Elimindation Diets Do they work?

[Santi]

I started my 7 1/2 year old son on an elimination diet (mostly dairy and gluten and sweets). I would love to hear from those of you who have tried it on their child with ADHD, Anxiety and/or TICS and how it worked in terms of changing challenging behaviors??? When did you start to see a change? Andrea

[deby]

I started my 7 1/2 year old son on an elimination diet (mostly dairy and gluten and sweets). I would love to hear from those of you who have tried it on their child with ADHD, Anxiety and/or TICS and how it worked in terms of changing challenging behaviors??? When did you start to see a change? Andrea

 

I am going through the same phase as you.I've tried the elimination diet, with no much success.

There is something very interesting, my son used to eat lots of bananas and cucumbers (those were his favorite fruit/vegetable), we run out of those and I didn't buy those for a week, the interesting thing is that his vocal tics went away.

Then I bought some and the tics came back. We tried it again (eliminating those two for a week and bringing them back) same result.

Then I read that there are a lot of people who develop food allergy, specially for the food they eat the most.

So my recommendation for you, start thye elimination with the food that he eats every day.

Also take out all the artificial food since there are lots of researches that those increase ADHD and tics.

[DoriansMom]

I started my 7 1/2 year old son on an elimination diet (mostly dairy and gluten and sweets). I would love to hear from those of you who have tried it on their child with ADHD, Anxiety and/or TICS and how it worked in terms of changing challenging behaviors??? When did you start to see a change? Andrea

 

The diet we do is a whole foods diet. Nothing premade or store bought food, everything is made from scratch. I buy flour(organic whole wheat, no preservatives only) and make our own breads and buns.

we rarely eat canned foods and usualy only eat fresh fruit and veggies. We eat free ranged, antibiotic and hormone free meats, no dairy and no soy.

But with all that said, I think the biggest change has been taking out sugar.

He gets a magnesium supplement, HMF probiotic and cutting out the sugar has reduced his tics by about 60% in a very short period of time. I was only giving him one probiotic tablet per day(I just open the cap and put the powder in his drink) but I am going to up it to 2 a day to see how he feels. The mag supplement helps him sleep better so I give that to him (1/2 tsp) just before bed. He even askes for it, I think it helps to make him feel more relaxed.

[gbuddy70]

Thanks a lot. It’ll help me a lot.

[Familyof5]

I've had my two daughters on wheat free diet for two weeks. My dd11 has been sitting still, focusing better, vocal tics are almost non-existent. My dd6 has been quieter (in terms of constant talking), behaviour more respectful, vocal tics almost gone, hyperactivity is calmed down. However, I did notice that they both cheated and snuck in some wheat and their tics began to increase temporarily. I have only just started two weeks ago, so I don't know if this is just "waning". I will say that my dd6's teacher asked me on Friday if there was anything that I'm doing differently with her because she has been focusing better for the last two weeks. To me, that is the best sign that it is working. I do hope so--only time will tell. Initially I saw both of their symptoms increase, maybe a herx reaction, which made me want to stop, but so far I've stuck with it and I'm seeing good results now.

[fuelforall]

From my post on the Pandas blog on leaky gut

 

 

I have been eating a Paleo diet for a month or so now. This study may be a cue for many of you with children who have adhd. Getting rid of grains, dairy and legumes is a good policy for gut health.

The study suggests IGG sensitivity RAST tests are meaningless and that the only real test is elimination.

 

These are some serious numbers here! That's a lot of kids whose ADHD went away with the extreme diet change!

Oh, since you can't get the full text, I'll quote from someone who did. The restrictive diet that eliminated symptoms was composed of meat, veggies, pears and water. And for the lone mostly harmless (allergen wise) starch.... rice. (arguable the kids could do even better without rice)

 

 

http://www.thelancet...2227-1/abstract

[eplank]

My son's behaviour improved when we removed any additives and preservatives from his diet. But the change in his behaviour and his tics improved dramatically when we removed dairy and potatoes from his diet. A food intolerance test returned a casein and potato intolerances along with some mild ones. We also found that acupuncture decreased his anxiety.

