Our Bailey Kin: October 2007

So as many of you know, we have changed Jonah's diet to see if it improves his ASD (Autism Spectrum Disorder), PDD-NOS. We have put him on a dairy free (casien free), wheat free, gluten free diet. I heard about the diet several weeks ago. Here's my little story. My mom gave me an artical entitled "kids who dont fit in" (http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/20657188/site/newsweek/page/0/). Reading it brought me some comfort in knowing that i will probably always have a boy that is a little different and that it is ok, but i still wondered if there was something i could do to help Jonah more. So i decided to do some google searches about ASD's and what can be done to help improve them. I ran across a bunch of website about GFCF (gluten free casien free) diets and how much they improve ASD's. i hemmed and hawed about trying it for a few days and within those few days several people had mentioned to me the whole Oprah show with Jenny McCarthy and how she did this same diet with her son. I looked up some info on the show and while i think Jenny seemed to give parents of ASD children false hope about practically curing autism (all of our children would improve if we could afford $10K of full-time therapy a month and expensive specialty food), i have to admit that i was a little intrigued by the idea that the diet worked so well for her son. Jonah's symptoms arent nearly as severe as Jenny's son, but i figured it might be worth a shot. I did a little more reasearch and decided the the diet would be expensive and a bit stressful to figure out (Jonah practically lived off of dairy and carbs). After talking it over with the hubbie, we decided we should definately try it. It has been 3 weeks into the diet. Jonah has been talking more at home and at school, seems to understand what we are saying better, and he's now started to show more interest and participate in all the activites at school rather than wandering off or sitting a few of them out. I'm reluctant to give instant credit to this diet; maybe Jonah is improving because of the examples of his peers or maybe he is just finally "getting it". It will take a couple of more months to really be able to tell. Either way, his symptoms are getting less severe and we're seeing improvements. Jonah had no problem switching the diet-he barely seemed to notice. I cut him cold turkey off of dairy and gluten in one day (and then read it was better to "ween" them off--oops!). Thank heavens for Soy ice cream, and fruit snacks. We may not have been able to survive without them. The nice thing is, i seem to buy and bake less sweets (who wants to bake a batch of cookies and not share them with your kids) and buy more fruits and veggies, so its good for us all. And since i have finally figured out what he does and doesnt like, the diet isnt so hard anymore. We'll track his progress for several more weeks and see what other improvements he'll make. I've always silently mocked the Wild Oats shoppers for their natural organic hippy style. But now i'm enjoying all the gluten free organic products they offer, and becoming a regular shopper. I'm even growing out my armpit hair. Ha ha ha.