Low Tone

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Well, we took Kian (11 months) to a neurologist last week and he pronounced Kian's tone as normal with a bit of looseness at the shoulders that may be reflective of some residual low tone. Mind you, Kian is no wiry monkey boy, but I don't believe he would be diagnosed as low tone by a doctor meeting him for the first time.

I do not know why Kian's tone has improved, but I have some thoughts (that may or may not be true) and I welcome other's input. I think that the low tone comes from a decreased ability of the nervous system to communicate with the muscles. One chemical that is important for this is acetylcholine. So, some brainstorming ideas:

1) massage - traditional baby massage as well as "constant" spontaneous hand and foot massage may improve innervation of the periphery.

2) Myofascial, etc. - there are various other forms of body work that may or may not work as advertised. I do believe, however, that this body work helps to "wake up" the body and promote innervation (both sensory and motor) of the periphery

3) Vojta therapy - we did Vojta therapy on Kian and this was supposed to improve the ability of the brain to organize the muscles of the body.

4) Vitamin E has been shown to increase acetylcholine receptors. Google vitamin E and acetylcholine and you will se what I mean. Perhaps the Vitamin E in Dr. Judy's CoQ10 helps in that way.

5) I think that the whole body vibration that I was posting about a couple of weeks ago may also be able to improve neuromuscular tone. I am still pursuing this but don't really have anything new to report now.

I was surprised that Kian's tone had normalized. I had understood that he would always be low tone and that no longer appears to be the case. Perhaps he would have outgrown the hypotonia even in the absence of any therapies. I just don't know. I would be curious, however, to hear other people's input.