When my oldest two children, both boys, like before they were diagnosed, when I started seeing "indications" of the autism, but I didn't have a "label" for it.....I was asked about dietary stuff
A L O T ...and so we did try different avenues to see if they had allergies. I had a good friend send me a book on lactose intolerance....and learned through reading that book, that I have it! LOL so, I did notice that the boys around age one, or their first birthday, after we introduced whole milk had some additional problems, so I started researching foods rich in calcium to add to our diet and we did soy milk for a season. I did notice that the autistic like traits were more pronounced when they had too much lactose in their system, so we did benefit from this new diet. My oldest, Grant, we noticed that after we discontinued milk, he started looking at us again, interacting with his brother a little more, and he stopped banging his head on the wall and having these episodes where he would go "white and clammy" and stiffen up all over....weird! He loves ice cream like the next kid, so we take the alternative of frozen yogurt. He does not know the difference. We had to find pizza with hard cheeses on it, instead of soft cheeses....for those times he craved to be like other kids and eat normal like foods. Now, my next child, he had like bronchitis and asthma issues constantly until we took it out of his diet...and it magically cleared up....and has not returned. Interesting! We permanently changed our eating habits after this discovery.
I did try a gluten free diet on them when they were younger or what they call casein free diet. I never saw any improvements. Gluten is very hard to avoid, so we had to be on this strict diet for months to see any real affect. In the end, it was pointless for us. In fact, recently, I collected over a five year period of time all gluten free products in our basement for food storage. When my husband got laid off, we lived from that storage. I personally noticed how much better I felt, so I have avoided wheat since that time frame. I discovered this year that whole wheat does not affect me as badly as the white enriched wheat flour which I am totally avoiding. If I do eat wheat, then I make sure it is quality stuff. My whole family has accepted my conversion to whole wheat nicely. I sparingly eat whole wheat. I think at some point I will get the Celiac disease test for myself to be certain. If I test positive, then I am willing to go GFCF completely. I will also test the kids, if I am positive.
It has been a gradual process.....but in the end, as we discovered things we improved our diet. I was not willing to just give up something in my diet unless I could actually prove there was a reason for giving it up. I am always researching the food industry because I see developments of things that should be healthy for you, turn out, not so healthy because the food industry is advertising it to be healthy and substituting unhealthy in their products to save a buck. I care about what I put into my body.