[SearchingMom]

Hello,

 

I haven't posted for a long time now, and many on this section of the forum may not know me, I think, but I have some new developments related to this topic. First, a brief recap: back in August 2010 I thought DS11 was PANDAS or Lyme, lots of aggressive and irrational behaviors with daily anxiety; not long after we started a food diary and stopped restaurant foods and food additives/colorings/preservatives and saw slight improvement; later thought it was a vitamin deficiency or yeast overgrowth and/or leaky gut; then thought it was serotonin deficiency which could also be due to stress or digestive absorption issues (leaky gut) and gave 5-HTP daily (still do); went back to magnesium in addition to 5-HTP about a month ago to see if there was any improvement. This was after we had IgE positive test back in December 2010. We didn't pursue allergy testing because DS11 was still very closed to visiting more doctors. So then...

 

About two weeks ago my mom and I started an elimination diet for my DS11 (unbeknownst to DS11) excluding most dairy and gluten (so far about 90% dairy removed and 50% gluten removed). About three weeks ago DS11 started to naturally reject foods he had been eating daily (pizza and milk, primarily), so we stopped offering those (we don't even mention it!) and have worked every day planning GFCF meals that hopefully taste great! He's been really open to these new meals, and seems really happy with the variety. No problems getting him to try new things at all. In fact, many times he goes straight for the GFCF item that's new, and ends up scarfing it down. If not, he tells us what he thinks of the new foods and we don't repeat failures. It's stressful working so hard every day to find something new that fits all our food restrictions (there are others besides GFCF), and sometimes if we're lucky we come up with one meal plan a day. Grocery bills are high, too, buying all these new ingredients.

 

In the meantime, I'm on an elimination diet, too, and so far can't have meat, dairy, gluten, sugar, corn, or citrus. It's kept me calmer on this new diet, but tired, too. Some days I don't want to eat much, so I listen to my body and let it rest. I figure it's been trying to process indigestible things for a *very* long time now, and maybe it needs extra space to get rid of this stuff. So I lay down and drink water and try to stay as relaxed as I can. Sometimes I take a hot shower or Epsom salts bath to help eliminate toxins. I drink diluted carrot juice and eat watery veggies if it's hard to hold much down. Many of my symptoms are gone, like chronic rhinitis (I can breathe now!!!), constantly itchy inner ears, headaches, nausea, indigestion/upset stomach, constant anxiety, out of the blue anger about STUPID things, OCD behaviors, PMS, etc. My skin is a better texture, too, but I've still been having itchy skin at night which could be due to toxins being eliminated. I certainly don't have any new symptoms, and I feel much better overall.

 

The most significant thing about DS11 being on this diet (and for so short a time) is that over the last week he has been TALKING to us again, even being a bit humorous which is something we haven't seen in almost a year. It almost seems too good to be true, and I even hesitate to write this, but he talked to me more yesterday (in pleasant tones and didn't take things personally or get upset about ANYTHING) than he has the entire last 9 months. He was even willing to go to Target (in the same car, by himself with me) to get something for his Wii. I can't even remember the last time that happened. This morning he looked at me when he came in after waking and gave me a little grimace after making eye contact. Don't remember the last time that happened either. We've got a long way to go still, but to think this all could have been caused by the "healthy" foods I have been giving DS11 since birth? This is changing EVERYTHING I believe about food and nutrition.

 

So to answer this topic's question "Do elimination diets work?" I can only say it's entirely possible - IF YOU ELIMINATE THE RIGHT THINGS. I thought I only had trouble with gluten, but went on to find sugar was a problem. Then dairy. Then corn. Then meat. Then citrus. The elimination of each individual food eliminated a nagging long-term symptom. Sometimes it eliminated a symptom I WASN'T EVEN AWARE OF.

 

After experiencing first-hand the steady and relatively speedy subsiding of symptoms (both physical AND psychological) on this diet for me and DS11, I recommend it highly. It won't work if this isn't the underlying problem, of course, but it's definitely not a risky test if it isn't the problem. We started with gluten and dairy since it was all DS11 seemed to be eating and craving. I've been reading a lot, and that seems to be very common for about 50% of people to actually CRAVE the foods they are intolerant to. Others have said many of the same things I'm sure previously on this forum - I'm not the first to have such an experience.

 

Hope this helps in some way.

 

Angela (SearchingMom)

Edited April 3, 2011 by SearchingMom