Taking a break from Respen-A

So, I have a back log of blogging topics, as usual. So, I will attempt to slowly catch up by discussing a supplement break I took with my son's Respen-A a couple of weeks ago. With Respen-A it is required that you give 2,000 mg of calcium and magnesium at a 4 to 1 ratio. The preferred form is calcium carbonate and let me tell you, we have played with various calciums over our year of doing Respen-A. So, when I ran out of calcium carbonate - and because of its form is not widely used - I could not find it locally. So I figured this was a good time to take a break and see if we still needed it. We often become complacent with supplements and I start to think "do we REALLY need this anymore?" and so it is good I think to take a break once in a while after things have stabilized and you are not making any other changes. We don't do that very often. So, we stopped on a Sunday. Ummm yeah.....not so bueno. Meltdowns, screaming, unfocused.....wow deja vue and not in the good way. Monday afternoon I was in the classroom helping out for another mom who couldn't make it. Luckily, I was there at math time and helped him stay on track with his math sheet. He normally comes home with the "In class" sides completed and then we complete the "At home" sides. While we took a break from Respen-A, the only day he came home with completed "In class" math sheet sides was Monday when I sat with him and helped. Emotionally explosive is the only way I can describe his moods. I was back to calling his name several times just to get him to look at me. So Tues/Wed were more of the same. Calcium came Wed afternoon (thank GOD!). We were back to administering the patch Thurs morning. He had a rocky morning but by mid day his teacher reported that it was like a switch was flipped. All of a sudden he was completing his math worksheet, independently, without a word from him. She checked on him and just left him to it, noting the change from the rest of the week.

She and I spent about 45 minutes on the phone after school that day discussing her observations, which fit with mine. It was just so uncanny that she noted the huge change in him the very day the patch went back on. So, this confirmed for us the continued need for Respen-A. Since putting it back on, his moods have leveled back out and his focus is much better. So, Respen-A will be on board for a while longer since there was such a drastic negative change when stopping. Boy, brought us back to what our reality "used to be" and can I say how glad I am to not be there anymore? So I wanted to share our experiences on taking a break from Respen-A. Obviously my hope is at some point most of our supplements will no longer be critical for his functioning. But there is a lot of healing that needs to happen first, and we apparently are just not there yet. That's OK. It took a while for the damage to be done, it will take a while for the healing. But as long as we know the supplement is required and working, we will keep pressing on!