Update on the nettie pot

Ok, I'm sorry. I know I promised an update. The truth is that I haven't consistently been using it to know if it works or not. After the day that I used it four times, I felt like I had a head cold. I even had sneezing. The next day, I only used it once. It did give some relief but it was only temporary. The relief lasted about an hour. I did buy some oil of oregano but I haven't used it yet so I don't know if it makes a difference. I'm not giving up on the nettie pot yet. I think it's something that you need to do consistently until the symptoms are gone. I could be wrong though...what do I know?

The Nettie Pot

I've been having sinus problems for about the last 3 years. I was so hoping that it would resolve itself by being on this diet but so far it hasn't. I decided to take matters into my own hands and buy a nettie pot. I've had it for about a month and haven't used it because I was scared, lol. I watched a YouTube video showing how it worked and it looked easy enough. The other day I decided to finally try it. I guess my sinuses are more messed up than I thought because instead of a stream flowing through my nose, I had a drip going on. In the mean time my sinus cavity was burning up!!! I've used the nettie pot about 4 times now and I swear it seems like my sinuses are getting worse with each use. I have so much sinus pressure right now. I'm hoping that it's actually working and I just have to push though until all the junk is out. I've heard people using some oil of oregano in the netti pot. I might have to buy some and try it. I'll update in a few days.

Another food to add...

To Shawn's growing list. He now likes raspberries. I gave Joshua some mixed berries and Shawn asked to try the blackberry (which he didn't like), the raspberry (which he continued to eat), and a blueberry (which he said was good but didn't want anymore). They ate the berries the first day (there wasn't really that many). Shawn has been asking me since then if I bought more raspberries yet. I'm kind of nerveous buying them though because I've heard they can contain mold but I bought some today anyway. I need to look and see if raspberries can grow in this area and see about getting us a bush.

Today we saw Dr. Tappan...again. Don and I had a little argument because he thinks I'm being too strict with the diet. He thinks that it doesn't have to be an all or nothing thing. He totally doesn't understand the science behind the diet. It is an all or nothing type of diet. You have to be fanatical about it. I admit that I'm not but I strive to be.

Anyway, Don was concerned that Shawn wasn't healthy because sometimes he gets cramps when he has a bowel movement and it makes him puke. It doesn't happen that often and even though I can't prove what it was that made him have cramps and puke, I'm pretty sure I know what it was and it doesn't have anything to do with food. It has to do with some supplements. Don didn't want to listen to it though and he said he wanted Shawn to see the doctor because it wasn't normal.

So off to the doctors we went today. Dr. Tappan said that Shawn was perfectly healthy. He's maintaining his weight and everything else looked good. He asked us a bunch of questions and wrote down all the supplements we were giving him. He even said he would do a little research on the Betaine HCL with Pepsin because I asked him if he would write a note for us so Shawn could take it at school. Keeping my fingers crossed on that one because it really has helped him digest cheese. He asked me to keep a food journal for two weeks so he can see exactly what he's eating and even mentioned maybe reviewing it with a nutritionist (which I'm not too thrilled about). This diet does not follow the food pyramid so I don't have much hope for a nutritionist to agree with the diet.

Just so you know- I did not say I told you so to Don but I sure was thinking it, lol.

Repercussions

As much as I try to be 100% GAPS, sometimes I just get so overwhelmed and there is no prepared food to feed the kids. On those such occasions, I will allow them to eat pizza (because they've got to eat). It's been a while since I've had pizza but 2 days ago we ordered pizza for dinner because I didn't have anything that could be cooked fast and that the kids would eat. It was really weird because I could actually taste the sugar in the sauce, lol. Although the sauce didn't really appeal to me much anymore, I still found pleasure in eating the crust. I should know better by now not to eat illegal food.

Yesterday was a tough day. Joshua woke up in the middle of the night and then woke up earlier than normal. He was a whiny mess all day (except for when we were at the playground, lol). He also didn't take a very long nap. Shawn had trouble getting ready for school and when he came home, he had some attitude! It was tough dealing with them because I had a huge headache. There is no doubt in my mind that this was all caused by us eating pizza. I still have the headache this morning and some sinus congestion. I wish I would learn my lesson!!!

I made some bone broth the other day and last night I made vegetable beef soup out of it. I got some yogurt started. I made some banana bread and carrot bread. Today I have to mass produce some almond flour pancakes to last us through the week. I need to peel, cut, and cook some apples so I can make some applesauce. I need to make some ice cream and nut butter brownies for snacks. If I can get all that done today, I'll feel much better and a little more caught up. Well, off to do some cooking.

The BEFORE pictures

We still have to buy and add the netting that will go onto the supports for the tomatoes, green beans, and peppers.


There you have it...a nice, tiny veggie garden. I will post pictures from time to time to show the progress or lack of progress, lol.

Time for planting...

It's time to plant veggies if you have a garden in central Florida. This is the first year we've had a garden. Don installed our raised garden bed a few weeks ago and over the weekend we made our mix (compost, vermiculite, and peet moss). Now it's time to plant.

We are doing a square foot garden since our yard is so tiny. Right now, our plan is to have two tomato plants, two bean plants, four leaf lettuce, four Romain lettuce, 9 beet plants, 32 carrots, 32 onion/scallions, 2 broccoli , 1 green pepper, 1 red pepper, and that leaves us 2 square feet left. Our bed is 2 feet by 9 1/2 feet so we have approximately 19 square feet. The garden doesn't look that big. It's hard to imagine that many veggies are going to come from that tiny space. I'm so excited. Of course this year is a learning year so my expectations aren't that high, lol. I just joined an organic produce co-op though so what ever doesn't grow, I can always supplement with the co-op. I will post some before planting pictures in the morning.

Holy Moly! What did I give this child?

So Joshua and I go to Shawn's school to eat lunch with him. When he sees me, he runs over to give me a hug but he doesn't let go and I'm basically dragging him along while I tell him to stop and let go. That should have been my first clue. Then he proceeds in the cafeteria in a sort of walk/run/hopping like a mentally challenged person. He can not sit still at the table. He keeps making strange noises and faces. He's in total hyper mood and I haven't seen him like this in a long time. The last time had to do with dairy but since he's been taking the Betaine, he's been able to tolerate cheese. I'm thinking it must have been the yogurt he had last night. I experimented with this last batch to see if I could get it thicker and I did so I'm thinking maybe it was more potent, lol.

I'm really surprised that he still came home with a green dot in his agenda. Although, this afternoon he was like a different kid. He played nicely with Joshua and shared his toys. There was no whining or crying. Maybe he was able to expel all the extra energy at recess.

Are there any safe food containers and cookware???

This is something that has bothered me for a while since the whole report about BPA leaching from plastic containers including sippy cups. I bought a couple of Klean Kanteens for Shawn's lunch. Also bought some snack sacks to replace the ziplock baggies. We are still using our old cookware and I cringe every time I cook but we can't afford to replace them right now. I have an idea of what I want to replace my pans with but what about food containers??? I've seen glass containers but someone mentioned they could have lead in it. How do you know for sure if a glass container contains lead? Then I saw this article that talks about lead leaching from a ceramic crock pot. Ugh, I use my Crockpot almost daily! I want to start fermenting veggies and kombucha. What do I use? Glass, ceramic, stainless steel? I'm so confused and so angry that there are still products out there that have lead in them; especially the kind used for food!

I've got something bothering me. I'm hoping it's die-off. Lately Shawn has been doing a lot of spinning around. The average person may say that all kids do this but this is not Shawn. He didn't used to do this. Sure he would spin around sometimes when he was playing around with Joshua or his friends but he wouldn't do it constantly. It's bothering me because when I did so much reading on autism, spinning around was a red flag. It is a way to self stimulate. He's been really hyper lately also. I'm really hoping he's having a flare and it's just die-off. Maybe I should start giving him Epsom Salt baths again.

New Things...

This has been an interesting journey. Before starting GAPS, I would have never called myself a cook. In fact, I hated cooking! I can't really say that I love cooking now, but I can say that my interests have changed. I've learned so much since our diet change and thrive to learn more. Yesterday, I tasted my first Kombucha. Now, I want to make my own. I've been told it's best to use a ceramic crock but I can't be without my Crockpot for that long. So the next chance I get, I'm going to check out the local Goodwill store to see if they have any crocks. I could definitely use a couple of them since I want to try my hand at fermented veggies. I never in my widest dreams ever thought I would be at the point where I wanted to try fermented veggies, lol.

I've been making my own yogurt for a while now using goat milk from Publix. It's ultra pasteurized though. I wanted to try raw goats milk and finally found a local source for it. It is a little thicker than the ultra pasteurized but not as thick as cow milk yogurt. However, it tastes so much better!!! I can't believe the difference in taste! I'm sold. I'll be using the raw goats milk from now on. I had to use a lot of honey before to cut down on the tartness of it but I didn't use any honey in my fruit smoothie this morning and it tasted great! I need to get another batch going so I don't run out. I can see us eating a lot more of it now, lol.

One thing that is frustrating me though is our local library. Since I'm totally clueless to all these new and weird things, I want to learn more from reading books. Every time I check the library for a book, they never have it. I can't afford to buy the books so I'm frustrated. They did have Nourishing Traditions by Sally Fallon though. Now that I have that, I think I'm going to see if I can find a used version because I'm not sure I want to take it back to the library, lol. The book I really want is Wild Fermentation by Sandor Katz. I was so happy to see that the library had a copy and quickly placed a hold on it. After a week, I was wondering what was taking so long so I checked it out. It seems that the one copy that they had now says "trace" instead of "in transit". UGH!!!

Besides fermenting veggies and making Kombucha, my other new interest is in gardening. I really, really, really want to plant some veggies this fall. My problem? The daycare. Since my backyard is so small, I think it would be best to have a raised garden so I don't have kids running over my plants, lol. I'm sure they will still try to climb in but I can keep them from doing that (I think). My next problem is what to make the raised garden out of. I can't use pressure treated lumber of course because of the chemicals. All my other options are expensive. I'm trying to convince Don that the expense will work out in the long run. I'm running out of time though. I would love to have some veggies and herbs growing right in my yard.

