Gluten was found to be the cause of a childhood case of obsessive-compulsive disorder (OCD). In this case report, published in January this year: Integrative Medicine Approach to Pediatric Obsessive-Compulsive Disorder and Anxiety, the authors state
This case study is the first reported case of OCD associated with non-celiac gluten sensitivity.
Pediatric obsessive-compulsive disorder (OCD) is prevalent in 1% to 2% of the population. Emerging studies have correlated non-celiac gluten sensitivity with psychiatric conditions such as schizophrenia, depression, mania, and anxiety.
The 7-year-old boy was treated at an integrative medicine practice in the United States and experienced these results on a gluten-free diet together with other integrative medicine modalities:
marked reduction of OCD symptoms and anxiety along with marked improvement of social behavior and school work
The authors conclude the following and recommend further research:
The patient’s rapid response without side effects behooves the medical research community to further investigate the association of non-celiac gluten sensitivity and pediatric OCD.
These are truly amazing results and I always recommend that anyone with any mental health condition needs to consider the effects of gluten. I have all my clients go gluten-free for this very reason. Even if you don’t have a diagnosis of OCD, going gluten-free frequently helps with the obsessive thinking, ruminating thoughts, negative self-talk, anxiety and worry.
Of course, this approach or this approach alone, may not work with everyone with OCD (severe or mild) since the root cause can be multi-faceted.
Other approaches for OCD could also include (with or without a gluten-free diet, although I’d err on the side of caution and always remove gluten):
- Addressing low serotonin with 5-HTP or tryptophan. Inositol is also very helpful for obsessive thoughts and/or behaviors. I blogged about a success story here: Anxiety and OCD: Inositol instead of tryptophan or 5-HTP?
- Addressing nutritional deficiencies using a multi-vitamin and -mineral combination. In this study, an 8-year-old boy with OCD and explosive rage issues benefited from this approach. In this case study, an 18-year-old who had not benefited much from CBT, saw mood stabilization, anxiety reduction, and obsessions in remission after just 8 weeks on the multi-vitamin and -mineral combination. His symptoms retuned when he stopped taking it and improved when he added it back.
- Addressing pediatric autoimmune neuropsychiatric disorders associated with streptococcal infections (or PANDAS) and pediatric acute-onset neuropsychiatric syndrome (PANS) which can cause OCD type behaviors, bed-wetting, tics, night-time fears, separation anxiety, learning regression, and handwriting disabilities.
Please share if you’ve found benefits from any of the above approaches for OCD, obsessive thinking or anxiety.
I have a question related to body-focused repetitive behaviors. Would you recommend the same line of treatment as with OCD? The two seem to me to be very similar but some medical websites say they are not the same. What are your thoughts on it and treatment? Some more information for you; my daughter is 6 years old and has had body focused damaging behaviors and habits since the age of 2 or 3 (lip biting two specific locations on her lip/below her lip, nipple pulling, hair chewing). The lip biting is really the worst as she’ll bite her lip in one spot until it is bleeding and very swollen, but her lip is always swollen on one side even if it’s not bleeding. She also has anxiety which was acute when she was younger (terrified of a particular light fixture in our house) until she would just stand there screaming and shaking while looking at it. Now her fear is less acute but still very present with fear of shadows, random images or posters hanging on the wall, blinking lights, loud sounds, etc. She is also very teary and has zero pain tolerance with many aches and pains that wake her at night. While I was pregnant with her I did not eat well and I had anxiety so I know she is at even more of a disadvantage. Now we eat organic with a focus on high healthy fat (butter, lard, avocado), grass fed meat, veggies, with fruit and gluten free grains also included in limited amounts. She has MTHFR which I address by giving her the Seeking Health Kids optimal multivitamin. She also gets a spoonful of virgin cod liver oil per day and I spray her with transdermal magnesium. My guess is that she’s at least got low serotonin and I have 5-htp ready to give her, but would love any recommendations!
Thanks!
