Vitamin B Deficiency

I wanted to share something else that we just learned about.  Moses is Vitamin B deficient. It didn’t occur to us that this could be the case because he’s on a good liquid multivitamin that we get from the health food section of our grocery store, and it contains Vitamin B1 (1.6 mg), B2 (2 mg), B3 (10 mg), B5 (13 mg), B6 (1 mg) and B12 (70 mcg). The thing that I didn’t know was that it doesn’t contain enough to be a meaningful dosage for someone who is low on Vitamin B!

I should have known since my husband and I have recently discovered that we were low on vitamin Bs (based on an assessment by our naturopath). Since starting a good vitamin B supplement, my husband has been a lot less cranky and tired (two symptoms of a vitamin B deficiency).  I haven’t noticed as much of an effect for me, but I’m sure that it’s helping.

We first started to cue in on the fact that Moses was vitamin B deficient when his day home provider commented that Moses was complaining that his tongue was very sore.  She mentioned that this could be a sign of vitamin B deficiency. Moses’ naturopath confirmed that he is vitamin deficient based on the state that his tongue is in (it looks sore, thick, swollen, like raw meat, red). Moses is now on Genestra’s Liquid B Complex.

She said that we should see a difference in Moses tongue in about 2 weeks. If things don’t improve enough, then she may start him on vitamin B12 sublingually or injections (since vitamin B12 has a poor absorption rate through the gut). I’m pretty sure that we’ll be going this route.

I was reading about some of Vitamin B12 deficiency symptoms here. There are a lot. Some of Moses’ symptoms include: anemia, sore mouth, low levels of hemoglobin, gastrointestinal symptoms, swollen red tongue, shortness of breath after exercise, disturbed sleep, tingly tongue and sores in corner of mouth. In particular, he has had sores in the corner of his mouth for as long as I can remember — they never heal (or never have in the past). We have seen so many doctors and have sometimes made special appointments about the corner of his mouth. They are constantly cracked and bleeding. It looks so sore (but my little buddy never complains about them). My prayer is that they will finally heal. And, it looks like my prayer is being answered.

More interesting information is that many autistic children also have a vitamin B deficiency. You can read more about that on the Autistic Forum’s website.* My son isn’t autistic, but I’m made the point before that many of the strategies that help autistic children also help my son.

In case you’re interested, this is a full list of the supplements that Moses is currently on:

• Liquid multivitamin
• Liquid vitamin B complex (recommended by his naturopath)
• Liquid calcium supplement (recommended by his doctor)
• Liquid iron supplement (recommended by his doctor)
• probiotics (recommended by his naturopath)
• arnica homeopathic (for his past history of traumas – e.g., birth trauma; recommended by his naturopath)
• sulphur homeopathic (for his rashes; recommended by his naturopath)

For medications, we actually recently started him on Singulair for his respiratory system (something that we put off for 1.5 years), but we finally caved in when he was having so much trouble breathing in a few months back and we were using his puffer so often.

His eczema has essentially cleared up (even before we started him on Singulair). He just has some inflammation around his ears (another spot that essentially never heals — I’m hoping that maybe Vitamin B will help; and also the back of his head). Everything else is clear!  A miracle in itself.

In case you’re a new reader, Moses is allergic and sensitive to a lot of foods (I think the list is around 20 different foods) and is on a limited food diet, which is why he needs to be supplemented quite heavily.

I still haven’t started him on a good oil supplement yet. He can’t have fish oils because of his fish allergy. I believe that this came up in one of my earlier posts, but let me know if you have any suggestions? **

Moses is also seeing doctors and specialists a whole lot less than he was before. Last year, we were visiting a doctor every week. Really. And now there are some months where we don’t have any doctors appointments at all! Whew! I’ve even cut down on visiting some of the alternative therapists just to give us both a break on appointments and he can just concentrate on being a little boy and having fun! 

* By the way, the Autistic Forum looks like it’s another good resource for parents of autistic children, who are looking for alternative and complementary treatment of autism.

**I’ve since started him on a good flax seed oil supplement. More here.

Update (Mar 18, 2010): According to the blood work done by Moses’ pediatrician, his Vitamin B12 levels are normal. She didn’t say what they are exactly, but they are in the normal range.  We’re still supplementing him with the liquid Vitamin B everyday, so it seems to be working!

Also, the cracks in the corners of his lips are healed!!!!!!

