Feingold Diet

[JennyC]

How many of you have your kids on this diet? Did it work? How long did it take for you to see results? What was your childs behavior like before the diet? After?

 

Sorry to ask so many questions but Im trying to keep my kid from being pickled by all the meds that they want to put her on lol.

[tlkinser]

Hi Jenny,

I put my son on the Feingold Diet immediately after he began his tic explosion last spring. I was neurotic about trying to find something that would "fix" him overnight and Feingold sounded like a good place to start, especially since I had heard from my MIL that she had my dh on it as a child for hyperactivity. I tried to be as strict as possible with it for about 3 weeks (I was making myself crazy). My children are young (at that time, 3, 4.5 and 6); I don't know if that makes it easier or harder, but I found it difficult to get them to cooperate and my son's tics were not getting any better. (Later we found out that he had strep at the time of the tic explosion and treated him with antibiotics which helped a little bit.)

 

Now we follow a more relaxed version of it- we avoid ALL colors, vanillin, BHT, and try to eat as whole and organic as possible. I have since had my son tested for food sensitivites and learned that he is very sensitive to dairy and casein so we are careful to avoid those as well. I cook alot more but still have a long way to go. My son's tics are still very present, but it is not near as bad as it was last spring/summer. The biggest improvement that we have noticed since removing dyes and artificials from his diet has been his temperment. He used to be very angry and quick to lash out. Now he is so pleasant to be around and is well-liked by his peers and teachers at school. Feingold's information is very interesting and I wish that every parent with a "difficult" child would read the book, "Why Can't My Child Behave?" It is worth it to give FG a try; their website/message board is full of great info for members (recipes, ideas for holiday treats, ideas for helping your child in school, etc.). It is not necessarily geared towards those with tics or TS, (more towards those with behavioral issues), but the info can be applied to tics as well.

 

Good luck!

tlk

[samsmom]

I strongly recommend the Feingold diet, or a diluted version of it, to everyone here. We put Sam on the Feingold diet about 2 years ago. He started with tics when he was 4.5 yrs old - he's now 7. His tics were really bad that first year and, through research and info from this forum, I decided that I needed to clean up his diet. I joined the Feingold program because it was pretty close to what I wanted to do, and I knew that without some kind of program to follow, I would struggle to make the changes that I needed to make. I was pretty lazy with cooking for the family.. I spent a week reading thru all the literature after it arrived and made a list of meals, snacks, etc. for the first couple of weeks. Then I went to Whole Foods with the directory and bought all the ingredients. It is NOT easy to start with but it really does just become a lifestyle change after a while. I only followed it rigorously for about 3 weeks. I never felt that Sam had any issues with salicylates so I added those all back in pretty quickly. But it gave me a foundation to work from, and we still work from it 2 years later.

 

Don't be put off by the big changes that you may have to make. Fill in the checklist of your child's symptoms and be sure to look at it again every month or so. It's so easy to miss what you've accomplished if you don't do that. There was no sudden improvement but over the course of 3-4 months it became obvious that it had really helped Sam's temperament. We'd had some problems with him hitting other kids and being very short-tempered at times. That was one of my biggest concerns and is no longer a problem for us.. He's so much more flexible and considerate to others. I read a lot and knew all the bad stuff about artificial colors but never believed that they were a problem for Sam. But it was only after we had cleaned out his diet of colors for at least a couple of months that we saw the effect that they had on him when he did have them (mostly at birthday parties). They have a really negative effect on both his tics and his temperament, but we had never been able to see that so clearly before.

 

Changing your family's diet to more of a Feingold-type diet will only help all of you. The kids will adapt to it really fast, especially if you all eat the same things.

 

I really would encourage you to go ahead and try it in some way.

 

Sams mom

[QsMom]

Jenny C,

 

I'm a big advocate of Feingold. We implemented Feingold in August 2007.

 

My son's story is much like TLK's....

 

Implementing the diet was extremely overwhelming (I wanted to pull my hair out), but the pay-off of this combined with going organic, eliminating casein, adding a new multi and Kid's Calm have been SO worth it for my son. It has almost a year since we have started this process with tics, and we are a much better place. We went from tics constantly all day (multiple vocal and motor tics) to periods with no tics and if tics are present they are noticable really to only me. His behavior now is extremely pleasant and attentive.

 

I believe too that my entire family has benefitted from Feingold. We are all healthier and have made a lifestyle changes because of the knowledge that I have gained on how to eat better through this process.

 

The key to success for us with Feingold was to find substitutes for my son's favorite foods. I also replaced things we took away with new foods which he liked. The first month is hard with the elimination of foods helped me pinpoint a casein sensitivity too. I will say that living without casein was MUCH harder for us than going Feingold. Feingold in comparisn was a peice of cake.

 

GOOD LUCK!

[JennyC]

Lucky enough for us we are already casein free so maybe it wont be so hard...crossing my fingers

[Jeff]

We had great success with the Feingold program, and continue to follow a very relaxed form of it. My oldest daughter had fairly severe tics at age 6-7. We started the FG program, and within 2-3 weeks, we saw a dramatic reduction in the tics. For some it takes longer, and for some the symptoms get even worse before they get better. At first we were very strict, including shampoos, toothpastes, etc, but eventually settled on eating all-natural in the house, and not worrying about occasional infractions. It's much easier now than at the beginning. We also discovered the Corn Syrup had a big impact on my youngest DD's temperament. It caused her to be very irritable and lose focus. That was the hardest thing to eliminate, as it is used in so many foods. As they have gotten older (13 and 16), they are able to tolerate more infractions. If they cheat too much, they tic mildly, but we know that, after a few days of clean eating again, the tics will subside.

I highly recommend that people sign up for the program, at least for a few years, read the literature, buy the "approved" products, etc. It's a great education and can change your whole perspective with regard to what you put into your bodies!! You are what you eat!!

Jeff