I have been reading about diets for a few weeks. I haven't been to
any DAN or GI doctor yet. Just wondering if it is worth trying. My son
has shown great improvements in language and social skills through
therapies, but one thing I am worried about is his flapping his arms
when excited. Behavioral intervention (prompts) have reduced it but
not eliminated it. OT for sensory integration has also not have
significant effect. So I am wondering what else I can try.
My son doesn't have any leaky gut symptoms. His diet has a lot of
dairy. We try to eat natural foods but he does eat lots of snacks at
his day care. His other diet has some veggies that I sneak in or
coax him to eat with bribes, and he gets some supplements
(gummy vites, Kirkman's Spectrum Complete, occassional CLO
when I can make him have a capsule). Are there blood tests or
any other tests one can do to determine if he has a problem with
casein or glueten, or do people just do the diet and wait to see
if there are improvements. I read some posts which said to do the
diet for 6 months, then re-introduce g/c and see the effect, if no
bad effect then he doesn't need it. That seems quite painful.
Thanks.
I concur with the peptide test from Great Plains. If you aren't seeing a DAN! doc, maybe you can print out the info from their website and show it to your pediatrician and he/she may be able to order it?
Lauren showed evidence of reactions to both casein and gluten, hence our need for the diet.
I'm not sure how much it will do regarding the flapping, but it definitely has helped Lauren improve all around.
Goodluck!
There is a test called Urine peptides test done by great plain lab. It shows if your child has bad reaction to casein and gluten. I did that test and based on the result for my son it has face validity. My son's results showed reaction to casein but not gluen; it makes sense because my son does not eat gluten but has yogurt (which has milk casein). Thanks to everyone for giving me the information. I am making an
app with a DAN doctor but it will be a few months out, so I am
going to talk to the ped during my son's 4 year checkup. I think
it is not going to go well, especially because I will also refuse the
booster vaccinations.
Thanks again.
great website for the gfcf diet it is www.tacanow.com.USUALLY WITH A GLUTIN ALLERGY YOU CAN FIND OUT AT BIRTH IT IS USUALLY A LIFE LONG ALLERGY IT CAN KILL. IT IS KNOWN AS CELIAC DISEASE. Nupur
My son is now 19 but definitely had autistic/aspergers type characteristics e.g. hand flapping and later hand wringing, jumping on the spot compulsively, love of steam, raindrops, smoke, flames and long severe tantrums and other language problems.
His diagnosis never occurred because an aspergers/autism specialist said he didn't have it whereas a paeditrician said he did.
We struggled with him until he was 6 and doing poorly at school. A food allergist suggested taking him off dairy for his excema for a 2 week trial. His behaviour improved to such an extent that we could cope with him again and his tantrums stopped completely. He was much happier and sociable etc. etc. The other thing that helped us immensely with him was speech therapy but not for his lisp but for social speech. She rehearsed situations with him like asking to go to the toilet at a party or school or a teacher talking to him in the playground and gave him strategies to cope. The day after one of these sessions the deputy head teacher stopped him and asked him how he was going at school. He proudly told me that he was able to answer him by telling him the last thing he did. He didn't really like the sessions due to embarrassment but he did take in the advice.
Regarding handflapping. As a child he flapped above his head and the kids in his class used to do it too when they saw him. He just laughed and didn't realise they were having a go at him. Eventually we took him to a physiotherapist who gave him some strategies e.g. to sit on his hands or put is hands in his pockets to give himself something else to think about. She also suggested using a vibrator on his joints to overstimulate them but we didn't perservere with this. He learned to make his hand movement more discretely and eventually he more turns and twists his hands than flaps. I have always told him not to do it in public and to save it for home. He can control his hand movements but says he absolutely needs to do it at some point in the day. It is a tension release. The diet did not stop all the autistic traits but it certainly normalised him. He never was given any special treatment throughout his schooling only private intervention when he was very young. We completely minimalised there being anything wrong with him and he was treated totally normally in every way. The reason we did this was because this syndrome has been going for a long time and people do grow up and get strategies to cope and live their lives and lets face it what is normal anyway.
He changed countries and secondary schools at 14 and now attends university and is living back in our home country independently (i.e. we are in another country). He copes very well and enjoys the independence. We re-introduced dairy at 13-14 years old and it didn't seem to make any great difference then.
I have not read much about diet but I assume casein may have been the cause of his tantrums and general unhappiness with life. I would recommend a dairy free diet for a couple of weeks to see if it helps. Also their were articles about 20 years ago on allergies causing swelling of the brain lining and giving autistic tendencies. Interestingly some epileptics can be controlled by diet so there must be something to it.