Check out my posting on "I need advice on how to cope with the anger." Several posting in I have shared an extensive list of alternative therapies which recovered my son from severe autism. ADD is under the same umbrella of developmental disorders as autism. I strongly feel that you can also help your son recover. Educate yourself and never give up.

Unknown

If your child zones out often you need to check if he does not have absent seizures. This usually takes a few seconds and it sounds like the child just spaced out for a second but its actually a seizure. It can cause learning problems because when the child spaces out he loses track and needs to fill in the gaps by himself.
If the child is diagnosed with add don't ever give him rutalin it has too many side affects. Rather keep him off sugar, white flour, and get rid of all the toxic cleaners in your home including laundry detergents. The toxic chemicals in the detergents causes the cellular level in the body to change which affects the chemistry in the brain and causes an inability to focus properly. A test that was given to kids in a classroom where lysol was sprayed and then aired out for three days was passed by most students. Then the same test was given to the same kids but the lysol was not aired out and sprayed that same day resulted in poorer grades. You can substitute them with mola Luca or shaklee detergents. Although I swear by shaklee everybody is different.
You can also supplement him with a good multi vitamin, omega 3, lecithin, vitamin e and b complex. Protien is the building blocks of the brain. So give him a good source of protien. A soy protien shake is best. The essential fatty acids which are the good oils such as omega 3, lecithin, and vitamin e act as lubricators for the cellmembranes. And the b vitamins together with calcium transfer nerve impulse from one cell to the next and this helps convey messages from the brain to the body and vice versa. I have personally witnessed ADD kids and autistic children change to A students by following the above mentioned program. Some of these kids are mostly also anemic, or they might also have a yeast overgrowth and candida. So you might check into that as well.

Unjnown

People with anemia tend to be tired all the time and this causes an inability to focus properly. Unfortunately schools are very quick in labeling a child with ADD or ADHD but don't address the real problem, what causes the child to have ADD/ADHD? Only 2% of the kids diagnosed with ADD/ADHD are really born with it! The rest of them are only having some underlying problem that causes it. They are given ritalin to control the problem but are not given anything to cure the problem.

You say your son is anemic, my first question is what do you do for it? If you are supplementing his diet with an iron supplement and don't see any results you probably don't use a good form of supplementation. You need to give him a good quality supplement that the body will be able to recognize as food not as a chemical and then absorb it properly. The prescription iron supplement your doctor will recommend is in synthetic form derived from chemicals not from food and is not absorbed by the body and could even cause constipation. If he is taking a good quality supp.and you don't see a difference your son has a digestion problem . His food is not digested properly and therefore his body does not get the right amount of nutrients causing him to be anemic. As I mentioned in my previous post ADD can be a candida problem, and candida causes indigestion and sugar and white flour cause candida so its basically all connected.

Addressing your second question, food is not enough because our soil is so depleted in nutrients our plants get depleted too and our animals who eat the plants barely get enough themselves. According to the FDA one bushel of corn 100 years ago contained the same amount of nutrients as 10 bushels of corn now.
That's very sad.

Hope this answers all your questions if you want to know more I will gladly help.

Germangini,

I just thought I'd share with you what we have discovered with our son. He was diagnosed with adhd in Oct. We started medicine and switched several times until we found one that had very few side effects and worked for him. Sometimes it takes awhile to find the right medicine and dosage. My husband and I were not at all happy about having to make this decision, but when it comes right down to it you have to do what you think will help your son. If you have sugar diabetes you treat it, right?!

We are really glad we made the decision to medicate him for his adhd. We have seen improvements in his grades, impulsivity, his interactions with others, his ability to focus and stay on task,etc.

Just recently we had him tested for gifted and we questioned the psychologist about whether the medicine kept him on task, etc. and he said most definitely. He also told us he thought it was a wise decision that we made. On the one section of the testing he scored the highest this psychologist has ever seen in 17 years, and it was a score that I have never seen in my teaching career. He would not have been able to stay focused to get that score and also qualify for gifted I'm quite sure without this medicine.

Am I really happy we have to medicate our son... no, but he has made lots of improvements. One thing you have to be careful with with adhd children is their self esteem. If they are constantly in trouble, as you mention, and being yelled at then it does affect their self esteem. I've witnessed this with the kids I've taught at school.

Also we are doing therapy with a child psychologist to help with the treatment of our son's adhd and possibly the autism spectrum (testing at a hospital next month to specify).

Just our story to give you some thought! Good luck in what ever you decide.

Only