Our experience in a diet
My son, who is now 16, has been on the diet since he was about 4 or5. Wish I had found you guys years ago. Compared to other teenagersI know with AS (but who are not on the diet), my son is doingfantastic. He’s doing well in an academically challenging HS programwith virtually no support (just extra time for tests). He alsoparticipates in after school clubs, has a group of kids to eat lunchwith, and even has a date for the senior prom. He seldom has ameltdown and when he does, it’s usually a reaction to someone elsehaving a sort of meltdown.
We have been to a DAN! dr who did some tests and recommended severalsupplements. We still follow a lot of his recommendations but wehaven’t been back to him for a couple of years. Our insurance wasn’tpaying for much and it was getting expensive. Now we’re focused onsaving money for my son’s college education (only 2 years away!)
We avoid most gluten & dairy. My son might occasionally get a smallamount hidden in foods, but he pretty much sticks to the diet. Wealso avoid dyes, preservatives, nitrates, processed sugar. We used toavoid phenols but right now I can’t remember which foods contain those.I have a general idea of why we do what we do, but I haven’t studiedthe chemistry of it all as much as many of you have. Despite all ofmy years of experience, I may appear to be rather ignorant about thesethings.
BTW, my son takes calcium, magnesium, vit D, zinc, B-vitamin complex,extra B-6, l-Glutamine, alpha lipoic acid, glutathione, digestiveenzymes, EFAs, and a really good probiotic.
This post tagged as: gluten food, gluten foods to avoid, gluten chemistry
Douglass Modine said,
Wrote on January 12, 2007 @ 4:53 pm
Thanks for your encouraging note. We are just starting GCGF dietsfor our 5 and 9 year old boys this week. I found this site because Idon’t know where to start…the diet change seems overwhelming. Withyour note, I can focus on the end results.
Santina Winkelbauer said,
Wrote on January 12, 2007 @ 10:41 pm
If you haven’t already gone “cold turkey” on the diet, I would stronglyrecommend you go to http://www.tacanow.com, click on their gfcf diet link, and look at”10 weeks to the gfcf diet.” This plan eases you as the shopper/cook and thechild(ren) into the diet, reducing the stress for you and thelikelihood/severity of withdrawal for the child(ren) as the casein and glutenare eased out, not taken away zap! The rest of the site is loaded withinformation, some specific to southern California but much of it more general inusefulness. Even some of the local-specific information like the where to findwhat products can be adapted to taking the list of what they can find there andyou annotate where you can get it in your area. Hope this helps.
Melisa Schumpert said,
Wrote on January 13, 2007 @ 9:48 am
Phenol info
http://www.danasview.net/phenol.htm
Salvatore Thangavelu said,
Wrote on January 13, 2007 @ 3:41 pm
Thanks for the refresher. I do remember eliminating those foods at one time,but we’ve been able to add them back. We also did stage 1 Feingold years ago,but were able to add back salicylates–except for grapes.