Roasted Kale

I saw this on another blog and decided to try it. It was supposed to taste like a chip. Now in the picture on the other blog, her pieces were big. I couldn't find any kale except for the prewashed bagged kind so my pieces were quite small. Joshua seemed to really like it. He must have had at least ten pieces. Shawn seemed like he liked it also. He had about 4 pieces and then said he didn't like it, lol. I thought it was ok. I did taste a faint taste of kale but the crunchier the piece, the better. Ok, Don just came home from work and tasted it without even asking what it was! His thoughts - he said it was interesting, lol. Another great way to get a leafy green veggie in my kids!

Oh, one more thing I forgot to add - instead of olive oil, I used coconut oil. Most people don't realize this but you shouldn't use olive oil to cook with. It should be used cold like on salads. Heat will destroy a lot of nutrients and change unsaturated fatty acids into trans-fats. Coconut oil can be used at high temps.

Start over?

This diet is very confusing. After reading Gut and Psychology Syndrome by Dr. Natasha Campbell-McBride, I was even more confused on how to actually start the diet so I turned to PecanBread and used their "stages". I have since learned that there is a GAPS intro. I've been toying with the idea of going back and redoing the intro. What's stopping me? The kids! It's hard enough trying to come up with food that replaces what the typical American kid eats. If I redo the intro with them, there will be no more almond flour pancakes, no more brownies, no more cookies, no more uncured beef hot dogs (at least for a while). I'm just having a hard time thinking about taking it all a way.

I've come to the conclusion that I will redo the intro myself. I don't feel like I've progressed in the diet like I should. Sure, I know that I've detoxed some (black specks) but I've introduced foods to close together. Sometimes, I introduced more than one food at a time. I'm paying for it now. I have an unhappy tummy! I've been bloated with gas pains for the last few days and I'm not sure what is causing it. I have my suspicions but I can't really say for sure. When I stopped taking the EFA and CLO, I started to feel much better but it only lasted about a week. My suspicion is butter. I always had trouble with dairy before starting the diet so it would seem likely that's the culprit. Butter is supposed to be one of the firsts things to reintroduce too. I guess that means I need more healing so I'm definitely going to do the intro. I'll need a week or so to get prepared. Wish me luck!

Spaghetti

Ok, I'm over my anger. I just vented to Don. No, I didn't yell at him. I just told him what happened and he was very supportive. He even said he thinks my mom owes me an apology.

I wanted to blog about something else tonight but I got sidetracked. Tonight I made spaghetti using a spaghetti squash and homemade spaghetti sauce. I told Shawn it was a magic vegetable that made spaghetti noodles when you cooked it. I've been wanting to try this for a very long time. I saw it in one of my SCD cookbooks and then a few weeks later, my friend Andrea blogged about making spaghetti with a spaghetti squash and how much her children liked it. Every time I went to Publix, I looked for a spaghetti squash but none was to be found....until today. Results - at first, Shawn said he liked it but then he changed his mind and didn't want to eat it. I asked him what was wrong with it and he told me he didn't like how the noodles tasted. Since I hadn't tasted yet, I took a bite and I must say that it was very good! The only difference was the texture of the noodles not the taste. Shawn does have texture issues but I don't think he knows how to express it and just says he doesn't like the taste. I remembered I had a block of Parmesan cheese in its own grater so I asked Shawn if he would eat it if it had cheese on it. Of course he said yes (he loves cheese). He thought that the cheese grater was the coolest thing ever. He did eat the spaghetti and he didn't gag or throw up. I think it was only a texture problem for him and hopefully, he got over it. I definitely want to make this again. Joshua loved it! So all in all, I think we had another winner here.

Angry right now!

I'm so angry with my mother right now. I'm hoping by blogging about it, I will calm down. I love my mother and we get along great, however, I don't feel like she supports this diet change at all.

Here's my analogy: a drug addict decides to get sober. He's having a particular bad day so he calls his sponsor. He's telling his sponsor he doesn't feel good and his sponsor tells him to smoke a joint; it will make him feel better. That's how I feel like when I'm talking to my mom.

It usually doesn't have anything to do with me telling her I'm not feeling well. In fact, I usually try to avoid the subject of the diet. She's usually the one that brings it up and she usually does it by asking a question. The question usually has something to do with when will we be done with the diet, or when can Shawn eat _(insert junk food here)___ again, do I think it's helping Shawn, etc.

Once, I did tell her I wasn't feeling well. I was in a funk. I still don't think I'm out of the funk yet but I'm definitely over the hill on the down slide to back to normal. Her suggestion was to eat some comfort food because it will make me feel better. I didn't say anything then. I just kept quiet. Every time we talk she slips in a comment that makes me feel I have to defend my reasons for being on the diet. Tonight, I just exploded and told her how I felt. She asked if after a year if Shawn would be healed. This may sound like a reasonable question but this isn't the first time she's asked it.

I told her everyone is different and I don't know when Shawn will be healed and she shouldn't need to worry about that. Quit asking me!!! I told her I didn't feel like she supports me with the diet (which she doesn't) but she got her feelings hurt and took it as I said she doesn't support me. She tried to turn it back around and told me she did support me but she was just being honest. She doesn't agree with me about this diet, blah, blah, blah. Duh, I know you don't agree with me. You make it known every time we talk about the diet. Hence the reason I said you don't support me with the diet.

I guess now I'm supposed to feel guilty because I upset her but I don't. I'm angry! I know she loves me but I still don't see why she's so concerned with the way we are eating. It's way more healthy then the Standard American Diet. It's only difficult because we are addicted to the bad food we've grown up with. Not all countries eat the way Americans do. Since I've started this diet I've become enlightened about our food system. It's scary stuff and I'm so glad I'm not feeding my kids that stuff anymore. She told me tonight the reason she wants us to quit the diet is because it's an inconvenience to her. What???? I'm the one doing all the cooking and researching. We're the ones spending all kinds of money on food because we can't buy the cheap processed foods anymore. I think that's what I'm so angry about is that she thinks it's an inconvenience to her. She complained that she couldn't have us over for dinner anymore or take her grandson out for pizza. First off, she could have us over for dinner. She just doesn't want to fool with cooking legal foods for us. It's not that difficult. We eat regular meat and veggies (just not out of cans or boxes). We just have to be careful of how it's cooked and what seasonings are used. I guess that's too much of an inconvenience for her. We've had them over for dinner quite a bit so it's not like we never eat dinner with each other and when ever they keep Shawn for the weekend (which has only been once since we've been on the diet) we send all his food with him. It's not like she has to be so inconvenienced to cook him "special" food. The only real inconvenience is that it forces them (when they are keeping him) to make him eat the food we send. They can't let him eat powdered doughnuts all day like they used to. Shawn doesn't usually eat willingly but he's gotten a lot better than in the beginning.

The lack of support makes me want to be a hermit. It's just easier than having to deal with other people thinking I'm a horrible parent because I'm making them eat healthy!

Regression!!!

I'm not sure what happened but yesterday afternoon Shawn's behavior took a turn for the worse. He was in serious hyper mode along with being very disobedient and a little whiny. I stuck him in a bath with Epsom Salt around 4:45pm but it didn't really seem to help any. I'm hoping he was having some die-off!

I can't think of anything that he ate that would have caused it but I'm backing off on the cheese for a while at least until his behavior seems to have settled. I did notice that he pooped right after lunch and that's when his behavior starting getting worse. Maybe a connection? Who knows!

Yummy!!!

The other day I had a bad craving for a Philly cheese steak sub. Don stopped at Publix and asked the butcher what kind of steak do they use for cheese steak subs. There were 3 types and I don't remember what the other two were but I do remember London Broil. So the next day I went to Publix and asked the butcher to slice up some London Broil for me. I don't know why I didn't think of this before! I put a few slices of London Broil in the food processor to chopped it up and then cooked it with green peppers, onion, garlic, salt, and pepper and topped it off with some cheddar cheese. I didn't have the roll but it was still so yummy. It was definitely comfort food and I'll definitely be making this again!

Changing the subject, my parents came over on Saturday and we cooked out on the grill. I made Shawn eat the fish and chicken and although he thought it was "yucky", he still ate it without gagging or taking an hour to eat it.

more improvements

We're still seeing a slow but steady progress in Shawn's eating habits. Last night I made some steak (the kind used for stir fry) only I don't have a wok so it was cooked in a pan. Don made him take a bite of it and he didn't gag or throw up. Victory!!! He said he didn't like it but he was able to eat it without chewing for 20 minutes on 1 bite. In light of this new discovery, I made him eat a little steak for dinner (along with other food that he likes). He was not happy about it but he ate it.

Tonight, I made Shawn eat some broccoli. Again, no gagging! He said he didn't like this either but I was able to get him to eat it. I'm starting to see a trend here. I feel as long as he's not gagging on the food or taking a really long time to chew something, he should be able to eat it. I'm going to start making him eat more "normal" food.

My bloating update...I think it was either the EFA or the Cod Liver Oil because I didn't take either of those last night and today I feel better. I'm still a little bloated but I'm not in so much pain as I was. I'm going to wait a few days to make sure and if everything is still good, I will take the EFA only to see if I have some sort of reaction. If I don't react to the EFA, then I'll reintroduce the Fermented CLO. I'm concerned about the EFA because the information on the website says that it may contain traces of soy or derivatives. Soy is not legal on this diet. I'm not sure why they are selling this product on the gapsdiet.com website. I would think this would be an illegal supplement. I've been giving it to Shawn and he hasn't been complaining about not feeling well. Well, we'll see.

I wanna pop!

