Hi all,
I'd like to start giving my 9 year old daughter fish oil supplements, but am not sure what brands are good and what dosage is appropriate for children. I do know that I should buy purified, pharmaceutical grade. Does anyone have any info on dosages for children or links to good information?

I'm also interested in hearing if anyone has noticed a difference in their children after supplementing with fish oil. My daughter is ADD (inattentive) and dyslexic and I'm hoping the supplements will improve her brain function.

Thanks.

The omegas are very good to take, but as always, check with her pediatrician before giving it to her. The best ones to take for our issues (from reading the studies done) would be the ones higher in EPA than DHA, and that are pharmaceutical grade.
OmegaMood by Country Life, 03Mega+joy, VegEpa, and EyeQ are all very high quality brands higher in EPA. VegEpa and EyeQ come in the smaller capsules and doses which moms find more helpful for children. When you talk with her doc, ask about maybe taking a full gram a day. Several grams a day (6-8 by recollection) are taken by cardiac patients, just to give you a reference. The higher doses do thin the blood. They can take up to three months to notice the full effect too for mood/concentration, etc.

Then, there was a member here who mentioned the krill oil, which by chemical makeup is even better utilized by the body; it's more efficient. (Do a search for “omegas”) I have started taking it for a couple of weeks now, and do notice a difference with a gram per gram comparison. My son has been on the fish oils for over a year now, and I notice a HUGE difference with him when he’s not on it. We did have to take him off them when he was doing the Dore program, and I begged and pleaded his case until they relented. LOL! I have not switched him over to the krill yet though. And, the krill I take also come in smaller caps.

Anyway, the omega fish oils are, IMHO, the safest, most effective, most studied and researched supplement out there, and with the other health benefits it offers as well, as long as you have the doc’s okay, you cannot beat the punch they pack into each dose.

Hi all,
I'd like to start giving my 9 year old daughter fish oil supplements, but am not sure what brands are good and what dosage is appropriate for children. I do know that I should buy purified, pharmaceutical grade. Does anyone have any info on dosages for children or links to good information?

I'm also interested in hearing if anyone has noticed a difference in their children after supplementing with fish oil. My daughter is ADD (inattentive) and dyslexic and I'm hoping the supplements will improve her brain function.

Thanks.


My son is also 9 years old with ADD and we have been giving him fish oil and flaxseed oil supplements for about 1.5 years now. He takes it in the morning along with Concerta during breakfast. We checked with his doctor and she said it certainly can't do any harm but she wasn't too sure how effective it would be in helping with his ADD symptons. In the beginning, we stopped the Concerta and tried just the fish oil and flaxseed oil. Weeks into it, we weren't getting the result we were hoping. His teachers noticed a significant in his behavior without the Concerta so we decided to put him back on it. Our hopes is that someday with the right natural supplements and behavior modifications, he can get off the synthetic drugs we are so againts in the first place. We were so sickened by the idea of medicating him for the rest of his life but for now, we really don't have much of a choice. What we are doing is, we do not give him Concerta on weekends or days when he is not in school. For the entire summer, he is off the Concerta and is strickly on the omega 3 supplements. To be honest, we are not so sure if the omega 3 is doing anything for him but we realize that 'natural' supplements are long term investments unlike the instant gratification you get with man made synthetic drugs. It could still prove to be fruitless sometime down the road. We just won't know until years later. One thing for sure is that a lifetime of Concerta or the likes scares the living crap out of us. Unfortunately for now, it's the fix. We've tried others - Ritalin, Strattera, Adderol....... they didn't work for him. Concerta was the most stable, most effective, and other than lost of appetite, it has no other side effects on him.

Hi,
Here are some links I like to share with folks. We do the Feingold program with excellent results here. www.feingold.org (http://www.feingold.org).

I also give fish oil to my son daily. I've been doing it for the past year. I can't say it does or does not help.
I am going to switch to Shark liver oil because someone I know really likes the results. I figure I'll give it a whirl. I buy omega rich eggs and sprinkle flax on the back of a sunny side up egg for breakfast. I sneek flax oil into yogurt.

For us the diet has fixed and improved most problems. His learning did get much much better, but my son is having difficulty with learning his sight words. His teacher thinks it's developemental (fingers crossed).
He missed so much learning before we removed artificials from his diet. He really didn't start learning anything until we did the diet last year. So time will tell. I figure our worst case scenario is that he is left with some learning disabillities which is really great considering what we are coming from.

The last study is the fish oil study.

Lancet study
http://fooddemocracy.wordpress.com/2007/10/03/study-shows-food-additives-may-make-kids-hyper/ (http://fooddemocracy.wordpress.com/2007/10/03/study-shows-food-additives-may-make-kids-hyper/)

http://www.feingold.org/Research/research.html

fish oil reviews
http://www.environmentaldefense.org/page.cfm?tagID=16536

Good luck!
Shirley

Thanks for your input.