Amanda
I am sorry to hear about your daughter. I focus less on the diagnosis and more on the symptoms and behaviors and what you describe sounds a lot like low serotonin – the obsessive behaviors, the fears, teary and even pain tolerance. These are approaches I’d try if I was working with you and your daughter – chewable tryptophan (I prefer it to 5-HTP for younger children) and then inositol. And then GABA in small amounts. And then N-acetylcysteine as it’s often very helpful for trichotillomania/repetitive hair pulling and the lip-biting, nipple pulling, hair chewing may be a similar type of behavior.
I’d also look at the pyroluria protocol if the night issues are related to night terrors/nightmares.
With the teariness and low pain tolerance I’d also look at DPA to boost endorphins. Low dopamine can cause self-harm behaviors (they trigger a feel-good dopamine boost) so tyrosine may help further along in the process. It’s the last thing I consider when anxiety is an issue.
I like to do one thing at a time so we have a feel for what’s working.
I’m so pleased that you have the diet all sorted out! And be sure to take care of you too!
Thanks for your response! I’ll get her some tryptophan and see how it goes. If it doesn’t provide much change do I then try the other things you listed while discontinuing the previous supplement, or do I add them so that she’s eventually taking all or several of them. Just wanting to clarify ;).
It never occurred to me she could have pyroluria. She’s usually very shy and quiet in social settings but it has been getting better since adding in her multivitamin, from which she’s getting 10mg of zinc and 10mg of P5P per day. Should I increase doses for her? She’s about 41 lbs.
On a side note, I have pyroluria which I finally started addressing a few months back using your protocol and my debilitating social anxiety has all but disappeared! I still have some anxiety, probably related to my copper and mercury toxicity, which I’m working to remedy with gently detox through nutritional balancing.
I have obsessional thoughts about OCD of all things and they won’t go away. They cause me extreme anxiety. Any advice as to what I can do?
Drew
When have a client with obsessive thinking I have them do the amino acid questionnaire and trial of the amino acids (https://www.everywomanover29.com/blog/anxiety-amino-acids-overview/). Tryptophan is most helpful and then inositol if that’s not enough. Gluten may be a factor so I have my clients remove this and heal the gut. With OCD we have to also consider strep/PANDAs
Thank you so much for your response. I had Scarlett Fever before this, and have been on antibiotics for about 2 months but the ruminating and obsessive thinking is still there. Does this change anything?
The prior infection could be a factor (due to inflammation) and so could the antibiotics (fluoroquinolines are especially problematic https://www.everywomanover29.com/blog/antibiotic-anxiety-fluoroquinolone/). All possible root causes need to be addressed but most of the time the amino acids give you immediate relief while you are figuring everything out
Hello.
I have a 16yr old son who has been dealing with OCD for about a yr now. It has been getting more and more extreme. He has been seeing a OCD therapist for last 2-3months and he is beginning to avoid his fears rather than face them. I’m am desperately needing any advice on supplements you may think can help my son elevate some of his thoughts. He started with washing his hands repeatedly through out the day. He is now washing his hand up to his elbows when he touches anything. His showers are ranging from 21/2-4plus hrs because the OCD is telling him he is dirty. He will not touch any door handles, chairs or menus in public resteraunts or stores. He will not go around any children because he doesn’t want them to touch him due to he doesn’t know what or where they have been or touched. He has always been a healthy child but in the heavier side. About two yrs ago he decided to watch what he was eating-cutting out all sugars, all meats except chicken. Only drinks water except when eating cereal he will have 1% lactose milk-about six months later he dropped too much weight and couldn’t stop…his doctor and I kept a close eye on him due to us being so concerned with his weight loss. He was diagnosed with anorexia. He saw doctors specialized with eating disorders and I’m proud to say today he is healthy and able to work out. He still eats a zero sugar diet but has been able to maintain his weight for last yr at 155-160. I believe that as he was overcoming the anorexia he replaced it with OCD. And it has been progressing to be more excessive. Showers are getting longer, hand/arm washing 30plus times a day. Never wanting to leave the house I fear of touching boogers or anything that could have been touched by anyone else. He changes his clothes multiple times a day. He is being homeschooled and secluding himself more and more. He has been tested for strep and it came back negative.