I've been miserable for the last two weeks. I hope it ends soon! I've been having some terrible bloating and gas pains since Friday. I'm not sure if it was something I ate or if it is the EFA or Fermented Cod Liver oil I started taking. I'm not sure if they can cause more die off or not but I had a lot of bloating in the beginning of the diet so I'm just going to press on and see if it gets better soon. I've also been trying to drink lots of water. I should probably take an Epsom Salt bath to see if that helps but I just don't have the time. I had a really good bowel movement yesterday and this morning so at least I'm not constipated along with the bloating and gas.

Ugh, the 3 month flare!

I'm pretty sure I've hit the three month flare. Actually didn't realize it until I read a post from someone else that described how I'm feeling and then it was like a light bulb going on in my head.

What is the 3 month flare you ask? Well, a majority of people that are doing SCD complain about reoccurring symptoms around 3 months. Now these symptoms can range to all sorts of things but in my case, the most prevalent one is probably depression. I've just got the I don't feel like doing anything blues, lol. It's pretty bad right now. So bad in fact that I know I'm not eating right. I just don't feel like making anything, thinking about making anything, buying ingredients to make something, etc. I've seriously thought about quitting this week. Mostly because I haven't seen the changes I wanted to from Shawn but in all honesty, he has improved.

We did cheat one night this week. I ordered pizza. It was right after I found out that Shawn did ok with the cheese at lunch time. I got to the point where I didn't have anything ready to feed them at dinner. Plus, I was really craving carbs which by the way is another symptom of the 3 month flare. Supposedly, because of the food we are eating, the bad bacteria doesn't have food to survive so it starts to die off. When it dies off, you get all kinds of reactions. When some of the bad bugs die, some of the stronger bad bugs take their place. At some other point in time, they will start to die off also and it usually takes place at regular intervals the first one being the 3 month flare. Now that I recognize it, I'm trying really hard to not let ourselves cheat again (that just feeds the bad bugs). I probably need to take an Epsom Salt bath to see if that helps. I just don't think about myself; I'm usually worrying about the kids and their reactions.

Miracle?

Shawn was fine yesterday after eating the cheese. I even gave him more at dinner (along with another digestive enzyme) and he did fine. I think this may be a small miracle, lol. I'm not going to give him cheese on a regular basis though because without the enzyme, he has a reaction. I'm assuming that his gut doesn't have enough healing to digest it on it's own so I'll only let him have it occasionally. Still, this is huge for him.

It must have been the cookies or was it?

Shawn didn't eat any cookies on Sunday because we were out. He didn't even have a bowel movement yesterday. So I'm thinking it must have been the cookies but he now has a snotty nose so maybe it wasn't the cookies. It's so difficult trying to pinpoint these things. I'm going to make the cookies again in the next few days so we'll be able to tell if it's the cookies. He will have a limit on how many per day he can have though.

So call me crazy but I'm testing cheese again. This time I had Shawn take a digestive enzyme before eating. He only got half a slice of cheddar cheese. I also made sure he knew that we were testing it out again and it doesn't mean he'll be able to eat cheese; it all depends on his behavior. So far, so good. It's been about 2 hrs. since he ate. He's watching a movie right now (because Joshua is napping) so we'll see how he behaves once Joshua is awake. Keeping my fingers crossed because I really do want him to be able to eat cheese every once in a while as long as it's not preventing his gut from healing.

I still don't know if it was die-off or a head cold.

Shawn got congested the day after my last post. He didn't have any sneezing though and he didn't complain of a sore throat. Even if he did have a sore throat, he probably wouldn't tell me. He just doesn't complain about being sick unless it's his stomach.

My congestion lasted almost all week. I did start sneezing and had a runny nose but it was clear. Later in the week I had a cough which I think has to do with the post nasal drip. I never really felt like it was a head cold even though I felt horrible. It was just different somehow so I don't know if it's my imagination or not. Two days ago, Shawn woke up with some cramping and had to use the bathroom. He had several bowel movements within an hour and the last one was borderline diarrhea. Today was the same thing - cramping, several bowel movements, diarrhea. I'm thinking that has to be from the bio-kult but Don thinks he was eating too many cookies that I just made. We are out of cookies so we'll see how he does tomorrow.

I'm still congested but not in the I can't breathe kind of congested. This is what I've been dealing with for the past 2 years. We just increased our Bio-Kult dose yesterday so we'll see what happens.

One thing I have noticed with Shawn is his lack of attention. Remember my post about positive changes? Well, you can just throw that out the window, lol. I read about how the diet and starting probiotics will make things worse before they get better. I hope that's all it is because I didn't realize how much Shawn has improved until these last few days. His attention is where it was before we started maybe even worse so I hope it's just the probiotic doing it's job!

Die off or sick?

I've been having problems with my sinuses for about 2 yrs now. When we started this diet, I read that an overgrowth of yeast can cause sinus congestion. I automatically thought that that was my problem since no doctor could find a cause or make it better. I've been on antibiotics in case it was bacterial but it didn't help at all. So I thought this diet might help my sinuses also. So far it hasn't really done anything. We started taking BioKult last Saturday. Today I woke up with a little irritation in my throat and was really congested. We increased our Biokult dose today and through the course of the day my congestion has gotten worse. I'm wondering if the congestion is getting worse because of die-off or is it just that I'm getting a head cold? I don't really have that feeling that I have to sneeze; I just can't breathe out of my nose and my throat is a little sore that I contribute to post nasal drip.

More positive changes...

I'm in a bad place right now with this diet. I knew Shawn wouldn't change overnight but I expected to see more changes by now. On some of the SCD lists that I belong to, I see people post about how they have a completely different child just after being on the diet for a few days. Of course their kids were worse off then Shawn but I still wanted faster results. So far, he's more willing to try new things (but usually still doesn't like it), he is eating a few more things than he was before we started the diet, he is not constipated anymore, we found out that milk makes him hyper and that cheese makes him whiny and argumentative, we found out he was allergic to peanuts and he hasn't had allergy problems since then. I have thought about cheating on this diet several times this week. I'm craving pizza right now. I haven't had a ton of cravings since starting the diet except bbq sauce. However, I found a sauce that I can use as a substitute. There is a pizza recipe but I can't eat pizza in front of Shawn; that's just too mean. Anyway, I digress. The things that bother me the most about Shawn and was hoping the diet would fix is his eating problems (sensitivities in the mouth), his language (I say language instead of speech because he still mixes up words, leaves words out, says things out of order, etc.), and the whole attention thing. If you've read my previous posts, Shawn focuses on what ever he's doing and is not aware of the things going on around him. If I tried to talk to him while he was playing with his cars or watching t.v., he wouldn't hear me unless I walked right in front of him or tapped him on the shoulder. Well today, Shawn was playing on his computer in his room while I was getting breakfast ready. I yelled his name and said that breakfast was ready. The shocker is that he actually responded "ok" and then he came out and said he paused his game. Now that may not sound like much to some people but he has never responded on the first call, lol. Don was there when it happened and we both looked at each other in disbelief. So I guess the diet is working but it's taking soooooo long and I'm an impatient person!

My experiments...

I decided to give Shawn a little bit of cheddar cheese two days ago to see if I still saw a behavior reaction. Don thinks I'm imagining it so I told Shawn that it was a test. If he wanted to continue to be able to eat cheese, he had to be on his best behavior or else I will think it is the cheese making him act that way and he won't be able to have cheese anymore. He only got half a slice. He did pretty good at first although he did seem to get a little more hyper but not enough for me to think he was having a reaction. However, about 2 hrs after eating the cheese, he got really whiny and argumentative. It's the same reaction I've seen before when he eats cheese so I'm not imagining it! I even tried to remind him several times to watch how he was acting because he won't be able to eat cheese anymore but he just couldn't control himself so for now he won't be eating cheese :(

Today was another experiment. I decided to give the homemade goat yogurt another try. This time I was going to start out with a very small amount. I gave him 1/8 teaspoon. I did see a reaction but it wasn't too bad so I may try him again at 1/8 teaspoon tomorrow and see how he does. His reaction to the yogurt today only lasted about 2 hrs and then he was back to normal. I just don't know if he's reacting to the goat milk casein or if it's the probiotics in the yogurt. I'm going to try and drip some tonight and give him 1/8 tsp. of the dripped yogurt tomorrow and see how he reacts. After that, I'll try to freeze some and give him some of that. Freezing kills most of the probiotic so if he still reacts, I'll know its the goat milk. If he doesn't react to the frozen yogurt, I'll know it's the probiotics he's reacting to.

Shawn ate an apple!!!

Prior to this diet, Shawn has asked to try eating an apple and would make some bite marks or sometimes even bite a piece off but that was enough for him. He would never eat the apple. Today he asked if he could have an apple when we were over my aunt's house. She said it was ok if he wasted it so I told him yes. My mouth dropped open as I watched him eat the apple skin and all. He didn't eat the whole thing but he definitely ate at least 1/4 of it. Anything more than 2 bites to me is amazing. So now that is 4 new things he has asked for and eaten since starting the diet - apple cider, orange juice, eggs, and apple.

Dr. Appts.

I already posted this on my other blog, but since it has to do with the diet I thought I would re-post here.

Shawn and Joshua had their annual check ups on May 29th. I had lots to discuss with Dr. Tappan. We talked about Shawn's appointment with the neurologist and Dr. Tappan wants us to see someone else. However, the doctor he recommended is not in our insurance network so I'm going to have to call him and ask if there is someone else he can recommend. We discussed multi vitamins (not all vitamins are SCD legal) and he recommended the vitamins that we already have, yea! I will have to crush them up to give to the kids because they are big horse pills. I'm currently taking 3 a day. Shawn will be taking one a day and Joshua will be taking 1/2 a day.

When I told Dr. Tappan that we started SCD, I was happy to find out that he was familiar with the diet and had no problems with the kids being on it. I can't tell you how much grief I've heard from some of my family members (Don included) about how they don't think the kids are getting all the nutrition they need when they aren't drinking milk or eating bread. So no problems with the diet!

