Where should I begin?

tinamarie1

Member
I have always suspected that certain foods do not agree with difficult child, and probably alot of them set him off. But where do I begin in finding out which ones have different effects? I am sooo tired of the school telling me I NEED to medicate him. We have been down that road many times and it does not work for him. So, I would love to find out the things that trigger him to have meltdowns.
Any advice?
 

Josie

Active Member
My children react to gluten and casein (the protein in milk) which means they have very restricted diets. I do a lot of reading on another board about food intolerances. The advice there is to start with a simple diet of whole foods like meat (not pre-seasoned), fresh fruits and vegetables, and rice. Stick to that for a while, maybe a couple of weeks, and then add things back in slowly. Some intolerances have delayed reactions and won't show up until a few days later.

I haven't done this but we eliminated gluten very strictly from our diet at first and could tell pretty quickly that it made a difference. Then we eliminated dairy. Now it is so obvious to me that difficult child reacts to milk. The tiniest amounts of butter will set her off. I don't know how we didn't notice before other than we really weren't even looking at that as a possiblity. We are currently eliminating soy from easy child's diet to see if that is still causing her trouble.

Good luck. I hope this is an answer for you. It really is much easier to deal with a restricted diet than to deal with the behaviour.
 

tiredmommy

Well-Known Member
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It really is much easier to deal with a restricted diet than to deal with the behaviour.

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I have to agree with this statement. I was overwhelmed at first when starting Duckie's rotation diet, but that was due to the urgency of Duckie having had a pretty severe allergic reaction. I won't say Duckie's behavior is perfect, but life is much more manageable since she isn't constant turmoil. It's been a favorable trade-off.
 
Hi! You can start simply by eliminating one food that you think is a culprit. If it does seem to have an effect, try adding it back and see if the problem returns. Then move onto the next food and so on.
 
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