The GFCF Diet

Today, I read a letter from a Mommy who has a 3 year old who only speaks about 5 words. Do I know this pain well...
It is hard starting the GFCF diet when your grandpa grew up on a dairy farm, and calls milk, "Nature's Perfect Food".
The way we began the GFCF diet was by following the 10 week program on TacaNow
We added the Nordic Naturals Omega 3-6-9 jr’s. (2 caps a day).

A lot of times, people want an exact estimate of when a difference in the child will take place. It depends on the kid, the severity of their gut issues, etc. Some people see immediate changes. For my daughter, it was about 3 days after removing milk that we noticed she was sleeping through the night. I kept checking on her, thinking that something "wasn't right"... (That's how we had lived for years, and it was strange to see this.)

About a week later, we removed wheat. I cannot give you a correct estimate of exactly how long it was before we saw a change in her… but, I am *thinking* it was probably a week. Nothing too drastic. She was less hyper, less “stimmy”…

Before starting her on the diet, I went to this website: http://www.autismeval.com/ari-atec/ and performed the Autism evaluation. The higher the score (nearer to 100), the more autistic traits your child has. When she 1^st took it Nov 2005, she scored a 68. It sent me into a deep depression. This was not how I wanted my child’s life… It made me feel that I *needed* to believe in the diet. Something had to work. Mouth cues and speech therapy games were not holding her interest. She was very flighty, and couldn’t sit still… unless *she* wanted to.

January 2006, her score was 57. Not all that great, I suppose. And I suppose that one might give up on the diet altogether with only an 11 point difference. One might think that with age, this could have happened.I kept it up, thinking eventually, things will change. Eventually, she will get better. I was happy with her progress, even if it was minimal. Plus, she slept through the night and would sit and listen to me read her stories now…

Fast forward to 5/20/2006. Her score was a 17! In four months, this is how far she had come. In March she had an intestinal bug that the Dr couldn’t figure out the cause for. We all had gotten sick, but it held on tight in my daughter. Part of me thinks her body took it as a perfect opportunity to rid itself of all of the “junk” that was in her body. I am not sure… But, she speaks sentences now. At the time, she kept telling me, “Food is mean to my tummy.” I tried to figure out what was bugging her… I have no clue, to this day.

Nov 2005, her language consisted of Dee How (Cat), Boo Hi (Dog), Ma (for me, my mom and my grandma), Pa, No, D (her name for people she loves… her sister, my sister), Grampa (my dad), Grandpapa (my grandpa)… She had a stuffed animal named “Ow”… Hunry (hungry)… eye, nose, knee, hairs… That’s pretty much it.

Now, she is doing very well. She speaks in sentences. She couldn’t say her c/k sound… here she is a couple of weeks ago.

C/K words

And, here she is speaking in sentences about her favorite things. (She has a thing for horses)

Fave Things

She couldn’t count, and now can go to 10.

Couting

As you can see, she DOES have a ways to go… but, really… I am thrilled with her progress. There are days I wish she would just wake up and speak like everyone else. But, she has taught me a lot about determination and patience… and what true love really is. I see other parents out there with their kids who are so much worse off than my Ella… and I just want to hug them. I was looking online, and saw a mom with her son with Hydrocephalous. That just broke my heart, because she just keeps trying. Her love won’t let her quit.

If you are still reading this, I know your love won’t let you quit, either. You’re not a quitter! Like my ATEC results show, it took 4 months for a great improvement. What was funny about it, was that I had taken the test again, thinking it wouldn’t show much progress. Everyone kept telling me how much better she had gotten. I couldn’t believe it. So, maybe the “bursts” won’t happen in a noticeable way like you want… I can only remember a few times when I was so happy about her progress.

Just try it. It is supposed to work for 80% of our kids. I am soooo glad I did the diet with Ella. We did it for 8 months, and now that her gut has healed (they say it takes 6-7 months), we have her on enzymes. She is eating “regular” foods again, with the help of the enzymes. No more sleepless nights. No stims… Supposedly after 3 weeks, she is supposed to have a burst of speech… I haven’t noticed anything. (I took the videos to sort of check & see progress. Before this, she was too embarrassed to talk on camera.) Now, she is feeling confident.

We still have her on the Omega fatty acids, but bumped the dosage up to 4 caps a day. If we miss a day, you can tell…

I hope this helps… If you read this & want to know more, email me. I’ll help as best as I can . Good Luck

<3