Essential Oils for Special Needs

Essential Oils for Special Needs

I’ve fairly stubbornly avoided most of the recent essential oil trend. I feel like they are over recommended, people are pressured to buy what they don’t need, can’t afford, and something less concentrated and expensive would work as well.

I didn’t want to get caught up in the hype, and the absolute last thing I want to do is be part of encouraging a family to use essential oils when what they really need is dietary change, medical attention, mainstream occupational therapy. I don’t want any child to miss out on other early intervention that is needed for a child with special needs.

However.

I also want to be transparent on here and try to help other families who are grasping at straws. When you have a child with a chronic health problem or disability, often you don’t have time to wait for randomized placebo controlled trials, you have to try things even though they haven’t been studied over hundreds of years, and sometimes even though you think something more time consuming would be more efficient, you choose to try something – anything – that might help with minimal harm but isn’t beyond your physical, financial, and time constraints (see this page, #5).

This child didn’t walk til she was over 2 years old, yet here at 7 she’s riding a two-wheel bike like a boss

Though we’re done with GAPS and my daughter has made huge improvements, she still has sensory issues, processing trouble, and a global delay.

I’m still trying different things. I share with you when they work (amino acids, homeopathics), and I don’t bother writing up anything when they don’t (other amino acids, dry brushing, flower essences, countless supplements). As a mom, I’m not sure I”ll ever stop, now it’s just part of my life. There is always some sort of work in progress here :)

I’ve previously half-heartedly tried essential oils for behavior – Lavender is supposed to be calming, I used the Mountain Rose Herb version of that without any visible success. Plant Therapy’s Calming the Child sounded good – I added it to before-bed baths and diluted it with coconut oil and applied to the kids’ skin, again without any success that I noticed.

I have used other oils for other things with what I feel like was success – tea tree (being honest, I totally used Walmart’s brand for this) for mastitis, germ fighter for keeping the sickies away, camphor very well diluted in a humidifier for coughs, eucalyptus in the shower for congestion. But I didn’t have a particular loyalty to any brand of oils, I normally chose Plant Therapy from Amazon, Mountain Rose Herbs or Tropical Traditions if I was placing an order.

Anyway. I used the blend in a roller ball applicator during an over-stimulation about-to-be-a-meltdown thing that my daughter was doing. She calmed down immediately. We had this family over, we get along great and it’s always lots of fun, but it was more stimulation than she can normally handle. Every time I saw her start to ramp up for a meltdown (ever 2 hours or so) I reapplied. I just did it on the back of her neck because it was accessible. She didn’t melt down.

This is huge for her, if it continues to work like this, this is going to greatly improve our ability to do things in the community. And because it’s a quick application (that smells good to boot!)

I don’t have to try to get an already about-to-melt-down child to take a supplement.

No, there are no placebo-controlled randomized trials. No, I don’t know that DoTerra is actually better than other brands of {admittedly less expensive} essential oils. But this was the first time I got essential oils to work for her behaviors, so I wanted to share.

This was the blend that worked for over stimulation:

Original article and pictures take healthhomeandhappiness.com site