We have, quite by accident, discovered that certain foods, if your body is unable to deal with them properly, can have a enormous, and extremely detrimental effect on your health, well-being, etc. - and that of your whole family too.
We are a normal family – except that one of the family, "John", has an inflammatory medical condition and our daughter, “Amy”, has a different medical condition. However, it is really concerning our son, “Tom”, now diagnosed with Asperger Syndrome (on the autistic spectrum), that I am writing this for.
In late 2005, “Tom” started to show very alarming and distressing behaviour at home from 7 years old. (We had just taken our son out of school – nothing to do with behaviour, etc. - “Tom” was and is a very good boy, very well-behaved, but also very clever. We had had enough of him being bored at school for 3 years, with the fourth year just starting looking far from promising. It was as if “Tom” had been kept cooped up in a box but now, being able to be himself at home, he was free to be himself). But it was surprising to see and got very bad - the constant moving of his hands, feet, etc. and also frequent accidents with his sister were the start of it. Then came hot tempers and anger (ending up quite aggressive) that would rise from nothing (at least nothing to the rest of us) and also the suicidal and similar notes that he wrote. I started to fear for our daughter for during his 'episodes'. I also started to fear what “Tom” may do unintentionally in any of his fits of anger (his 'episodes') maybe even in the near future, so we even got rid of our sharp kitchen utensils - that's how bad his 'episodes' were. I even began to fear for him, for his future years when he may have been any young person now on the streets getting into trouble with the police due to his anger 'episodes'.
This was with "Tom" always having been (and still being) an extremely good boy and always having been very well behaved outside his tempers – the transformation in him was completely staggering.
Later, he told us that he thought we loved his sister more than him, and that we didn't love him.
How terribly sad he must have been.
We were desperate. We had to try to get some help to sort out what was wrong - I really do not know where we would be now if things had remained as they were then, when we were nearing complete despair. Desperately trying to get help resulted, in early 2007, in “Tom” getting diagnosed with having Asperger's Syndrome, which is on the autistic spectrum. There was no help offered to us though, other than the diagnosis and being pointed to one well-known autistic charity.
However, by chance, one of the family, "John", had already, the year before, started eating a starch-free diet. I was home-cooking starch-free food for him, as well as home-cooking for the rest of us. (See "John"'s story below for the details – basically, avoiding starch in the food that he ate stopped the inflammation and thus the pain and damage he got from the inflammatory medical condition he has – proved scientifically, I hasten to add).
It was a lot of work for me!
I had also just seen the front cover of (what I think I remember as being) one of the National Autistic Society (NAS) magazines, entitled 'Inflammation of the Brain'.
I thought, why not try the starch-free diet for all the family? Really, for "Amy", in case it helped her with her (different) medical condition, but I thought - who knows, it may somehow help "Tom" too – it was worth a try for both of them. Plus it would be so much easier for me cooking and baking the same food for everyone in the family. In addition, the starch-free 'diet' was a very healthy diet. Although we were eating very healthily anyway, "John", on his starch-free diet, was eating even more healthily than we were – so that would be a big plus too.
So - not expecting anything but, instead, enjoying the relative ease of making one set of meals, cakes, puddings and biscuits for the whole family instead of two - in early 2007, I started to give the whole family food that was completely (and strictly) starch free.
And what a difference it made -
Within a week, we suddenly realised how calm and quiet the house was – there were no tempers or tantrums from our son - and next to no accidents with his sister. The week had been beautifully calm and peaceful. Things seemed to be normal again! It was amazing – absolutely staggering and almost unbelievable.
We stuck to the starch-free diet since the results were so terrific, despite our son not liking it very much – it was quite restrictive and he missed the food he couldn't have. But the miraculous change in him (and the benefits of this to him and the whole family) were far too good to let it all go back to how things were before.
However, over the next few months, the penny gradually dropped, and we wondered whether it was actually gluten that was affecting him i.e. in avoiding starch we had automatically avoided gluten, since food with gluten invariably also has starch in it.
