| ADD, Pycnogenol and
Nutrition: One Mom's Experience A Word
About Our Starting Point
This page is about what a particular nutrient,
pycnogenol, has done for my family's ADD symptoms. My son and
I are the primarily inattentive type, my husband is
hyperactive. My son and I have distinctly improved - calmer, more focused, more productive. My husband says he has had no benefits, although
he has not stopped taking it either! I think his temper is not as
hot, and that his frustration level is lower in general.
Certainly our morning routine at home is now miraculously
smooth. (Plus, our skin looks great - mine hasn't looked this
good since I was twenty!)
Some of our success using this nutritional approach
to help our ADD may be related to our basic family diet, which
is worth describing briefly. My son, now almost six, had
eczema and recurring ear infections that began when he started
solid foods at six months old. I wasn't happy just using cortisone
cream and antibiotics all the time, so I began researching diet/allergy
connections as much as I could. After almost a year of effort, Jamie
was nearly eczema free. At this point, while Jamie is much better and can eat most foods, our diet has remained pretty specialized: organic where
we can reasonably afford it, dairy-free for the most part in favor of
soy, some but not a lot of red meat, no preservatives, or
chemicals, or additives. (We don't avoid salicylates, so we
are not on the Feingold diet per se. ) The exception is my
husband, who can't stand the extra expense and insists on
regular cold cuts for lunches, for example, takes a variety of medications
(Zoloft, neurontin and something else), and sneaks fast food when
I'm not looking. All of this is to say that my son's and my immediate and noticeable reaction to pycnogenol may be related to the relative purity
of our diet as well as our particular ADD symptoms, whereas my
husband's less noticeable reaction may be related to the more
complicating elements in his diet and habits.
How I Found Out About Pycnogenol
About a month ago, we all had the flu and were
home-bound. Being an obsessive type, I spent my sick hours
cruising the web looking at my favorite subject, ADD. I
stumbled on one of the pycnogenol manufacturer's sites through
a link, recognized it as something I had seen recently and wondered
about at a local store, and went to buy some for the family before I realized that there was any sort of hype surrounding it. Now I realize it
is sort of a "fad", that some very aggressive direct
marketing of pycnogenol is being done (particularly by a
company out of Australia), that there are claims of
superiority between one brand and the next, and that skepticism
on mainstream sites may be a reaction to this greedy spectacle on
the web. I might have hesitated to try it had I seen all that, since it is also very expensive. Now I don't want to be without it. I don't market
pycnogenol, although I wish I did - it is already everywhere! My one
remark about sources is that I did try one brand from a
well-known members-only discount warehouse, and found it to be
inferior quality. I buy from a local specialty market or from
a health food store, and haven't tried any of the special
"just for ADD" blends that are out there.
What I Notice For Myself
The dosage we started at was the recommended
starting or "saturation" dose of one mg. per pound
of body weight - 50 mgs for my son, 100 for me, 175 for my
husband, divvied out before meals. I didn't notice anything the first two days, but on the morning of the third day, which was a Monday, I felt a
clarity arrive in my mind, like the chiming of a bell or a sunrise in
my head, ten minutes after my dose. That same morning, we were
all early in our morning routines, I was done fixing
everyone's lunches in ten minutes, Jamie did not sidetrack to
his toys while fetching socks, my husband was humming as he
dressed.
While the distinct feeling of clarity arriving with
each dose faded after the first week or so, the overall
changes have not. For me, the most prominent benefit has been
the calm I now experience. I realize now that my waking
experience was characterized by constant mini panic attacks, or fight-or-flight responses. This sensation is entirely gone, even when I am
in a hurry. My sense of time has improved as well - five minutes
feels like five minutes, instead of seeming elastic. Recently
I went to a social gathering, and found that I was much more
comfortable with people - both friends and strangers. I
noticed it was easy to maintain steady eye contact, read faces
and pace conversation. I did not have the sensation of alternately
slipping in and out of synch, focusing or drifting. On other fronts,
I have returned to reading voraciously, something that I have been unable to sit still for in years, as well as teaching myself the guitar -
another dream of mine I had given up as hopeless. I plan to return to
drawing and other art forms, a childhood passion. In order to prepare
this article, I went through the tutorial of a web design
program, which I'd normally never have the patience and
follow-through for. I still have moments when I doubt myself -
maybe I am making everything up! and my husband teases me a
lot, accustomed as he is to my constantly changing enthusiasms
and grand dreams - but at least now I have some hope, and a growing
list of day by day accomplishments to show for it.
