My husband and I have been presented with a decision, we have to medicate our daughter with possibly three different medications or put her on a GFCFSF diet. Well since we are not fans of medication unless they are essential, we have opted for the diet. GF stands for gluten free, which is a protein found in wheat, oats, barley and rye. For more on gluten visit Talk About Curing Autism’s (TACA) website “What is Gluten?” CF stands for casein free, which is a protein found in all mammals’ milk. Mammals include cow, goat, sheep, yak, buffalo, camel and humans. For more information on casein visit TACA’s website “What is Casein?” SF stands for soy free. I think most people know what soy is, but just in case you don’t here is more information “What is Soy?”
Now that you know more about the diet (if you didn’t already) I want to track Brianna’s progress on here. I want something to look back at to encourage me, I want to keep a close eye on her behaviors and hopefully one day help someone else who might be faced with the same decision. “Here We Go Again” Yes, we have tried it before and we did see positive signs at least with the casein. We did end up giving her back the casein partly because I no longer seen a change, I became discouraged. I think that if I would have kept track of her behaviors I would have been more up to keeping it up. It was hard and I already had a hard enough struggle with her. We tried the gluten free for a very short time and I never did take gluten away from her completely. I never tried the soy-free. This time I am going to do it just like all those who have had success have done it. I have ten weeks to have her completely GFCFSF. My biggest fear is that Brianna isn’t going to be to happy about it and she will refuse to eat. I am already doing my best to make sure I can find the foods she loves in GFCFSF.
The first two weeks is slowly taking away the casein. I have already ordered a milk substitute that a lot of people are saying is the closest to cow’s milk (which Brianna loves). I am waiting on that to start the first two weeks of the diet. This weekend I am hoping to find some of the other things I will need, like a butter substitute and a cheese substitute. I have found some online but I cannot have that mailed to me so I did look for some stores that offer it. I just hope they aren’t out of stock. I am also looking into a calcium supplement. I know that tums is a good source, but they put dyes in them and I kind of want to stay away from dyes. I also have the issue of texture because Brianna will not eat any type of gummies. Last time I found some powder, but it fizzed up and she didn’t like that at all. She totally rejected tums at first, but I ended up making her eat them out of desperation and now she loves them!
Now I want to make a record of some of the “behaviors” we are having issues with so once I start this diet I can come back here to see how things might be changing. Brianna is becoming more and more aggressive. She hits, kicks, pinches, headbutts, scratches, pushes, she will beat me and my husband in the head sometimes and she just recently started to throw things at us. She doesn’t communicate, she can say some words, but not more than one clear word at a time. When she says more than one word it all runs together as one word and only myself, my husband and my other kids can understand her. She is very hyper, especially out in public which I think maybe she just gets overwhelmed with everything going on and all of the things around her. Her attention is terrible, I can get her to sit for maybe 15 to 20 minutes and she still doesn’t pay attention that whole time. She is chewing on her hair and clothes. She is toe walking. She picks at her fingers (skin and nails) sometimes until they bleed. She has no fear and will run away from us the second we let go over her out in public. She yells at us in a very loud voice at home, in the store, in the drive thru and when we are on the phone. She is very controlling and gets angry when we don’t do or say what she wants us to. She likes to watch the same shows over and over. She also has bowel problems. That is all that I can think of right now, but all of these things are getting harder and harder to deal with as she gets older. We are not to crazy about doing this diet, but we feel that we have to try it because we can’t keep living this way and I do want what is best for Brianna and if that is a diet so be it. I hope this works because we have had a bad experience with medication and I really don’t want to do that again.
Book Read: “Autism & ADHD Diet: A Step-by-Step Guide to Hope and Healing by Living Gluten Free and Casein Free (GFCF) and Other Interventions” Amizon.com has the kindle addition for 2.51 right now!!
Websites used:
www.tacanow.org
www.dreamstime.com/free-photos
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