September 13, 2010: He is still on his liquid vitamin B supplement. The corners of his lips are cracked again though…

January 11, 2011: The corners of his mouth are healed. Now, I realize that he had angular chelitis (a bad case of thrush / oral candida) that he had. When he started Fluconazole, it went away (Nystatin wasn’t strong enough for him).

Vaccination Awareness Risk Network

I just wanted to share a website that I wish I’d known about sooner.  My naturopath shared it with me today.  Vaccination Risk Awareness Network.  The website is specific to Canada, which I like (since I live in Canada), but I’m sure that some of the information is general enough to be relevant to those of you who live in other countries.

As some of you know, my son was recently in the hospital with pneumonia. The doctor implied that if he had been vaccinated, he wouldn’t have gotten it (which isn’t necessarily the case). I mentioned to my naturopath that we have a follow up appointment with Moses’ pediatrician and I find it hard to explain to her why we don’t want to vaccinate Moses. For me, it’s really an intuitive decision — I just get a very strong message not to do so. And, we also have had bad experiences with them in the past (as you can read here). My naturopath referred me to information in this website, so that I could be more informed, and now I’m passing this information onto you!

Star Child Global website

I came across another website with lots of information abour raising crystal and indigo children: www.starchildglobal.com.  Scroll down on the index on the lefthand side of the page and click on “The New Children: Indigos and Crystals”.

I haven’t had a chance to read through it all yet, but wanted to pass it along.

I particularly found of interest Jose and Ines’ diary of  ”Parenting a Crystal Child the Conscious Way”.   Last year, I searched the web looking for stories of real parents who were parenting crystal children consciously, so I’m glad to have found it.  There are 11 diary entries up until the child is around 3 years old, and was last updated in 2005.  I guess it’s really no different than parenting any child consciously, and happily since then, I’ve found many blogs of other conscious parents (who don’t necessarily label their children as being crystal or indigo children). One thing in particular that Jose and Ines model in their parenting is being very aware of energy, and the effect of energy on their child.

Dr. Mercola’s advice for eczema

Since I’m on a roll with talking about Dr. Mercola’s website, I also wanted to mention that he has some effective and inexpensive ways to deal with eczema on his website here. These include:

1. Saltwater compress
2. Omega 3 fats
3. High quality probiotic
4. Avoid highly allergenic foods (e.g., gluten, dairy, eggs).
5. Getting sufficient sun exposure or taking a quality Vitamin D supplement.

We have Moses on a high quality probiotic, are avoiding highly allergenic foods, and have him on a quality multivitamin that contains Vitamin D.

I’ll have to remember the saltwater compress to address itchiness. Currently, we just use a wet washcloth to sooth his skin when he’s itchy, but want to try the saltwater compress. Dr. Mercola suggests using a high quality, natural salt.

I know that Moses is low on Omega 3s — partly because he’s allergic to fish, so I need to find other good sources. Hemp seed oil is a good alternative, I believe (although Dr. Mercola mentions that the plant-based omega 3 sources aren’t as good as the fish-based omega 3 sources). Dr. Mercola also mentions that evening primrose oil (as a source of gamma linoleic acid) works well for eczema. We’ll give it a try.

I should also mention that since last year, Moses’ eczema has lessened tremendously and we no longer need to use hydrocortisone regularly. (He has the occasional flare up when we do use it). So I believe the diet changes and other measures have helped.

A Place of Light

I had a lovely phone call with Susan Gale from A Place of Light today. Her website is here.

A Place of Light is dedicated to the support of intuitive children (Indigo, crystal, etc.) and their families and friends. I wish I had known about her centre years ago when I was struggling with how to parent and raise my sensitive one, but I’m glad to know about it now as I’m sure it will be a good resource. The centre provides a monthly free telephone question and answer period, and also provides spiritual conversations and healings.

Susan Gale is the co-author of two books: Soulful Parenting and Psychic Children. I haven’t read them yet, but I’m sure they would be great resources.

More helpful autism websites

I came across a couple more autism websites that I feel drawn to share. 

1.  Dr. Klinghardt’s website on autism is here.

There are a number of videos where he talks about the causes and treatment of autism.

2.   Also here’s a link to Dana Gorman’s Defeat Autism Yesterday website here.

She has a lot of information on her site, but I especially like her list of free things that you can do, which is here.

Interestingly, the first thing that she lists is Emotional Freedom  Techique (EFT), which Dr. Klinghardt says increases uptake of nutrients in the brain by 60% and is the  deciding factor between which of his patients heal and don’t. I’ve mentioned this before, but instructions on how to do EFT is provided here. 