Joshua weighs 23 lbs now and Shawn is 44 lbs. I can't remember their height and I didn't write it down. I was more concerned with their weight.

We checked on Friday to see if the neuro psychologist that Dr. Tappan recommended was in our network and of course she is not. We called her to find out if she accepts United Health Care and she said that she is not in any insurance networks but most of the time the insurance company will reimburse you. So we called our insurance company and after a $300 deductible, they will pay 60%. So needless to say, we are on hold with this for the time being. I called Dr. Tappan Friday afternoon to see if there was someone else that he could recommend but he already left for the day. I will call on Monday to see what he recommends. Don wants to just pay out of pocket but even though I really would like to get Shawn a proper diagnosis, I'm not willing to pay that much money when we don't have it to spend. I do think it's important to get him diagnosed though especially since Charlie Crist signed a bill that would force insurance companies to cover therapies for children with Autism. Even though it won't go into effect for another 2 years, it would be nice to have the diagnosis for when it does go into effect.

Frustrated

I'm so frustrated right now. Yesterday, Shawn had his end of the year award ceremony for class. When he came over to me and said hi, he told me he ate some ice. I told him that's ok, ice is just frozen water. Then he told me it was colored ice. I'm assuming it was some sort of snow cone/snow ball (if your from MD) or popsicle or something similar. When I started questioning him, he said he was just kidding. I don't know if he was lying (he's been lying a lot this past year) or if he really did have some colored ice but his behavior was off last night. I tried to ignore it thinking I was imagining it because I suspected he had an infraction but this morning he was very argumentative and trying very hard to get yelled at. I did not write a note to his teacher because today is the last day of school. I'm so happy I don't have to worry about packing his lunch for a while. I wonder how much improvement we'll see now that I'll have complete control over what he is eating. I'm thinking about starting the intro with Shawn again and progressing through the stages with him. I'm not seeing the kind of results I would have liked to see by now but I'm thinking that I didn't allow enough time for his gut to heal. We'll see though because I don't really want to take away the almond flour. I'm going to start experimenting with Stage 1 recipes to see if I can find enough variety that Shawn will eat.

Saliva Test

Before starting this diet, I took the Candida saliva test. Immediately after spitting in the glass, I had strings coming down from my saliva. Just out of curiosity, I decided to retest myself the other day. This time my saliva floated for about a minute and then one side started sinking but not in strings; just kind of cloudy looking like it was dissolving or something. So I still have Candida problem but it's getting better so I'm happy I'm seeing some sort of results.

Not liking the applesauce

Every since Shawn discovered that he liked the apple cider, he's been asking for applesauce. So last night I finally got off my butt and made some. I put in too much cinnamon but not enough that it was inedible but this morning when I asked Shawn to taste it, he almost gagged. So he's not ready for applesauce yet. I really don't understand what made him gag. It tastes almost like the apple cider. Maybe in a few more weeks we'll try it again and see if his tastes have changed.

Apple Cider

Shawn now likes Apple Cider! You would have thought we were making him drink poison when we started this diet but now he likes it. He asked me last night what Joshua was drinking and when I told him apple cider he asked if he could have some. So now that makes three things he's asked for that he previously didn't like - scrambled eggs, orange juice, and apple cider. We're getting there, slowly but surely!

Wow, that's all I have to say...

Ok, so I did not give Shawn any peanut butter today and guess what??? Not one cough! It's weird to think that peanut butter could have caused that kind of reaction. To think of the past two years when we thought he had seasonal allergies and it was probably the peanut butter all along. I'm still in amazement. Just one more thing to tell his pediatrician at his appointment on Thursday.

Another set back

So Shawn didn't bring home his agenda on Wednesday and Thursday but he said he had to move his stick to yellow. Wednesday he said that he forgot his agenda and Thursday he said he couldn't find his agenda. His behavior was a little off at home but not too bad. He was a little emotional, had really bad attention, but he wasn't too hyper. This morning a wrote a note to his teacher about his agenda and asked her how he's been doing the last couple of days. Today, he brought home his agenda and he had yellow for Wednesday, Thursday, and today. The note his teacher wrote to me was that he was having trouble at the end of the day. Well, I racked my brain trying to figure out if it was more die-off or if it was the tiny sip of smoothie with SCD Yogurt in it I gave him or the bite of herb bread that had Cheddar cheese in it. None of it made sense and then I re-read her note and the part about him having trouble at the end of the day was like a light bulb going off in my head. I recently made homemade strawberry jam and bought some natural peanut butter (just peanuts and salt). I've been sending in a peanut butter and jam sandwich made between two almond flour pancakes in with him for snack. I talked his teacher into letting him eat a snack at the end of the day because they eat lunch at 10:15 and his bus doesn't drop him off until 3:45pm. It has to be the peanut butter! I can't believe I didn't think about that before. Technically, peanuts are an advanced food and we shouldn't be eating it right now, but we aren't doing the stages and I really didn't think they would have any effect on us. I guess I was wrong. It's kind of ironic because Shawn practically lived on peanut butter before we started this diet. He's also developed a cough since yesterday and I think some congestion (maybe post nasal drip?). I wonder if Shawn has a peanut allergy that we never knew about. He hasn't had any sinus problems or coughing since we started the diet but he still has the dark circles under his eyes. It makes me wonder. Of course now I have to pull the peanut butter and Shawn is not going to be happy about that. We have some homemade almond butter but it doesn't have much flavor. I'm going to try and mix some sea salt and honey into the almond butter and see if I can get it to taste decent enough to use on a sandwich. I think I should see an improvement in the next few days if I pull the peanut butter. If not, I guess it's back to the drawing board. This diet can be very confusing sometimes!

Still here...

Yes, I know it's been a while since my last post. We're still hanging in there. We did try a few new recipes. The first one was a recipe for Cinnamon Cookies and they were a huge hit! Don also tried a recipe for some herb bread and it was really good. Don didn't like it but me and the kids ate it up! I also tried another bread recipe that was just eggs and pureed carrot. It wasn't horrible but I thought it tasted really dry and resembled Styrofoam, lol. However, the kids really liked it. Since the kids liked the bread and it did resemble the same thickness as bread and wasn't cake like, I decided to make some strawberry jam and give them peanut butter (natural, only peanuts and salt for ingredients) and jam sandwiches. The kids ate them up. Then I decided to try the peanut butter and jam in between some almond flour pancakes and the kids still liked them so I think we'll just stick with the pancakes for right now.

RECIPES:

Cinnamon Cookies
4 tablespoons butter, melted
1/3 cup honey
1 teaspoon cinnamon
1/8 teaspoon salt
1/4 teaspoon baking soda
2 cups blanched almond flour

Place butter in a mixing bowl. Add all other ingredients, stirring the flour in last. Form dough into 1-inch diameter balls and place on cookie sheet lined with parchment paper. Bake at 275 degrees for 10-15 minutes, or until done.

Nut free/dairy free bread
4 egg whites
2 egg yolks
1/4 cup pureed veggies (I used carrots)
pinch of salt

Beat egg whites with salt until firm. Beat yolks with veggies. Fold yolks into whites and spread on parchment paper lined cookie sheet with edges. Bake at 300 degrees for 30 minutes then flip the bread over and bake for another 10 minutes. I flipped the bread but I don't think it was really necessary.

Tasty Herb Bread
2 1/2 cups almond flour
1/4 cup fresh chopped parsley
1 tsp. basil
1 tsp. oregano
1/2 tsp. baking soda
1/2 tsp. salt
1 cup natural cheddar cheese-freshly grated
2 eggs 1/4 cup water
3 T. safflower oil
1/4 tsp. garlic - minced

In a large mixing bowl, combine almond flour, parsley, basil, oregano, baking soda, salt, garlic and cheddar cheese. In a separate small bowl, melt butter. Add eggs and water and beat together well. Mix the wet and dry ingredients together until smooth. Line bottom of loaf pan with parchment paper and lightly grease sides. Spoon dough into it. Bake at 325 degrees for 45 to 60 minutes or until a knife inserted in the center comes out clean. This bread is best kept refrigerated.

He ate it!

Shawn ate the "fish pancakes"! They didn't quite turn out the way they were supposed to. I read the directions wrong and they were a little on the runny side. I had a hard time thickening it up but decided to fry them as pancakes instead of rolling them into a ball. They were falling apart while I was trying to flip them but I managed to make a few intact. Don gave Shawn a bite and wouldn't tell him what it was. Shawn asked if it was a chicken pancake and when I said no, he wanted to know what it was. I asked him if he liked it and he said yes. I told him he couldn't change his mind once he found out what they were and when I told him they were fish pancakes, he got a huge smile on his face and said he wanted more. Joshua ate them too. So another huge victory today!

It's weird to me for Shawn to actually request certain foods now. He's been asking for scrambled eggs lately and he never ate eggs before starting this diet. I'm finally starting to see some progress made with him. As much as I worried about Joshua's weight when we started this diet, I don't think I have to worry anymore. He's been eating like crazy and he felt like he was getting heavier. I put him on the scale tonight and he weighed about 23.5 lbs. He was just under 20 lbs at his 18 month check up 6 months ago. So he's gaining weight and this is without drinking whole milk!

I was going to wait until their doctor's appointment (5-29) before starting them on any supplements but I went ahead and ordered a multi vitamin/mineral powder called GI ProChild. I'm going to go ahead and give it to Shawn as soon as we receive it but I think I'll wait until I talk to Dr. Tappan before starting Joshua on it. I just hope Dr. Tappan is open to the diet and doesn't give me any grief about it. I have yet to buy a probiotic. They are so expensive. I'm just going to keep using the yogurt until we don't see any more continued results and then think about buying some BioKult.

A Small Victory!

