Evangelia

I really appreciate your kind words, I am so focused on trying to help my son, that I rarely give myself a pat on the back. You are right Heather, the setbacks do discourage me a great deal, but my loving husband is always there to put me back on track and remind me of our progress so far. Also, this wonderful resource of parents experiences and knowledge is priceless. I am not out of the woods yet by any means. You are all also right that it is hard work, I am often scratching my head wondering what to make for meals/snacks/deserts. I still have so much material that I need to read and digest. I am thankful for all of it though - it sure is alot better than that helpless feeling that I had when I left the neurologist's office who told me that I would be back within the year asking for the medication. I forgot to mention that regarding yeast, I also eliminated barley malt, vinegar and maple syrup (natural maple syrup seemed to make him tic more). Vinegar and barley malt contain toxic yeast compounds. Also be careful with cinnamon, allspice, dried mustard, nuts and chocolate because "many are inherently mold contaminated". Aflatoxin comes from a fungus, called Aspegillus. which contaminates the peanut plant. Chocolate beans are dried with a fungus. "Feast without Yeast" by Bruce Semon and Lori Kornblum is an excellent book that I have been reading and it has a lot of recipes for yeast free cooking. If you like I can outline the stages and food items that he recommends eliminating for each stage until improvement is seen. Claire, for newcomers, I would recommend testing for yeast as opposed to trying to resolve a potential yeast issue and doing the elimination diet. It can get very complex at times. I am now discovering that there are conflicts between the two approaches. For example, to fight yeast, substitute honey/molasses to replace sugars, to follow Feingold/Failsafe don't use clover honey/molasses/raw sugars since they are high in salicylates and refined/caster sugar is better. So right now, I am at a cross-road.....and I feel that I have to choose between yeast fighting versus Feingold/"Failsafe". When the two conflict, I am choosing Feingold/"Failsafe" over yeast fighting for now. The Failsafe website has a great link on common mistakes - they also do not recommend combining candida diet and failsafe/feingold. It is better to do the food elimination 100% for it to work the best. http://www.fedupwithfoodadditives.info/inf...on/mistakes.htm On a whole other topic, since I will be getting my IgG results soon: I have a question regarding the IgG blood test versus salicylates. Can there be contradictions? In other words, is it possible to have a food item that does not show up to be a sensitivity on the IgG blood test but should still be avoided due to the high salicylate content? Does it pick up all salicylate sensitivities? I don't expect my naturalpath to know the answer so I am asking my more knowledgable, wonderful group of parents instead. Thank you so much everyone, for the pats on the back. Have to keep chugging along, slowly but surely we will get to the bottom of it. Evangelia Ps. I also told my son that I wanted to THANK his body for his tics because now our whole family and relatives are changing the foods that we buy and consume. His tics have taught alot of us a whole lot. (4 of his cousins have ADD or ADHD - my sisters are now trying this out after they saw my son's changes.)