I haven’t had a chance to fully go through her website yet, but I intend to. I believe this information can help many children, but especially sensitive children, including crystal and indigo children.

Top ten things to protect your family and the planet

I came across a series of articles by Doug Abrams on Dr. Greene’s website  including:

• An unprecendented experiment on our children
• Will my child get sick?
• Top ten things to protect your family and the planet

(Update:  I recently checked the links to the articles and they are no longer available).

He discusses how “since World War Two, approximately 80,000 chemicals have been invented, and thousands of these have been produced in excess of millions of pounds per year.”

A recent study of fetal chord blood (the blood a child is born with before they take their first breath) found 413 chemicals and on average more than 200 different chemicals per child.

Many of these chemicals are endocrine disruptors.

He mentions how ”one out of every three U.S. kids currently suffers from allergies, asthma, ADHD, or autism.” (And, as you know, my son has allergies and asthma).

Doug Abrams also provided a list of the top ten things you can do to protect your family and the planet, such as buying organic food and avoiding meats, cheese, etc; avoiding the use of pesticides; using cast iron pans; etc.

It’s a good reminder. We are doing some of these things, but not all of them.

We try to buy as much organic food as possible (esp. for Moses), but it’s not always available. I was actually a vegetarian when I was pregnant with Moses, but had huge cravings for red meat after I gave birth.  Moses loves chicken and lamb. We try to feed him as much local, free range and hormone-free chicken as possible and local, hormone-free lamb. (Just this week, we picked up a whole lamb from a local farmer and brought it to our local butcher).

We don’t feed Moses dairy, so he isn’t ingesting milk and cheeses, but dairy is a personal love of mine, which I’ve been trying to minimize. This is just another good reminder for me.

We have a cast iron pan, but don’t always use it. This is a good reminder for me.

Anyway, I thought I’d pass this on because these issues are often on my mind (i.e., our children’s sensitivities, how we are treating  our planet, our selves and our children, what we can do to minimize the effect on our children and planet).

Treating autism

I came across this Treating Autism (UK) website with steps on how to “treat autism”, such as:

• Restricting substances that cause problems
• Healing the gut
• Reducing toxic load
• Reconnecting broken metabolic pathways
• Rebuilding the immune system

As I mentioned before, my son isn’t autistic, but we found that these same strategies helped with his extreme sensitivity. My intuition says that it would also be helpful with children with autism, though I can’t speak from experience.

Helpful crystal and indigo children articles

I came across these useful articles by Jan Yordy today about raising crystal and indigo children on the Energy Connection Therapy website:

- 10 Techniques to ground and balance your child’s energy;

- 10 suggestions for positive parenting;

- crystal characteristics; and

- indigo children characteristics.

 I am familiar with many of the grounding techniques (I’m a yoga instructor), but it occurred to me that I haven’t been using many of them with my son.  They were a great reminder for me.  I like also that they are presented in child-friendly ways. She also mentions EFT (Emotional Freedom Technique), which I haven’t used for a while, but is a great way to remove the charge on things that have an emotional charge. (The EFT website above has free instructions on how to do EFT on yourself and others).

Raising Crystal Children Resources

The Raising Crystal Children group (now 20 members) has had some recent activity with good advice about raising crystal children written by parents of older crystal children.  See here.

One of the moms recommended two websites:

1.  Jennifer Hoffman’s Today’s Children discusses the differences between Indigos and Crystals and has links to some articles.

 Indigos can have any combination or all of the following characteristics:

•  Highly intuitive, empathic and psychically sensitive
• Disruptive, unruly and argumentative
• Very creative in the arts, music, technology and writing
• Opposed to rules and regulations
• Communicates with and are sensitive to animals
• Becomes depressed easily, which can lead to suicide
• Prone to addiction and substance abuse, especially alcohol and drugs
• Good at self-sabotage, and often frustrated with their life direction
• Able to see the truth in all things and know when they are being lied to
• Have a strong sense of integrity and demand it from others
• Are often diagnosed with dyslexia, ADD, ADHD or auditory processing problems
• Are very direct with comments, almost to the point of rudeness
• Need peace and calm (although they can cause much chaos)
• Always feel alone, out of place and different from others, also like to be left alone
• Have few friends and the ones they have are usually Indigos
• Very intelligent but are under-achievers
• Take a long time to ‘grow up’, do not know how to be in society
• Lack of self confidence, can be to the point of self-hatred
• Can become angry and have trouble controlling their anger, which is usually from frustration
• Have a strong need for love, understanding and acceptance
• Have an innate understanding of spirituality although they are not open about their gifts

