Our Food Journey Begins

My son has been “diagnosed” with ADHD*. My daughter only really poops once every 2-3 weeks without the help of daily laxatives. I have ulcerative colitis. None of this is good.

After having tried three different kinds of medication for Will’s focus and social issues with no success**, we spoke with some friends who have had success with changing eating habits – removing gluten, etc. The kids and I had an IgG Food Antibody Assessment done to determine if we had any food intolerances. Boy did we! Both kids had reactions gluten and dairy. Mac has issues with eggs (white and yolk), and I have issues with tomatoes (plus coffee and apricots, but I don’t need to really worry about that!).

Our doctor suggested we do an elimination diet for a month to rid our bodies of the foods that are irritating and inflaming our guts and brains. This means: GLUTEN FREE, DAIRY FREE, EGG FREE, and NO TOMATOES. Yikes. The doctor actually used the word “hellacious” when she described how things would go, but at the same time told us we should see some results in a couple weeks. That and some input from Facebook friends was encouraging. If it will make a difference in how my family feels and acts, it will be totally worth it. At least that’s what I need to keep telling myself!

Because I don’t feel like we can have food in the house that we won’t be able to eat, we will ALL be adopting the same diet and having only foods in the house that we can eat. That’s the goal at least. Dad is a victim of our testing… luckily, he likes everything!

Pinterest has been a huge help when searching out recipes that we can all eat, and I’m working on creating some meal planners so we can be prepared to start (March 31st after we’re back from vacation!). Any suggestions are welcome – tips, advice, recipes and more. My kids (and myself) are ULTRA picky so this will definitely be a challenge. I will continue too update here as often as I can/remember. I’ll include recipes, brands we like, tactics that have worked, and our results. The doctor gave me a few books to read as well that I’ll review.

* I use quotations when I say Will was diagnosed as ADHD because there was no formal testing done, no journaling or therapy that led to this prognosis. We expressed concern to our pediatrician about his actions, attitude, and behavior in school. She recommended we see a psychiatrist who diagnosed him after maybe 15 minutes of talking with us. In retrospect, I wish we had asked more questions, seen another doctor, or just done more research. But hindsight is 20/20 I guess.

** Medication #1 helped significantly at first. His focus was better at school, he stopped harming himself, and was able to control his anger a little more. However, after 9 months or so, we noticed a total lack of personality. He wasn’t smiling, didn’t have a desire to communicate with us unless we made him, and just a loss of self. On to the next med and he was falling asleep at the dinner table. That just won’t do! Medication #3 definitely helped with his focus, but made him so moody. He’d be ecstatic one minute and pissed off the next. From joking to angry in a heartbeat, we couldn’t handle it anymore. We carefully weened him off all medications, and he now only takes herbal remedies (Theanine and Gingko Biloba).