Dr. Amy Nett: It depends a little bit on how old the child is. Molybdenum and biotin, again, it depends on the age of the child, and it depends what their manifestations are because molybdenum and biotin, I’m generally using more to deal with the byproducts of yeast overgrowth. If you’re dealing with maybe an older child or early teenager, maybe do half doses or quarter doses. In young children, you might not need to do the molybdenum and biotin, but I tend to be more conservative if anything, so bring it down to maybe a quarter or even an eighth of a dose if it’s a really small child. It depends on the age and the size of the child.
Then the dose of A-FNG, again, a pretty small dose, and it’s going to be determined by weight to some extent. For younger kids, ages three to six, maybe do something like one to two drops twice daily. Once you’re getting into children about six to 10 years old, maybe something on the order of about two to five drops twice daily. Then when you’re getting into teenagers, let’s say maybe 10 to 16 or 10 to 18 years old, about five to 10 drops twice daily. You can sort of increase a little bit beyond that. Maybe for something like 16 to 22 years old, depending on the size of the patient, maybe go up to 10 to 20 drops twice daily. Some of that will depend on their response, but again, I think we like to be a little bit more conservative, so just be cautious. For the smallest patients you might have, just one to two drops twice daily, a very small dose.
Oh, and then Leslie is clarifying. “Age six, 50 pounds.” I would probably do something like two to four drops twice daily, and see how a six-year-old responds at that dose. Have the six-year-old start at one drop probably once a day, and, yeah, similar with the Biocidin, be pretty cautious. Start at a pretty low dose. Start with something like one drop once per day. Let the parents see how they respond. Is this patient also on the spectrum or just having GI issues? “With the Biocidin, too?” Yes, I would start with a lower dose on the Biocidin, as well. “They’re very anxious.” Yeah, understandable. When I see children around six years old, or right now I’m working with … he’s three years old and on the spectrum, and whenever we start a new treatment for the gut …
Oh, sorry, you said, “No GI symptoms. Just bad anxiety.” Yes, I did get that. Thank you. I appreciate you clarifying. So I have a patient similarly on the spectrum, three years old, and every time we start a new GI medication, symptoms worsen. The underlying mood issues worsen. Similarly there aren’t a lot of GI issues, but he’s getting a Tourette’s type syndrome every time we add something new, which is really hard on the parents, as well. So I would start with a very, very low dose. Maybe start one drop once daily, and then you’re going to increase to one drop twice daily. Depending on how they respond, maybe after five days of one drop once a day then go to one drop twice a day, then two drops in the morning and one drop at night, then two drops twice a day, something like that. Six-year-olds, you can probably go up to two to three drops twice daily if it’s tolerated well, but depending on the degree of anxiety, anticipate that it might actually worsen. Let the parents know that the anxiety might worsen. They always back off the dose and then just get back up to the dose. I sometimes take literally months in smaller kids to build up to the doses that we want to see. Go easy on the little ones!