Any help you can provide is will be truly appreciated. My son is an amazing, hilarious, loving child. I want him to enjoy his life.
Thank you
Hi Maria
I’m sorry to hear this. I would look at gluten and other food sensitivities as described here, low serotonin and using tryptophan, low GABA and using GABA (https://www.everywomanover29.com/blog/anxiety-amino-acids-overview/), and low zinc. I’ve had feedback that the pyroluria protocol helps many with OCD too (https://www.everywomanover29.com/blog/pyroluria-prevalence-associated-conditions/). Inositol is my go-to nutrient after tryptophan.
Testing for strep is challenging and I’d want to know if it was done by a PANDAs-literate doctor. And also rule out other infections like Lyme (https://www.everywomanover29.com/blog/neuropsychiatric-lyme-disease-suruchi-chandra/) If you can work with Dr Chandra I highly recommend it.
Can you please share what your son’s current diet includes and when he eats?
Hello,
Thank you so much for all the valuable information that you share here.
If strep is an issue, how can it be addressed?
Two of my three children are having some OCD symptoms. The oldest pulled her hair and built some repetitive patterns which required a lot of her time. The youngest often washes her hands and has some reading problems as she repeats reading the same sentence over an over again and can not finish the page. Last year she also made noises with her throat that she could not control and she repeated herself when she tried to explain her thoughts. At some point it was so bad that she cried all the time trying to tell us a simple story. She was a very bright child before it all started and now she is way too slow at school. B-vitamins and mega doses of vitamin C helped with uncontrollable sounds and with speech, but issues with reading are still here.
There are some factors that could make both of my kids susceptible to nervous system instability (my oldest was born through C-section, and I had a very stressful pregnancy with my youngest ), but beside that I suspect that strep virus could be a trigger.
I am planning to add tryptophan and NAC to their diets on top of B-vitamins, vitamin C, Mg, Zn, Cod Liver Oil which are already in our protocol.
But what can I do with a virus?
Thank you.
Hi Trudy, I wanted to understand if there is a natural and non-pharmacological way to stop the autoantibodies inside our body caused by a possible infection .. can the infection be treated with natural products without the use of antibiotics that ruin the intestine? Do you have any advice on the type of products to use? How to best cure an anxiety due to a streptococcal infection? What types of probiotics could be the best indicated? In addition to probiotics and the intake of tryptophan, inositol and probiotics to help anxiety, what other supplements can cure and heal a gut? The same antibodies have also triggered vocal tics. Have you had any cases of improvement of vocal tics treating the intestine? How? Thanks as always for your valuable advice !!
Rafael
Posted on the other blog too…
Yes we can often address infections with herbal “antibiotics” like goldenseal, andrographis, garlic etc. It depends on the type of infection but even these natural products can disrupt the microbiome so probiotics and /or prebiotics are often recommended too.
With vocal tics I always consider gluten too and other toxic exposures. For gut healing glutamine is wonderful and it can often be calming too.
Trudy, I tried a gluten free diet for my son who has Tics, OCD and ADD, probably associated with PANDAS. Within weeks everything went away and our boy was back! He was calm and happy for the first time in a year. When the time to reintroduce gluten came, we did so and the symptoms all came back. I waited a week before cutting it out again. That was almost 2 months ago and he hasn’t seen any benefit this time (unless he would be worse if he were eating gluten). It is like it is making no difference. I am confused. It seemed like such a strong correlation. I guess it is possible that he was just waning in symptoms due to natural cycle, and the antibiotic benefits causing antibody levels to drop, causing his symptoms to remiss.
Diane
What wonderful results for your son and sorry to hear it’s not helping the second time around. It could be related to some cyclical underlying infection but I have heard Dr. Tom O’Bryan say that adding back gluten can backfire when when profound benefits have been seen on a gluten-free diet. Many of my clients have chosen not to challenge when they experience really profound results for this very reason.
I’d continue and look into a gut healing protocol too as the reintroduction of gluten most likely caused leaky gut. With the mention of antibiotics I’d also look into dysbiois and candida
Hi Trudy,
It is amazing what you are doing and like many others I have found much hope in reading your blogs.
