Journey through vitamins and whatnot

Tuesday was a marathon day for me. Not literally, I don’t do marathons, but it was the never ending day, leading into another exceptionally long day on Wednesday. A lot has happened in my small little world, so I might have a lot of words. Please be patient with me.

I posted before describing our world with Noah, my eldest who will turn six in Sept. Noah is a very sweet boy. He has a big heart for people, he is concerned with others when they are sick or left out. He is the star host when you come to our house, always trying to think of your needs before you have them. He will sit and color for hours. The only other thing that would tear him away is reading. He can sit and read book after book after book. He is also very busy. He doesn’t walk anywhere, he runs, he climbs he is falling down every other minute. He loves being busy, wrestling, biking, dancing, cooking, gardening, battling. All of these things are very normal. However, I like to describe Noah as getting all of my emotion (which is a lot) and all of Paul’s sensitivity (which is a lot). The poor kid got a double whammy. He unfortunately got mine and Paul’s side of the family’s temper as well. He has passionate, intense, strong willed parents. He is all of those things from both of us. I just kind of feel bad for him. Someone described kids like that as world changers. I am choosing to raise him as such.

Last year, I discovered Noah was allergic to artificial food coloring. It makes him rage. Not angry. Rage, violent, scary, eruptive. You could literally look at him and not see Noah inside his eyes. We went with weeks dealing with this behavior, me calling my mom twice a day crying, and lots of praying and reading trying to figure out what was going on. After we cut artificial food coloring out of his diet, it was incredible to see the change. He is still passionate, intense, and strong willed, but its all age appropriate.

Until recently.

Old Noah was back. I describe it as Jackel and Hyde because truly, it’s a switch that gets flipped and I have no idea what the trigger is. I found myself saying a lot of the same things to my mom on the phone. I was crying maybe not twice a day but at least once. I was looking at our schedule, our lifestyle, our disciplines, our family time, our alone time, our food, everything. I really didn’t know what to do. I also want to be clear that my husband and I are far from perfect parents. We are just trying to figure it out like everyone else. After my last post about this, many people gave me great books to read on parenting, and I am excited to read those, but I knew something different was going on with Noah. Loosing sight of him in eyes was my key. He was so filled with rage he couldn’t see straight. That didn’t feel normal to me, so I went with my gut and started researching body imbalances.

Then a friend told me about Wyndgate Health. Her first thought was that Noah might be Vitamin B deficient. She had said that she knew a kid that struggled with anger and anxiety, and they found that his vitamin intake was off. I went on Wyndgate Health’s website and was really pleased with what I saw. At the very least, I had a direction to move in because nothing we were doing was working. The next day I had an appointment for Noah the next week. I was really excited.

HERE IS MY DISCLAIMER:

I am not educated in what I am about to write.
I am not a nurse nor anyone who knows anything about the body.
I am not stating that I am an expert on this.
I am not saying that there aren’t other ways to fix problems like we are having or that this is the best way.
Our issue doesn’t involve Autism, ADD or ADHD, although Wyndgate Health does help families in those positions. I just understand that those are not situations we are facing.

What you will read is my understanding from Wyndgate health. You will read our story with our son while it’s happening. We are still in the middle of figuring this out. His appointment was on Tuesday. It’s not fixed. I will do my best to communicate what happened on Tues. to the best of my knowledge. If you want to know more about Wyndgate Health, I recommend it and you can find out what they are about and what they treat on their website www.wyndgatehealth.com

What I love about Wyndgate Health is that they take an all natural approach to healing the whole body. They look at family history, symptoms, blood work, and a consultation with the patient. Noah and I dropped off the other kids at a friend’s house and then drove over to St. Paul to meet with Health specialists. They talked with Noah and myself and then gave Noah a physical. The first thing they looked at was his nails. He has white spots on his nails, which is a result of a zinc deficiency which causes hyperactivity. They also noticed that Noah has pink puffiness under his eyes, which is the result of more vitamin deficiency. His throat/glands are swollen to a frightening degree. The purpose of the glands is to trap infection so something is going on that is attacking his body. They also asked if Noah has a hard time sitting still, yes, some times are worse than others. They also asked how Noah goes to sleep. I told them he crashes as soon as his head hits the pillow. Noah also has a hard time walking heel to toe, heel to toe. All of these things alone might not communicate much, but together, his body is trying to tell us something.

They mentioned a potential allergy to wheat or dairy. I had to ask about what feels like a very random spike in so many people being allergic to wheat/gluten. This is where I found out that after World War II, American’s become obsessed with Hybrid plants and making bread fluffier. We want to make new plants out of originals. Well, in order to do make bread fluffier, you have to add 40% more gluten to wheat. 40% is significant, especially when your body isn’t created by God to process it that way. So the reason so many bodies can’t process wheat/gluten anymore is because the product of wheat isn’t the same. We literally aren’t eating the same food that our grandparents did. (There are many great websites that describe this better and with greater research than I am here.)

So at our appointment, we discovered that day that Noah has a zinc and Omega 3 fatty acid deficiency. We also got a full blood work up that will test for deficiencies and allergies. We have an appointment in three weeks to go over the test results, our first consultation, family history and the 13 pages of symptoms and behaviors that I notice in Noah. They gave us fish oil for Noah to take to help increase his brain activity and zinc to help even out his body. If they find other vitamin deficiencies, the goal is to formulate an all natural vitamin that is specific for Noah’s body. They will look at his body levels and find out what he is in need of and what levels he needs them. Then he can take his one multivitamin each day.

What I love about this, is the approach that you are really looking at the body and what it uses to live and exist. I think we can all agree that even healthy people need to take vitamins. There is no way to physically or financially eat all the food that is necessary to keep your nutrient levels where they need to be. This approach sees where the body is lacking most and providing the means to be healthy.

What we hope this does for Noah is take away his anxiety and rash response to things, while also giving him the ability to think when things in his world become tragic. I think about how hard it would be to make and keep friends when your response is so explosive. I can only imagine how difficult school would be when your body is so preoccupied with adjusting itself, that you can concentrate on what the teacher needs from you.

I am hoping we have answers and a plan in three weeks. I want our house to be peaceful. I believe it can be. I want my son to be confident in whom he is. I hate watching him loose himself in anger and rage. I think there is a way to help him, and I hope we found it. Regardless, if this doesn’t work, than we still love our son as much as we ever did, we pray even more for wisdom and continue to seek God for all our answers.

Again, please understand, I just want to share our story as its happening. This is our journey in understanding parenting, our bodies, food, discipline, life, love and sacrifice.