We are finally going to do it. We are going to start our family on a gluten-free casein-free diet on June 6 (D-Day!). We have been thinking about it for a while, but were always afraid to get started. How do we begin? What do we buy? What do we eat the first day? My son, Daniel, has a very limited diet so starting anything new would be challenging. He also still breastfeeds, so putting him on this diet means putting me on this diet and my husband on this diet.
My son was diagnosed with High-Functioning Austism 8 months ago. We have started ABA therapy, speech therapy, and Oocupational therapy. And he is improving! He is speaking in sentences, sometimes coming up with original phrases. He is not hitting every single child who comes near him. He tolerates the presence of others around him. He doesn't freak out in crowds. So we are very pleased with all the progress that is being made.
But I can't help but think there is something else we need to do. His focus is still not "here". He is usually lost in his own little world, thinking about farm animals, numbers, or things that happened 3 weeks ago. There has to be something other than the traditional, researched therapies that can help him. Whenever I approach a doctor, therapist, or autism expert about the gluten-free diet they usually tell me not to worry about it or that it isn't proven. But it does work. I have talked to a few moms who said it made all the difference. I have read the books that swear by it. I am not assuming it will definately help my child, but why not try? What will it hurt?
So we are starting. One week from today we will start. The reason I started this blog is because I am sure someone else just wants to try out the diet just to see if makes a difference. So this blog will chronicle my journey for the next 30-40 days.
So what is the first step? What have I been doing for the past month? Pretty much the first thing to do is to start familiarizing yourself with what gluten and casein are and what things contain them. There are a lot of things that have gluten that you wouldn't even think of (soy sauce, for example). Another thing I am doing this month is to start reducing the amount of milk/cheese/yogurt I eat. I crave dairy so this has been hard, but also much better than going cold turkey in June. Another first step to take is to start reading blogs/books about living gluten-free, casein free. There is a great group of blogs written by women who are all either gf or gf-cf. During the month of May they are writing about getting started living gf and it has been very helpful. I will put a link to those soon.