I suffer from Pure O form of OCD…obessions and intrusive thoughts etc. I have mostly had it under control from reading the book “The Power of Now” and practising meditation and spirituality, I have found that if you offer no resistance to thought or emotions then there is no negativity. The major catalyst in my change and path to real recovery was looking at my addictive behaviours to rewire my reward circuitry and normalise dopamine production in my brain. For this I stopped and limited things like masturbation, video gaming, internet porn and social media usage. This certainly helped with my daily motivation and really was a catalyst for change in my life. I also discovered inositol. My daily supplements are magnesium 250mg, b6 50mg, b3 300mg , fish oil, i am also taking inositol just upped my doseage to 16g today after doing the last 3 weeks of lower doseages which seemed to make my OCD worse with lots of sweating. But at 12g it improved somewhat and i intend to increase to 18g to achieve desired effect. A few weeks ago my OCD spiked to a great level which has not happened in a long time coincidentally when i ran out of b3 and fish oil tabs and i now find myself counting my steps and repeating what people say in background noise or conversations and it causes intense distress (however i know how trivial it is) But the triggers are that frequent it’s like inescapable. I intend to source some ACT therapy for my pure O to really kick it for good but I am also looking to support this with some nutritional supplements, which i am a firm believer in.
I did try 5htp at a dose of 50mg x 2 a day and i took it at night the first dose and that morning i woke up feeling amazing, the ocd really was not present and thoughts were much less impactful and my mood was almost too high i felt like high fiving people and felt so present, at around 5pm that day my mood crashed and i experienced a real come down from the high of 5htp…I am wondering if this fluctuation is normal at first and whether i should have preceded to supplement in order for the 5htp to fully balance out etc.
I have bought your book the anti-anxiety food solution and hope to benefit from that. In the mean time I am wondering what supplements I should try. I have noted all of the potential causes of OCD like bartonella and lyme , strep infection PANDA, PANS, methylation, gluten, low seretonin, hypoglycemic blood sugar pyroluria etc, gut health, heavy metal toxicity and methylation, is there any more i should try and identify and rule out?
I am 23 years old male who has suffered from obsessive thinking from a young age where I would count on my fingers, i often used to worry at night and be quite a nervous child at times however, very socially outgoing and confident with natural intelligence and sporty. I believe i fit quite a lot of the characteristics of under methylation. I have had blood tests which came back…Vitamin D 76.9, b12 615, folate 5.6 ferretin 143. I am struggling to get to the bottom of which are normal or not.
Any help would be greatly appreciated. One thing i would note about inositol is that it gives me a sense of warmth and softens an otherwise dry, harsh mood but this does not necessarily mean it is pleasant. I also find it harder to practice mindfulness on inositol due to the fatigue feeling and brain fog.
Best regards,
Chris
Chris
Fluctuations in the effects of 5_HTP can occur based on how often it’s used and when it’s needed. Typical timing is mid-afternoon and evening when serotonin takes a dip.
Good morning,
I have a 8 yr old son who has OCD that has exacerbated rapidly. It consumes his everyday life.
I first noticed a few months ago but had quickly escalated.
I called pediatrician who initially told us to ignore it and keep close eye. We i called again and we now have an appt with neurology.
It seems as over night it is intense!
He had cocksakiscirus in October and has had stomach issues about once a month lasting 3-7 days occasionally had a fever.
This is stressful and sad to watch! This was not our son!
We have started probiotics will be starting fish oil in next few days and started gluten free diet.
Could this be late onset vaccine injury, PANS, issues with gluten with the gut-brain barrier?
We do not want him on meds!
I’m at a loss:(
Thank you so much!!
Melissa
I’m sorry to hear about your son. With sudden onset PANS/PANDAS is often the cause but until that has been confirmed I have clients make all the dietary changes in order to reduce inflammation. Adding tryptophan and/or inositol can help ease some of the OCD symptoms too.
Here is additional reading https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4442568/ and a PANDAS resource https://www.everywomanover29.com/blog/kid-not-crazy-panspandas-awareness-day-2017/