Gluten Free

Although I could write volumes and volumes about my love of pizza, this journal entry reminds me of our experiment with going gluten free.  Ugh.

This brand of pizza is both gluten-free and casein-free. That means it has no wheat and no milk.  The cheese is fake, hence the the spelling with a ‘z.’ Again, ugh!

At a certain point in Michael’s younger years, there was a frenzy surrounding autism and gluten-free/casein-free diets.  As with every other trend, fad, false-hope promise of a cure, there is almost a peer-pressure to try these things for your child.  I was skeptical, but I took Mikey to his doctor for a food sensitivity test. The results showed he was very sensitive to both gluten and casein.  In addition, he tested as sensitive to apples, strawberries and tomatoes. He is also sensitive to several other foods, but to a much lesser extent.

Eliminate All, Add Back One at a Time

So, we eliminated ALL of these foods, ALL at once.  What an F-ing nightmare! Then, after a waiting period, to allow his system to normalize, we evaluated if we thought anything had changed.  Was Michael’s digestion better? Was his behavior better? Was he more engaged or more communicative? Spoiler alert…not really. But, this period in our lives gave us the lasting gift of Daiya Cheeze Pizza, which Mikey still eats to this day. 

Then, we chose one food at a time and added it back into his diet slowly.  We began with the foods that tested the lowest in terms of his sensitivity reaction, in other words, we started with the foods that we thought caused the least problems.  Adding back all of those foods went fine and there were no measurable changes in Michael’s behavior, his ability to communicate or his engagement. The same was true of milk. We added it back with no problem.

Oh, Gluten…

Gluten, however, was a little more complicated.  We couldn’t tell from Mikey’s behavior and his intestinal health whether or not the gluten was bothering him.  He can’t communicate clearly enough about complex intestinal symptoms for us to be certain. Things like bloating can be observed, but heartburn, and stomach upset are tricky to recognize and to describe.  So, long story short, Mikey was low-gluten for years. We slowly brought it back into his diet, allowing a little more each month than the month before.

It took forever for us to get Michael back to a normal diet.  We just wanted to make sure that we weren’t giving him anything that was making his life harder.  The data on behavior and health can be tricky to wade through, especially when the other demands of life do not ease at all during these ‘experiments.’

We did our best…but if I’m honest. It was mostly a waste of time, money and energy.  That’s not to say you shouldn’t experiment yourself if you think foods may be bothering your child.  It’s not fun and it’s not easy, but at least you’ll know that you’re not feeding them something that is bothering their stomach.  Sorry this post was not more encouraging…just know you’re not alone and you may learn something valuable that helps your child.  That just isn’t how it worked out for us.