So we moved our son on to a gluten-free diet and - the new-found peaceful life continued - and continues still today, albeit still with its little 'ups and downs', as you'll read below.
It is almost miraculous – it seems amazing that food (or certain items in our food) can have such a detrimental effect on people. It is probably not surprising that people find it difficult to believe that diet can make such a difference – but I am writing to tell you that it is NOT a whole load of rubbish, as some will say. It is TRUE – at least for some - maybe many - people.
Maybe if money and commercial profit wasn't tied up into research, then research into food intolerances/behaviour would have already been done and would be already common and accepted knowledge. Then we would be very aware of today's situation of ever increasing cases of food intolerances, how they can effect us and be actively advised to take those foods out of the food that is eaten, particularly for those with 'problems'.
Maybe if medical bodies, personnel etc. listened to and believed people who have found it to make such a difference as we have, researched into it themselves and openly and actively encouraged others to try it – instead of remaining sceptical and silent about it and, when things get bad, just pushing medication (with their potential side effects and no guarantee of effectiveness) or just saying, “There's nothing we can do” and getting basically no help at all from them – maybe then we'd be less astonished by the concept of some people reacting badly to certain food items.
As it is, we and our children, are, again, being completely let down by the Government and others.
Today our son continues to be calm, he is relaxed, his extreme tempers and tantrums have gone, the awful things he used to say and write have gone, his need to keep moving has gone, all those accidents he had with his sister have gone, etc. All those horrible, frightening, hurtful and potentially downward spiralling parts of him have totally vanished. He is happy and content – very important words compared to how he was before. Life is quite normal – not exactly normal – he still has Asperger Syndrome and still has some of the little difficulties that go with it – but they are tiny compared to what he had before, and they can be helped and handled - they are nothing at all compared to what he (and we) had before. He is still lively – that is his personality – but is calm and relaxed too. He is happy and, so terribly important, knows that he is loved – loved equally with his sister – and relishes in this knowledge, which is so wonderful after his awful thoughts before.
Our son remains on a strict gluten free diet. Every now and again, however, there are times when the old 'symptoms' start returning – sometimes they start so gradually that we don't realise until the house gets much more what it used to be like - and then we have to think what "Tom" is having now that he didn't used to. One time it was the shop-bought “Gluten Free Organic Cereal”, another time it was the shop-bought Organic Mixed Nuts, another time it was other shop-bought sweet things we were given that were supposed to be gluten-free. The latest incident is the pills he was taking, when he became, over a few weeks, gradually very much more 'hyper' in everything he did, which ended up being too much for everyone in the house. We stopped the pills – and within 24 hours "Tom" was again much his real self and after 3 days his 'symptoms' had more or less completely disappeared.
Whether he is reacting to some unlabelled gluten, or gluten contamination or maybe something else in the products above who knows – but, if there is a reaction - Take away the food that he is reacting to, and he becomes, once more, his real self.
So - we have to remain vigilant.
Actually, I have become very untrusting of processed food because of the 'episodes' above. So, to be safe i.e. to avoid any more 'episodes' like the above, our son has almost no processed food – we make nearly all his food from scratch and he has just a few processed foods which we know we can trust.
And life is happy, and as it should be (such a change from before) – the children happy and playing happily. Our Asperger's son too - happy and content, peaceful, enjoying life, enjoying his little Asperger 'gifts', though still having to work on areas which he finds difficult. There is no comparison to before – the change in him is real, no way has it been imagined or exaggerated. The intolerance effect has been so clearly demonstrated time and time again that it can in no way be justifiably challenged by anyone saying it is just a coincidence, as some will, no doubt, try.
I just wish more people were made aware of the effect certain food items such as gluten, casein (a protein in milk) and starch, amongst others, can have on people.
