It's the wheat free, gluten free diet I believe. Obviously therapy is the most important, but I wondered if anyone saw an improvement. And also how much of a pain is it?
We haven't done the GFCF diet but I know many who have. We do a different diet here that is kind of my own making and works for us. Ours kind of goes with the Feingold diet but not quite. We do a low sugar, natural, mostly organic diet with no additives. We have been doing it for years so we can cheat on occasion and let them have regular kid type food at parties but mostly we stick to that.
Those I have known who do GFCF have mixed results and it really depends on the child individually. A few do really fabulous, some have some results but hard to tell if it is worth the money and bother, others have no results what so ever. It is often worth an initial try particularly if your child has gut issues (frequently diahrea, constipation, etc).
Digestive Enzymes and other such supplements can help a lot too without going full diet.
Renee
PS The diet we do seems to work for my kids (or the ones that need it) because they seem to have some hypoglycemic type symptoms I am learning as of late.
We have actually had good success with dietary interventions and vitamin supplements, though we have never formally used a DAN doctor, just done it on our own.
I agree with what everyone else said. It is one of those things that is very individual to your child. Works for some, not others. I also have found we had to tinker with the diet a bit, so what we are doing now if kind of a combo of GFCF and the SCD.
Our goal in trying was to help our son's gastro problems, he alternated between diarrhea and constipation. A side benefit was when we cut out dairy, he became less "spacey" his skin cleared up. When we cut out gluten, we saw more physical benefits (no more diarrhea) and less frenetic behavior. Later we found out he is allergic to cow's milk and borderline celiac, so asd or not, he had physical issues.
Like littleroses said, with Eric, we can usually tell if something helps in a few days. We cut out dairy first, that is actually not hard at all.
Is it a pain? At first, yes, until you find out what your child likes (or in our case, it was easier for the whole family to do the diet.) Is it expensive? At first, until you figure out what works for your family. Now it is second nature and we too live in a big city with health food chains like Whole Foods. I now find I just go to the health food store once a month for a few things, and get everything else at the regular grocery. But at first, I was going to both groceries every week.
We started doing dairy free first. Since that seemed to be helping, we then went gluten free. At first I bought substitutes at the health food store for items he liked. If you decide to do this, I can give you more specifics. But over time, we have moved to a more "whole food" approach. I do still buy a few pre-made GF-items, but mostly we just avoid foods altogether that have gluten. We kind of eat in the "South Beach Diet" phase 1, and like Renee, we also try to buy mostly organic and nothing with artificial dyes etc.
I would say if you want to test the waters, try limiting dairy and see what happens. Your regular grocery has lots of good substitutes. You can mix a little milk substitute (soy milk, rice milk) with the regular milk and gradually add more and more until it is all substitute. You can get these at your regular grocery. Cheese subs are hard and nothing tastes the same to me, though my son doesn't care as long as it looks like cheese and melts! The Galaxy company has a rice cheese that is pretty good, you'll have to get it at a health food store. Tofutti has some good soy cheeses, if soy is ok. Also have to get at health food store, though our grocery now has tofutti products. Rice Dream and Tofutti have pretty good ice-cream.
Then I would try cutting out the artificial flavors etc. like Renee said. If you find these help, consider the whole enchilada. You may see this is enough. We did the GF part bc of Eric's bowel issues. In our case, we found the key to his behavior, like any person, ASD or not, was having basic good health. In his case, his weak area was his GI system.
I really like a new book called "Healing the new childhood epidemics: asthma, autism, adhd, allergies" by Dr. Kenneth Bock. It has readable information an all the DAN stuff plus a great chapter on all the different kinds of diets. He has a website: http://www.4ahealing.com/index.html
To get started on the diet, I'd look at www.tacanow.com somewhere on there is a 10 week to gfcf plan that is pretty easy to follow. We did it quicker than that, but I think the slow and steady method might have been better, in retrospect.
Good luck. I'd be happy to share more if you want. For us it has definitely helped, but been kind of an evolutionary proceess.
They say you need to try this for a few months, but I really think you will see results quickly if you are going to, and if you don't, then you know you tried and can move on.
Thanks to everyone for all this great advice. Reese doesn't have any bathroom issues so I'm not sure if I need to go too extreme yet. I'm going to start only buying organic and she already eats pretty healthy. I want to see how she does in therapy first and then take it from there. This board has been such a wealth of informatin.
Thank you for posting this. We tried all the other, except GFCF, for my son. Even though we some gains but not huge. So I jumped the GFCF wagon. Since it is only day 2, I am going after CF first (as my husband's sids has milk intolerence). But we are currently doing only 50% milk and 50% rice milk. My biggest concern is the cheese. One of the very few things that he would eat is cheese. I am giving it to him now, but will have to take that away soon. Katherine, thank you for hints. Before starting him on GFCF, I put him on enzymes and we did see some major changes in him like the constipation issue and was not melting down at rapid pace. So I am continuing to give the enzymes as well. 2 weeks after full GFCF, I will post to tell if I have any major gains. I thought it would be a lot of adjustments, but I think I can handle it now. I am not sure once the school starts.
delete
Edited 2/19/2008 10:59 am ET by littleroses
It's the wheat free, gluten free diet I believe. Obviously therapy is the most important, but I wondered if anyone saw an improvement. And also how much of a pain is it?
