Newly diagnosed son- questions about diet

[cheryls]

Hi,

My 6 yo son got diagnosed with PANDAS 6 months ago. We are on our second round of month-long antibiotics, also on clonidine, and magnesium and calcium. In addition to the medicines/supplements, it was recommended that we cut wheat out of our son's diet. Has anyone tried this? Does it really help? Thanks for your help. I'd appreciate any advice you all can give me. This is all still really new to me...

[Suzan]

Hi,

My 6 yo son got diagnosed with PANDAS 6 months ago. We are on our second round of month-long antibiotics, also on clonidine, and magnesium and calcium. In addition to the medicines/supplements, it was recommended that we cut wheat out of our son's diet. Has anyone tried this? Does it really help? Thanks for your help. I'd appreciate any advice you all can give me. This is all still really new to me...

 

Both my daughter's have gluten intolerance (possible Celiac) and cutting wheat out of their diet has improved them very much. My older dd gets very angry when she eats wheat and cutting it out helps her behavior a lot.

 

Also, wheat and gluten by nature causes inflamation so cutting it out will reduce the amount of inflamation in the body which I think is one of the things that is helpful in our children.

 

Good luck and welcome.

 

s

[smartyjones]

hi cheryls. when my son was first having trouble, we saw a naturopathic dr who did a blood food intolerance test on him (igg). he was highly reactive to over 15 foods - including all dairy and most grains. that test is not so respected in the traditional medical community. we've consulted 2 traditional allergists who do agree that his immune system is producing antibodies to those foods but think "so what". i disagree, i think common sense tells me that if i'm worried his immune system is inappropriately reacting, i shouldn't have it produce antibodies to food!

 

so - he's been dairy-free, gluten-free, egg free since Feb. it is certainly different but no where near as hard as you first imagine. it had been suggested to me to cut out dairy and gluten but it i thought that was so extreme and couldn't imagine it until i saw that chart with so many lines off the chart - the naturopath who runs that test all the time was a little freaked out.

 

i've posted about gluten free before - you can try to search under my name to find it or let me know if you want more info.

 

after the initial researching/discovering - we keep him on this diet b/c i don't want to overload his immune system as he's healing, not b/c i see differences in behavior. he had one major exacerbation a few weeks after ending keflex, after gf,df eating for about 8 weeks. he is just getting over another exacerbation with the flu after about 10 months gluten-free, dairy-free.

 

good luck

kathy