LD and Diet

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Does it really matter what caused the problems? I wouldn’t stick with any doc who basically had her own agenda, like assuming a vegan diet will cure all ills. I mean, if she’s right, then most of us out here are brain damaged, so we’re all in it together and that’s “normal.”

There’s an awful lot we don’t understand about diet, and that’s ‘cause there really *isn’t* a simple answer.

I’d work on getting a good, balanced diet going now — and could be well worth keeping a journal of what you eat and how you feel to find connections.

And then we can toss exercise into the equation…

Thank You Sue! I needed an expert here as I think Jerry here was spewing some urban myths and misinformation about diet and LD ( as if fat was so bad how come ketogenic diets work for kids with various brain problems?). Anyway I feel as if people want to blame me for my LD’s and not my elementary school teachers who didn’t have the pantience to find out what was wrong with instead of dismissing me as being “stupid” or “disruptive” and all the other labels I didn’t diserve. I just wanted to know here from the experts what can cause LD’s as most of my counselers say mine are from a birth incident and not anything I did or anyone else did to me.

I did keep a food diary as a teenager as I noticed that though I thought I was eating “Healthy” some foods did a number on me. I noticed that thirty minutes to an hour after I drank soy milk and/or ate a baked potato with fat free butter I would fly into a rage from the slightest provocation. I was afraid I would wind up in an asylum and I so talked to a doctor into gving a blood test as I felt that I might have an organic problem rather than a mental one. It turned out that I had chronic hypoglycemia as I ate so many carbs and not enough protein, fats, and vitamins ( though I took thwem in pill form they were not absorbing into my system right) that I was literally causing myself mental problems.

I have also met other ex vegans and people on simular diets as me and they have had most or even more problems on the diet than I did. One guy ( who was once a vegan) told me he lost his job as a result of his supervisor thinking he was drunk because his hypoglycemia made him walk funny. Now he says he has something called insulin resisiance sydrome as well as having hypoglycemia, so I’m not the only one wit this problem from not eating right ( for my blood chemistry that is).

No, you are definitely not the only one with this problem. I have celiac disease as part of an autoimmune complex, which does a number on your diet (no wheat or lactose just for starters, and many other no’s); and as a result I ate badly and then my blood sugar was not good; but a good healthy mixed diet (plus thyroid replacement because the autoimmune got the thyroid)is doing a lot to help.

However, the vegan doctor is way, way over the line. If you had any proof of that kind of advice being handed out, there would be grounds to take a complaint to the medical licensing board. That is really unprofessional.

And Jerry is way way over the line in whatever other direction, but he is a troll and just skip over. Jerry claims to bave an LD that puts him below the first percentile on abstract thought (on of the few demonstrably true things he has ever written) which makes him the very *last* person you should listen to for science advice, since science is totally dependent on logic.

You need to talk to a *reputable* doctor about a good balanced diet, and to reputable people in education/psychology/neurology about your LD’s.

Really, trying to lay blame for LD’s is first unproductive — the majority are from no known cause — and second useless — it doesn’t matter so much what caused it, what matters is how to do better.

Yes, a good balanced diet is important for general health, and yes bad health can mess up your brain function. And yes, as a person with autoimmune allergies I can speak to this, allergies and food sensitivities can mess you up. But once you have those things under control — and please do find a medically conservative doctor you can trust — then you still have to have teaching and learning.

Find tutors who work on teaching you as you are, not people with their own agendas who want to make you into someone else. Then the tutoring will take hard work and time, my favourite dirty little four-letter words. Keep at it and remember this is a life-long project, one little learning step at a time.

I already work with tutors with math and other subjects at school but people bombard me with information when I say I have LD’s as if they think LD’s can be cured or it’s just a mental problem. The doctor at school was telling the opposite of what I was told at my old medical insurance ( that I was “frying my brain with carbs”) . As I do not have medical insurance anymore it’s hard to find a reputable GP doctor who knows about LD. Thogh I’m on a tight budget I had the nerve to shell out $150 for a visit to my mother’s doctor who told me that my LD’s were something I was born with and veganism is only recommended for people with certain genetic disorders who cannot process aniaml products.

Anyway since I’ve been off the diet for almost ten years I have only had one episode of emotional outburst and that was because when I got home from a dental appointment all I could eat was white bread soaked in milk and sugar( the dentist said that day I couldn’t eat solid food and that was all I could afford) so my blood sugar went haywire.

The people who bombard you with (usually wrong) information and advice are trying to be helpful. Most of the time their advice is either no help or the worst thing you cold do, but take it as good intentions, they are trying. You’re probably best not to bring the subject up except when necessary.

Victoria the problem is I know I can get expert advice here but at least I’m smart enough to know who is an expert and who is not. I get frustrated when I hear the same advice over and over and it’s not coming from an expert in the field that I’m interested in ( like LD here). It’s a waste of my time when I think someone is going to give me some useful information but all I get is the same old stuff I’ve heard before from people who don’t know what they are talking about.

My son struggled in school since the 2nd grade. He has been diagnosed with Auditory Processing Disorder.

We found a combination of therapies to help him. He is 13 now and is doing really well. He has had speech therapy, some emotional therapy to learn to control frustrations.

We try to limit empty carbohydrates and keep him well hydrated. Drinking lots of water helps to keep him focused.

Believe it or not, XBox360 Rock Band has helped him too. Something about the coordination of the sound/beat, visual beat and hitting the drum at the same time seems to be rewiring his brain or making ear/brain connections.