I would also love to find a magic bullet that would not require medicating my child for her to be successful - however I also know that there are years of research behind ADD medications and study after study does show physiological problems that the meds correct. Initially I also took her off meds in the summer and on weekends, but I have found she does much better when on meds all the time - meaning she is happier and less frustrated. And I haven't been able to find any physical benefit to "drug holidays".

I haven't tried the Feingold diet, although I've done quite a bit of research on it. It seems that those most helped by the diet are the kids who exhibit behavior issues (hyperactivity, aggressiveness, etc...). Inattentiveness alone doesn't seem to be the result of food/preservative/dye allergies in most cases. Fortunately, we've always eaten very little processed foods.

I am going to try omega 3's as my pediatrician has said that they aren't harmful and are beneficial, even if they don't help the ADD/dyslexia. He recommended Nordic Naturals. If I have any real success with this I'll let you all know.

I actually wasn't giving my children alot of processed foods.
I did give strawberry milk because it was the only way I could get my son to drink it. But other than that we ate mostly meats, veggies and fruits.
Snacks at playgroup, cheerios (bht sprayed on bag). Nuggets and mac and cheese were a treat for lunch.
Unfortunately there are additives in lunch meats, drinks, ice cream, milk (usually hidden in vitamin a palpitate), peanut butter, breads, crackers, Pretty much everything. Also there can be connections to natural foods, which is a further step of Feingold like wheat.

I read a story written by a women who had add. She couldn't read, she struggled with depression. She came to america from another country on a boat. The boat ride was a month long and after a week or so they ran out of things like bread. (ie gluten) She picked up a book and she will never forget reading that first line. She could read and she started to learn a language. She didn't realize the connection to the gluten.

When she got off the boat she began eating the way she always had. Her symptoms returned. She struggled her whole life with learning issues and depression. It sounded horrible.

It was sometime after she was fifty that she realized she had celiac disease and could not tolerate gluten. She went on a gluten free diet and her symptoms went away. That's when she realized what had happened on the boat when she was happy, had no anxiety or depression and could read. BTW she also wrote about how miserable the boat ride was to others so it was odd that as an anxious person she was happier than she had ever been.

The basic Feingold diet does not eliminate gluten BTW. It's just a common trigger to look at.

Feingold members do use the diet for learning and focus. My son's learning is not perfect, but much much better. He is considered developementally delayed at the moment. Which is much better that last year when he was unable to learn at all.

They have a list of symptoms that the diet treats on the website.

I'm not trying to push you I just want to make sure there aren't mis conceptions about what the diet treats.

Good luck finding the right answers for you. This is what has worked for us, so this is what I have to share. But I hope every child gets what they need to be happy and healthy regardless of whether or not it includes meds.

I believe I posted earlier somewhere on the forums.. sometimes food allergies will make the ADD symptoms worse. Another thing to have the doctor check during any testing is the thyroid (especially if you have family members with previous problems) ....sometimes... these symptoms actually mirror ADD symptoms. I strongly recommend it. If you want to learn more.. research the thyroid, too, along with your other research.

Well my 9 yr old has ADHD and ODD and we took him to a well respected Dr. Not sure what his title stands for PHD, HSPP, LMHC but he specializes in ADD. So we recently took our son to see him. He suggested we give him 1000mg omega-3 fish oil 2X a day. Making sure that there are no metals in it. One brand he gave was TwinLab. They are 1300mg pills so he is getting 2600mg per day. He is also on 18mg concerta. We only give that to him on school days. This is a dose that was too small last year but seems to be working now. I think that the fish oil has helped. He is even more compliant and seems happier even on the weekends when he is off the Cocerta.

Other things we are doing-

Limit sugars
Give more protein- beef jerky is now a staple in our house.
More fruits

We had allergy testing and found that he has no food allergies- done though blood tests.

We also remind him a lot that he is a great kid and when he is doing inappropriate things we remind him that it is the action he's doing that is bad- but he is not bad. One thing we are trying to work on is building his self esteem. Kids with ADD usually are very hard on themselves because they can never do the right thing.
I also sprinkle flax seed in foods that camoflouge it. My son has asked why he has to take so may pills and I tell hi because he is different than a lot of other people but that there are a lot of very smart people who have had ADD-Einstien was just one.

Another thing that the dr. suggested was to check his thryroid. He said to take his temp before he gets out of bed and then a hlf our of so after he is up. If the teperature is always different then we should have it tested. The temp shouldn't fluctuate much from when you are sleeping to when you are up. We haven't done this yet with our son.

We give our son omega 3's (for about a week) as well as Focalin XR. We use OmegaBrite and per the testimonials on the website we should be seeing results within 3 months or so. They claim they've seen results in that time frame on kids who are ADHD. What I like is that it comes in liquid form and is flavored orange or tutti fruity so he loves the taste and I only need to give him 1/4 teas everyday (which is nothing). It is pharmaceutical grade which I guess is the key. I have noticed he is calmer and has less blow ups (I hope it's not wishful thinking as he's only taken 1 week). We recently also switched him from adderall to Focalin and that seems to be working out great also. My husband and I are going to start taking the capsules and hope for the best. Good luck.