Eliminating foods to see if behavior improves

[Cavy]

DS6yo is prone to stubborn angry melt downs and manic phases (when he is a pest to everybody). Many times a day.
I want to test whether any foods in his diet might be exacerbating things.
He is a fruit fiend, so will be particularly hard to keep all salicylates (sp?) out of his diet for long.

Plus I have lots of other children and it would be a huge challenge with the diet habits of the rest of the household (no food problems suggested with any the rest of us) to do a full detox routine.

If I do want to test a food, or types of foods, how long does it need to be out of his system for me to notice an improvement (assuming any food might be a problem, and it may well be that no foods are)? 1 day? 3 days? A week? What's the usual/typical detox period? Or how do you go about testing for troublesome foods in a busy household with an uncooperative child subject?

Any experience welcome. TIA.

[QueenOfTheMeadow]

I think the very shortest a true food test can be is 2 weeks. Though my doctor always reccomended at least a month. Basically, you're trying to get the antibodies to food that may upset your son down. So that can take a while to work. Then you reintroduce that food, heavily, and see what happens. So in the beginning, you need to be very very strict.

You could see a difference (aka positive changes) before that point. But if you don't see any positive changes right away, it doesn't mean that there isn't an issue, it just may take more time for it to show up. Not sure if I made the least bit of sense there, because I've had a 6 year old randomly coming into the room to talk my ear off!

[Cavy]

A month? Boohoo....!!!
I can't eliminate all salicylates from his diet for a whole month. I'm only human, that's beyond me .

The other question is if you do see a response typically in your child, is it usually much worse just after the troublesome food is ingested, or could it be any time in that.... month?!!

[BookGoddess]

If it's something like casein which is in dairy products, it can take about 1-2 weeks to see some results.

If it's something like gluten found in barley, rye, oats, wheat, it can take up to 4 months to see results because gluten leaves your body very slowly.

I realize that's a long time, but on the other hand if it does help you child, it's totally worth it.

[menomena]

Come down to the allergy forum and repost your question there.

MANY moms & families have been through the elim diet for behavior.

If we don't limit glutamates my DD1 (5) is very rigid and uncompromising, flies into rages, makes suicidal and other irrational threats, picks fights and has prolonged sobbing fits. She also has a really hard time falling asleep and has restless sleep once she does.

When we're careful with our diet, she's loving, sweet, rational, adaptable eager to help and problem solve, gentle with her sister, etc. Goes to sleep easily and has a good night of actual rest.

She's also dx allergic to dairy, soy and gluten.

[Heba]

We followed the Failsafe diet, and they recommend 2 weeks. It's not uncommon for behaviour to in fact get worse after a few days, which is why it's a good idea to stick it out for 2 weeks (although you may well not see any worsening of symptoms, and may see an improvement earlier than this).