“This wasn’t an internet thing where people can post what they want without knowing each other. This was done through the nonprofits Cherab and ECHO which at the time were in person support groups where everyone knew each other and their children, and both parents and professionals were members.”
Date: Thu, 16 May 2002 02:59:14 -0000
Subject: Re: history
Nordic Natural’s NNProEFA 369 is the same thing as their Complete Omega with Borage Oil
NNProEFA 369 is the professional line which only used to be for sale to health care professionals -not parents direct. The Complete Omega is in the commercial line for parents, health food stores, etc. and the only difference between the two is the price as the professional line is a bit cheaper.
When my son Tanner responded so amazingly well to Efalex just weeks after he was diagnosed with apraxia yet months after therapy with no results as you can read in The LCP Solution book or read under his page online, I had just started the nonprofit (August of 1999) and wanted to organize a feedback with our new group. Our first meeting in August I spoke with Nordic Naturals who offered to send us free samples of DHA Jr. (cod liver oil) for us to try -and I was crushed when nobody including Tanner had positive results with them. At that time I had thought all fish oil was the same.
After hearing more and more that it appeared to be only Efalex that worked for most of us with apraxic children, I had long discussions with Michele, the wife of the owner of Nordic Naturals at the time and kept saying “There has to be something in Efalex that you don’t have in your DHA Jr. because Efalex works and DHA Jr. isn’t for some reasons for most of us.
I would have probably organized something with Efalex through Efamol but they were in the UK at that time and my phone bill was already starting to pile up with running the nonprofit (before we had all the technology today to call all over so cheap) I didn’t know Dr. Jacky Stordy at that time, the woman who created Efalex as I do now. Also with my toy design background, I liked the Nordic Naturals company because I thought they were the only ones that were trying to make fish oil more appealing to children by making them into smaller strawberry flavored capsules that I wish worked.
One day Michele called me and said “Lisa I have our version of Efalex which we think is better” So I again offered to do a feedback -but this time, after switching Tanner unsuccessfully from Efalex time after time I really didn’t want him to be part of it -but then I did try it for him because I was curious and also because Efalex was costing me around 20 dollars a week because the dosage on the bottle was 2-3 capsules, 2-3 times a day. On the NN ProEFA 369 bottle it only said at that time 1 capsule a day, and at that time I didn’t know that a company can’t put anything but one or two capsules a day unless they have research. Within a week Tanner had a surge and got the letter K sound that we were working on for over a year -and within a month he started to tell stories for the first time, and this was with a dramatic reduction on dosage from where he was, this was all on only one capsule a day as you can hear at the Talking Page! At that time I also didn’t know formula was more key than dosage when it comes to fish oils. Through our nonprofit, the results were moderate to dramatic changes in just one month in just about all of the children that were put on just one capsule a day of NN ProEFA 369. These were the same children who didn’t have changes from the cod liver oil (DHA Jr.)
I arranged for Nordic Naturals to ship product to do the same feedback through the nonprofit ECHO of Canada with Rhonda, the President (Echo no longer exists as a nonprofit today but this was going back to around 2001) Both groups found the exact same results with hundreds of children together: little to no change with cod liver oil and moderate to dramatic changes with one capsule a day of NN ProEFA 369. These changes did happen within the month, typically starting within a day to taking up to three weeks. I know Dr. Stordy said in her book changes can take up to 3 months, but we have found that typically if it’s going to work it’s going to work quick. You just want to make sure it’s the right formula.
This wasn’t an internet thing where people can post what they want without knowing each other. This was done through the nonprofits Cherab and ECHO which at the time were in-person support groups where everyone knew each other and their children, and both parents and professionals were members. (and some of the parents are medical or speech professionals)
We anecdotally found out two things -that children with apraxia had almost immediate changes on the NN ProEFA 369 formula. Even more importantly we discovered that the formula is very important -and that fish oil alone doesn’t appear to be successful for our children for some reason, and that our children also required the small amount of Omega 6 -such as found in the NN ProEFA 369, Efalex or Eye Q formulas for some reason. Perhaps due to the anti-inflammatory properties, perhaps they enable the Omega 3 to get to the small vessels of the brain somehow where they are needed? When we finished our anecdotal feedback studies though Nordic Naturals wanted all of us to purchase the NN Complete Omega. The Complete Omega at the time was around 15 dollars for 60 capsules and the NN ProEFA 369 was around 18 dollars for 90 capsules and we were all saying, “We’d like to pay the extra 3 bucks for the extra 30 capsules thank you very much”
Why is NN ProEFA 369 now available to the parents? I don’t know if they really want it to be, however when Cherab did the feedback and due to the success, we all wanted to keep using it. After the feedback when the NN ProEFA 369 supply was cut off to us, the parents, I said “You can’t do this to us!! You have to let us keep getting the NN ProEFA 369 as it’s cheaper” Nordic Naturals let me distribute it through Speech411, which at that time was the only way to get NN ProEFA 369 if you were a parent outside of getting it from your doctor. Now if you search online you can find the professional line elsewhere online due to me starting it, but they are pretty strict in who they provide the professional license to and typically only give the commercial license. (why more will use the commercial line that don’t know)
Even though we from the beginning got various media attention like Inside Edition TV, etc., we were this small grassroots support group/nonprofit yet wanted the world to know something that we knew would seem “fishy” to anyone on the outside. So I was put in touch with Robert Katz Ph.D., formerly of the NIH who runs the Omega 3 Institute who offered to assist us organizing a professional anecdotal feedback -which he did. The reports were overseen by Dr. Joseph Hibbeln of the NIH.
The problem was Dr. Katz had made it very clear he only wanted the professional anecdotal forms filled out by medical doctors, not SLPs. That is what most people sent in, and unfortunately, hundreds of reports were promptly discarded when they were reviewed and the pediatricians and neurologists were questioned over the phone if they witnessed first hand the before and after. As we know MDs don’t see our children daily, it’s the SLPs that do. So the doctors had filled in the one-month reports based on the parent’s testimony. The only reports that were OK’d for the professional anecdotal feedback were those from the speech pathologists that worked with the children on a daily or almost daily basis -which were only 19 of the reports. So in his attempt to make a more credible report, we ended up with a measly amount of children which is so sad out of the hundreds of reports discarded.
Well soon after the media noticed these 19 professional anecdotal reports as you can read online -which together with the continuing overwhelming amounts of parent testimonies-people all over that heard about it with any type of late talker child not just apraxic wanted to know What is it? What is the dosage? Are there side effects?
We found parents that were optimists and just knew it would work, and parents that were pessimists and didn’t think it would work, and those that weren’t sure almost all found that their late talker children when supplemented had the same positive results. Dr. Stody who wrote The LCP Solution which my son Tanner’s story is in said the success rate is around 80 something percent. It took time for word to spread because it really does seem so simple and easy and cheap and hard to believe and so why doesn’t everyone know and just do this (I don’t know) and it gradually made it’s way around the internet and into other disorders outside of apraxia starting with autism. So the demand for NN ProEFA 369 vs the Ultimate Omega really grew since that’s the name everyone hears but they are the same except for NN ProEFA 369 being a better price per capsule. So Nordic Naturals began selling NN ProEFA 369 direct to parents through Speech411 and they also started letting other companies sell NN ProEFA 369 online.
You can still ask your local drug store to purchase the NN Complete Omega and you can also make up the formula yourself by checking the amounts of DHA, EPA, and GLA. I know parents that have done that successfully too -just make sure you use fish oil from reputable companies.