My kids and I have been on the girlfriend/CF diet for almost 2 years now. We have a history of celiac disease and one of my daughters had the stomach issues involved with that so we started with just gluten free for her.
I had some testing done that showed difficult child 1 and I also needed to be gluten free so we started it. My own mood and energy level improved so much that I was convinced it would help difficult child 1. Our testing also showed we needed to be casein free but I didn't do that right away.
After a few months, it was clear that difficult child 1's incidents were associated with dairy so we gave that up, too. Her dairy symptoms are aggression. Her gluten symptom is irritability. Now she also has stomach problems and fatigue from gluten.
I have heard about the withdrawal period but I have also heard lots of stories of feeling better pretty quickly. I could tell in 2 days for myself. With my daughter, I thought in 2 days that it was working but it took longer to be convinced.
I started with just gluten and I emphasized what they could have, not what they had to give up. I sent them to school with a treat in their lunch and told them if there was an unexpected treat at school that I would get them one after school. Since I really wanted to see if it would work on behaviour, I let difficult child 1 have all kinds of gluten free treats in the beginning so she didn't necessarily miss her regular foods at first.
It is harder when you have to give up casein, too. There just aren't as many options readily available. Most of the food already made for the girlfriend/CF market isn't very good, in my humble opinion. I make most of our treats and I serve them to everyone. My kids' friends actually talk about how good they are!
Even a trace of gluten/casein can give us symptoms so it is important to be strict, especially in the beginning when you are trying to figure out if it will work. We avoid anything that says "may contain traces of . . . " or "manufactured in a facility with . . .". Some people are not this sensitive.
I got my information from
www.glutenfreeforum.com. I think about 30% of celiacs also have to be casein free so there is support for that there, too.
There is a big learning curve on this so you will probably make mistakes but you can do this. I hope it works for you.