Facial Tics and Vitamins & Minerals

Ever wonder what causes some people to have such severe facial tics? To be honest, I really never gave it a thought and categorized it somewhere between "weird" and "unfortunate" --until my middle son developed one. I had noticed that over several months, he had started winking his eye, more notably on one side. This "wink" eventually graduated to include more and more of his face. One night at the dinner table he was telling me a story about something that happened at school that day, and I thought that the facial expressions were part of the story. So I laughed. And he looked at me and said, "Why are you laughing?" Well, I thought I was supposed to, but I immediately stopped and asked him if he was winking at me on purpose. His face became very serious and he replied that, no, in fact he wasn't winking and that some other kids had asked him the same thing. Uh oh, I knew we had a problem. I should also insert here that at this time my son was also experiencing "Celiac type" symptoms but was undiagnosed. Being a certified herbalist, I knew that one of several things could cause this kind of facial ticking: a lack of vitamins & minerals.

Most of us, no matter our health status, do not have enough vitamins & minerals, especially since we are almost all part of the adrenal craze with having too much stress, caffeine, and energy drinks. In addition, medications, nursing, poor diets, food intoleraces, sensitivities and allergies, and just plain aging assist our bodies in depleting mineral stores as well. Further, Phytates, a type of acid found in the hulls of nuts, seeds, and grains bind with minerals and reduce absorption of them in the body. In other words, the very things we think are healthy like whole wheat and other whole grain foods can actually decrease the minerals in our bodies. Knudsen E, Sandström B, Solgaard P. Finally, milk, thought to be an all-american-calcium-must-have-3-glasses-a-day drink also has been proven to reduce mineral levels in the body according to a Harvard study ( Lunar Osteoporosis Update (November 1997) and many others including the Journal of the American Dietetic Association, 1993, that have been around for years.

My son began a supplement program including a B-Complex, Probiotic, and Calcium, and his ticking almost disappeared within a week. Because I assumed his body's stored B's were being eaten up by the stress of school leaving him depleted, I stopped giving him the B-Complex when school let out for the summer. A couple of weeks later, however, the tic was back and I once again gave him the B's. Althought they did seem to keep the tics somewhat under control, but did not completely heal the problem, I was perplexed as to why he would be depleted in vitamins and minerals since we had a "healthy" lifestyle. It would be two more years before we realized he was suffering from a Celiac Disease that was slowly wasting away his body. Left undiagnosed Celiac Disease causes malabsorption, an inability to absorb nutrition in the small intestine, and causes damage to the intestinal wall. Even the vitamin/mineral supplements I gave him were having a hard time being absorbed, which is why they helped but didn't eradicate the tics and other issues he was beginning to have. Once he was diagnosed and the gluten was eliminated from his diet, the malabsorption reversed and the tic and other issues disappeared. He has also gained 15 pounds, 2 jean sizes, and 2.5 sizes in shoes. We plan on having him tested again to make sure his malabsorption is back down and staying within normal rages.

People who suffer from Celiac Disease, a gluten intolerance, or sensitivity, whether they are mal absorbed or not, will need to be supplemented their entire lives. The most important supplements I have been able to find through my research in overcoming the effects of food allergies, sensitivities, and intolerances are: Calcium Magnesium, B-Complex, Probiotics, and Digestive Enzymes. Interestingly, Probiotics aid the body in making minerals more soluable, especially where Phytates are concerned (Famularo G, De Simone C, Pandey V, Sahu AR, Minisola G). There are others that are helpful as well, but these are non-negotiable when dealing with a food allergy, sensitvity, or intolerance to something like gluten. If you would like further information, let me know!


This article in no way seeks to diagnose or treat any health problems.

Orange Oily Pooh: The Case for Digestive Enzymes in the Gluten Free Diet

Most of you are probably wondering what the reference to "orange oily pooh" was about in the last blog article. Well, for those of you who know the story, sit tight, there is a purpose in my repeating the gory details for all to know.

Several months ago I purchased and fed my family some Orange Roughy fillets for dinner one night. The next morning, my oldest son came to be and announced that when he went to the bathroom, the end result was orange oily pooh. Because Samuel had already received the nickname, "dram," short for "drama," I dutifully ignored his presentation and went about my task wiping the remnants of last year's debris and dirt out of a silverware tray inside the drawer. Later that afternoon, he returned to announce that the orange oily pooh had struck again, and this time, quite unexpectedly, if you know what I mean. Well, this starting to alarm me and I did what any good mother would do. Ignore him, and when he wasn't looking, start Googling "orange oily pooh" at breakneck speed. At first I found nothing. But then I found a story some radio announcer put online about his experience.

The story began as he was taking a nap on his office floor and awoke to this nasty smell. He figured he passed a little gas while passed out and proceeded to use the copy machine. Here at the machine he smelled it again, and then again at the water cooler. Deciding the only common denominator was indeed himself, he hiked straight the bathroom, where much to his horror he had orange oily pooh that had already left an oil slick in his pants. Embarrassed, he went home and called his doctor who could not help him. He researched on the Internet to no avail, and then desperate to confirm that he was not in fact dying of some strange disease one oil slick at a time, told his entire listening audience the next day of his dilemma. One listener called in and suggested he'd eaten some type of fish found off the coast of China. After some research, the guy realized that he had in fact eaten this fish called Escolar, and that for a long period of time, the FDA had disallowed its import for fear of health complications. Turns out the unhealthy fish is not all that harmful (that didn't stop me from bathing Samuel in chlorophyll) but is often caught and passed off as other types of fish like Orange Roughy since it is a cheaper fish. It's still outlawed in Japan, by the way. Needless to say, I sped back up to Woodman's, swiped a package of "Orange Roughy" that to this day is still for sale there in a bin in the frozen seafood isle, and headed to the meat counter. After explaining to the butcher our experience with this fish, he looked at the back of the package and said, "Oh, yeah. That doesn't surprise me. It's from China. They'll do things like that!" He did give me my money back and pretty much acted like having orange oily pooh leaking out your caboose was no big deal and not all that abnormal.

Well, I wondered why Samuel was the only one of us who suffered from this malady, but then I remembered that Eli had not eaten dinner that night, and the rest of us because of Celiac Disease and/or occasional flatulence take digestive enzymes, which evidently helped our bodies process the nasty oil excreted from the Escolar more efficiently. It made me realize how important digestive enzymes are in a person's diet, no matter how healthy you eat. As we age, the enzymes our bodies make naturally decline in production. That is why Great Aunt Ethel was prone to tooting when she thought no one could hear it and eventually stopped being able to control it at all. What a gas! And people who are gluten intolerant especially have a need for extra enzymes in the diet. If you're interested in scoring some, let me know! You certainly don't want to be the butt of jokes when you walk out of the room!

This article in no way seeks to diagnose or treat any health problem.