4 Months On

[welshbird]

My 5 year old boy has now been gluten and dairy free since February (4 months) - due to uncontrollable awful behaviour, rashes, poor sleeping, night terrors and unbeknown to us at the time learning difficulties, tummypains and headaches. The effects were seen within a few days but 4 months on, all the above has improved and/or stopped. His friends in school tell me that 'he no longer hurts them and that he is very good'. I can take him to a park and I am able to talk to the other parents without keeping my eyes completely on him and leave early. The most obvious objective change is that he was assessed in school in january and he was below average in most areas covered. I was told yesterday that he was reassessed and he is now in the top 3 in his class and is joining 6/7 year olds for some of their lessons. I found a picture that he did at Christmas which was one big scribble he is now able to draw pictures and write sentences (very messy but who cares!). He has had an allergy test which was negative and has not had any further testing and probably won't until he is older.

Thanks to this site and all the comments on here I was able to believe what I was seeing and not doubt my logic too much - despite my GP's reactions. As a result the improvements seen are obvious and hopefully as we reintroduce food we will now know what negative effects we are looking for. Thankyou all.

[Monklady123]

I don't have young children and was just browsing through this forum looking for any ideas for myself (just diagnosed). I've picked up some good ideas about lunches, snacks, and bread. -- But, I just had to comment on your post, to say how happy I am that your son's behavior and learning has improved so much! I have two kids who are older now, but I remember when they were younger and how hard it was sometimes even without any "issues". So I can imagine how happy you must feel to have this success with his diet.

[jackay]

What wonderful news! This is inspiration for other parents to trying their kids on a gluten and dairy free diet for any type of behavior, learning or health problems. It may not be the answer for everyone, but there is nothing to lose by trying.

[welshbird]

  On 6/13/2010 at 1:58 PM, jackay said:

What wonderful news! This is inspiration for other parents to trying their kids on a gluten and dairy free diet for any type of behavior, learning or health problems. It may not be the answer for everyone, but there is nothing to lose by trying.

That is the reason why I did the post. I fiddled about with my little boys diet for over a year, saw positive changes but then reintroduced food again as I was feeling guilty that I was depriving him of essential nutrients. I never omitted foods for long enough to be completely sure that it was food that was definitely the cause. I am hoping that this will help others.

My little boy has been amazing at accepting all the foods that he is not allowed to eat. In the beginning it was an experiment that we did together and the results were obvious. I always have crisps/sweets/homemade cake on me (for my boy and his mates) if we are playing with friends to stop any issues of him being left out. Lunchtimes became easier when I asked the school to supply school dinners - I supply a lot of the fillers (ricecakes/flour/frozen sausages etc)and they do all the cooking-I found packed lunches really time consuming to make in the morning and they were pretty boring and often repeated in the evening (wheat free pasta and rice dishes). Our biggest hurdle is when everybody is eating icecream and even most of the lollies on sale have milk in them - I do sometimes offer an alternative treat at that time eg. TV when we get home.

Now the next step for me and my little boy is to experiment again. Was it just an intolerance to wheat and dairy that he will outgrow? Was it that gluten mucked up his gut so much that dairy was an issue? Was it just dairy that I wasn't vigilant enough at spotting and I therefore blamed the gluten? Is it a longterm problem? What do I test first and for how long? The thought of doing it all again is so daunting. It would be far easier for me to continue with the current diet but I am determined to work my way through this massive puzzle and any past experience would be very helpful.

My little boy has been amazing at accepting all the foods that he is not allowed to eat. In the beginning it was an experiment that we did together and the results were obvious. I always have crisps/sweets/homemade cake on me (for my boy and his mates) if we are playing with friends to stop any issues of him being left out. Lunchtimes became easier when I asked the school to supply school dinners - I supply a lot of the fillers (ricecakes/flour/frozen sausages etc)and they do all the cooking-I found packed lunches really time consuming to make in the morning and they were pretty boring and often repeated in the evening (wheat free pasta and rice dishes). Our biggest hurdle is when everybody is eating icecream and even most of the lollies on sale have milk in them - I do sometimes offer an alternative treat at that time eg. TV when we get home.

[SweetDsMom]

This hit home for me! DS is only 18 months old, and was diagnosed just 2 1/2 weeks ago. He actually ended up in the hospital due to malnutrition, and between that stay and taking him off gluten - I feel like I have a new child on my hands.

Just in the span of a month, the sweet, fun, little boy he was had disappeared. He was lethargic and wanted to do nothing more than sit and watch TV. no longer wanted to walk, didnn't want to play w/ toys, didn't want books read to him, wouldn't smile, etc.

In the span of the past 2 weeks - WOW, the transformation is stunning to me and he is so darn happy and fun and full of life, it's amazing. Each day he's making leaps in his development and is getting back to where he was before he got sick.

We still have to do the endoscopy for the final confirmation, but there is no question in our mind or our docs mind that he has celiac and is doing SO well now that we are manageing it.

[T.H.]

Congratulations, and wishing you good luck for the future discoveries, too!

