First posting: Autism and the GF/CF diet

I was not sure if I wanted to start blogging, but I thought hey why not. I hope some of the information I put here will help at least one person. You see, I have two children with Autism, thanks be to God they both are high functioning. Both also have food allergies, my oldest was just diagnosed with his food allergies in February of this year. He is allergic to cow's milk and eggs. His younger brother is also allergic to cow's milk and has suffered with skin rashes since birth, which have stopped since he has also gone egg free.

I really cannot say enough about "The Diet", the gluten free and casein free diet that is. I started the "diet" first on my younger son just after his 4th birthday. One of his friends from preschool was attending his party. Her mom had called to rsvp the party, she told me that her daughter was gf/cf and they would bring the daughters own food. So I started asking her questions on the diet and 90 minutes later, I was convinced we need to at least try it.

For me, I started out casein free right away. I gave him Almond "milk" in stead of cow's milk, switched his ice cream to rice "cream". I eventually found alternatives for almost all of the products he eat that contained casein. The gluten was a gradually switch. I started out with the bread, then pasta, cereal, crackers, cereal bars, cakes, brownies, cookies, etc. The GF/CF diet is not cheap by any means. In the beginning it is really difficult to navigate this route, but I am so glade I did it. With in a couple of weeks of being casein free, his stimming started to diminish, his skin rashes started to shrink, his eye contact started to improve. A general rule of thumb to the removal of casein from the diet, it can only take a few weeks for the human body to eliminate the casein (it can take longer too, it just depends on the child). Gluten can take much longer for the body to eliminate 6-9 months generally. My son was showing improvement about 3 months after going completely gluten free.

For his older brother, it has been harder. He was already a picky eater but the whole family was already eating gf/cf pasta, cookies, cakes, brownies. He liked the crackers, he has not taken to the breads though. He is a "tuff nut to crack", he prefers simple foods. My oldest son has always had poor eye contact and skin rashes too. At the beginning of this year we took the step into the Biomedical interventions for Autism. THIS IS NOT AN AREA TO ENTER IN TO LIGHTLY! IT IS VERY VERY EXPENSIVE TOO!

We took the boys to a doctor out of Wisconsin who practices holistic medicine. After an indepth blood test to check for food sensitivities and allergies, we found out about the cow's milk and eggs. My younger son has not officially be tested, my gut tells me he does have the same food allergies. At this time we are not doing any biomedical treatments. Both boys take dietary supplements; vitamins and minerals, omega 3, DMG, CoQ10, a serotinin support, and a methylation support. Even keeping the supplements up can become very expensive, but I believe they are worth it.