I'll try to be brief, but there's a long history so please forgive me!
My son will be 7 in December. He's had an anxious personality since he was born. Would not go to anyone but me, including his father, until he was about 4! He has slowly improved since then and expanded his circle of people he was comfortable with to include our in-laws. He also has tried more foods, as he was also scared of eating new things. But he was still highly anxious in certain situations- like when I tried to sign him up for homeschool soccer or a clay class. He was excited for both, but once there, he was shaking, weeping uncontrollably, hiding, etc. He also occasonally had episodes of pollakiuria, which is frequent urination without a physical cause. Stress is the suspected reason.
We have always gone slowly with him and tried not to get frustrated, but at that point, I felt bad for him that the anxiety was interfering with things he said he would have liked to do. On the advice of our MD and her NP, we started to give him Neurocalm near the end of July. If the link doesn't work for you, it has GABA, 5HTP, l-theanine, chamomile, taurine, inositol, phosphatidyl serine, pyridoxyl, B-6 & B-12, magnesium.
After about 4 weeks, our homeschool center started classes up for the fall. There were a couple that he was interested in, and after a few minutes of anxiety, he went in. It was an unprecedented success! He loves his classes and has gone ever since. He started to try food that he had never eaten in his life! The pollakiuria disappeared! We were obviously thrilled.
He'd been on it about 6 weeks when, out of the blue, he started saying very strange things. Opposite of his personality things. He's usually very kind, compassionate, & loving. He started telling me that 'his mind' was saying that: he didn't love me or anyone in the family (ouch). He wanted us to feel sad. He didn't feel sorry if he upset or hurt someone. He started waking in the night and needing help to go back to sleep. He was seeing visions of his father beaten up and bloody, or shot to death by someone else- and that he was there laughing, and feeling like it was a good thing. Yesterday he started saying he himself wanted to kill his 2 year old brother, and he didn't feel like it would be a bad thing.
At times when he told me these things he was crying, panicking hysterically and saying "make it stop!" Other times, he was very matter of fact about what he was saying. Either way, he has been showing none of his usual empathy.
We talked to the doctor, and she had him tested for Lyme disease and bartonella on Friday because she said a sudden change like this points to an infection. We STILL don't have the results, hopefully tomorrow. She also said maybe the l-theanine could be doing something weird to him, and recommended we change to just a B complex and the same amount (50 mg) of 5HTP, which we did starting Monday.
If it's not Lyme, we've been saying- how did this happen, for him to suddenly go out of his mind? But now I'm thinking- has he been overdosed on 5HTP all this time? Is it the *cause* of all of this? I had researched it in the beginning and everything said it was so safe. But now I have been searching with some different terms, and I've come up with some stories of it bringing on the exact symptoms it's meant to fix. And I know that kids' bodies are different from adults and can react really oddly when it comes to 'drugs'.
We are stopping it regardless, since it's clearly not helping him right now. Last night was his last dose. Any thoughts/experiences are greatly appreciated!
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