Just thinking about all the places I've found to buy good things for my son, and thought I'd put them all down, in case people are looking for good sources. I do think that with our autistic guys we have to go all out in terms of quality and easy absorption, and buy the best and purest stuff we can find.

Small disclaimer: I work for Brainchild, and my son's used them for over 6 years now.

Online Supplement Purchasing - What to look for:

1. When choosing brands or products, ask other moms. Those who have been around awhile, or who have found brands that really work for their kids will not be shy to tell you about what's good and what's bad. Your doctor may have favorite brands too, of course.

2. Beware of cheap brands. The kind at your grocery or drug store, or maybe even health food/vitamin store may not be the quality or form you need for a very sensitive kid like ours. Using a cheap brand can be worse than not trying something at all, because either you'll se no change, where if you were using a good quality supplement you might, or some ingredient or cheap form of a nutrient might have a negative effect on the child.

3. Read labels for 'junk': Just like with foods, you need to make sure supplements don't contain a lot of stuff that's going to add junk to your child's body. Our kids have a hard time getting rid of things they don't need, and also don't tolerate junk very well. By junk I mean things like:
- Artificial flavors and colors
- Artificial sweeteners or flavors. Artificial sweeteners include aspartame, which is nerve poison, and should never enter our houses in any form, and sucralose, which is a chlorinated sugar, and not so good if we can avoid it.
- Sodium benzoate and other nasty preservatives
- Artificial suspension agents - suspension agents are what keep the particles of powder from falling to the bottom of a liquid supplement. Xanthan gum is pretty much the only liquid suspension agent that's acceptable. Another 'natural' one is sodium alginate, which is an allergen, and most of the others are either not pure enough to use, or synthetic awful stuff. The only liquid supplements I'd trust are Brainchild, because of the extra need for suspension agents and preservatives, sweeteners, flavorings, etc. in liquids. If you consider any other liquid suspension, be sure to call the manufacturer and ask them where all their ingredients come from.
- Fillers used in capsules - ask what is being used for this. Some no-no ingredients include lactate, titanium, flour of any grain origin and synthetic stuff. Often some form of magnesium is used for this, which is fine.
- Beef gelatin (you know what this is made of, don't you? Never mind, ick, you don't want to know... get veggie caps if you can!)
- Tableting agents (capsules are also usually absorbed better than pills, because the body doesn't have to do all that work to break them down, so prefer capsule forms to pill forms if you have a choice. )
- Alcohol (Most alcohol contains gluten. Choose alcohol-free herb tinctures, or glycerites. Be aware that most alcohol-free tinctures started off with grain alcohol in them, then it was somehow removed, so there is still some gluten risk.)
- Allergens of any kind - anything of milk, grain, egg, yeast, soy, peanut origin or any substance your child reacts to. One exception: glycerin is ok, even if made from a vegetable your child reacts to, such as coconut. This is because the distillation process removes ALL vegetable protein and material.
- Synthetic forms of vitamins and nutrients - Part of the reason some supplements cost so much more than others is where the nutrients come from - some nutrients don't come in any clean natural forms, but many do, and some manufacturers make more effort than others to get these good forms. Synthetic forms aren't all bad, but try to avoid them if you can. Some nutrients don't come in natural forms. Many of the cheap synthetic forms come from horrible sources, such as petrochemicals. This is one reason that knowing your brands and manufacturers is so important. Read up on each nutrient in the books below, so you know what to look for.
- Forms of nutrients that don't absorb very well. Chlorides, oxides and carbonates aren't so good. Anything chloride means that it's bonded to a molecule of chlorine. Chlorine blocks glutathione, and that's bad. Oxides and carbonates are generally cheap forms of nutrients that don't absorb very well.

3. There are "doctor's" brands. These are usually a good bet. These include Thorne and Metagenics and Pure Encapsulations. I buy a lot of mine from http://www.illnessisoptional.com/ which is a great website to search if you're looking for good quality supplements, as they carry a large selection of products, and mainly very high quality brands. Another pretty good website is Family Pharmacy of Sarasota. Both carry some good doctors brands and offer free shipping for orders over a certain size.

4. Here are some brands/products that over the years I've found to be very helpful in my quest:
- Brainchild Nutritionals - liquid vitamins and minerals targeted for ASD, exceptional quality. We have used these with my son for over 5 years. I've also worked for this company for almost 2 years now. These are available by mail order from the website, http://www.brainchildnutritionals.com/
- Thorne (lots of capsule forms, very high quality, order by mail or from your doctor)
- Garden of Life, available in health food stores, kind of pricey but good (we particularly like their probiotic, Primal Defense)
- Nordic Naturals, available in many health food stores and by mail order (fatty acids/fish oil)
- Gaia Herbs, available in many health food stores and by mail order; really the best herbs there are, and even come in liqui-caps, which are easy to give to bigger kids
- Bio-Botanical Research, order by mail (their Biocidin tincture is an excellent tool against dysbiosis)
- Life Extension Foundation, order by mail
- Metagenics, order by mail or from your doctor
- Beyond-a-century, order from their website, http://www.beyond-a-century.com/ - these guys are unique because you can buy many bulk powder supplements from them, for much, much less than capsules would cost. Then you can make your own capsules of whatever dosage or mixture you wish. Their quality level seems quite acceptable, as far as I can tell.

That's all for now. I'll add to this as I think of more.