH... Sorry. Let me shut up now...
[QUOTE=tjh8]I am new here too. My 8 year old son is on med and what a difference it made to our lives..............well lately we have been trouble because I think maybe he needs to have med's changed but I would be very interested in hearing if the Omega 3 helps[/QUOTE]

What is he on?

..I'll be sure to let you know how the Omegas work out for him.

racerwife7,

I have not used omega specifically in med form, but have bought food products that offer omega to a certain degree. We chose to medicate our son but with a low mg. dosage of Foacalin XR 10 mg.(which many doctors feel this is one of the safer drugs for younger children) and met with a nutritionist to look into diet change etc. (through our ad/hd testing/evaluating we discovered our son had reactive hypoglycemia which can trigger some impulsive issues linked to ad/hd). We also use play therapy . I really feel that you can't just medicate. You must look at the whole picture. There are doctors out there that believe the same. Keep searching for what you feel is best for your child.

Sidenote: I'm a teacher and work with many children K--5. Sad to say there are many children out there with ad/hd etc. or at least have characteristics of ad/hd. I think we have to look at what is the best for our children.

I have a third grade student that currently is suffering because of his focus issues and some social skill issues. I obviously can't say to his mom he should go to a doctor, but I wish I could. I can however share my observations . I really think in his case if he were taking a low dosage of a med that we would see the real "John" (obvisously not his real name). He is a very bright child that has lost 4 school years due to his focus issues and a few other things. Now he is suffering and starting to give up. If he had received the help early on maybe (and I am realistic enough to know it is just a maybe) he would not be suffering in school both academically and socially.

There is a form out there called the Hawthorne Rating form. You can ask your school if they have one available. I used it with my son. I completed the form as well as his teacher. The school counselor took our results and scored them. She then gave it back to me and I took it to our doctor. This form is used often to help doctors see what is going on.

Good luck finding what is best for your son!

Thank you both!

4myson ~ I'll ask about the Hawthorne Rating form and see if they have it available. Maybe that will help us, too.

There are other forms out there too, I believe ...so if they don't have the Hawthorne ask if they have any other type of form that is similar.

4myson39473.497037037Welcome to the board Racerwife and you have a lovely family. Your boys are adorable. my point if schools need to do their best to educate ALL children as best they can. It's never fair to take from one to help another and they need to find balance.

I guess I'm just very fortunate to have my son in a district that works with all levels of children and work in another neighboring district that most definitely works with all children at any level. It saddens my heart to think that there are districts out there that may be slighting some learners on either end of the spectrum.

[QUOTE=Diane V]I wouldnt be posting "no child left behind" as baloney. Those of us with kids with LD's wouldnt get any education if we didnt get TONS of extra support. Not really fair to want money not to be spend on children who need extra support so kids who are above average dont get bored. The point of no child left behind is exacly that NO child get left behind, we give all children a chance......................[/QUOTE]

I don't think it'd be baloney if the government would have given monetary assistance for it. What it did in some cases was that it took away from the kids who are more advanced because school systems don't have the $$ to fund both. I think in lots of ways the idea of NCLB is good. But, being made mandatory without being funded is where the issues lie (IMO), not in the idea of the program, itself. So, no offense intended there.

I'm so happy to have found this site. My 7 year old son was just semi-diagnosed with ADHD. I say "semi" because we've been through quite a bit in the past 2 years, but nobody said he had ADHD until this week.

Two years ago, when he was in kindergarten, I was getting concerned comments from teachers in 2 different schools (our kindergarten is still 1/2 day - he attended his former daycare the other 1/2 of the day). One of those teachers is also a mental health advocate for her own son and has studied neurological/mental health more deeply because of it. She suggested taking him to our pediatrician and then to a neurologist or psychologist to have him evaluated for ADHD. Our pediatrician sent us to a neuropsychologist instead so that we'd have a more complete understanding of what's going on with him.

We took him to the neuropsychologist (Donald was 5.5 years old at the time) and he determined that he was NOT ADHD, but just VERY smart and bored with things that he didn't consider challenging enough mentally.

Fast forward to 2007 (2nd grade)... He's STILL having fidgeting issues in class and his teacher has resorted to putting tennis balls on the feet of his chair in order to keep his movement from disrupting the rest of the class. She and I have been in close contact the entire year trying various things to help him to sit still and focus a little more. He makes careless mistakes on his classwork as well as his homework because he always seems to be in a rush to finish - it's always about being DONE, not learning from the work for him. He just wants to be done with it.

Well, last week, his teacher contacted me again saying that she has, basically, exhausted her efforts to appease him and asked that maybe we take him back to his pediatrician and ask what we might do next. Our pediatrician has a son who has ADD. So, I trust her judgment and educated decisions. After explaining the situation to her as well as his actions both in school and at home, she told us that it sounds as if he is exhibiting classic signs of ADHD.

She told me that her own son takes medication for his ADD and recommended that my husband and I talk about the whole thing at length and decide whether or not we'd be interested in doing a "trial" with medication for him.

SO... here I am. I have taken books out of the library related to ADD and ADHD in effort to educate myself on the subject (I know NOTHING about it). And I have done numerous searches online for information, as well (that's how I got here).

What I'd like to know is... have any of you had any success or even tried Omega-3 oils being added to their diet? I've read a LOT of newer information on this and, SUPPOSEDLY, they say that a very high percentage of kids with this type of disorder are low in Omega-3 and that increasing their intake helps soothe the symptoms. But, I've also read that it can take 10-12 weeks to show improvement using this method. Anyone have experiences they can add to this?

Thanks in advance for your help. And I hope to get to know you all better.
(...I like pictures in my siggy- I like a face with a name - and I put mine in there before I even looked at the posts here. None of you use them?... Should I take them out?)
Okay... found info on Omega 3's in the alternative meds forum.

But, I'm still interested to hear if anyone has any experience with this.

BTW... I forgot to mention that I did, actually, order some Omega 3 oil from Dr. Sears. ...I KNOW my son eats HORRIBLY. And regardless of whether or not it helps him out with his symptoms, I'm quite sure he NEEDS Omega 3 oil in his diet. (I, myself, take LOTS of it daily... why should my kids be any different, right?)
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