Crystals can have any combination or all of the following characteristics:

• Highly intuitive and psychically sensitive
• Very empathic, to the level of processing energy for the planet
• Quiet and withdrawn, can also be very shy
• Withdraws when threatened, can lead to autism in young children
• Very musically or artistically talented
• See angels, spirits and can communicate with them
• Can be born with memories of life on the ‘other side’
• Peaceful and peace-loving, does not argue and will withdraw when faced with confrontation
• Finds the world confusing, intimidating and loud
• Sensitive to energy shifts and can become very agitated with them
• Can have allergies to a variety of things, especially food and chemicals
• Very intelligent but keep it to themselves
• Isolate themselves socially because they find it hard to be around people
• Quietly bring about change, not like Indigos
• Have a strong need for love, understanding and acceptance

She mentions that parenting crystal children can be a challenge because crystal children because they:

… can be very needy children, fussy, with poor health and high attention needs which can manifest when they are of school age. If they are raised in a stressful environment with loud talking, arguing or emotional tension they will simply draw farther into their shell until they refuse to connect with the outside world. Many autistic children are also Crystal children and they are here to hold certain energies in place while they live in their own little world. Don’t consider them to be mentally challenged because they are not. Even the most severely autistic children are highly intelligent. When they are ready to come out of their shell, when they feel the world is ready for them, they will and then they will amaze us with their extraordinary gifts and talents.  

I certainly agree that parenting a crystal child can be very challenging at times!

2.  Meg Blackburn Losey has a book called The Children of Now. I haven’t read it (yet), but I thought I’d pass the info on to those who may be interested.

Support group for parents raising crystal children

I found an online support group for parents raising crystal childen.  It can be found here: http://www.raisingthem.com/groups/view/102246/Raising_Crystal_Children/

There’s only 11 members so far, but I joined right away to see if I can meet other like-minded parents. 

If you know of any other online support groups for parents of crystal childen, please let me know!

Another mom of a crystal child

Happily, today I found a blog of another mom of a crystal child…   She will also be blogging about her experiences.  Yay — I am not alone…  Part of the reason that I started my blog was because I couldn’t find any other moms having the similar experiences to me…  http://takingthelidoffthesun.com

Then, I found another mom of a crystal child on another Lightworker website…  (Update: link no longer active)

I have literally been searching the web for months  and even up until last week, couldn’t find any other moms of crystal children and today I found two.  Yay!

Generation Rescue

I believe that many autistic and highly sensitive and allergic children are actually crystal childen.

My son isn’t autistic, but is highly allergic and sensitive.

What’s interesting is that things that are thought to help autistic children also help children who are highly sensitive.

Over the last two and a half years, I’ve looked into a lot of ways to help my son and when I visited Jenny McArthy’s Generation Rescue website a few months ago (http://www.generationrescue.org/action.html), it surprised me how many of the steps that she recommends in dealing with autistic children, are steps that we’d been taking to help my son.

But it took us a long time to piece together all of the steps ourselves.

These are the steps that we are currently following and recommend:

•  Eliminating casein and gluten from the diet
•  Eliminating as many preservatives, trans fatty acids, artificial colours and flavours as possible
• Finding food sensitivities / allergies
• Balanced multivitamin
•  Digestive enzyme
•  Probiotic
•  Epsom salt baths
•  Cod liver oil

There are many other suggestions on the Generation Rescue website that you may also want to check out.  I will let you know if we start trying some of the other recommendations and will let you know how it goes.

Children of the New Earth

When I first heard that I was going to be having a “sensitive child” back in 2001, I tried to find what I could on the web.  At that time, I came across channelled information from The Group by Steve Rother about crystal children.  I “knew” then that I was going to be having a crystal child…

Children of the New Earth  http://lightworker.com/beacons/021502Children.shtml
Awakening the Crystal Children http://lightworker.com/beacons/101502AwakeningCrystalChildren.html

Doreen Virtue’s website also has useful information about Indigo, Crystal and Rainbow Children
http://www.angeltherapy.com/article1.php.  Doreen Virtue is also the author of the highly useful book, The Care and Feeding of Indigo Children and The Crystal Children.

This is also very useful information for parents of indigo and crystal chldren:
http://www.starchild.co.za/info.html

Parents of Kids with Food Allergies

 I belong to an excellent online support group for Parents of Kids with Allergies… http://www.kidswithfoodallergies.org/.  There’s a great support forum on it and I’ve found that it’s been very useful to be able to be in contact with other parents who are going through similar experiences.