my 17yo son takes 650mg Inositol a day to help with his OCD (our holistic doc recommended 500mg a day and he has been on it now since 12yo, with the 650/day for the past year)

a mom on another forum I am on says she gives her 8 yo 2400mg per day

isnt that very high?
or is it just that my son responds well to lower dose ?

most of the studies on OCD used very high doses of inositol.

This substance is an insulin enhancing agent, and does cross the blood brain barrier, but not easily.
http://www.springerlink.com/content/n6652nl8u2228u56/

I think response to inositol is highly variable from person to person.
500mg/day is rather low. On the opposite side, I have heard of 15 grams a day in some studies.

We use it here, and found that it hits a ceiling after several weeks/months.
And then the response changes. That may just be our experience. But given the fact that blood brain barrier may not allow much through it might be that it does become saturated in the brain after time, and dose can be lowered then.

I think inositol is very good for anxiety. That is where it works for my husband and son. I used it for six months, and reached a plateau with it, so I no longer take it. My anxiety levels are much lower now.

I think it varies from person to person alot, depending on brain chemistry--which is different for each of us.

thanks mrsD

I am going to copy this link over to Latitudes so the mom giving the high dose can have it for reference.

That is also encouraging for me to know I can up my son's dose safely if needed during those higher anxiety times. Interestingly, after years of finding tremendous relief from his OCD with primarily 5HTP, he now cant take it anymore, just like my husband, whom it makes very edgy and restless/groggy

Now he can use the Inositol at a higher dose and with samE/methionine as needed

500mg a week. We got to 2.5grams a day that way.

I used the powder by Jarrow, available at iherb. It is very affordable that way.

Over time/months, I found it didn't work for me the same way. I found it hard to
concentrate--- you know I need "some" OCD for my job! LOLOLOL...
when that went, I realized I had to cut back.

I had a terrible time with 5-HTP... I was up to 100mg at bedtime, but I got so
irritable the next day, even my cats hated me! LOLOLOL

"you know I need "some" OCD for my job!"

LOL, that's funny. I was recently thinking about the many contributions made by people who have been obsessive about various issues. For example, Ghandi, he must have been a bit obsessive, no?