amino acids and safety

[DenverSarah]

I have pruchased DMAE 50 mg and L-tyrosine (I believe) 100mg. I gave my son both in the morning before school for a couple of days and waited to see what happened. I observed his behavior and here is my observation:
More able to stay on task but more aggresive/irritable and argumentative.

I asked him if he thought the "new pills" were helping him to get his schoolwork done and he gave me an enthusiastic yes, BUT sometimes I think he just tells me what he thinks I want to hear.

I stopped because I feel irresponsible doing this with out a doctor supervising, but at the same time I don't have the resources to work with a doc who
a) has any knowledge about ADD/ADHD other than meds
b) will take Medicaid

I want to try again to see if we can make it through a whole week without losing his recess priviledges (currently that is how is day is measured, 100% of bothe recesses is good) when he took that stuff he was able to go to both recesses, but also was more irritable.

Questions:
Am I crazy for messing with amino acids?
Can they permanently change your brain or cause damage?

[ohmama]

Sarah,
You're not crazy, you're on the right track! Please go to the Complementary & Alternative Medicine section at millermom.proboards23.com and look at the post "Amino Acids".

You will not cause brain damage to your child by using these but you are correct that you need to know what you are doing when you start using them. You can find some basic information there and post your specific questions.

[catatonic]

Sarah --
My suggestion would be to start with one of the amino acids at a time. My son does well on tyrosine, in terms of his focus improving, but DMAE is not particularly successful for him. I give my boy 750mg of tyrosine twice a day (although I forget the second dose about half the time lately!) and he seems to have a longer attention span and is less restless at school. I also try to supplement him daily with a protein powder that provides all of the amino acids (such as natural vanilla whey powder for those who are not dairy sensitive, or an unflavored soy powder for those who are). This way he gets balanced aminos in addition to the tyrosine.

If you find that tyrosine is not successful, then perhaps your son needs to increase his serotonin level rather than dopamine, in which case you might have better results using 5-htp, which builds serotonin. Each child is different. I know my son does not appear to do well when supplemented with 5-htp, but tyrosine is helpful to him. And other kids will do best when given BOTH. Go figure.

Are you sure his diet isn't responsible for the acting out? I know my son is dramatically affected by some foods and he has been known to SNEAK things I don't know about (usually stuff he gets from other kids at school) so that I'm baffled by his behavior until I find the wrappers in his pants pocket or under his bed.

Take a look at the following Complimentary and Alternative Medicine website. Their safety recommendations are to always include a soy powder that covers all the amino acids if you're going to be taking a single amino supplement for longer than a month, and to never take a single amino for longer than 3 months unless you have a doctor's supervision.
www.wholehealthmd.com/refshelf/substances_view/0,1525,10003,00.html

[DenverSarah]

Thanks so much guys! I am meeting with his doctor on Thursday to go over what we've been trying and I want to be able to present a treatment protocal that I can back up with lots of info to get his approval. We've been with this doc for a long time and thankfully, he is respectful of folk's individual choices (he was supportive of our choice to use the Feingold program).

I do suspect that there may be more going on food-wise for him. Frankly I'm afraid that he may be one of those unlucky kids who is allergic to everything and I don't think I have the energy to eliminate any big food groups! I just have way too much going on and it's unrealistic for me right now to take that on alone. He has been strict stage 1 (he NEVER cheats and I know this for sure) with very limited "beyond Feingold" additives since December '02. I've never been successful at keeping a diet diary...as a matter of fact that and several other factors have led me to believe that I'm ADHD (or something) also.

Anyway I feel more confident now that trying Aminos may help and are safe for us to try. Cat, what brand of protein powder do you use?

Should I see if I can get the doc to approve an amino dose at lunchtime?

How long should one try this to be able to determine if it's helping or not?

I was also thinking about getting some Ginko Biloba, since that is what is recommeded for his type according to the Amen clinic brain checklist. ???AHHHHH so much to factor in! Thank goodness for you two!

[ohmama]

Denver,
I posted to you on the other forum site. It is not good to increase dopamine when you have temporal lobe problems. For this reason I would advise you not to use the Tyrosine till you stabilize the temporal lobes.