What I Notice In My Son
The impact of pycnogenol has been equally distinct
for Jamie. On the positive side, he is much less impulsive and
distractible. Mornings at home are smooth. He remembers what I
tell him, and doesn't sidetrack or blow up when I tell him to
move along. He no longer has to be reminded that I don't like
to be poked, grabbed or tickled when I bend to dry him after the bath. He can keep his emotions balanced enough to carry on discussions or negotiations even when he is upset, an impossibility before. He has started
working and enjoying puzzles by himself, something he never did
before, even when I sat with him and helped. His teacher has
noticed that he finishes his desk work without coaching. He
has, however, unlike me, developed a tic from the pycnogenol,
a funny neck motion. Strictly speaking, I would not call this
a side effect, but rather a manifestation of an existing neurotransmitter
imbalance, which the pycnogenol has made visible - more about
that it the science section below.
After experimenting over a weekend, I found the tic
to be transient, fading by evening if we cut back his
dinnertime dose. That same weekend, we had a poignant
conversation - Jamie begged to have his full doses of pycnogenol, because he liked finishing his work at school, he liked how he felt, and
that he'd try hard not to "do his neck stuff ". He also
said that pycnogenol helped him sleep without waking up, which
is something my husband and I were not aware of as a problem
for Jamie. He has said it more than once, so I have taken it
to be true. My current approach is to give him 25 mgs with
breakfast and another 25 at night before bed, to keep the amount steady in his system. I am also educating myself on Tourettes syndrome,
realizing that my own discomfort at Jamie's funny occasional neck
motions are not a good enough reason to rob him of the
benefits of this nutritional aid. His teacher agrees. The kids
at school have not even noticed at all, and if they do later,
Jamie will be able to explain all about it himself. It does
seem to suggest that Jamie will not be a good candidate for stimulant
medication, if we ever take that approach later, as tics are a known
side effect there, as well as all the other side effects such as growth retardation, loss of appetite and so on.
How Pycnogenol Works: Some Science
Pycnogenol is the trademarked name of a complex of
flavonoids derived from the bark of the French maritime pine
tree. It is a powerful antioxidant. Pycnogenol's effect on ADD
symptoms is related to its ability to cross the brain's blood
barrier, something that few substances can do. It appears that the
increased circulation, improved capillary health, and the reduction of free radicals all combine to increase the duration and effectiveness of the
brain's existing neurotransmitters. Pycnogenol does not increase
production of neurotransmitters, which is the strategy of stimulants
such as Ritalin. Pycnogenol also dampens the allergic
histamine response, which may be a factor in ADD for some,
probably including my family. In that regard, I have seen it
work amazingly, normalizing a developing allergic reaction to
cat dander in just ten minutes. It is water soluble and does not have any known side effects (although do remember that my son manifested a tic,
noted above), even at a tested dosage of 30,000 mgs per day for six
months. Since as a family we do not also take stimulants, I do
not know the combined effect of pycnogenol and stimulants. I
would guess that pycnogenol may allow a smaller dose of
stimulants to be used, which certainly would be a good thing,
especially for children. It would be interesting to hear about other people's experience.
What Else We Do: EFAs, Magnesium and Zinc,
Etc.
Pycnogenol seems to have been the key to a
breakthrough in my family's ADD, and has strengthened my faith
in the idea that, given a baseline of health and a good
starting diet, the body can accomplish a great deal through nutrition.
I also believe in synergy among nutrients. So, as Teresa and others
recommend, on Born To Explore and elsewhere, our diet includes elements
I believe to be specifically beneficial to us with our ADD: flax oil for EFAs, co-enzyme Q10, extra zinc and magnesium, and blue-green algae
for amino acids and B vitamins ( a source which I prefer over
commercial vitamin supplements, which I have found for myself
to be formulated too strongly for someone of my size - I get
jumpy, nauseous or headachy on regular vitamins.) We could
probably go further, and I hope to for my husband, to improve
his other conditions (he gets migraines, depression, sometimes
TMJ from stress, all related to his ADD). My instinct is that pycnogenol
will make these additional supplements more useable to our systems.
Where To Get Information on Pyncnogenol
I like the one of the links on site called
"Attention Deficit Disorder: A New Relief Approach" http://www.cboss.com/add/Home.HTM: the site
itself is fairly commercial, but under dosage information
there is a link to two related scientific articles that
provide more about clinical studies and the workings of
pycnogenol. Two manufacturers, Dr. Masquelier http://www.pychealth.com/fromthepines/main.html
and Horphags http://www.pycnogenol-usa.com/index.htm,
have additional information mingled in with advertising (and
snipes at each other - they are former partners and now
rivals!). There are several short monographs available at health food stores about pycnogenol - I purchased the one by Dr. Richard A. Passwater
entitled Pyncogenol The Super 'Protector' Nutrient: it does not
include much about ADD specifically, but has lots of chemistry
and background material on the safety of the nutrient. It was
also inexpensive - only a few dollars. Without a doubt, all of
the mega-bookstores online would also have listing of
additional titles. |
