When the Diet is Gone, You Remember Why it’s There
With the chaos of yesterday (previous post), we had the unfortunate situation of being without Jack’s usual food. As part of Jack’s autism management we have been following the GFCF diet suggestions. That morning before we left home, we had packed sandwiches and snacks to last us through most of the day (aiming to be home in time for dinner), but of course, being held up along the way kind of threw out the idea of Jack staying free from those foods that affect his behaviours.
When the Diet is gone, you really remember why it’s there in the first place.
Having run out of food shortly after our stop at the service station on the outskirts of the city, we had to resort to the take away ‘cafe’ food available at the service station. For most people it would have simply been a matter of contending with food that could best be described as greasy, cold and rubbery - for Jack, it was a gluten, dairy and artificial colour and preservative heaven!!!
We managed to steer him away from iced donuts and cream cakes, with hot (kind of luke warm) chips seeming the best option. But with the weather the way it was (scorching hot in the shade), Jack wasn’t having a bar of that idea. So a sandwich it had to be - and of course, cheese and ham was the only available filling, on wheat bread. Jack’s eyes lit up when he realised what he was about to be given to eat (yes, we had managed to provide him with gluten, dairy, and hyperactivity causing preservatives), and it wasn’t long before his whole body lit up as well (hence the car and the giant bouncing machine??).
Did I mention that when the Diet is gone, you really remember why it’s there in the first place?!?
All I can say is that thank goodness he slept most of the added hyperactivity off overnight - and the extra sensory agitations should be gone by the end of the day!!!
November 19th, 2007 at 10:10 am
Fingers crossed!!
November 19th, 2007 at 4:16 pm
Hope he calms down soon! Traveling can be a real pain with the diets. When Maizie would only eat orange things I thought we would all crack up!
November 19th, 2007 at 8:26 pm
Been there, done that… my son was 2.5 years old and we’d been without dairy for a week.
Tiny bit of butter and he went INSANE!! I put him in the playpen b/c there wasn’t anything hard enough in his opinion to slam his head off of. 24 HORRIBLE hours.
He now has modified milk solids in stuff… but full dairy - milk, cheese, yogurt… 5.5 years later and I’m still too scared to feed it to him.
Gluten made no difference. We tried it for a year.
S
November 19th, 2007 at 11:44 pm
Isn’t that the truth? Doesn’t take but one little slip to remind you vividly of why you are doing what you are doing : P Hope things are better today!
November 26th, 2007 at 5:56 pm
My name is April and I’m a nutrition specialist. I’m glad the GFCF diet is working for your son. Though it sounds like you had a quite a day traveling! I work for a company called Nutricia North America that makes a GFCF drink box you might find helpful for him (especially when you’re traveling). E028 Splash is a gluten-free, casein-free, nutritionally complete drink box, so it can actually be a meal replacement for a child on the GFCF diet – which is great when you’re on-the-go. If you contact me at aromano@shsna.com or 800-365-7354 ext. 2260 I can give you some more information. I also have a helpful GFCF diet guide I can send you.
All the best,
April