Love Potion is next on the list

We visited our MINDD doctor today. (It was a marathon effort - I took three of my four children, and ended up talking to the doctor for three hours, but all of that is beside the point.)

One of the main things that came out of it is that we are going to try Oxytocin nasal spray for Bright Eyes' anxiety. While it has been called a 'love potion', apparently it has shown good results in autistic children particularly with social anxiety. I'm guessing Bright Eyes probably isn't going to score a girlfriend on the second day he uses it.

A good thing about it is that we will know if it works immediately. It's not something that needs to build up like the zinc he's been taking. We'll know that either we have a result, or we don't. This is also a good thing because the stuff is pretty darn expensive at about AUD$2 a spray. If it works and he needs three sprays a day, 365 days a year, that is going to add up pretty quickly. However, if it works and really helps him, I'd much rather have an expensive remedy than no remedy at all.

This is what Wikipedia says about it: 

Autism. Oxytocin may play a role in autism and may be an effective treatment for autism's repetitive and affiliative behaviors.^[25] Oxytocin treatments also resulted in an increased retention of affective speech in adults with autism.^[26] 

Two related studies in adults, in 2003 and 2007, found that oxytocin decreased repetitive behaviors and improved interpretation of emotions. More recently, intranasal administration of oxytocin was found to increase emotion recognition in children as young as 12 who are diagnosed with autism spectrum disorders ^[27] 

Oxytocin has also been implicated in the etiology of autism, with one report suggesting that autism is correlated with genomic deletion of the gene containing the oxytocin receptor gene (OXTR).

Studies involving Caucasian and Finnish samples and Chinese Han families provide support for the relationship of OXTR with autism.^[26][28] Autism may also be associated by an aberrant methylation of OXTR, as reported by Gregory and colleagues.^[26] 

After treatment with inhaled oxytocin, autistic patients exhibit more appropriate social behavior.^[29] While this research suggests some promise, further clinical trials of oxytocin are required to demonstrate potential benefit and side-effects in the treatment of autism.