Hi Claire, You really are like our biggest teacher and biggest cheerleader! Thank you. Thank you. Thank you! I will summarize what I have done so far. Well, I am on Day 25 of my food elimination diet, and my son's tics are nothing like they used be. Claire, along with all the good advice you collected from everyone, I had read that yeast could be a problem so I eliminated as much as possible to see results. Your surveys REALLY helped me establish a direction. I can't thank you enough - my despair was so great. Just to give you some background, my son is 5 1/2 and his tics were very large! He would jump up and wave both of his arms in the air (this tic started when he kept jumping to re-secure his back-pack school back on his shoulders). It was very distraughting to see him do this every few seconds!!!! He had other smaller tics since last year but they were no big deal. With school starting, I was very worried about the social impacts on him. Now, he doesn't jump at all, and he doesn't wave his arms up. He still has a few smaller tics here and there (more tics when I test his diet) but nothing like before. From the start I eliminated: ----------------------------------------------- TV right away - I told him that it broke. We still have it off - TV wasn't a big deal since we didn't watch too much of it anyways. (except a few weeks prior, his grandparents bought him a Veggie-tale video that he loved and his TV watching increased more than usual) I eliminated sugar (incase of a yeast situation) - I used clover honey (Today I am switching this, because I just discovered that clover honey has high salicylate content) ooops! I now bought date sugar, and I am also going to try unrefined organic cane sugar. I remove all artificial additives - and I mean ALL (except I have allowed Jeff's recommendation of Pringles Original - just to have some kind of junk food around for him - and us!) I eliminated all the salicylates - I can't believe the difference of when he has grape juice or an apple! We went apple-picking and he ate an apple, he ticced almost 20 times in minute, all over again. I, also, always know when the afterschool daycare has given him something he is not supposed to eat (before I even ask him) because he tics, otherwise he is pretty calm. I eliminated the most common allergies that you compiled: Wheat, corn, eggs, and I use Lactose-free milk. I tried vanilla rice milk, and vanilla soy milk, but I found both to increase his tics. I have allowed soda-crackers(wheat) and cream-cheese. I don't give him any juices - only water or lactaid at this time. He used to drink grape juice VERY often (4-5 times a day). Around Day 13, we bought a new mattress, a new pillow, and the dust-mite protection casings around the mattress and pillows. We saw an improvement right away. We are now looking to change the carpetting and buy a HEPA filter. I have been giving him BIO-K daily for friendly bacteria (incase of yeast), and an allowable vitamin C, and a multi-vitamin. I was giving him calcium liquid, but then discovered it was diluted in apple juice so I stopped. I have not used any yeast in my baking..... the feingold prog says that regular yeast is fine - but not the active-rise yeast. So I am now thinking of getting back to my real breads and not the disasters that I tried to call bread. ------------------------------------------- You might wonder how my son agreed to all of this? I told him that his body was trying to get our attention by doing these tics because it cannot tolerate some of the foods that we are giving it (even though for some people it is okay). I told him that I was glad that his body was "speaking" to us so that we can figure out what his body was trying to tell us. It is like a "Scooby-Doo" mystery and we are the detectives that will solve the big MYSTERY! We also have talked extensively about chemicals in food and how nasty they are. He bought into the idea right away! I can tell you the biggest change in him (aside from the tics) is his demeanour! He is just not the same child anymore! He is no longer fidgety, he doesn't get as hyper when he plays, he is so calm and retrospective, he is not always afraid like he used to be, he is kinder and gentler! I could go on....! I am very excited because tomorrow I am going to get the results of his IgG and Essential fatty acids blood tests. I also asked them to test for gluten allergy and test for any damage to his intestines. I will have a clearer picture of what I am dealing with tomorrow!!!! These tests are costing me a bundle (I live in Montreal Canada and the naturalpath is shipping the blood to his preferred lab in the USA (with an added premium for his time). I apologize for writing so much, I just hope to help anyone else that is new. I am still new at this and I am learning and learning and learning every day! The biggest thing that I am learning is patience. I am definitely on the right track thanks to everyone who has taken the time to write what has worked for them! Thank you! I will let you know what happens soon! Evangelia

Hi Everyone, What I am discovering is that the yeast problem can create a "leaky gut" which can in-turn also affect other organs. I have found an excellent article that explains this very well. http://www.ei-resource.org/lgs.asp Thanks for all your help everyone, I have been doing the elimination diet now for 19 days and I have seen incredible changes in the tics (intensity,frequency) and hyper-activity. We have also eliminated the TV completely during this time. The tics have not completely disappeared yet but we are really on the right track. :-) Now my aim is to repair the damage. Thanks! Evangelia

Thanks Jeff, Heather and Claire for responding so quickly! You are absolutely amazing, especially re-assuring for someone who is totally new with this. I am much more hopeful (sure the beats the last 3 days and nights of crying!) I just ordered the Feingold package, it looks very promising and the good thing is I already have a list of what I can buy. Nice to see a list of "acceptables" versus "unacceptables". I am still debating with myself if I should avoid the eggs, milk, soya at the same time...... since they seem to be so common out there. I will definitely let you know what happens. Thank you!