Our dd1 has celiac disease and we are a gluten free family as a result. However, we had been eating cow milk yogurt and butter (not raw, but local organic grass fed cows) and some cheese as a regular part of our diet.
Our dd2 was diagonsed with SPD, anxiety disorder, chronic constipation, Raynauds, and Horner's when she was a year old. She was recently diagnosed and treated for Lyme's disease after a tick bite/bullseye rash (which happened during her bout with chicken pox! an amazingly "not fun" experience for the whole family
). Over the years she has responded well to OT and we've been learning along with her how to adapt daily activities and stay balanced. However, we've been facing a big "up tick" in problem behaviors and felt like we needed to explore more options.
Given that we're gluten free, the GF/CF diet seemed like a good place to start. Especially since we have noticed that while our dd1 gets sick if she is "glutened", our dd2 emotionally melts down when "glutened". So... it's been almost three weeks of strict gf/cf. And we haven't seen any positive progress. If anything, the meltdowns might be a bit more intense (dd2 started gagging herself this week and throwing up as part of her tantrums, an d her fairly new obsessions have remained unabatted). And physically she actually looks "more allergic" with red cheeks/nose (people keep commenting that she looks like a doll with painted cheeks
), round belly, elimination problems, and she is still losing her hair.
In the first few days we did have more soy in our diet but pretty quickly dropped it when the taste/texture of the soy products made them expensive "I wont eat that" items. And other than that brief soy up-tick we haven't introduced any new foods. It's been our normal brands and meals with just a smaller number of meals in rotation. And as a mom to a celiac kiddo I'm intimately familiar with "hidden" contamination so I'm pretty sure casein isn't sneaking in... mostly I cook from scratch and we eat a lot of local organic veggies from our CSA with brown rice and beans.
It seems from the various threads, forums, and books like families often see a clear improvement pretty quickly with the "CF" side of the diet. We're obviously going to remain "GF" regardless but... should we give "CF" more time? Re-introduce dairy and see if her behavior worsens/changes? Try something else? It's an annoying restriction if there is little/no benefit, but I don't want to give up too soon.
Soooo... did anyone else find that the GF side was more significant than the CF side? Was there an "extinction burst" type reaction before you saw improvement? We're on a waiting list to see a developmental ped but it's a 5 month wait and given the recent escalation in behaviors I'm in need of support!
thanks all
Our dd2 was diagonsed with SPD, anxiety disorder, chronic constipation, Raynauds, and Horner's when she was a year old. She was recently diagnosed and treated for Lyme's disease after a tick bite/bullseye rash (which happened during her bout with chicken pox! an amazingly "not fun" experience for the whole family
). Over the years she has responded well to OT and we've been learning along with her how to adapt daily activities and stay balanced. However, we've been facing a big "up tick" in problem behaviors and felt like we needed to explore more options.Given that we're gluten free, the GF/CF diet seemed like a good place to start. Especially since we have noticed that while our dd1 gets sick if she is "glutened", our dd2 emotionally melts down when "glutened". So... it's been almost three weeks of strict gf/cf. And we haven't seen any positive progress. If anything, the meltdowns might be a bit more intense (dd2 started gagging herself this week and throwing up as part of her tantrums, an d her fairly new obsessions have remained unabatted). And physically she actually looks "more allergic" with red cheeks/nose (people keep commenting that she looks like a doll with painted cheeks
), round belly, elimination problems, and she is still losing her hair.In the first few days we did have more soy in our diet but pretty quickly dropped it when the taste/texture of the soy products made them expensive "I wont eat that" items. And other than that brief soy up-tick we haven't introduced any new foods. It's been our normal brands and meals with just a smaller number of meals in rotation. And as a mom to a celiac kiddo I'm intimately familiar with "hidden" contamination so I'm pretty sure casein isn't sneaking in... mostly I cook from scratch and we eat a lot of local organic veggies from our CSA with brown rice and beans.
It seems from the various threads, forums, and books like families often see a clear improvement pretty quickly with the "CF" side of the diet. We're obviously going to remain "GF" regardless but... should we give "CF" more time? Re-introduce dairy and see if her behavior worsens/changes? Try something else? It's an annoying restriction if there is little/no benefit, but I don't want to give up too soon.
Soooo... did anyone else find that the GF side was more significant than the CF side? Was there an "extinction burst" type reaction before you saw improvement? We're on a waiting list to see a developmental ped but it's a 5 month wait and given the recent escalation in behaviors I'm in need of support!
thanks all
