does milk make things worse?we went from whole milk (like any other child when he comes off formula does) Then we went to soy milk because neuro suggested it because of his ecema. Then his rash was sooooooo bad that we switched to rice milk. His ecema got so much better. we then went to dari free(potato based). It was the cheapest out of all of them. The only difference we saw was that his rash had greatly improved. His eye contact greatly improved after starting the gluten free diet. Hope it helps. I have to also say we are not that strict with the diet. Danielle My dd used to drink 1/2 cup skim milk in the morning and 1/2 cup at night. Now, she refuses milk altogether. She will still eat yogurt, cheese, and ice cream, though. My older dd did this as well between age 1 and 4 and then started drinking milk again (not very often, though). I just thought it was a natural pattern for kids that age... I haven't seen many changes, though. I agree with Maia, I don't think 10 cups of milk/day could be good for anyone. I was actually wondering if that was a typo...my dd doesn't drink 10 glasses of anything in a day - not even water. I switched Adam from whole milk to vanilla soy milk months ago and I just happened to notice that he is a lot less hyper now. We will still occasionally give him grilled cheese, cheesburgers, or even pizza every now and then but not that often anymore. Karrie Julie, that's very interesting about the self medication. When Jake used to drink cow's milk, he would get what hubs called "The Milk Rush" where he'd act like he was on speed or something. I always thought it was the sugars in the milk, but when we switched him to soy, "The Rush" stopped happening.Isn't it interesting that so many of our kids share this crazy craving for tons of milk? I honestly believe that when Parker was in the height of his milk addiction, he could easily have drank (drunk?) an entire gallon a day. I am not exaggerating either. The sugar thing is interesting too... I personally don't believe most kids react to sugar (in moderate quantities). There is plenty of research out there that says kids react no differently to foods containing sugar and those that do not contain it (I believe it is the artificial junk they react to like food dye). But it is important to rembember that human milk contains huge quantites of lactose (milk sugar). Much more lactose than almost every species of mammal. We are supposed to consume lactose. BUT only as infants/ small children. That is why is is extrememly rare for a baby to be lactose intolerant. It is much more common for adults to be lactose intolerant b/c we have outgrown the need for lactose, but for babies/ kids, they NEED lactose for proper brain growth and development. wow! I have alot to learn, some of you guys sound like you could teach a class. I'm just now coming out of the denial stage and starting to deal with the issues and I am excited to learn more. I am glad I have someone to turn to when I have ?'s. Thankyou for responding this really helps. I had no idea that his diet could effect him like that.Diet I think is the biggest Key to controlling/resolving autism and autistic behavior. I am not a scientist or a doctor, but through daily research I am finding new information that brings me to believe that nutrition is not being absorbed by these kids, or at least by mine. With every day of improving nutrition and choices, and eliminating garbage, preservatives,dyes, and additives. Blake improves immensely. I am so thrilled after nearly 9 months on GFCF diet at how he is doing. Slowly I have added other things in one at a time to try it. We have not had to consider medication thank Goodness! The nutrition angle is working for us. After a lot of reading and researching, it does not seem to me to be a far leap that--a. Immunizations can attack a kids body, gut, brain. b. Damaged gut can lead to additives, gluten and whatever to get into the bloodstream. It makes sense that eliminating these items will help. C. We have tried DHA ( omega 3 fatty acids) which I found out 6 months into taking them that they have been found to help heal the gut?? Still reading on this. We were taking for optimum brain function. It is made out of seaweed that helps the stomach lining I have read. D. Further improvement in diet, and elimination of artificial anything has really helped. E. Lastly I came across two things at once in October, and I messed up and tried both. First is Phosphotidyl serine ( soy lecithan). It is a supplement thought to help alzheimers patients. At the same time I bought biofeedback CD's from Jean Genet's program. What he says makes so much sense, but seems too easy. I just thought what the heck! and went for it! Suddenly after three weeks on both things--WOW WHAT A DIFFERENCE!! Blake is arguing with me and chatting and hugging and just cannot contain himself. He is like someone who has just gotten out of solitary confinement-and cannot stop talking. It is so great, and it is so exhausting because he wants help to talk and I am not used to it. He was always the quiet one. I don't know if it is the supplement or the cd's. Who cares!!! It is fabulous. I think both are working. The bottom line is--Try stuff in a controlled and scientific manor if