For several years, he had morning flax seed oil in oatmeal or yogurt for Omega 3s. He also takes a supplement, Elevate Brain & Eye Learning Memory Supplement by BioSource Naturals which is on Amazon.com.

http://www.amazon.com/Supplement-Learning-Contains-Vitamins-Guaranteed/dp/B001BGJGQG/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&s=hpc&qid=1227449623&sr=1-1

It contains Amino Acids, Minerals, Vitamins & Herbs for brain and eye support. They are capsules, but they open and are tasteless in yogurt, applesauce and pudding. I am a Doctor of Naturopathy and formulated this product after 6 years of research and trying to help my son. After a month of taking it, I was getting raving emails from his teachers.

I am an archaeologist i understand some things related to food and the brain and human development. So let me make this clear and simple.

There are certain things the body needs and the ratios of those things does quite frequentlyy change with age. A certain “balance” needs to be maintained. A vegan diet, *IF* it is providing sufficient nutrition (which most people don’t understand enough about, and like the idea of veganism more than they like learning about the dietary needs of their own bodies.) too *adults* (Children being vegan is a poor idea in most cases because of the needs of their bodies and brains. In *some* cases it is just fine because the parent takes the time to learn and to take exceptional care in providing for the dietary differences in needs that their child has when compared to that of an adult vegan diet. But few take the time.) So mostly children as vegans is a poor idea. Adults as vegans, adults have every right to decide for themselves what to put into their bodies i am not even going to get into argueing about that.

Next, Meat, ir a large piece of the puzzle as to why our brains developed the way that they did to the degree that they did. And in children, a higher amount of fat and other stuff is necesary as their bodies are not only growing but their brains are developing and they tend to be alot more active than adults.

The nurse was onto something important though. Not the whole vegan kick. Soft drinks contain chemicals that may not be the most healthy. Many of the foods we eat today do. We do need to be more health conscious about the chemicals in our meats and in our vegies and preservatives in our milk, and in our fruits and vegies etc. So on that note i do agree. There are other places (including manyy healthier and more natural sources) to get fat. (And that would include meat, depending on it’s preservatives and the chemicals it has in it.) So you just have to be logical about it and balanced.

Medicine is a wide area. In that a school nurse and a dietatrician of some sort are working in totally ddifferent areas. it would be like an egyptologist, digging up neanderthal bones and material culture and trying to understand it all. Apples and oranges. There is a reason schools have nurses to dispense a couple of tylenol and take the odd temperature or to help some teenage girl talk to her parents about something difficult or whatever. But i think, their area of expertise is hardly in dietary issues. So better to get your advice on diet, from someone who’s primary medical concern and study was linked to diet.

[quote=Amber]Several months ago when I went to a school doctor she told me my LD’s were caused by drinking soft drinks as caffiene and aspartame damages the brain. She wouldn’t listen to me when I told her that I had an eating disorder when I was a teenager and that I think the extremely low fat diet I was put on by a dietician damaged my brain. I had told her that I was not eating enough fats and she said “Well I’m on a a very low fat vegan diet and my brain isn’t damaged. I only eat ten grams of fat a day.” Then she recommended that I go on a strict extremely low fat diet and quit drinking diet soda as she said that was what casued my LD’s. What I don’t get is I have cousins who grew up drinking diet soft drinks and sugar free products ( while I wasn’t allowed to drink them until I was 15) as they were not allowed real sugar and they have no intellectual deficits as I do. Also my academic counseler at the disabled center told me that my LD were a result from a birth injury as from a young age I was diagnosed as having ADD by doctors and having problems with math from an early age.

Anyway I went to my mother’s doctor and he said artificial sweetners do not cause any problems unless you have PKU ( a brain disorder) and the school doctor was a “New Age quack artist” as she was trying to push a vegan agenda on me. He said I probably had brain damage from the eating disorder diet as too much starch and not enough fats deprives the brain of B-12 and can cause brain damage especially in teenagers. I could remember when I was nineteen another doctor caught my eating disorder before it turned into full blown anorexia and told me I had to start eating fat as I was deficient in many vitamins especially the B vitamins as I didn’t eat meat or drink milk ( I drank soy milk). He told me that B vitamins are essential for brain growth and I was damaging my brain from too much starch as it turned into sugar and “fried my brain”. Recently I feel a bit guilty as the school doctor made me feel as if my LD’s were my fault from the diet drinks and not because of a scrupolous dietician putting a growing teenage girl on a deficient diet.[/quote]

First off aspartame is a very dangerous poison that causes a myriad of problems in humans.
http://www.sweetpoison.com/aspartame-information.html

Low fat diets can only cause brain damage in humans under 2 years of age. High animal fat diets cause brain damage in humans. The China Study proved that.

You dietician did not cause your LD. Your school doctor was 100% correct.

Also fat does not contain any of the B vitamins. So a low fat diet will not deprive you of and of the B vitamins. B vitamins are found in grains like wheat bran, brown rice, potatoes. bananas, lentils, molasses, tuna and oats.

Eating disorders are a myth. Anorexia Nervosa is very very very very rare. There are only 200,000 people with AN in the US. It is not caused by lack of vit B. There is some pretty compelling evidence that AN is genetic and may be related to poor zinc absorption.

You sound like you may have a hormone imbalance. You are playing the tragic victim. Stop blaming the dietician. She did not harm you in the least. Let it go.

I am guessing that you are on some sort of meds like Paxil. That will damage your brain. Caffeine will deplete the B vitamins and it will wreck your adrenal glands. All stimulants do that. That is one reason why Ritalin should be outlawed.

Stop playing the victim and start playing the card you’ve been dealt.