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My daughter (5 1/2) has responded well to aromatherapy/essential oils. (She still has many issues, but these have helped calm her, with speech, etc.) I would like to know if others have had experience with this. I would like to know of resources as well as share what I have learned. ↓
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| Name: gemmdenn | Date: Jan 11th, 2007 1:25 AM |
| Hi Hope3650 I am interested in knowing what sort of aromatherapy oils you use and how. My son is 2 1/2 and I am willing to try anything. ↑ |
| Name: hope3650 | Date: Jan 11th, 2007 6:20 AM |
| We started by getting a book called "The Complete Book of Essential Oils and Aromatherapy" by Valerie Ann Worwood. A friend had mentioned that I might try the essential oils for my daughter. My reply was "What are essential oils?" I was not raised with this type of thing. That was about 2 years ago. We bought the book and some lavender spray at the health food store. We sprayed it in our kids' bedrooms. My older son (not with autism) had been having night terrors and they just stopped entirely. So we started spraying in both kids' rooms at night and we went from there. The only warning I have heard of has to do with seizures. I guess they can trigger them in people who suffer from them. For us the benefits have been subtle but real. At the time that we started using oils, we were keeping my daughter home almost all winter to try to keep her from being sick all the time. It wasn't really working, but we were motivated because she does not handle any medications or antibiotics. We started putting some NOW brand lavender oil on the bottom of her feet as well as massage on her back and stomach every day. (It is recommended that you mix oils with a carrier oil such as almond or grapeseed to dilute them.) She started doing better and is now able to attend preschool which is something we never thought would be possible. We now use quite a few of the NOW brand essential oils. But we also use the Young Living oils (Specifically the blends "Peace and Calming" and "Thieves" and others) The Young LIving brand is more expensive, but is a higher grade. They have a blend called "Brain Power" that helped to boost my daughter's speech. A little bit goes a very long way. We use one drop on the back of her neck every few days and that's it. I believe you can do a search for young living oils and autism and get some information. We now use essential oils for colds and even stomach issues. Sometimes the results are subtle, but other times dramatic. My daughter has problems when she gets stomach flu. She will get into a cylce where she can't stop throwing up. She ended up with IV's once. Over the last couple of years when she has started into this cycle we just put a few drops of NOW brand ginger on a tissue and put it a few feet away from her and it stops the cycle completely and immediately. So you can see why I am passionate about this tool that has come into my life. My friend was not sure whether to mention it. I am so glad she did. There is a lot of information on the web as well, so let me know if I have answered your questions or just confused you more. What problems are you trying to address? We have worked on sleep, speech, calming during meltdowns, common illnesses. We are still looking for more answers in those areas, but feel that some of them have improved as a result of using the oils. The most amazing thing is that even though my daughter is extremely sensitive, she does well with the oils. She can't wear a bandaid or use typical shampoo, but we can mix up a few oils and massage her back and stomach without a reaction. The only side effect is that they can smell rather strong! ↑ |
| Name: Ontario_Father | Date: Jan 22nd, 2007 12:49 PM |
| Hello hope3650, I was wondering if you could help me with speech. I will be picking up the book The Complete Book of Essential Oils and Aromatherapy today but if you could help me jump start the therapy for speech it would be so great. My e-mail address is [email protected]. Thank you so very much. ↑ |
| Name: hope3650 | Date: Jan 23rd, 2007 2:30 AM |
The oil blend called "Brain Power" from Young Living has probably helped with speech the most of everything we've tried. It is made with Frankincense, Sandalwood, Melissa, Cedarwood, and others. The nice thing about the blend is that you can just use it directly from the bottle. We put just one drop on the back of her neck every few days. The Young LIving oils are really pure and we've had really good luck with them. I should warn you that the Brain Power blend is over $50 a bottle even at wholesale prices. (It has Helichrysum in it which is pretty expensive.) We are still on our first bottle after several months.
I should make it known that I don't sell Young Living products. I signed up as a distributor to get the better prices, but other than that, I'm not trying to advertise here at all.
Young Living has a website, and there may be some other online stores that sell their stuff if you do a search. www.youngliving.com I have to say that the website isn't the easiest I've ever used, but their products are worth it. They also do orders by phone
1-800-371-2928 or customer service would be 1-800-371-3515
We also saw progress in speech from adding a couple of drops of Geranium to her bath. We just buy NOW brand which can be found for a pretty low price on the internet. I found great prices on NOW brand oils at www.thecatalog.com But we found that using it every single night was too much. A couple times a week seemed to be best. The most important thing is to use very sparingly because they are very concentrated and too much is not good.
Finally, I should add that my daughter was not without speech before we started using essential oils. She is very delayed and it used to be impossible to understand. So I can only say that they have increased her ability to speak and helped her progress. For a child who is not speaking at all, I would not know what to expect. We used sign language at first paired with speech. And we do feel that removing gluten and dairy helped with the speech early on. She started that at age 2 until present. I know that is all off the subject, but I didn't want to lead you to believe that I could attribute all of the progress to the aromatherapy. ↑ |
| Name: Ontario_Father | Date: Jan 23rd, 2007 12:55 PM |
| Thank you hope3650 for the information. I understand that it is not a cure but a treatment. We have our first appointment with a DAN doctor in March and until then I would like to try different treatments that will not "hurt" my son, and I can do very easily. I'll wait to hear from the doctor before trying anything like NCD or GF/CF diets. I did get some Lavender yesterday and put it in his room over night. about 4 drops in a heated vaporizer. You said to much is not good. Would that be to much? The smell in his room was not over powering and it did disappear around midnight. Can you please advise. ↑ |
| Name: hope3650 | Date: Jan 23rd, 2007 6:38 PM |
| From what I understand, if you get too much lavender, the child will become hyper. How did he sleep? I have never tried the vaporizers. I usually put a few drops on a tissue and put it in the room. I would say it does usually fade after a few hours. So you are probably doing it right. In my experience, you would know if you got too much, from the overpowering smell and the reaction of the child. I have read that you want to put the source of the oils a few feet away from the child as well. If you find that he handles it well for a few nights, you may want to add some carrier oil such as Almond oil about a 1:1 ratio or more. Then you can massge it on the bottom of his feet and see who that goes. I would just say about 2 drops for both feet with about 6 drops of carrier oil for the first time. This really calms my daughter down at night as well as during her difficult times. Lavender is a great oil to start wtih and it addresses many differenty types of issues. I have read that it is one that can compensate for many different types of things and goes where it's needed. It is also one that is safe even for infants, so it is tolerated by even most sensitive people. ↑ |
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