Ok, this may not sound like much to most people but...Shawn now likes orange juice. This is huge for two reasons. First off, he actually asked to taste it (he never asks to taste anything!) and second, he likes it. He's tasted orange juice in the past and even about a week into the diet and never liked it and now he does! I'm so excited! I just hope this is the beginning of new tastes for him. I'm going to make Salmon Latkes tonight for dinner and hope I can get Shawn to eat them. It's basically 2 cans of salmon, 1 carrot, 1 sm. zucchini, 1 onion, 4 cloves of garlic, 3 eggs, 2 T. almond flour. Shred the veggies in the food processor then add the egg and salmon, add salt and pepper to taste, and then add the almond flour to thicken. Form balls and fry. I'll let you all know how they turned out.

When we started the diet, I had read some things about die-off and one of them was little black specks in your BM's. Well, after 3 1/2 weeks (it's only been that long???), I finally saw some black specs in Shawn's poop this morning. It looked like black sand. Joshua also had some today which is a little weird they both had some on the same day. Both kids are now regular without the use of mineral oil so that in itself is a victory.

Another day of hyper activity

Shawn was pretty hyper today. Not as bad as yesterday but still got easily frustrated, etc. I thought about giving him another Epsom Salt bath but decided to put up with his behavior. So no more yogurt or cream cheese today. I hope his behavior is better tomorrow. We have church and I can not put up with him if he's acting like this. I might give him an Epsom Salt bath in the morning just to be on the safe side.

Extreme die-off!!!

After 2 days of SCD Yogurt and 1 day of SCD cheesecake, Shawn is going through some serious die-off. Wednesday and Thursday he came home from school with yellow in his agenda. Wednesday for not paying attention and getting his work done and Thursday for jumping on another student at pack up time. Today when he got off the bus, I noticed he was wearing different clothes than he had on this morning. When I asked him why, he told me that him and one of the other boys in his class got wet in the sprinkler on the way to speech. He told me he got on red but when I checked his agenda, it was green. Usually, if he gets yellow or red his teacher will put an X through the green dot and then give a yellow or red with a small explanation. I'm not sure if she forgot to mark his agenda or Shawn was mistaken but I think she probably forgot. His behavior was awful this afternoon. My voice was getting hoarse from yelling so much. He was very defiant, very whiny, argumentative, easily frustrated, and just plain mean. I had Don put him in the bath with some Epsom Salt and I made him soak for about 30 minutes. He was much better after the bath. I didn't give him anymore yogurt or cheesecake today. I'll see how his behavior is tomorrow and decide whether or not I want to give him any. If I do, I'll only give him a very small amount.

So it's been a few days since I posted so I wanted to update. We tossed the first batch of yogurt and started over. This time it turned out perfect. It is verrrry tart! It is definitely something you use in recipes instead of eating alone. I made a smoothie using strawberries, orange juice, some yogurt, honey, and some ice and it was pretty tasty. I added a banana the second time and it was even better. I talked Shawn into drinking some (about 2 oz). I told him he could either drink the smoothie or eat the rest of his meat and he chose the smoothie. Yesterday morning as he was eating breakfast, he complained that his stomach hurt and then said he needed to poop. He did not have diarrhea but wow, the amount of poop that came out of him was impressive. But then he had to poop again about 15 minutes later and had pretty much the same amount! I guess it was the probiotics at work. Yesterday he came home with yellow and a note from his teacher saying that he had difficulty paying attention and getting his work done. Hmmm, I'm not sure what he reacted to. It could be the probiotics in the yogurt causing die-off or it could be the goat milk. Goat milk is supposed to be more tolerable than cow's milk but it still contains casein. So I decided to use a trick suggested by someone on one of the boards I've been reading. I dripped the homemade yogurt which is supposed to get rid of the whey (which contains the casein). You end up with a cream cheese sort of mixture. I folded some honey into it and it doesn't taste bad but I didn't drip that much because I wasn't sure how it was going to turn out. I'm dripping more as I'm typing this. I think it would be easier to get Shawn to take a teaspoon full than drinking a smoothie.

So much for stages...

Don and I talked and decided to give up on the stages. We are just going to eat off the legal list and not worry about whether it is an advanced food or not. We are all just sick of the same foods and I can't keep up with all the cooking not to mention the cost of meat, produce, coconut oil, almonds (for almond flour and almond butter), and eggs. Everyone is a bottomless pit right now. I think because the food we were eating is supposed to be easy to digest so an hour later we were getting hungry again. I suppose after being on the diet for a while and getting used to the cooking and the food we're eating, we may try the stages again but we'll move a little more quickly through them next time.

This morning I made pancakes out of nut flour and they were really good! Much better than the almond flour pancakes I made before we started the diet. We also made some nut butter brownies that turned out really good. It was nice to be able to give the kids a treat. I'm going to make a huge batch of the almond flour pancakes tomorrow so I can freeze some. I just checked my yogurt and found that the inside lid popped off and the yogurt looked too runny. I'm going to let it ferment a bit longer and see if it thickens up. I can't wait to taste it, it kind of smelled like cream cheese but I doubt it will taste like cream cheese, lol.

The two recipes that got 2 thumbs up:
Nut Butter Brownies:

1 cup nut butter (we used almond butter)
1/2 cup honey
1/2 teaspoon baking soda
1 egg

Bake at 350 degrees for 25-30 minutes. It doesn't look like much when you spread it in a pan but it rises so no worries. We used an 11 X 7 " pan.

Almond flour pancakes:

1 1/4 cups of almond flour
4 medium eggs
4 tablespoons of honey
2 tablespoons of vanilla
1/4 teaspoon salt
1/4 teaspoon baking soda
1 tablespoon butter

Mix all ingredients together in a blender for a light, fluffy texture. Pour onto a buttered electric griddle (preferable) at 275 degrees or a buttered pan. Cook slowly until golden brown; a bit longer than for regular flour pancakes.

Don cheated!

I can't really blame him. I suck at providing food, lol. I try to have plenty of food every day but sometimes, I run out. Take last night for example...I came home from a relaxing night at a friends house. My plan was to put the roast and carrots in the Crockpot so it would be done in the morning and Don could take it to lunch and then in the morning, throw in some chicken so I could make more chicken pancakes. When I got home, I immediately got the roast in the Crockpot and turned it to low and then cleaned up the kitchen. This morning, I looked in the Crockpot and the meat still looked raw. I looked to make sure I remembered to turn it on and it was set to low and then I realized that it wasn't plugged in, duh! So that ruined my plans and I had nothing for Don to take to lunch. At least he only had a salad, even though he probably had dressing that was illegal. Oh well, it's more for Shawn than the rest of us anyway.

I'm not so sure that the green beans were giving me the gas. It seemed like no matter what I ate, I would get gas immediately after eating. It's getting better now and I've been eating green beans. Maybe it was die-off? I don't know but I'm just going to keep adding new foods and see how we do. After being on the diet for a while, we can always go back to the intro and start over if we are worried about a particular food.

I got my yogurt maker today. Don is going to stop at Super Target after he gets off from work at Lowe's. I'm going to have him look to see if they have goat milk and if they do, I'll have him get some so we can make some SCD yogurt. There's a whole lot more recipes that have SCD yogurt in it so I'm anxious to make my first batch. Plus, I want to add more calories to Joshua's diet. Don gets paid next Friday and will have 3 weeks worth of pay from Lowe's. I'm going to finally buy a probiotic for us to take and a multi-vitamin for the kids.

Shawn wet his bed again last night which was really strange because he woke up at 11pm to pee. I can only assume it's more die-off because when he came home from school today, he was a little hyper and very emotional. He got very upset at dinner when his meat loaf fell apart when he went to dip it in his ketchup. Don gave him an Epsom salt bath but it didn't seem like it helped much this time.

I'm sad to say that I think I may have had a reaction to the green beans :( That sucks because they are one of my favorite veggies. I'm hoping that I can reintroduce them in a month or so. I'm going to introduce either spinach or zucchini tomorrow. I found a few more stage 1 recipes I'm going to try to make while I wait for my SCD cookbooks. I know we should be moving on to new foods but since I had a reaction to the green beans, I didn't want to introduce a new food while I still had pains. I'm not sure if I'm doing it right or not. I guess I'll find out because I finally broke down and bought Breaking The Vicious Cycle. It's late so that's all for tonight.

It's been a week already???

Sometimes I can't believe it's been a week already but then sometimes I think - it's only been a week??? Don and I are both tired of eating the same food every single day. I'm going to introduce Spinach in the next day or two and it will be a challenge because no one in our family is a spinach fan. I have to see if I can find a recipe that disguises the taste with some thing else that we are already allowed to have on our diet like eggs.

Don is having a tough time right now. He wants to give up but I won't let him. He's tired of the food, of always feeling hungry, etc. I know that some of this is true and some of this is from die off. He wants bread and corn. He's craving that because that is what the bad bacteria likes to feed off of.

I'm getting a little more efficient in the kitchen but it's still very time consuming. I just ordered a few SCD cookbooks so hopefully, I can change things up a little with the food and keep Don happy. I was finally able to get Shawn to eat pureed ground beef, egg, and carrot and cooked like a meatloaf. I just topped it with some homemade ketchup and he was happy. I even got him to eat the green beans without having to puree them. Now if I could just come up with a fish pureed dish for him we would be set, lol. I'm still a little worried about Joshua not eating enough calories. He's been eating the food we give him sometimes with bribery but he's still eating it but he's not drinking his 500 calorie power milk drink 2 times a day anymore and thats a lot of calories to make up for. We should be getting our yogurt maker on Wednesday so I'll be experimenting with homemade goat yogurt next week. That should help with some calories. Between the yogurt maker and the juicer, we should be able to make some smoothies that he might drink and help fatten him up. I'm sure after we start the yogurt I'll be a little stressed. Yogurt is a probiotic and will increase the amount of die off you experience so we should have some fun times ahead of us.