possible, don't overlook the cheaper remedies only for complicated expensive ones. Nurture and feed your child's mind and body, and be positive. Autistics mimic their surroundings. If you are upbeat and confident, they will be too. My gut feeling is that somehow these kids got damaged, and it is a matter of assessing at what point the damage occurred to try to noodle out what can be done. Thanks for listening. I know this is not on the milk topic, but please everyone be careful, but keep trying! Your kids depend on your innovation for breakthroughs! can't believe all the input on MILK!WOW!!!!! Tammy shoudl read this! MickeyI read that if one craves a certain food (milk) they are allergic to it! The food makes them "high," like opium getting into their "leaky gut." This is why they crave it - it makes them "high!" ???? Sounds possible!!!??? Mickey Hello. I am new to this we site, and frankly I am just thrilled to see some of the questions out here that I have researched and tried. And some of my own questions are out here also..Thank you. Regarding dairy: My 6yr old son Blake was "diagnosed" this past spring and immediatly I started researching what to do! I am still in that boat, but I am in the frame of mind that "if it's not harmful--we are trying it!" As soon as I learned about the GFCF diet-- after reading a book by an author with the last name Maurice ( I will look up the title next time) I tried an elimination diet. My son had language that was slurred and drunk sounding. It was very strange because some days he was better and other days worse. On the slurred communication days, he would have fits. I read that removing dairy would have an obvious effect wthin 2 weeks to 1 month, and that removing Gluten could take up to 6 months. I took him off of dairy for two weeks. There was an improvement in his temperment ( transitions etc..) We had a field trip with his preschool to a dairy farm. At the end all of the kids got a chocolate milk. I let him have his. I asked the teacher to report hsi behavior to me for the rest of the week. He was beside himself, non compliant, and very exhasperated! I have not tested him since. We have remained on a very low dairy diet. He loves Mexican food, so about the only dairy he gets is twice a month he gets a little cheese on his mexican food; or a little cheese on his gf pizza dough. Next- 1 month later I started transitioning out all wheat, gluten etc... I stated by giving him meats and potatoes for a week. Our whole house ate the same diet. Within 2 weeks he stopped sounding drunk. His two word sentences came out, then more complete thoughts. Over the summer I took absolute control over his diet. No gluten ( or very low) -- I am sure there were hidden sources. By April--outsiders noticed a difference. I had not told anyone about this diet! His special education teacher told me --whatever you are doing keep it up! Another miracle of this whole GFCF thing! No more sinus trouble! I though he was affected by Pollen!!!! The boy hasn't had a sniffle since March--no illness! I am so annoyed that all along I thought we had plant allergies... I am on a low gluten diet ( not as strict) my sinuses have improved 1000%. When I do have Dairy and gluten, I get stuffy. Blake is doing very well now, 8 months GFCF ( with some small exceptions.) We inadvertantly had a challenge to the GF diet. One evening I was working late, and my husband made dinner. We stil had a frozen pizza in the freezer from the store. ( I had not learned how to bake GF yet.) They all ate it. That night, Blake was up crying, and very restless for hours. He got only about 3 hours sleep that night. Never again! Now I bake from a great cook book I found that uses more or less regular ingredients, and the food tastes as close to normal as I have found. It is called the Gluten Free Kitchen by Roben Ryberg. We have made-- The Chocolate Cake;pancakes; the egg bread is most like sandwich bread for the first two days. Please let me know if you have questions. I am sorry this was so long. It has been my passion for 8 months, and I have not found very many people to talk to about it. I know I seem a little obsessed. Blake started Kindergarten in small group ( 10 students) and his teacher predicts that he will have no trouble finishing the curruculum. He spends two periods a day in the big class to wrok on social skills. In the case of the boy that drinks tons of milk. Each day I would trade out one glass of milk for some soy chocolate milk. That is how I traded with Blake. He LOVES chocolate. My yougest son 3 who is not austistic--loves soy vanilla milk! He doesn't even want milk. Thanks for your time, and again, so great to hear from folks in the same boat! Thanks for the ideas, i tried jake on soya milk today.... not a great success he tried a sip and then looked at me like i was trying to poison him and said he wanted a nice new one. i would try flavoured milk but he won't drink that either so that rules that out. Is there anything else i can try other than soya?? any thoughts would be appreciated as i really think this could make a difference yet jake knows what he wants and only that will do. I have cut his milk down a lot over the past few days but i think stopping it all together for a while might show