A New Path...

Well, we are starting a new journey together as a family...going down a new path to see where it goes. The book I've been reading, "Healing our autistic children," has given me something to think about, pray about, and more things to look up. Dr. Buckley describes autism as a "series of malfunctioning - gummed up, rusty, broken - gears or cycles, interacting in a child's body. These dysfunctional cycles play havoc with the child's cellular chemistry." And ~ according to the theory ~ if we fix the broken cycles going on inside their body, autistic children have a chance to recover some of what they've lost. It has helped a lot of severe autistic children lessen their 'fog', improve their speech, and eye contact. What about the high functioning children? I'm honestly not sure. There isn't documentation about the effects on those children. If fact, the other books I've read about the autism diet didn't even sound very hopeful that it would help. That would be the reason I haven't tried it before now. But, this book gives me other things to look for that are signs of bowl problems that the GFCF diet could improve such as: chronic diarrhea or constipation, foul-smelling stools, bloating, red ears or cheeks, eczema, dry skin or chronic rashes, chronic sinus drainage, recurrent infections, erratic behavior, hyperactivity, moodiness or irritability, and sleep problems. Luke doesn't have everything from the list, but he has enough to me to take notice and consider...


GFCF means a gluten free casein free diet. Gluten is a protein found in wheat, oats, rye, bulgur, barley, and durum to name a few. Which means, that all of the whole wheat bread, wheat tortillas, and wheat flour I've been buying and using for years thinking I was helping ~ really could have been making things worse for Luke. Casein is a protein found in milk ~ more specifically anything juiced from an animal. Including breast milk!! Luke had colic when he was born. Serious colic. Tried everything for months and months while breast feeding. Bottles and bottle of that Gas X stuff for babies. Until he was around 6 months old. I always believed breast milk was best because doesn't your body make it just for your screaming bundle of joy? But, I switched him to the colic soy formula to see if it would help. His colic decreased from all day everyday to about 2-3 hours in the evening for a few months until it disappeared at 9 months. Yes, I realize that it could be that Luke grew out it. But, what if he was allergic to my breast milk?? What if?


So, there is enough symptoms that I'm taking this path. At least for 3 months because it could take that long for everything to get out of his system. I'm going to get blood work done on Luke to see where his levels are. (yeah, that's going to be a bad day!) We are going to be trying this together as a family. Yeah, I'm going to have to tweak some recipes. And discover a few new ones. I'm still discovering pointers and facts about how to follow the GFCF diet. (Like Lactose free is not casein free...lactose is milk sugar but it's still from animal products.) So, I bought our first carton of rice 'milk' and we are beginning this journey...