Day 6

I felt like such a bad mommy today. As always, I was rushing around to get some cooking done this morning before taking Shawn his lunch. I pureed more chicken with some carrots and an egg and fried the "pancakes" in some coconut oil. I put 3 pancakes in a container for Shawn and cut them into pieces. I watered down some honey and put it aside. I got together some food for Joshua to take with us so he could eat his lunch with Shawn. Then I changed Joshua's diaper, put Shawn and Joshua's lunch in the microwave to heat up, put everything in the bag and left to take Shawn his lunch. We actually made it on time today and was even a little bit early. We passed Shawn outside as he was planting a plant or something. We said hi and then I went to the office to check in. When I walked into the building where Shawn's class is, I see him and two other kids getting ready to frost and decorate sugar cookies. When I told Shawn he couldn't eat that cookie, the teacher's aid said she forgot. Good thing I just happened to show up! It was her last day so they had a little party and everyone got to eat the cookie they decorated at lunch except for Shawn. I felt really bad for him but that wasn't the worst of it. The worst part was that I forgot to pack the honey. Shawn was a little upset but he still ate some of the chicken pancake but not as much as usual. I did bring a banana with me and he ate the whole banana plus about 2 bites of Joshua's banana. He looked depressed and it broke my heart.

As soon as he got off the bus, he said he was hungry. I made him up some pureed ground beef mixed with carrot and egg and made little meat balls. I also made my own ketchup so he would have something to dip it in. He turned his nose up at it but in his defense, he was probably really hungry and was very cranky and emotional so I just heated up a couple of chicken pancakes and give him his honey and he was happy. Well, kind of...he was in a much better mood but was still a little whiny so I put him in a bath with some Epsom salt and that seem to do the trick. While he was in the bath, he mentioned that his class had brownies today at school and he didn't have any. I kind of wonder about that though because of the way he acted when he came home but who knows.

I'm glad tomorrow is the weekend so I can make sure Shawn eats throughout the day and is not hungry. I did some more juicing and mixed some grape juice with some lemon juice and it turned out really good. It tasted similar to lemon aid. The sweetness of the grape juice did the trick. So I used the juice to make some homemade jello. I can't wait until tomorrow to see how it turned out. I also tried making meringues tonight but it is now midnight and they aren't done yet :( I really wanted to surprise Shawn with a sweet treat. I've got some carrots on the stove still also. Since they are supposed to cook for 4 hours, technically I shouldn't take them off until 1am but I'm taking them off as soon as I finish this post.

My stomach is finally starting to feel a little better. Don told me this morning that he had a lot of gas so I guess he did have a reaction last night after all. I might make some more green beans tomorrow and test them out. Well, that's my update for today. It's time to get the stuff off the stove and get in bed! Don works tomorrow morning so it should be fun trying to get the kids ready in the morning. Wish me luck!

Day 5

So last night I kind of copped out as far as blogging. I just felt so overwhelmed last night and didn't feel like I had the time to blog. Last night was a struggle to get both kids fed (because Shawn wouldn't eat his dinner) and then ready for bed by myself. Then I had dishes to do and more cooking and I was way behind in laundry. I broke down when Don came home at 10:15pm and he helped me finish everything up. I still didn't get to bed until after midnight. I just felt like I couldn't keep up with everything. It didn't help that I was rushing around the entire day yesterday and I know that I didn't drink enough water. I had to wake up Joshua from his nap (that is such a crime) so we could pick up Shawn from school. He normally rides the bus but I pick him up from school on Wednesdays because he has CCD at St. Stephens at 4:15pm and there is no way we would make it on time if Shawn rode the bus home since he doesn't get dropped off until 3:45pm.

Today went much better!!! I just felt a little more organized. It helped that Don didn't work tonight either. Tonight for dinner we had fish and I introduced green beans for the first time. I had a reaction to something from dinner and stupid me doesn't know for sure if it was green beans or not because I also used some butter tonight for the first time. I know, I know, I'm a little impatient. I'm only supposed to introduce one new food at a time but butter is allowed and I just thought the fish would be better with butter. So now I'm in some pain. If I had to guess, I think it is probably from the butter. I'm going to go without both until I feel better and then make the green beans again to make sure it was the butter. I wish I could get this kind of feedback from the kids. I really don't know if they have any type of reaction except to keep an eye on their BM's and behavior. Don did not have a reaction tonight.

I need to find some recipe that uses beef that Shawn will eat. He needs to eat some red meat and not just chicken every day. So I thought about browning up some ground beef and then pureeing it with some carrot and egg and see what that would taste like broiled into sort of a hamburger. I doubt he'll like it but I've got to do some experimenting to come up with something.

We're getting ready to use the juicer. I bought all kinds of fruits and we are going to use the juice to make some homemade jello tonight. Plus, we are going to experiment with finding a juice that will mix well with banana and egg yolk so we can make sort of a shake. I worry that Joshua is not getting enough calories and he still whines for milk in the morning and when he wakes up from his nap. So I would feel much better giving him a legal drink/shake that will help fill him up and fatten him up.

Day 4

Not much to blog about today. No throw up, no bed wetting, and only one temper tantrum. The temper tantrum happened because I pureed some butternut squash into his chicken pancake but I didn't have enough chicken to cover the taste. He didn't like the taste of it so it was a struggle getting him to eat it. I've discovered that the whole chewing thing must have something to do with taste and not texture because he was having a hard time chewing/swallowing and the only thing different with the chicken pancake was the taste. He did not get his car tonight :(

I sure do hope this gets easier because I feel like all I do is cook, eat, and go grocery shopping! We got our juicer in today. Shawn was so excited and he wanted to make apple juice so I got it cleaned and set up and we made our first juice. Of course Shawn didn't like it. I think he thought it would taste like store bought apple juice and not real apples, lol. I have several juicing books on hold at the library so hopefully, I'll be getting some good nutrition in us soon.

On a side note, I feel like I'm rushed all day. It's a struggle to get breakfast on the table with time to eat and finish getting the boys dressed. It's a struggle getting Shawn's lunch together in time to take to the school at 10:15. Then there's dinner and snacks. Sometimes I feel like just giving up but I know that this is probably the most important thing we can do for Shawn right now and I'm sure the rest of us will definitely benefit from it as well. So I'll keep trudging along.

The end of day 3...

It started out rough but it did get better. After Shawn woke up from his nap, I got him to eat 3/4 of a banana. At lunch, I fixed him a plate of chicken and carrots and cut the chicken pieces really small so he wouldn't hardly have to chew but it still didn't work. He had a really tough time with the chicken. I made him something a little different today. I fried a banana cut into pieces in some coconut oil and then drizzled with honey. Shawn liked it but wanted cinnamon on it so I put some on and he was happy and ate it. So far, only about 1 1/2 bananas and a few small pieces of chicken in him. I was a little worried at this point. I decided I was going to make him some chicken pancakes. I just pureed some of the cooked chicken we had with an egg and fried it in some coconut oil. I gave it to Shawn but he said he didn't like it. I asked him if he would eat it if I put some honey and cinnamon on it and he said yes (I watered down the honey). He ended up eating 3 of them! Joshua had one also and seemed to like it. Shawn even asked if he could have more for dinner! For dinner, I pureed chicken, carrot, and egg and fried it in the coconut oil. He wasn't happy at first but I told him to at least try it. At first he said it was yucky but then when I told him that there wasn't any more chicken and he would have to eat something else, he said he was just kidding and proceeded to eat 6 of them.

As for our reactions: Don said he's been sleeping better since we started on the diet. He also said that he's been peeing a lot more. I've had a headache for the past two days along with the tongue gunk. I haven't seen much change in Joshua except for the fact that he's starting to eat a little better. Shawn on the other hand has had the most die-off of us all. Besides throwing up this morning and then taking a nap, he just looked like crap for most of the day and just laid around watching t.v. Then after the first batch of chicken pancakes, he had some hyper activity going on. Almost the same as when he had the milk but without the disobedience part. I'm not sure if it was die-off or a reaction to either the honey or cinnamon or if it was just because he finally had some food in his belly and it gave him a burst of energy. He didn't seem to react as bad after dinner so I don't think it was a reaction to the food. I'll keep an eye out because I have a feeling that chicken pancakes are going to become a staple in Shawn's diet.

The detoxing has begun.

We've started to have die-off symptoms. Die-off is very similar to withdrawal symptoms coming off of drugs. Yesterday, I had a really bad taste in my mouth and last night when I brushed my teeth, I made sure to brush and scrape my tongue. It was a little fuzzy and white. I'm sure it's probably the Candida coming out. I was also an emotional wreck yesterday. I was crying over everything, even regular cartoons. I would just tear up for no reason driving in the car. It was ridiculous and no I'm not pregnant! This morning when Don woke Shawn up, he said he had to pee and when Don took him to the bathroom he said he smelled old pee so he checked Shawn's bed and he wet the bed. Shawn's never wet the bed before that is so unlike him.Then Shawn told Don his stomach hurt this morning and only drank a few sips of water and then threw up. I tried to get him to eat some breakfast but before he even made it to the table, he started to throw up again (mostly the dry heaves). I only got one bite of egg in him and some water before he threw up again so I went ahead and made him a bath with Epsom salt and had him soak for a while. He was complaining about being tired and wanted to lay down so I got him out of the tub and told him he would have to lay on the couch because his sheets were in the dryer. Then he said he needed to throw up again so I grabbed him and he made it to the toilet. After getting him dressed and set up on the couch, I had him try to drink a sippy cup of water. He kept it down and then fell asleep on the couch. He ended up taking a 1 1/2 hr. nap. So far, I haven't seen anything visible going on with Joshua but he didn't eat as badly as the rest of us so he may not have as much detoxing to go through. Plus, he's had a few illegals since we started. I'll update later tonight with the rest of day 3.

The good and the bad of day 2...

