Jen, I am currently doing this diet with my son. I've been gradually implementing it over the past month. I am not entirely convinced that gluten is a problem, but it is obvious that milk was.
A month ago, he was having about 10 episodes of diarrhea a day, refusing all foods except milk, cheerios, bread, and things with a soft texture. His eye contact was pretty much non-existent. He had stopped taking any interest in other children. He was having tantrums upwards of an hour in length.
Just four weeks later... he makes brief but good, engaged eye contact, especially when excited. He eats a variety of healthy foods of all textures, though he still prefers things that are not breaded (gfcf). He plays hide and seek with other toddlers. His tantrums have decreased to no more than 5 minutes in length. He has about 1 to 3 BMs daily, and they look nearly as solid as his same-age friends'.
From what I hear, to see whether your child is sensitive to gluten or casein, just take him or her off dairy products for a few days. If there is a sensitivity, you will notice right away. I certainly did! Within 24 hours I had a calmer child. 48 hours off dairy, my son pointed for the first time in his life, he looked at my face more, and the frequency of his tantrums dropped dramatically. His bowel movements were less frequent by the end of the first week.
Besides which, a very large portion of the human race cannot tolerate lactose anyhow, so you might find that your child is more comfortable without milk, even if s/he isn't a "diet responder". I certainly feel better when I don't consume dairy, I'm sad to say (I looooove cheese!)
Regarding the casein/gluten theories... personally I have the feeling that the "leaky guy" hypothesis is wrong. However, just last month researchers at the University of Washington discovered that autistic children are (if I recall correctly) missing a couple genes responsible for the regulation of the neurotransmitter glutamate. There are other studies that support this idea, along with deficiencies in glutamine in the brains of autistic boys. I read that wheat gluten is a very rich source of peptidyl glutamine. These are also present in a lot of other foods, which could account for how some parents insist their child has tantums after consuming MSG (or whatever).
Now, I don't understand much about how all those substances are formed or how they function in the human body, but I am betting that these genes (or lack thereof) are the real reason why many autistic children's moods improve on the gfcf diet, even though there is no statistically significant change in the defining symptoms of autism on the diet alone.
I am also hopeful that as scientists understand more about this glutamate connection, they will also understand more about which substances our kids should avoid. And more about how to treat autism in general!
Is there a way to tell if your kids are affected by gluten or casein without actually doing the diet?
Hi all. I have heard a lot of people have had success with the GFCF diet. I am just wondering how I would get started with this.. I know that gluten and casein are in ALOT of foods, so would I have to get GFCF foods from a health store or order them online? I dont know that regular grocery stores have many GFCF foods.. Well any advice on this would be appreciated. Thanks!
Jennifer
With us Sarah ate only chicken nuggets, fries, milk and apple juice so at the time we bought Mrs. Robbins GFCF baking mix-and made a huge batch of chic-nuggets and froze them. We ordered 3 x- large fries from Mcdonalds and froze them. Gave her potato milk(dry) mix with H2o..and apple juice. We also did enzymes to get the glutien or casien that may be hidden in things. Other items we got were the Rice dream for ice cream, GFCF cookies and they have a bread (frozen area) for toast..a GFCF marjarine(?) usually the healthfood store has whole isles of GFCF stuff so it really wasn't so hard for us. We did it religiously for a year then slowly intoduced wheat products one at a time like a cookie and notice no regressions and milk products the same...at times if she gets too much milk now though she does have more meltdowns and constipationJen
Here's a copy of the post;
Hi Jen, Most healthfood stores or natural/organic markets carry lines of food that are clearly marked gluten/casein free Whole Foods has many GFCF foods Trader Joes has some GFCF foods Organic sections of supermarkets carry some marked GFCF foods Also, since we are not doing the diet, I would be happy to send you our copy of Special Diets for Special Kids. It has lots of good info and recipes.
I completely relate to what you are feeling, it is so difficult, confusing and scary to start the diet and supplements with our young kids, even moreso when we have not met with DAN! yet. The diet was the breakthrough for my son, the begining of bringing him back. We still have a long way to go but I am so grateful that the diet did infact work for him and made the last 4 years of life easier for him and that it took away his pain. He used to cry for hours, then sleep all day, then stay up all night as if he were drugged, it was scary.
I still am paranoid, and after every meal I am waiting for the "reaction", I probably always will be waiting for it
easier for me to do CF first than GF a few weeks later. Good luck on finding
the foods that your son will like. Once I got the bread thing down it was so
much easier.
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