We did the same thing. My daughter tested positive for celiacs, but my son did not. He, too, had huge behavioral issues, and I was concerned there were some learning issues as well. So we took both of them off gluten, and there wasn't a lot of change.

I took them off the 8 major allergens at first, keeping a food log, and discovered that my son had an issue with eggs that I'd never noticed. And going off of these other foods, cooking everything from scratch, we found out that both our children have issues if they get more than just small amounts of corn in their diet. And EVERYTHING has corn, so they have improved so much since we took that out!

Also, we dropped genetically modified foods, and anything with food additives/dyes, partially because of my GI's advice to ME after my diagnosis. He has been finding abnormal growth in his patients' stomachs that is similar to abnormal growth found in rat stomachs after being fed diets of genetically modified grains. There hasn't been any official study on this in humans, to date, but he said based on what he's found, he's now advising ALL his patients to stop eating GMO. It was good enough for me, ya know?

I sympathize with you on trying to figure out what he can eat later! I can pass on one thing we did, to hopefully save you the trouble. When we introduced dairy again, to see how it was, one thing I didn't record was amounts. We wrote down ingredients only. And after that trial, we have come to discover that while going gluten free has made it so my son can have a little dairy, if he has more than a little, the behavioral issues come back. But since we didn't keep track of amounts, it took us a while to figure that out, where the mood was going down hill on us again and we were wondering what was causing it. so I would very much recommend keeping track of amounts as well as ingredients, for any intolerances you run into.

  On 6/15/2010 at 3:06 PM, welshbird said:

That is the reason why I did the post. I fiddled about with my little boys diet for over a year, saw positive changes but then reintroduced food again as I was feeling guilty that I was depriving him of essential nutrients. I never omitted foods for long enough to be completely sure that it was food that was definitely the cause. I am hoping that this will help others.

My little boy has been amazing at accepting all the foods that he is not allowed to eat. In the beginning it was an experiment that we did together and the results were obvious. I always have crisps/sweets/homemade cake on me (for my boy and his mates) if we are playing with friends to stop any issues of him being left out. Lunchtimes became easier when I asked the school to supply school dinners - I supply a lot of the fillers (ricecakes/flour/frozen sausages etc)and they do all the cooking-I found packed lunches really time consuming to make in the morning and they were pretty boring and often repeated in the evening (wheat free pasta and rice dishes). Our biggest hurdle is when everybody is eating icecream and even most of the lollies on sale have milk in them - I do sometimes offer an alternative treat at that time eg. TV when we get home.

Now the next step for me and my little boy is to experiment again. Was it just an intolerance to wheat and dairy that he will outgrow? Was it that gluten mucked up his gut so much that dairy was an issue? Was it just dairy that I wasn't vigilant enough at spotting and I therefore blamed the gluten? Is it a longterm problem? What do I test first and for how long? The thought of doing it all again is so daunting. It would be far easier for me to continue with the current diet but I am determined to work my way through this massive puzzle and any past experience would be very helpful.

My little boy has been amazing at accepting all the foods that he is not allowed to eat. In the beginning it was an experiment that we did together and the results were obvious. I always have crisps/sweets/homemade cake on me (for my boy and his mates) if we are playing with friends to stop any issues of him being left out. Lunchtimes became easier when I asked the school to supply school dinners - I supply a lot of the fillers (ricecakes/flour/frozen sausages etc)and they do all the cooking-I found packed lunches really time consuming to make in the morning and they were pretty boring and often repeated in the evening (wheat free pasta and rice dishes). Our biggest hurdle is when everybody is eating icecream and even most of the lollies on sale have milk in them - I do sometimes offer an alternative treat at that time eg. TV when we get home.

[mommypfohl]

Thank you so much for posting this. My kids have had many of the issues have listed and we are seeing such a difference! It's encouraging to hear other parents as well! Thank you again!

  On 6/11/2010 at 8:07 PM, welshbird said:

My 5 year old boy has now been gluten and dairy free since February (4 months) - due to uncontrollable awful behaviour, rashes, poor sleeping, night terrors and unbeknown to us at the time learning difficulties, tummypains and headaches. The effects were seen within a few days but 4 months on, all the above has improved and/or stopped. His friends in school tell me that 'he no longer hurts them and that he is very good'. I can take him to a park and I am able to talk to the other parents without keeping my eyes completely on him and leave early. The most obvious objective change is that he was assessed in school in january and he was below average in most areas covered. I was told yesterday that he was reassessed and he is now in the top 3 in his class and is joining 6/7 year olds for some of their lessons. I found a picture that he did at Christmas which was one big scribble he is now able to draw pictures and write sentences (very messy but who cares!). He has had an allergy test which was negative and has not had any further testing and probably won't until he is older.

Thanks to this site and all the comments on here I was able to believe what I was seeing and not doubt my logic too much - despite my GP's reactions. As a result the improvements seen are obvious and hopefully as we reintroduce food we will now know what negative effects we are looking for. Thankyou all.