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two steps forward, one step back?


ladyd

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"is spag bol spaghetti with bolognese sauce?" Yes...sorry - maybe an Aussie expression?

Would he eat it without the pasta eg. on gluten free bread toasted? What about making little hamburgers or rissoles with veggies grated in? eg carrot. You can use egg as a binder but you don't need it if you keep them small eg the size of a walnut. (Adults might appreciate some ground cummin mixed in.) You can vary what else you put in them. Cooking them in a little coconut oil is good.

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I'm going to have to try. Should I explain to him that the gluten free is necessary for the tics to go away? My husband let him have regular bagels two days in a row and the tics have worsened, which further convinces me that it's gluten related. Also, he said he felt like he had a knife in his stomach one time after eating regular pizza, and another time after having a bagel.... This is a child whose never had stomache aches... It's hard to avoid what with pizza parties and whatnot at school, but I need him to understand that gluten free is his "anti tic medicine." one more question... Is rissole like a casserole? I love learning Aussie speak!

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I've always believed in talking through this stuff with my ds as he's always liked to have reasons, even as a little kid. I'm not sure if you've done any blood tests for sensitivity to various foods? Either way, you can explain it in terms of an experiment - that going gluten free for a couple of months is a test to see if there's an improvement or not. (Let's hope!) It also allows his gut to heal if there's anything else going on there. The stomach ache is very interesting. (Gut issues are proving all too common. It's also not unusual to find kids on the autism spectrum with GI issues...My son was diagnosed with Aspergers at 16 before he got a diagnosis of leaky gut and then PANDAS. I suspect he will ultimately be found not to be on the spectrum...I've had one health practitioner say as much, and I'm hoping he's right! Whatever, he's much better thanks to our Biomed doctor, and I'll take that right now.)

 

OK... another Aussie expression maybe...!?! A rissole is made with minced/ground meat (a mini round hamburger) mixed with things like chopped onion, egg for binder (optional), breadcrumbs (I use a small amount of gluten free bread, or none at all) and whatever grated veggies you can think of like carrot etc, and shaped into a small ball about the size of a walnut, and cooked in a little coconut oil until brown and cooked through. You could pop them on a barbecue too. (I add a half teaspoon of ground cummin to the mix. I just had some for lunch, left over from last night. Leftovers microwave just fine, but I quite like them cold too.)

For a variation we call porcupines(!) ...add some uncooked rice (1/2 cup) to the mixture, shape into rissoles (porcupines) and place them one layer deep in an oven proof dish/tray and pour over a large can of tomato soup (check ingredients!) (I dilute it a little with water and add other chopped up veggies like carrot, celery, halved onions into the soup, along with the porcupines/rissoles.) Cover the dish with aluminium foil and cook in a moderate to hot oven for about 3/4 of an hour, remove the foil and cook another 15 minutes. Could be a bit too much of a stew for your ds but you never know...

Edited by Ozimum
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thanks for these cooking ideas! the porcupines sound particularly interesting. i love getting aussie cooking tips from you here on the forum. so amazing. i have been telling DS that gluten-free is his anti-tic medicine. i think dairy is less of an issue, from what i'm seeing with the elimination diet, still trying to keep everything more protein oriented. it's incredible. he is already filling out a little bit, not quite so scarecrow skinny, the bags under his eyes look better, and he has so much more energy.

the other day a friend of mine, who works with ASD kids, said she's seen so many parents try this diet, with initial positive results, but then the diet stops working. i felt so depressed when she said that. but from what i see, if you really keep with it, your child just benefits so much, continually. and having no screens has been nothing but beneficial for our family -- and DS just finished the fourth harry potter book (take THAT ADD inattentive!)

 

another question -- is there a benefit to using coconut oil over, say, olive oil?

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So glad you're seeing improvements! Whoohoo! Go DS and hooray for Harry Potter! I understand that going GF/CF is a healthier option for many of us. And I keep finding people who are convinced...yet another mum I know told me last week that her teenager had dropped out of school, was aggressive, angry, couldn't concentrate, etc and this diet helped hugely and the boy is now happily training to be a plumber! Big turn around in motivation! I'm thinking it all comes back to good gut health...if the diet stops working I'm thinking there must be something else going on in the gut which needs investigation. Also I've also heard it said that even just a little gluten can hurt - at least until the gut is healed, so yes the diet could stop working for that reason! I gather that's why taking enzymes can help.

 

The advice from our biomed doctor and a dietician is to use coconut oil in cooking because with over heating olive oil converts to transfatty acids. Our dietician recommended coconut oil as a healthy alternative. Google it!

 

It's also a good idea to journal what you've been seeing...so you can look back and see how far ds has come and you can maybe see if patterns appear. I started the diet with my son thinking I would give it a good go and if nothing came of it then there was no harm done. I'm now convinced. Yay!

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When you refer to environmental allergies, is that like an allergy to dust or pollen, or something else entirely? DS got his official ADD inattentive diagnosis today, btw. The tics were worse today, but have been all over the place, mostly better, though. He has a new one where he flares his nostrils rapidly, which I can't even do if I try! But he has been a bit sniffly. The pediatrician gave us nasonex and said to give him zyryec, but I'm afraid to give him anything that might increase the tics, although drying up his sinuses could possibly help the tics ? I'm all over the place myself.

 

 

Hi,

Enjoy reading your posts, wanted to add that my doctor has told us not to use any steroid based medication on our children with tics. He says it like "adding gasoline to a fire". Meaning: the immune system is already misfiring and the steroids cause it to be worse. Before we began to see this doctor, I'll never forget that my pediatrician at the time prescribed my (at the time) 8 yo dd nasonex for her chronicly inflammed nostrils and her tics went through the roof. I always suspected there was a correlation between the onset of the severe tics and the use of the Nasonex, but it was confirmed to me years later when our environmental doctor told use to never use steroids. Everyone is different, but if you do decide to try the medications, I suggest trying one at a time to see if either cause a negative reaction. Just wanted to share my experience.

Best of luck to you

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hey.

i'm glad you told me this. i wish traditional doctors knew more about tics and how to manage them. when DS first started having tics at age 3, it was a heavy sniffing tic. first my pediatrician then an ENT said it was either a tic, or sinuses, and gave us flonase, which we used on him for months. now i wonder if that made the tics worse for the long run. but i'm glad i know now, and will avoid them like the plague.

i need a pediatrician who won't do the shoulder-shrug-it's-a-tic-boys-get-tics thing when i ask about them. as though it's no big deal. when they're really bad, he can barely walk straight. ugh.

and my naturopath, while helpful, is far away and not great about responding to my questions. i wish i knew the best person to go to around here, and who and where that person is. *sigh.*

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