I have just been reading the diary My Son is Autistic and all the comments. Slowly the dots began drawing a line and I began to be filled with horror. The comments of parents and the outbursts of regressive behvior in their autistic children target gluten. They all suggest getting it out of the autistic child's diet. and I am thinking, these children are the canaries only they aren't dead yet like the pets. They react so violently that to parents who are superaware of any difference in their child's behavior can't miss the foods that trigger the behavior. So I am reading this diary and the light bulb goes on. We know now that it is food grade wheat gluten that is in the pet food.
In the above diary there is a long thread on gluten free foods, which is what we pet owners are now doing. Not all of the autistic parents' comment in the above diary concern gluten and the thread is near the beginning.
Jump with me.
From the coments in the diary on Autism:
As reported in this March 2007 article in Discover magazine ("Autism: It’s Not Just in the Head," http://discovermagazine.com/... the growing concensus is that austism spectrum disorders are epigenetic: a combination of genes and environmental triggers that disrupt the child’s metabolic, gastrointestinal, and immunologic systems. Autistic children seem to have a genetic susceptibility ("polymorphism") that makes them less able to deal with toxins in their bodies. The toxins, in turn, cause physical disease.
This quote concerns toxic metals and chelation. And actually chelation could save your pet. When doing chelation it is necessary to keep a lot of fluids in your body to dilute the toxins. Drink lots of water.
We live just outside of Columbus, which is good and bad. Good, because the Children's Hospital has an Autism Clinic. Bad, because we live about 3 miles outside of Franklin County.
We are trying going gluten free right now. Nik hates it of course. I don't blame him, Tapioca and Rice bread tastes like cardboard. He's fan of the cookies, though. The toughest part of going gluten free is removing all of the foods that he has been used to.
And
we do it. We've learned to live with the GFCF diet. It has made a remarkable difference in Jac's behavior.
There are so many great companies now that cater to our needs, such as http://www.allergygrocer.com (no affiliation).
Hard? yeah. Worth it? For us, absolutely.
And here's another
Bob's Red Mill (2+ / 0-)
now makes some excellent bread mixes. The new cornbread, raisin bread, and whole grain just became available in my grocery store and all are good. They can also be ordered on the interweb.
Yours gluten-freely...
And still more:
If you haven't discovered Kinnikinnick Foods yet (0+ / 0-)
Recommended by:
mbw
let me tell you that they have the best GFCF foods we've tried. You can usually find them at health food stores or you can go online or call them (they're based in Canada) to order. My son loves their chocolate chip cookies and their donuts. Their breads are all frozen, but are one of the few brands Nicholas will eat. Also, if you do go casein-free, this brand is great b/c they mark all foods that are GFCF with a logo ("GFCF Alta") on the front of the package--no more hunting through the ingredient lists for whey and caseinate additives.
And I am going to end with this one:
gluten/caesin free is very worth investigating (4+ / 0-)
Recommended by:
Buckeye BattleCry, roses, historys mysteries, beaumarchais
The gluten/caesin free diet was the first thing I did after I found out I had Asperger's Syndrome. The difference has been night/day for me - when you find out in your thirties its easy to go gluten free, because its frightfully painful to have even a tiny amount once you get it out of your system ...
How long has this been going on? How many autistic children are still suffering because their parents don't yet know? How many pets died in the past due to unknown causes? Talk about animal experimentation!