So many families are in the depths of despair with their child's behaviour – and the child must be in even more deep despair – it is scandalous that families and children can go close to breaking point and worse, yet they are still not told of the possibility that a food intolerance may be part, or the main cause, of a child's poor behaviour.
TRY IT YOURSELF – surely it is worth a little bit of extra work to see if YOUR CHILD is behaving as s/he is because of gluten/casein/any other food item adversely affecting him or her?
Isn't it better than letting their (and your) suffering continue, or just feeding them medications instead?
Taking gluten out of our son's life has resulted in a miraculous change in him – it has really saved his life - and made a miraculous change for the rest of us in our family with the peace and happiness it has brought.
We are NOT the only ones to have found that a food intolerance causes such behaviour difficulties. It seems to be quite common in the autism/Asperger area – but sadly kept 'under wraps' so information about it is not forthcoming.
Checking food intolerances for your child if they have 'problems' may give you the miracle that we have had and similarly save your child, as our's has been saved.
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"John"'s Story
By chance, in 2006, one of the family, "John", talked to a medical scientist who had researched into the inflammatory medical condition that "John" has.
The scientist told "John" that starch was the cause of the problem – there was a scientific reason behind it, the bacteria fed on the starch in the stomach, which then caused the inflammation which caused the pain and the damage to him due to the medical condition.
So, after having over 20 years of pain and years of being on and off pills with their side-effects, etc., "John" decided there was no harm giving it a go, to see if eating no starch made a difference.
So, we cut out ALL starch from "John"'s food. This was in June 2006. It was not difficult to do, since we home cook almost all of our food anyway (a lot of processed food has added starch). There was some sacrifice with puddings but even that was worth the sacrifice, for a true test of the starch-free diet.
It was almost unbelievable. After only 2 days "John" was free of his pain, the pain he'd had continually for at least 20 years and he could now move around so much more easily too.
No medication was involved – the only thing that “John” had changed was to avoid all starch (strictly) in the food that he ate. That's what, unquestionably, caused this unbelievable change in him.
We were gobsmacked.
Apparently, and unbelievably for us, the scientist mentioned above had written a paper on the effects of starch in this medical condition about 20 years before – yet we had never heard of the research - and were only told for "John" to take medication if the condition got bad enough (as it did from time to time).
So, "John" has remained on the starch free diet and has never looked back. He is still pain free and moves around still so much better than before, and, best of all, he knows that little or no further damage is being done to his body from the medical condition because there can be little inflammation going on since there is no starch for any inflammation-causing bacteria to feed on.
Quite a difference to before – continual pain and stiffness, pills continually on hand if and when the pain got desperate, and a gloomy forecast of the future... Yet, despite having been regularly seen by specialists for over 20 years, no-one had ever told him of the piece of research detailing the effect of starch on this medical condition. No-one had told him that maybe the condition could possibly be slowed down or even halted just by avoiding eating starch.
Yet it works. If only more people could try it instead of automatically going onto medication – which everyone knows can have side effects and some is even potentially dangerous.
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More and more people are discovering that they, or their children, are intolerant, or even allergic, to certain foods.
The peanut allergy is perhaps the most widely known allergy.
Gluten, wheat, casein (a protein found in milk) and dairy are perhaps lesser known intolerances that people can suffer with, including those on the autistic scale. There are many other food intolerances that some people suffer from.
From our experience, you may never get told of the possibility that food may be disturbing someone's behaviour – and you may well just be left to cope with the behaviour as it is – but please keep an open mind about food intolerances.
Just because there is little formal research/evidence means nothing – it may well just mean that there is little money to be made for big Industry from researching the issue, and also too much money still to be gained from medications.
Taking gluten out of our son's life has resulted in a miraculous change in him – and for the rest of us in our family with the peace and happiness it has brought.
Particularly if there are behaviour difficulties, it must be worth checking if you, or any children, may be intolerant to certain food items.
Surely the extra work is worth it – to save your child, and not to stuff him/her unnecessarily with medication?