Gluten Free Casein Free Diet

A week and a half ago I started Soren on the Gluten Free Casein Free Diet. In VERY general terms, this means a wheat and dairy free diet (of course you also have to watch what toothpaste, laundry detergent, and shampoo you use! Yikes!). The reason I decided to try this started with my friend Katherine, whose son is Autistic.

Now Soren does not have a diagnosis of Autism. However 20% of kids with Autism have Epilepsy. So who knows? We've been struggling so much just dealing with the Epilepsy, Autism has been the last thing on our minds.

The GFCF Diet is reportedly very good for kids with Autism. The Gluten can act like a drug in some kids, making them a little high, so to speak. Getting them off it clears their head. And the GFCF diet also helps some people's digestion.

So I checked on the diet's efficacy with Epilepsy. Turns out there are anecdotal reports of the Gluten Free Diet helping with seizures. And after the past 6 weeks, having a horrible few days every 2 weeks, I figured it was worth trying. And I decided to do the Casein Free as well for fun.

Changing Soren's food was easy enough. He eats what I feed him. Yeah, I had to switch the salsa in his guacamole and his Eggo waffle to a GFCF waffle. And I spent way too much time in Whole Foods going through their Gluten-Free Food List and their Dairy-Free Food Lists (they didn't have the cross-referenced of course). Still, not too bad.

Switching his nonfat milk to an Almond drink actually went smoother than expected.

And now I have to provide Soren lunch at school, which is the biggest "hassle" of it all. But really, that's not hard either.

Now we have to wait and see if there's a difference. It takes the body a while to get the Gluten out of the system. But if it works and we cut down those bad seizure days, it is totally worth it.

Amy