brain-mood-diet connection books

[bramblewoodbabydoll]

Im new here, I have a daughter 11 y/o who is in therapy for behavioural issues. I think she has a mood disorder mainly and its very similar to that of mine and my sisters. Mood disorders and learning disabilities are prevalent in my family history as well as substance abuse. I am looking for suggested reading on a good "brain diet" that would support mood and cognitive ability. Does anyone have anything they could suggest? She is also not sleeping at night and this creates a serious issue with getting up in the morning. I saw something about melatonin on another post.. could anyone share their experience with using this?
The therapist and I agree that she has some depression and self esteem issues among other things. I have not had her seen by a psychiatric doctor yet.

 

[BusynMember]

I would post on the Natural Remedies Forums. I personally have a serious mood disorder and Learning Disability (LD)'s myself, but diets and/or vitamins or herbs never helped me. Maybe they know more over there.

 

[GoingNorth]

I'm also an adult difficult child and other than caffeine making my anxiety much worse and excessive chocolate giving me severe headaches; I've never noticed any effect on my moods from my diet.

I do know that many people have had good results from gluten/casein free diets and while I do avoid artificial dyes and high fructose corn syrup, other than that I can't say that any special diets have helped.

If you post on the natural section, there are several people there who can further advise you.

 

[klmno]

I seem to recall one of the books on bipolar talking about some possible foods that help- it might have been The Bipolar Child. Of course, if a child is bipolar diet alone will not "fix" it.

 

[bramblewoodbabydoll]

Thanks, I realize diets will not do it alone. Changing my sons diet never made a difference but I am very sensitive to the slightest chemical imbalance and I've only just now begun to look into foods and other supplements for myself and figured it may help Sprite also. She is a bit overweight and she eats for comfort I think, particularly carbs.
I hate starting her on medications so young, I fear going to the psychiatric doctor because I fear the beginning of an ongoing drug experiment. I have been on and off medications for years and some helped while others made me worse.
Thanks for the comments, I'll ask around in the other board.

 

[Josie]

The girlfriend/CF diet has been a miracle in my house.

My difficult child 1 used to be diagnosis'ed with Depression and ODD. She was taking the highest dose of Lexapro and we were about to add an antipsychotic to hopefully eliminate the violence. Instead, we discovered she needed to be gluten and casein free and since I had read that could affect behaviour and mood, we waited to see what happened with the diet change.

She is now medication free and usually a pleasure to be around, even though she is a teenager now. She does sometimes cheat on her diet and then still has that old behaviour.

I also went gluten free and had symptoms go away that I didn't know I had. Brain fog, ADD-like symptoms, auditory processing problems, anxiety, fatigue, and more.

Mark Hyman, MD wrote a book called "The Ultra Mind Solution" which has many different diet changes and supplement suggestions to help with mood.