Gifted Issues Discussion homepage Forums Twice Exceptional Article showing food link for 60% of ADHD kids

Probably luke warm . She mixes hot coffee with cold milk.

I don't have a lot of time, but I wanted to chime in. We are starting this process next week. My son has always had lots of food sensitivities, and allergies, since birth. I nursed him for almost two years because I had nothing to wean him to. He now drinks hemp milk, which most people give me trouble about, you know, I'm feeding my kid thc or something. (insert eye roll and chuckle here.)


Anyways, he is having a hard time focusing lately, and the psych that administered his iq test is writing a book on thtis very subject. He believes as much as 80% of ADHD can be helped by dietary modification. He's starting us on this journey, although I'm not sure what else we can cut out, we are already dairy, soy, egg, wheat, peanut, tree nut, potato, celery, barley, chickpea and most bean free. My son does eat a lot of oat products, which can be cross contaminated with gluten, which is a big trigger for some kids.

Anyways, I can keep everyone posted if you want. Sorry this is so choppy, Im on my iPad with my 9 month old twins crawling all over me.

I'd love to hear how it goes and it sounds like you have your hands full! When I was eliminating soy and dairy for DD's allergies my cousin came for a visit. She was on a gluten free diet for Celiac disease so it was a challenge to come up with a meal we could share. I don't envy you trying to do that every day while juggling 9 month old twins.

I have friends with children whose behaviours improved drastically when diet was modified. In some cases, all the ADHD-like behaviours either stopped or were greatly reduced. Of course this doesn't mean it will be the same for others. But with these friends they too discovered they couldn't handle things like amines or salicylates or whatever and once they eliminated stuff from their diet, their own behaviours/health/etc improved exponentially.

I think dietary changes should be a must for lots of people, not just ADHD, autism, and so on. My friend has bad asthma, nasal polyps, migraines and all this other stuff. Once she went on a Failsafe diet, all those things disappeared and came back when she reintroduced the foods during challenges. She lived with all those problems for years which really took their toll as her sleep was very poor due to coughing, blocked sinuses, headaches and so on. Now she has none of those and her quality of life is of course much better.

My siblings have been diagnosed with IBS but all their colonoscopies, blood tests and gastroscopies have come back clear. They're now about to start the elimination diets and I'm so pleased because I'm certain it is due to something they're eating. Everyone we know who has tried an elimination diet have all said they wished they'd done it sooner, and spared themselves a lot of pain and misery.

I am coming to this late... But my entire family is on a strict elimination diet & for the most part we haven't managed to re-introduce anything much that was eliminated without reaction. As a result our diet is somewhat limited but EVERYONE is healthier, happier, calmer, more stable and focused than we have ever been or have been in years. Oh and weight has just effortlessly come off both DH and I, which, given the number of homemade cookies we are eating, is not due to reduced intake but our bodies just coping better.

DD1s OT suggested we take her off dairy and wheat to see what happened. We didn't do it because I was pregnant and had hyperemisis at the time and it was just one thing too many. Ironically it probably would have been the "cure" I needed. DD3 was miserable from the day she was born, severe reflux, overly sensitive to everything, it was a rough time for everyone. But it was when we tried to get her onto solids that things got really interesting as she started poo-ing green mucus (we stopped and it went away, started and it came back, we did this three times, same result each time).

I had a friend whose kids have severe intolerances, so I knew that was likely what was going on. I first tried to see if eliminating salicylates helped and it not only helped DD3, it helped me too, for the first time ever she was reflux free and started to cry less. So then we embarked on the full elimination diet. Given it had been suggested that DD1 do it and DD3 and I had to do it, we decided DH and DD2 should come along for the ride. The most dramatic results have happened for DD3 and I, then DD1, but DH and DD2 are also clearly better off.

Some of our responses are physical -

I no longer wake up with my joints aching (just think of the $500 I didn't need to spend on a specialist ultrasound of my ankles!). Each morning my feet used to feel like I had broken them overnight.

DD3 can eat without pooing mucus or getting eczema, she cries less and sleeps more.

My skin is healthier than it has ever been, I sleep better, my sinuses are better.

DD1 only complains of tummy pains now when she has had a diet malfunction.

Some of the effects are mental/emotional -

DD3 is WAY less cranky.

DD1 & 2 are calmer and quieter, enough such that school has noticed the difference.

I am calmer, happier, more balanced and my brain fog (which I thought was induced by 9 years of breastfeeding and sleep deprivation) is gone, though I am still breastfeeding and chronically sleep deprived.

Basically it's all good.

Whenever we have challenged foods (dairy, gluten, salicylate, amines, preservatives, colours, flavours) we have had clear reactions, some within minutes or hours, some within days, depending on the food and the person. My kids both go NUTS when they have dairy. DD1 is horrible to her sister (and everyone else) when she has amines. Everyone gets tummy pains on gluten. And so on...

DD1 has not been diagnosed with ADHD, but I suspect that we will probably have her investigated shortly and I will be talking to the paed in advance about whether we need to take her off the diet before testing in the same way that we would have to take her off meds if she were on them. If so, she is likely to be bouncing off the ceiling and have everyone, including herself, in tears before the appt.

My three kiddos have definite preservative/additive/dye sensitivity. I can tell almost immediately when they have had something not "natural" A website with tons of interesting info ... feingold.org

The RPAH diet we are using (which is written for food shopping in Australia) is generally considered to be much more up to date in terms of what foods are strong sals, amines, glutamates, etc. At least amongst health professionals here.

http://www.sswahs.nsw.gov.au/rpa/allergy/resources/foodintol/handbook.cfm