Wednesday, May 27, 2009

Gluten Free for 5 weeks now....

So, we have officially been gluten-free for 5 weeks now (since April 20th). I'm pretty certain that there have been a few glitches here and there, so we have decided that we are really cracking down more on the diet. We are no longer going to take chances on trusting labels to say milk or wheat ingredients. If it says "natural flavorings", "spices", or things like that we are just going to opt-out on giving it to Gabe. Just to be on the safe side. We want to be completely sure that we give this diet the best shot we can and we don't want to cheat at all. We had thought we were casein free for almost three weeks now, but found out that Gabe's school still had a few bags of the gluten-free cookies that have milk products in them. I had sent them in when we first started GF and forgot to ask the teacher to discontinue giving them to Gabe when we switched to CF also. Whoops. :/ Stinks that we did that, but live and learn and move on!

I will note that it is sooooooooooo different to go out to eat now. We have went out for dinner three times in the last 5 weeks. We went to P.F. Changs first, which I have heard good and bad reviews on their allergen menu, and Gabe got the lemon chicken that is gluten and casein free. He wasn't too crazy about it and I don't blame him. It was pretty nasty. He did eat the GFCF lettuce wraps though- minus the lettuce. :)

We also found a local pizza place called Monical's Pizza that just recently started offering a gluten-free pizza crust. We were soooooooooo happy and ran right out to go try it. Gabe ate almost a whole 10" sausage, pepperoni, and bacon pizza to himself. They were wonderful about going out of their way to be sure everything was gluten and casein free and cooked separately. The manager even made the pizza herself just to be sure. It is so wonderful to have places like that in this world! The GF crust cost $3.00 more than regular, but totally worth it if we can have a safe place to go have a family pizza night. Their pizza is spectacular too!

We have had a rough week this week with Gabe. He woke up last Tuesday morning with vomiting and diarrhea and struggled with it until yesterday evening. Almost a full 7 days with it. Poor baby. We thought at first that maybe he was really struggling with detoxing from the diet, but when we went to three different doctors they all said that it was just a nasty stomach bug. We are hoping that it is gone now! We are all ready for a full night's sleep again. :)

We go back to see Dr. Elghammer (DAN! Dr.) in Illinois on Friday for a follow-up from last month. We have been on the secretin therapy for a month now, not really seeing many results from it so far. Not sure that we will continue it or not.

4 comments:

  1. My son Andrew has asbergers syndrom and I am ceolic and have to follow a gluton free diet. What is the link between Autism and a wheat free diet or is this just coincidence?

    Best wishes

    Ted
    ted7234889 (twitter)

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  2. It makes me happy to see that you are making such good, but hard, choices for your son. We have a 16 yr old with Asperger's and I have Celiac. We started the diet when he was about 7 yrs old and people tell me all of the time now that they would have no idea that he is in anyway different. We homeschool, so that makes a big difference in the amount of behavioral therapy and diet control in his life. I wish you and your family the best!!

    abetterjulie (twitter)

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  3. HAng in there! It gets better! Remember that it takes 6 months to get gluten out of the system after you finally get all the hidden gluten out of his diet! It will get better, I promise! We've been on the doet for 6+ years and I see improvements all the time! Have you done your baseline ATEC at Generation Rescue site yet? That helps too! Hugs to you! He is very lucky to have such dedicated parents!

    Penny

    Btw, I had to laugh at the mac n cheese story because from 3 to 5 years old, that is all Logan would eat! lol

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  4. Thanks everyone! :)
    Ted- there does seem to be a link between parents with celiac and autistic children, huh? I think I have a gluten-intolerance as well. I've never been tested for celiac though.

    Julie- Wow, that is so awesome to hear that your son is doing so well! It is very encouraging for us! We have complete faith that we will bring Gabe back through these interventions. Our kids are so amazing!

    Penny- Thank you so much for the kind words! We are lucky to have HIM! :) I haven't done the ATEC yet, I will have to go check that out. I think it is a common trend for our kids to crave macncheese...it's like the worst of both worlds of allergens! hehe

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    I am on twitter as well, JadePJoseph. Thanks for following us! :)

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