Our Story with the GFCFSF Diet

My name is Erin Chase.

I have 2 children with type I Chiari malformations (ACM). They also have Sensory Processing Disorder (SPD) because of the ACM. Each of the boys has speech and language delays, hypersensitivity to touch, sounds, light, along with low muscle tone and vestibular hypersensitivities. They are in speech, physical and occupational therapies. My oldest is on a IEP through our local preschool. Neither of my boys has autism or has been diagnosed as being on the spectrum, despite a few "autistic like tendencies."

Early in 2008, I tried my oldest on the GFCF diet after reading about it in an SPD book. I didn't follow the diet strictly, as I struggled to find things for him to eat. I justified that he would be OK eating a cup of yogurt (as yogurt is easier to digest if you are lactose intolerant) because I just didn't have anything else for him to eat for a snack that day. The problem with this is that we didn't see any changes as we didn't follow the diet so strictly.

At the time that we tried the GFCF diet, he was drinking soy milk because I thought he had a lactose intolerance (not an allergy, as skin testing revealed he had no allergies to foods). In April 2008, we did comprehensive metabolic testing through Great Plains Laboratory. The testing revealed that both boys were sensitive to soy! But not gluten or casein. I immediately removed all soy from their diets. I still did not see improvements in their behavior or in their sensitive little digestive systems.

At the end of October 2008, I consulted with my pediatrician about my concerns with their diet. She encouraged me to try the GFCFSF diet for 3 weeks to see if there were any changes. I came up with a plan, wrote it all out, and that next week we started the GFCFSF diet.

It's working!

I've seen improved speech production, improved language output, improved BMs, decreased "beer gut" (my oldest's tummy is much smaller than it used to be, and he has not lost any weight), improved receptive language skills, and just have generally happier boys. Their little bodies are no longer being poisoned by the foods that they could not properly metabolize.

We will be on this diet indefinitely.