The good news is that Joshua ate some food today. Although, he didn't eat nearly as much as I would have liked him to eat. He ate a scrambled egg for breakfast along with some blueberries. Then he ate quite a bit of some chicken and carrots for lunch and of course had some blueberries. It was a little difficult after he woke up from his nap because he was whining for some milk and was getting upset that I wouldn't give him any but we compromised and I gave him some drinkable yogurt in between bites of leftover roast from last night and carrots. He wouldn't eat much at dinner though, just a few bites of chicken and about 3 baby carrots. He did share some banana with Don a little after dinner. As we were eating dinner, I've thought about how I really need to figure out a way to get more fat in our diet. I know olive oil and coconut oil is recommended, I've just have to make sure I add it to our food before we eat it. I can't wait until the juicer gets here. It's supposed to be delivered on Wednesday, yay! Then I can make sure we get a variety of fruit and veggies in an easily digestible form.

The bad news is that Shawn had a rougher day today than yesterday. He had a hard time eating his egg this morning and ran out of time and didn't get to finish it. I then brought his lunch to school and he had a tough time chewing the chicken. The chicken was cooked in the Crockpot so it was very soft so I'm not sure what the problem is. It takes him 10 minutes to eat one small bite of chicken and they only get like 20 or 25 minutes to eat. I was trying to rush him but it wasn't really working that well. I got him to eat about 2 baby carrots and 2 small bites of chicken before I felt like he was going to run out of time and I didn't want him to be hungry so I had him eat a banana and then we were working on the homemade applesauce when they had to clean up and get in line to go back to class. I tried to get Shawn to eat one more bite of chicken (it was a big "kid sized" bite) and he started gagging so I hurried him to the trash can so he could spit it out and then he proceeded to throw up. Lovely! Of course the lunch lady comes over and asks if he's ok. I felt bad for him but I was also a little embarrassed that my kid can't handle chewing a piece of chicken. Then Shawn told the teacher's aid that he threw up and I had to explain that he's ok, he just gagged on his food. Dinner pretty much went the same way minus the throwing up. He takes for ever to chew one little piece of meat or chicken. He started his dinner about 5:10pm and didn't finish until about 6:30pm. Of course we have to be right there telling him to chew and swallow or else it would just stay in the side of his cheek all night. He was a trooper today though. He just needs lots of time to eat and a lot of encouragement. But since he did eat the food we gave him, we let him pick out another Speed Racer car after dinner.

I'm already getting bored with the food we are eating. We can add a new food tomorrow and I'm so excited but I can't decide what to introduce. I would like another veggie but then I wouldn't mind introducing pears either. Decisions, decisions.

End of Day 1...

I'm a slave to the kitchen. It seems I've been cooking most of the day. In fact, I'm trying to hurry and type this because I have carrots and apples cooking on the stove right now. Today was pretty tough but I know that soon I'll get into a groove and the cooking won't seem so bad. Shawn did really well today. I'm so proud of him! I thought he would throw a bunch of temper tantrums over the food but he didn't. Joshua on the other hand, was horrible today. I felt like such a bad mom with him because he barely ate anything. I'm not sure what his problem was because he is not as picky as Shawn. He usually will eat scramble eggs but wouldn't today. He normally eats apple sauce but wouldn't today. We finally caved in at dinner and I gave him a drinkable yogurt that I hadn't thrown out yet, then he ate about 3 bites of scrambled egg and I forced him to eat a bite of meat. Don gave him 2 fig newtons while I was at church and then I let him eat some blueberries before he went to bed. We are only supposed to eat cooked fruit right now but I don't think it will affect Joshua too much. I hope he eats better tomorrow because I'm not sure I can let him go the whole day without eating.

I didn't really notice anything out of the ordinary with Shawn's behavior until around 5:30pm when we went to mass. He was definitely in hyper active mode when we got to the church. Symptoms very similar to how he acted after we gave him milk. He couldn't sit still. Some part of his body was moving at all times. He was talking a lot more than usual (he's usually pretty quiet in church). I didn't loose my patience with him though because he did so well with the food today and I knew that he was probably having some die off reaction. When we got home from church, I let him pick out a Speed Racer car and he picked the Mach 6 with saw blades.

The meat loaf we had for lunch was not that good but the roast we had for dinner was very yummy. It's hard not having starches. Don said the only thing missing from dinner was the potatoes, lol. I guess we'll get used to it. Don has some heart burn tonight which I'm pretty sure is die off symptoms. I'll have to wait and see to be sure. He usually has a BM at least 2 times a day and so far he hasn't had a BM today.

I'm not looking forward to tomorrow and having to deal with bringing food to the school. I'm going to have to miss Joshua's last Kindermusik class because I won't have enough time to go back to the house and heat up Shawn's lunch and make it to the school by his lunch time. He eats at 10:15am. I'm still not sure what I'm going to pack in his lunch yet but I've got some chicken in the crock pot, a huge pot of carrots cooking on the stove, a pot of apples cooking to make some more applesauce, and we have some jello setting up in the fridge. There are 2 ripe bananas left and I know I plan to pack one for his snack in the afternoon. We also have a little left over meat from today that can be used for lunches. So that's the update for our first day SCD.

First SCD meal...

Last night I made some homemade applesauce and some homemade jello (I'm quite the Martha Stewart right now). Those of you that know me, know that I hate to cook so this diet is going to be as challenging for me as it is for Shawn.

This morning our breakfast consisted of scrambled eggs, banana egg pancake (mostly to try it out), and some ground beef patties. I told Shawn if he ate some of his food, he could have some jello and he actually ate some of the banana egg pancake and the scrambled eggs I gave him. I didn't give him much egg because I honestly didn't think he would eat it. I tried to get him to eat some of the hamburger but it took him about 15 minutes to chew one small bite so I didn't force anymore. Hopefully, he'll get better with eating meat in a few days. I have a roast in the crock pot right now for dinner and I plan on making some meatloaf for lunch and some to freeze for later. I'll update later with the rest of our first day.

Well that was a complete waste of time!

First off, when I made Shawn's neurology appointment, I specifically asked for Dr. Ferriera so when I rescheduled his appointment, I automatically assumed they would reschedule with the same doctor. I asked for Dr. Ferriera because of a friend's recommendation. Well, we saw Dr. Chung and I'm not very happy with our appointment. It was a complete waste of time in my opinion. Dr. Tappan asked me more questions then she did. I'm not sure if I was just expecting too much or if we just got a crappy doctor. She basically said that his ADHD did need attention (of course she didn't really give me any resources) and he does show signs of PDD which is a form of Autism. After asking me some questions, she said that if she would have seen him at 18 months, based on my answers she would have diagnosed him as Autistic. But since it seems like his "symptoms" are improving, she was hesitant to diagnose him as Autistic. I'm not trying to get him diagnosed him one way or the other but that statement made no sense to me. It is my understanding that there is no cure for Autism so if she thinks she would have diagnosed him Autistic at 18 months then wouldn't he still be considered autistic? Makes no sense to me and then I saw this article on ARI. After reading that, I'm just so over with the doctors. I don't really care if he's diagnosed or not, I just want to get him the help he needs. Hopefully, the diet will take care of it and we won't have to seek out anyone else to treat him. Oh, and she said that if it came to a point where we wanted to medicate him to just schedule another appointment with them. I don't think so!!!

I'm not sure what I was expecting. I guess I was expecting them to observe him playing, ask him some questions, ask me a bunch of questions and then go over what they thought he might have and the treatments for it, etc. I didn't get that and I'm not sure if I should have or not.

Getting ready...

Tomorrow is Shawn's neurology appointment and I'm so excited! I can't wait to find out the results whether it is Autism, or ADD, or ADHD, or Sensory Processing Disorder...I don't care, I just want to know!

I was going to start the new diet on Saturday but I changed my mind to wait until Sunday. We have relatives visiting from Maryland and we are going to have dinner at my Aunt's house and celebrate Joshua's 2nd birthday while we are there. I just couldn't start the diet and then not let the boys have some cake on Saturday especially with the peer pressure I'll probably get from my family. I can just hear it now: "you're not going to let them have cake?!" "Oh, come on, it's his birthday. Let him have some cake". So to avoid all of that, we are starting on Sunday.

Don caved in and let me buy the juicer I wanted. I started a juicer fund and had $130.00 saved up and hopefully will be able to add some more after our garage sale this Saturday. Tonight he told me to just go ahead and order it on the credit card and then I can pay the credit card back after this weekend. Yay, I'm so excited!!! I got a really good price too. I bought it from Vitality Plus and only paid $395.00. That's cheap considering everywhere else I saw it priced at $549.00. I think this diet is going to be difficult for Shawn but being able to juice will help out tremendously as far as getting some nutrition in him. I just pray that he starts eating things he normally doesn't, like Hannah did. Now I have to go buy some canning jars. I think I'm going to try and make my own applesauce tomorrow so I'll have to have a jar to put it in. We'll be able to eat homemade applesauce after the intro so I plan to let Shawn take some to school for his lunch (of course he'll have other stuff too, lol). I'm a little nervous...I know Shawn is going to throw a fit and I don't want to cave in. I plan to get rid of all our illegals on Saturday night so I won't be able to cave in at least the first few days anyway, lol. Hopefully by then, Shawn will start eating some of the other things on the diet like eggs and meat. Keeping my fingers crossed.

Arrrg...

I'm so tired of people telling me they don't think anything is wrong with Shawn! Ever since he was 18 months old I've been questioning the so called "professionals" and all I got was don't worry about it, he doesn't seem to be autistic. Today, Shawn's speech teacher called me to discuss his IEP (individual education plan) because it is a month overdue. I told her that Shawn has a neurology appointment on Friday because I wasn't sure if it would affect his IEP. She asked me what my concerns were and when I told her Autism she answered with a very surprised "What???" She had a hard time thinking that Shawn might be autistic because she works with Autistic children and he doesn't having any social issues. Hello!!! I wish I could scream this out to people that not all Autistic kids are the same! That's why it is called Autistic SPECTRUM Disorder...because there is such a huge range that these kids fall into. I swear, I think everyone working with children should have more training on looking for signs of Autism. If more people were aware of what Autism actually is, I think Shawn would have been diagnosed at 18 months old. He definitely showed more signs at 18 months than he does now. We'll see on Friday if all my gut instincts are correct.

