GAPS diet

quelindo · Mar 5, 2011

Has anyone here done the GAPS diet? I just got the book and have started reading. I find this stuff fascinating, but the thought of actually DOING the diet is so overwhelming. When Henry was a toddler I did the SCD with him, but I had been vegan & didn't fully jump in with it. 
I've learned SO MUCH about nutrition since then & have totally changed the way I eat. But now Henry is old enough to know what he's eating (& what he's NOT eating) & I have a baby to take care of too. So far the baby doesn't seem to have any issues, and Henry's are minor: corn intolerance, gluten intolerance (verified by EnteroLab but no symptoms that I know of), occasional keratosis pilaris on his cheeks, & some constipation W/ bouts of accidents. 
So...can I just work on cleaning up our diets further? Doing more TFs? More ferments (I consume a few here & there, Henry hardly at all)? Cutting back on grains? 
Or am I in denial? I mean, if my kid were severely allergic to foods or autistic I wouldn't hesitate. But maybe I'm kidding myself?

Ravenlunatic · Mar 5, 2011

Well, to answer your questions... I am on GAPS and have been for a little over a year. And you probably are in denial, but I need more info.
 
Why did you originally put your son on SCD (which is GAPS, only GAPS is diary free)?
 
With the answer to this I would know more. I too, have learned soooo much about food and how to eat since having to go on GAPS. 
 
Can write more but really need to know why you initially went on SCD... it is quite a drastic diet.

quelindo · Mar 6, 2011

My son was very colicky as an infant -- he slept horribly and would pump his little legs and cry as though his tummy hurt him. He also spit up constantly until the age of six months and developed some patches of eczema. I tried elimination diets and finally came across the SCD. It didn't seem to do anything for him, but as I said, I (and he) had been eating a vegan diet and I didn't embrace the diet fully.

Ravenlunatic · Mar 6, 2011

Okay, so basically gut issues as an infant. If this is all you are going on I don't know that the GAPS diet or SCD are what you need. With the elimination diet and testing you can find out what it is your son cannot tolerate. Has he been checked for wheat allergy, diary allergy?
 
I guess for me it was easy since I can feel what is going on in my body. I have lived for over 40 years and have a big history. So by the powers of eliminaiton and over time I figured all of my symptoms out and once I started SCD all of my sypmptoms went away. After being on the diet for a time, eating something not on the diet (rice or corn) my body immediately reverts back into symptoms and discomfort etc...
 
I am saying all of this because without symptoms of some kind to go by it will be difficult to track progress and this diet is not for the faint of heart. 
 
For starters I would say that adding all of the foods and protocols recommended in the GAPS book are an excellent idea for EVERYONE to go by. It is the cutting out of all grain and starchy food that can become difficult. 
 
Make homemade traditional foods, add probiotic (therapuetic strength) dialy, add fermented food to your son's diet. All of these can make a huge difference. Also, I would remove known common allergens like diary, corn, wheat. If you read the book you already know that going gluten free isn't enough for most people it is just what is in fashion right now. Truely if you have digestive trouble you shouldn't eat any refined starch at all. 
 
I would guess that if you do embrace the diet and suddenly symptoms that you didn't know where symptoms show up you are on the right track. Like for me I really didn't know just how bloated and inflamed my entire gut was until I didn't have th inflamation any more... or recognizing that every afternoon around 3 pm I owuld have and emotional meltdown and that that wasn't normal anymore.
 
Anyway, I think you can approach the diet in stages too, to give you a real chance at getting to the bottom of what is going on with your son.
 
I think going GAPS/Traditional in your diet is an awesome idea.
 
Hope this post helps in some way.

quelindo · Mar 6, 2011

Well, the current ongoing issue is encopresis (we think). He has bouts of dark, sticky poop and has accidents, both pee and poop.
 
He's been gluten-free since he was a toddler and corn-free for about a year (though we've messed up a few times). We had his stool tested by EnteroLabs when he was a toddler and took him off gluten when he tested sky-high for antibodies against gluten. I discovered that corn causes his skin to become goose-pimply and his sleep to become very disturbed (yelling, night terrors, kicking & thrashing, clawing at his stomach). I think it also causes really aggressive behavior in him, too.
 
Thanks for the input. I've been playing around with coconut flour so he can still have bread and pancake-like food, and I guess I'll just up the more "traditional" type food and see if it helps.

Ravenlunatic · Mar 7, 2011

I make a glorious almond flour pancake with just a little almond flour (not meal), fresh egg, salt, water and maybe a little flavoring like vanilla or ciniman.

CoBabyMaker · Mar 13, 2011

We just started DD (2.75 yrs old) on the GAPS diet 3 weeks ago. It's still too early in the process to see huge results so I can't report on efficacy yet. I wouldn't let your childs potential resistance deter you if you think it will help them. I thought DD would be having fits over not being able to have starches since she loves them but she honestly has been fine. We just tell her that it will hurt her body and we are trying to help it get better. (She is used to hearing that things will "hurt her body" because they have dairy and corn, her big allergens.) There are ways to adapt lots of foods also. That being said, we skipped the intro and just went to full GAPS. I don't think she would have been able to understand THAT MUCH restriction.

KKKK74 · Mar 31, 2011

CoBabyMaker - how is the diet going? I am thinking of starting it with my 2yrs 9months son. He is already on a very restricive diet but what worries me is what we will replace his 'snacks' with - especially at pre-school and on playdates. He is Salicylate intolerant (alongside almost eveything else) so fruit and alot of veg is out for us and also no egg. Do you know how effective it is starting at full GAPS?

CoBabyMaker · Mar 31, 2011

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<div>CoBabyMaker - how is the diet going? I am thinking of starting it with my 2yrs 9months son. He is already on a very restricive diet but what worries me is what we will replace his 'snacks' with - especially at pre-school and on playdates. He is Salicylate intolerant (alongside almost eveything else) so fruit and alot of veg is out for us and also no egg. Do you know how effective it is starting at full GAPS?</div>
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 It's ok. I think it's harder on me than her since I have to make everything and explain it to people. <img alt="winky.gif" src="http://files.mothering.com/images/smilies/winky.gif"> We are probably not doing quite enough bone broth but I am trying to be more diligent about that. I do think it would be tougher with limited fruit and veg- I guess just eat more of what he can have. DD is also off nuts, peanuts, eggs and dairy (except butter) in addition to things not allowed on the diet. So we are doing fermented kraut, pickles and water kefir for probiotic foods. Can your DS have seeds? DD tolerates seeds so I made some sunbutter and and we make granola from coconut, sunflower and pumpkin seeds and honey. 
As far as snack in group settings, she is used to having her own snack since she is allergic to dairy, corn and soy. So that hasn't been a huge issue. I just have to send things, which for us is usually fruit but you could send seeds or if you could make some jerky that might work. 
So, she is doing fine-I'm exhausted! Ha! They part that has been hard is that we are relying solely on outward signs. I never know if she says her tummy hurts (or whatever) if she really has a tummy ache or is just repeating what she has heard.

GAPS diet

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