We used a nutritional protein shake called Muscle Milk which was recommended by my daughter's body builder boyfriend. We are also using Omega 3, recommended by our OT.
He started putting on weight for the first time in his life after he started using this, so at least he doesn't look as skinny and weak as he did before and I think this helped his self confidence. He started lifting weights more than just once in a while. I think his strength improved, but I am not sure about his endurance, at least when it comes to walking. When I used our treadmill at home my endurance steadily increased, but his only increased a little and I think this bothers him. He has to work harder than others at physical things and then he only sees a slight improvement. He still had to stop and rest before my husband and I got tired at the state fair, but part of my son's problem might be his feet and loose ankle joints. He complains that his feet hurt whenever he has to do a lot of walking.
I don't think his endurance for handwriting or practicing piano improved very much, but any improvement at all is good. His piano teacher said she noticed an improvement after the few OT sessions we were able to get.
I often wonder if there is a limit to how much my son will be able to improve in and if I am pushing him too much and if it is worth the price. I don't want him to think that I think less of him because he has these issues, but I do want him to keep working on them. He has told me before that he wished I would accept him the way he is.
Learning is what keeps us going. We both like to learn. He can feel comfortable being the word nerd that he admits he is and enjoy history and science and at the moment economics and government without anyone telling him he is weird for being interested in these things. I tell him all the time that I am so happy that things turned out the way they did because I didn't get the chance to learn the things we are learning now.
He just wants to know it all. He teased me the other day when we were reading my old college economics book because there were parts I had underlined that I remembered reading but there were some sections I don't remember reading at all and they were not underlined. He said he had heard about "teaching to the test" but wanted to know if I was equally guilty of just "learning to the test" by skipping over parts that the teacher didn't say we would be tested on. He at least wants to skim through the parts that are not underlined.
He thinks it is really sad that it is so obvious that education is not a priority in our small town. He looked up our town on Wikipedia and pointed out the one line that talked about our school and the 20 or so lines about sports. We have a nice football field and a skate park, but no library. He thinks kids are getting the message that learning is not very important and he knows that he is lucky because he gets to learn.