I was browsing through the video glossary on Autism Speaks the other day and I definitely saw some videos that reminded me of Shawn when he was younger. The ones in particular that struck a cord in me were the under reactive to sensory input and the videos under social reciprocity. Of course these traits were prominent when Shawn was younger. He doesn't have any problem with social reciprocation anymore I don't think but he definitely still shows some signs of under reactive to sensory input although not as strongly.

It must be the milk

Ever since the whole chocolate milk discovery, we haven't been giving Shawn milk to drink. We have let him have some cereal with milk and it hasn't seem to affect him (at least not a noticeable change). Anyway, the last few days Shawn has been asking if he could have some milk to drink and I've told him no. Today however, I let him drink a cup of white milk after he begged me for some. I thought maybe it was the chocolate milk that made him turn into a crazy person since he didn't seem to be affected by the cereal. I could not believe the transformation in him. It took about an hour and then he had a complete meltdown. First, I told him to get out of my bedroom. He was looking through the DVD's because he wanted to watch another movie. I told him no and that he's watched enough t.v. for the day. I literally had to drag him out of my room because he was crying about wanting to just "look at the DVD's even if he couldn't watch one". After I got him out of my bedroom, he went to play with Daddy and Joshua and then had a meltdown because the Lego jet he built broke. He was uncontrollable so Don decided to put him in the bath. He put two cups of Epsom Salts in Shawn's bath. Getting him in the bath was difficult because he was a whiny mess! It's hard to explain exactly how he was acting but if I didn't know what was going on, I would have just laughed at the way he was acting he was being so ridiculous and crying over everything. About 10 minutes into the bath, Shawn finally calmed down. We continued to let him soak for a while and then let him get out. It was like Mr. Hyde turning back into Dr. Jekyll. He was back to normal (at least as normal goes for Shawn) for the rest of the night. So it must definitely have something to do with milk or Casein and I'm so happy that the Epsom salts worked.

Aha!

We still haven't started the diet yet but I think I may have spotted a trigger today. Shawn's been home sick with the flu all last week and this week is Spring Break. While he was sick, we wouldn't allow him to drink milk because he has a problem with phlegm and I believe milk thickens it (I could be wrong). He's pretty much over the flu so Don gave him some milk this morning (ok, it wasn't just milk it was chocolate milk). He's been bouncing off the walls, not listening to me, and acting like he wants to get in trouble. I'm not sure if it was the milk or if it was because it was chocolate milk but it just makes me think that this diet really is going to work and I'm anxious to get started.

Haven't started yet

I was planning on starting the SCD this weekend after Shawn's neurologist appointment. He hasn't been diagnosed yet but I suspect borderline Autistic and ADHD. I want to wait until after he's diagnosed before changing his diet.

Here's some background info on Shawn. First off, he just turned 6. I've suspected that there was something more going on with him besides his speech for about 2 years now. Looking back, I can definitely see early signs of autism but they are so borderline I think other people overlook it. After reading "Gut and Psychology Syndrome" I went back through Shawn's baby book and had an aha moment. Most of his problems started after his 2 month check up and had his shots. The day after his shots he developed diarrhea that didn't go away after 10 days so his pediatrician had us switch his formula to soy formula. That cleared up his diarrhea but he had major vomiting issues (more on that later). Two days after his shots he got really fussy. No, I take that back...it was much more than fussy. He basically started screaming like he was in pain and we couldn't get him to stop no matter what we tried. Then all of a sudden he would stop screaming and be happy and smiley for about 10 minutes before he would start screaming bloody murder again. Some people questioned whether he was colic but he was never like that before that day. We called his pediatrician who had us take him to the emergency room. Of course when it was our turn to see the doctor, he was all smiles. The doctor said she couldn't find anything wrong with him but she was going to call our pediatrician before she discharged us. She leaves and guess what happens? Yep, Shawn starts screaming. She came back because she heard him and asked us what we did to him. Ummm, nothing! Anyway, she still couldn't find anything wrong with him but told us to give him some Tylenol and low and behold his screaming stopped. So back to the vomiting...Shawn used to power puke. You never knew when it was going to happen. We used to place a beach towel on the floor in front of where we were giving him his bottle just in case. I mentioned the vomiting to his pediatrician but she didn't seem concerned so I thought it was normal. Ok, not exactly normal but not anything to worry about. Shawn reacted to the next round of shots the same way but this time I gave him Tylenol immediately when he started screaming and it did the trick. He stopped screaming and pretty much slept most of the day. The next sign I saw was trying to get him to eat. I had friends tell me it was ok to give him cheerios when he was 6 months old and when I gave him one, I thought he was going to choke, lol. He eventually got it but even at 9 months old, he gagged on a cheerio and threw up. He ate cereal, and most of the baby food veggies but would not eat any meats or fruits except apple sauce. He also wouldn't drink any juice, only formula and water (which was fine by me). I really didn't think too much of his eating habits except for the gaging and vomiting until we tried to introduce solids. I don't really have it recorded in his baby book but he was older than the average baby when we tried to give him solids. It was at this time that he developed constipation. After trying prunes and prune juice (both worked temporarily), his pediatrician had us give him Kondrumel. When we moved to Florida, I asked his new pediatrician if he should still be on it and his ped said yes to keep him on it.

He never did take to the stage 3 baby foods. He would gag on those but we started out with foods that he couldn't choke on like mac and cheese. As long as the food was soft, slippery, etc. then Shawn could eat it. Anything that had to be chewed, forget it. That is where Shawn had a problem. It was like either he didn't like to chew or he didn't know how to chew because he would just try to swallow the food without chewing which would cause him to gag followed by vomiting. Again, I mentioned this to his pediatrician and she told us not to worry and to just make sure we give him foods that will slide down his throat if he doesn't chew his food. So again, I didn't worry about it and kept on doing what we were doing.

I would also like to comment on his other signs that I didn't really know were signs until recently. I remember getting down on the floor to play with Shawn and he would stop playing with his toy, get up and move away and start playing with another toy. This really didn't bother me and I never though twice about it until recently when I started suspecting he might be autistic. For a while, I thought he had a hearing problem because he never responded to his name but there was a certain commercial that he liked and every time it came on, he would stop what he was doing and watch the commercial. He could be no where near the t.v. but when that commercial came on he would come running (I think it was a spaghetti sauce commercial). they also tested his hearing during his initial early intervention appointment. I should also mention that he's never had an ear infection (to my knowledge). He was also VERY active. I had to hold him when we left the house because he would just start running as soon as I opened the door and keep going out into the street since he didn't respond to his name or stop or wait. He was fast too. Then during his doctor's appointments, his ped would get to the question "is he saying any words?" and the answer was always no. At 18 months old, his pediatrician recommend us having his speech tested through the state. During his initial appointment with early steps, I was told that he doesn't seem autistic. I guess because he was able to do what they wanted. He qualified for speech and we had a therapist come to our house once a week. I guess I should also mention that Shawn never babbled not even when he was playing. He never pointed to things. We had absolutely no communication with him whatsoever. I used to just feed him when I thought he should be hungry. If he wasn't hungry, he would turn his head when I brought food to his mouth but he never let me know when he was hungry. After a few therapy session, Shawn learned his first sign which was "more". After a couple more weeks he learned the sign for eat but he didn't say his first word until he was 2. He continued speech therapy and when he began EELP at age 3 1/2, his vocabulary was still under 20 words and he wasn't putting more than 2 words together. No one in Early Intervention in the state of Maryland or Florida ever said to me that I should have Shawn tested because he displays signs of autism. It wasn't until his second year in EELP that I was talking to one of the other moms that I started suspecting. I found out her son was a highly functioning autistic. I never would have known if she hadn't told me. He was friends with Shawn and he made eye contact when he talked to you. Those were the things I thought autistic kids didn't do. She explained more about autism and some of the signs her son had. Every since then I had this nagging feeling. I finally asked our new pediatrician how to find out if he is autistic and we set up a consultation. After the consultation, he told us that Shawn does show some characteristics of autism but also shows signs of ADHD and recommended we see a specialist. Which brings us up to date waiting for his neurologist appointment.

Honestly, besides finding out that Shawn's friend was autistic, a big part of why I started suspecting something else was going on with Shawn is because of Joshua. Joshua is not quite 2 yet and we've been communicating with him since before he was one. He repeated sounds, pointed to things, responded to his name, craved attention, and didn't have problems eating. I know all kids are different but seeing Joshua's development really made me take a second look at Shawn's.

Shawn is in regular kindergarten now and has been doing good academically. He's practically reading by himself and can add but he's definitely had more behavioral problems this year. Mostly due to talking, disturbing others, getting out of his seat, etc. He's still in speech therapy but he has improved dramatically since he started EELP 2 1/2 years ago. Most people just see how much progress he's made but I see how much he struggles when he's trying to talk. He talks out of order sometimes. He often asks me what certain words mean when he should already know what they mean because he uses them in sentences. He has problems with pronouns and tense. He will call a girl he or him. He will often ask "what I having for dinner?" or "I can play with the computer?" instead of "what am I having for dinner?" and "can I play with the computer?" I can see the gears turning in his head when he's searching for the right word to say. He still doesn't respond to his name if you are calling his name from across the room. You have to be right in front of him for him to even notice you. I can be talking to him sitting right next to him but unless I turn his head so he sees that I'm talking to him, he won't hear a word I said.

I am anxious to start the diet. I just know in my heart that we will see a huge improvement, especially the ADHD part. Well, that's our history. Thanks if you made it this far.