Thanks!
We haven't done the GFCF diet but I know many who have. We do a different diet here that is kind of my own making and works for us. Ours kind of goes with the Feingold diet but not quite. We do a low sugar, natural, mostly organic diet with no additives. We have been doing it for years so we can cheat on occasion and let them have regular kid type food at parties but mostly we stick to that.
Those I have known who do GFCF have mixed results and it really depends on the child individually. A few do really fabulous, some have some results but hard to tell if it is worth the money and bother, others have no results what so ever. It is often worth an initial try particularly if your child has gut issues (frequently diahrea, constipation, etc).
Digestive Enzymes and other such supplements can help a lot too without going full diet.
Renee
PS The diet we do seems to work for my kids (or the ones that need it) because they seem to have some hypoglycemic type symptoms I am learning as of late.
delete
Edited 2/19/2008 10:59 am ET by littleroses
We have actually had good success with dietary interventions and vitamin supplements, though we have never formally used a DAN doctor, just done it on our own.
I agree with what everyone else said. It is one of those things that is very individual to your child. Works for some, not others. I also have found we had to tinker with the diet a bit, so what we are doing now if kind of a combo of GFCF and the SCD.
Our goal in trying was to help our son's gastro problems, he alternated between diarrhea and constipation. A side benefit was when we cut out dairy, he became less "spacey" his skin cleared up. When we cut out gluten, we saw more physical benefits (no more diarrhea) and less frenetic behavior. Later we found out he is allergic to cow's milk and borderline celiac, so asd or not, he had physical issues.
Like littleroses said, with Eric, we can usually tell if something helps in a few days. We cut out dairy first, that is actually not hard at all.
Is it a pain? At first, yes, until you find out what your child likes (or in our case, it was easier for the whole family to do the diet.) Is it expensive? At first, until you figure out what works for your family. Now it is second nature and we too live in a big city with health food chains like Whole Foods. I now find I just go to the health food store once a month for a few things, and get everything else at the regular grocery. But at first, I was going to both groceries every week.
We started doing dairy free first. Since that seemed to be helping, we then went gluten free. At first I bought substitutes at the health food store for items he liked. If you decide to do this, I can give you more specifics. But over time, we have moved to a more "whole food" approach. I do still buy a few pre-made GF-items, but mostly we just avoid foods altogether that have gluten. We kind of eat in the "South Beach Diet" phase 1, and like Renee, we also try to buy mostly organic and nothing with artificial dyes etc.
I would say if you want to test the waters, try limiting dairy and see what happens.
Your regular grocery has lots of good substitutes. You can mix a little milk substitute (soy milk, rice milk) with the regular milk and gradually add more and more until it is all substitute. You can get these at your regular grocery. Cheese subs are hard and nothing tastes the same to me, though my son doesn't care as long as it looks like cheese and melts! The Galaxy company has a rice cheese that is pretty good, you'll have to get it at a health food store. Tofutti has some good soy cheeses, if soy is ok. Also have to get at health food store, though our grocery now has tofutti products. Rice Dream and Tofutti have pretty good ice-cream.
Then I would try cutting out the artificial flavors etc. like Renee said. If you find these help, consider the whole enchilada. You may see this is enough. We did the GF part bc of Eric's bowel issues. In our case, we found the key to his behavior, like any person, ASD or not, was having basic good health. In his case, his weak area was his GI system.
I really like a new book called "Healing the new childhood epidemics: asthma, autism, adhd, allergies" by Dr. Kenneth Bock. It has readable information an all the DAN stuff plus a great chapter on all the different kinds of diets. He has a website: http://www.4ahealing.com/index.html
To get started on the diet, I'd look at www.tacanow.com somewhere on there is a 10 week to gfcf plan that is pretty easy to follow. We did it quicker than that, but I think the slow and steady method might have been better, in retrospect.
Good luck. I'd be happy to share more if you want. For us it has definitely helped, but been kind of an evolutionary proceess.
They say you need to try this for a few months, but I really think you will see results quickly if you are going to, and if you don't, then you know you tried and can move on.
HTH
Katherine
Thanks to everyone for all this great advice. Reese doesn't have any bathroom issues so I'm not sure if I need to go too extreme yet. I'm going to start only buying organic and she already eats pretty healthy. I want to see how she does in therapy first and then take it from there. This board has been such a wealth of informatin.
Thanks!
Thank you for posting this. We tried all the other, except GFCF, for my son. Even though we some gains but not huge. So I jumped the GFCF wagon. Since it is only day 2, I am going after CF first (as my husband's sids has milk intolerence). But we are currently doing only 50% milk and 50% rice milk. My biggest concern is the cheese. One of the very few things that he would eat is cheese. I am giving it to him now, but will have to take that away soon. Katherine, thank you for hints. Before starting him on GFCF, I put him on enzymes and we did see some major changes in him like the constipation issue and was not melting down at rapid pace. So I am continuing to give the enzymes as well. 2 weeks after full GFCF, I will post to tell if I have any major gains. I thought it would be a lot of adjustments, but I think I can handle it now. I am not sure once the school starts.
Good luck,
Anandhi