me that it is worth the hard work now. he doesn't really eat anything else dairy its just mainly the milk that is the problem.Keep trying! Don't give up o nthe first rejection. Even NT kids decline new foods up to 10 times before accepting them. If you can find Silk Very Vanilla soy milk it is yummy! Yep, milk had a negative effect on my dd. She was practically non-verabl (wasn't using any form of language or gestures to communicate) at 2 yrs. I removed milk from her diet and she started talking in 1-2 word phrases w/in the week. She has been making great progress. You should definately check out he gluten-free/ casien-free diet.thanks for that. i will give it a try and see what happens. Also the only problem with the chocolate soy drink is that jake is one of the few kids in know that doesn't actually like chocolate!! he rarely eats it and doesn't even like choco flavoured cereals!!! i will def try the water idea as that is his only other regular drink as he doesn't like squash, and they also have a little water machine at pgroup which he will use.I have an idea for Jake. Just to see if he will react positively to the dairy free diet. Why not just eliminate the milk altogether for 2 weeks. There are calcium chews and the like that you can use for a time. I also found another brand that Wal-Mart carries is called Sun-Soy Very Vanilla. If I remember correctly I went 1 week with no milk. Then when we were working our way back I started with chocolate soy Tofutti ice cream. Then the Soy Chocolate milk. I think the chocolate is easier to get down. Now we will use the vanilla, but I largely let Blake have the chocolate soy milk instead of regular. There is so much junk that we have eliminated from his diet. I can't see the harm in letting the chocolate soy be his drink of choice. Still though, he only gets 2 cups a day, also some OJ and mainly water. I put a 5 gal cooler bottle of water in my kitchen. The kids are very empowered "by getting their own water." Most of the time they just go for the water. Dairy does for DS and I am starting believe that soy does too...(I, until recently, would give my son tofutti cheese occasionally and started to see the dreaded rash). Anyway...what we use instead of milk is vanilla rice milk (by whole foods) and I blend in bananna or frozen berries and call it a milk shake (that is where I mask some of his supplements to get them in his body). hello this is very interesting about the milk thing because if I let my son he would drink a gallon of milk a day. does the autism have anything to do with that? by the way I am regina mother to 2yr old Daniel asd. Nice to meet all of you.  Mom to Dandan: In this thing togetherGina, I have read that autistic children crave milk and use it to "self medicate." The theory is that these kids do not produce the enzymes needed to break down the milk proteins and, in the gut, these proteins become an opiate-like compound causing the behavior we associate w/ autism. There is tons and tons of info on this out there both in support and against this theory. To the best of my knowledge, there have been no conclusive studies proving this... all the things I have read have said the peptides in the gut of autistic kids are the same whether or not they are consuming milk proteins. I am sure there are others here who have done more research on this and could chime in or correct me if I am wrong ;) but that was my impression of the whole argument. I also wanted to mention that goat's milk is a very good alternative. Goat's milk is the closest animal milk to human milk, and human milk is really the only milk humans are designed to drink. ;) Gina & Blake's Mom: Wow what nice comments. We must keep open minds. I also have the "gut" feeling that if one can heal the intestines, maybe, maybe, one would see improvement.(?) Acidolphilus - which is also in some yogurts are claimed to benefit the inestines, etc. However, if one is intollerant to dairy - this may not be good to take. Acidolphilus comes also in pill form - over the counter but CHECK WITH YOUR DOCTOR FIRST before trying anything! Did you know that years ago when one took an antibiotic the pill was coated with acidolphilus. For some reason this coating was removed. Doctors were to tell patients to take acidolphilus after being on antibiotics for a long time. I don't belive doctors tell patients about this any more - ask your doctor about this. Many, many autistic children have had ear aches and were placed on many, many antibiotics (amoxycilin (sp) many times. Another theory - antibiotics - also removes the good bacteria from the gut lining - causing candida - yeast buildup (to grow) in gut. This yeast causes the "leaky gut" syndrome. Perforations (holes) in intestines - if one is allergic or intollerant to caesin, milk protein, the protein enters the bloodstream thru the holes in the intestines up to the brain - "high", etc. Sorry so long. Here I go again. Have a nice day. Mickey As my dd found extremly interesting,(and proceeded to repeat for almost each glass of milk for about 2 wks BTW- She is a very BIG fan of dairy. She loves stating that it is full of calcium. I smell a new interest on the way....  Apparently it doesn't affect all kids with autism, but I know it affects my son.
I don't find a difference. Kieran was on a soy milk - no dairy diet until 3 1/2 yrs and only has dairy some days. (He is fussy and when he gets something to eat in his head, it sticks.) But I haven't noticed a difference... he always bounces just as high. Maybe it depends on the degree of stims your child has... or what "shows" itself the most??? Pan hi just wondered what you all thought on this, today jake has only had 2 cups of milk one first thing this morning and one before bed, he normally has at least 10!!! today though he has seemed like a different child, helpful and not so hyper and crazy!!! i know some people think that dairy can affect a childs behaviour but i was wondering how you all rated this idea as i dont know whether it was just a coincidence. thanks for any thoughts on this. Hi, check out www.phosadd.com they have a lot about milk and behaviour. I'm not sure about milk sensitivity and ASD but it really is not healthy for a child to get 10 cups of milk per day. So if he's willing to cut down- I would go for it! The target should be 16- 24 oz.The Pres of our local ASA chapter spoke a little about diet w/ me. Said every child is diff and some react to one thing or another but another child might not show any significatn prob w/ it. Like her son had major behavioral changes w/ red dye #40 and she brought up other things that some parents found makes a change in their child like cutting out wheat or glutton. She said if I choose I can experiment to find if something might be affecting ds. Said many asd children have allergies. I know that for no reason I can figure out ds will sometimes have horrible bowel movements accompanied by god-awful skin rashes that have even bled! He doesn't get diaper rash normally it was like his bowel movements were acid. But it will come every few mths or so and last about a week w/ no other "sick" symptoms at all, then be gone. Dr that dx'd ds also said it's common for allergies of food w/ asd children. I have decided not to dig into that for now as I can hardly get ds to eat anything as it is and can't think of limiting his diet. Dairy is almost all he eats so if he has a prob w/ dairy I don't think he'd eat. Amber hello! First off, Amber, the skin rash and bad reactions could very possibly be a wheat/glutten allergy. My mom says that I did that when I was very young, but I did outgrow it. As far as the milk transitioning goes, try adding a very small amount of soy to the glass of milk and gradually increase the soy and decrease the cow's milk. This will get the kids accustomed to the new taste. And for the ones that have kids that drink a lot of milk, try diluting it with water. We even keep one of the empty milk cartons and pour half of the milk into one and then fill them both up the rest of the way with bottled water. Oh, and I buy the whole milk. We do use the lactose free milk since we are all lactose intollerant. And I am SOOOO glad that this whole thread was started. Our 3yo had an extremely severe dairy allergy up until a year ago, which we know the Lord healed her of. She is still lactose intollerant, but that is a whole lot easier to deal with than total dairy allergy. Okay, to the point...we had a VERY bad day today. This was one of the biggest outburst/crying days that we have had in a couple of weeks (we have smaller days like this quite often, but not this bad)...but I realized after reading all of the posts that we gave her 2 full cups of milk...straight up...not diluted! I really wonder if that's what helped to trigger the problems. We usually give her 2 full cups, but they are diluted with half water, half cows milk or half water, 1/4 soy, 1/4 cows milk. I have wondered in the past if dairy still gives her a little problem. She doesn't like cheese at all. And I guess in the back of my mind I have wondered this, but there is usually just too much going on for me to really think about it. Thanks again, and I hope that I was of some help! Blessings~shae:) My Parker used to drink milk like that. Guzzled it like crazy. It took a long time but I got him down to just one glass w/ dinner and occassionally w/ cereal. I've read lots of good things about using raw milk if you still want to keep milk in your diet. I don't know anywhere locally that I can get it and the HFS wants like $7 for a half gallon or something crazy like that for theirs! |
||
|
Copyright Autism-PDD.net |
) milk breaks down into a sugar. Is this why it affects behaviour?