Learning Challenges and Food Allergies

[3monkeys]

I'm curious as to how many of our kids that have learning challenges also suffer from food allergies and severe seasonal allergies.  I have a theory there is a connection between the two.  

 

 

 

 

[Ameena]

Not 100% sure what you mean by learning challenges, but my dd has mild ASD & SID, and multiple severe food allergies.

[3monkeys]

I meant learning challenges to basically cover all.  No one child is the same, so I think the allergies manifest in ways like ADHD, slow processing, low working memory, neurological issues and on and on.....

[Geo]

Have you heard of the GAPS book? Similar premise.

 

http://www.amazon.com/s/ref=nb_sb_ss_i_1_4?url=search-alias%3Daps&field-keywords=gaps+diet+natasha+campbell+mcbride&sprefix=gaps%2Caps%2C269&rh=i%3Aaps%2Ck%3Agaps+diet+natasha+campbell+mcbride

[TravelingChris]

Mine has dyslexia, ADHD Inattentive, and the only kid with severe food allergies, and severe wasp allergy.  She is also my kid who has the most allergies to other things too but I wouldn't call her severe seasonal- she have severe all the time.

[3monkeys]

transientChris is your child gluten and/or dairy free?

[Running the race]

My son has food allergies and ADD. He is also allergic to dogs and cats.

[Murmer]

Severe food allergy to milk (that we didn't find out about until she was 2) and every enviromental they tested.  She also has ADHD, epilepsy, and was finally diagnosed with High Functioning Autism and yes I think that there is an immunologic connection to most of this...especially with how long it took to diagnose her with the food allergy.

[nitascool]

My son has diagnosis for FTT, ADHD, SPD, Autism, Convergence Insufficiancy, and possibly Dysgraphia. Fortunately the FTT diagnosis no longer applies though for some reason is still on his diagnostic records. He was "tested" for allergies and he had huge IgE numbers around 25,000 but magically tested for NO allergies at all. They insisted that he just take the blood test. We removed gluten and dairy from his diet a little over a year ago. Then added back the dairy 6 months ago with no ill effects. He is like a person on opium when he eats gluten though. He is dazed and grumpy, has bowel issues and sever headaches when he eats any gluten (even the tiny amount found in soy sauce caused a reaction). When he eats anything with red die #5 he becomes belligerent, violent, and pulls at he clothes, skin (draws blood) and hair (pulls it out). He has minor seasonal allergies- watery eyes, nose bleeds, puffy dark circles year round and sneezing fits once or twice a week in spring and fall.

 

We never immunized him so we know it wasn't due to vaccines. We believe there are only three possible explanations,  besides genetics or environment, for his diagnosis'. The cord was wrapped around his neck twice at birth and he was purple when he was born, so there could have been brain damage (doctor says not likely because his 2nd APGAR was normal). He had FTT from 6 months to 1 year. He started gaining weight back when I removed all food from his diet (only nursing) against medical advice. He started loosing weight, tone and his voice (no more cooing or babbling) at 6 mo. when I added baby oatmeal per. his pediatricians advice. When I removed it his pigment, weight, tone (though not fully) and voice came back. But he never reached milestones on time after that, he was consistently 4-6 months behind.

 

He was very active (overly so) and did dangerous things like running into the street, climbing on the roof, etc. At 1.5 we got a prescription from his doctor to use a harness on him in public (it was against the law in that state to use without a script). At 6 he got an ADHD and SPD diagnosis (she also said he was mentally retarded with an IQ of 70). He was reading at a 4th grade level and doing 4th grade math in his head at the time. She prescribed Ritalin and "A good old fashion spanking". We chose to get OT and got a diagnoses of SPD. At 9 he was diagnosed with PDD-NOS, then Autism later that year. At 10 he was given an Asperger diagnosis. We are now only seeing social issues, penmanship issues and more mild (compared to before going gf) attention issue, slow processing speed with some things and some working memory issues (we've seen some improvement since we started VT).

 

I think he may have an autoimmune issue, candida, and vitamin deficiencies that our insurance refuses to test him for. The only vitamin testing they will allow is levels for vitamin D, once a year. Last November his level was 5. His doctor suggested 400IU supplement, we gave him 4000IU after talking with a nutritionist.

[susanah4]

My daughter was having a lot of seasonal allergies and my naturopath suggested we take wheat/gluten out of her diet (she was already dairy free due to protein intolerance)  and she has cut out sugar(she does have honey) and most processed foods and her allergies are so much better now.  I'm definitely a believer.  She used to cough a lot at bedtime and I don't hear her anymore.

[Crimson Wife]

My autistic youngest DD doesn't have food allergies but she does have non-celiac gluten intolerance. She was off-the-charts small until we took her off gluten, dairy, and soy. Then within 6 weeks she started experiencing a dramatic "catch up" weight and height gain. She went from wearing a size 18 mos. at 2 yrs. 11 mos. to a size 4T at 3 yrs. 4 mos. She is still on the smaller side for her age but my whole family is petite and DH isn't super-tall either so that's presumably genetics. I think she's now something like 25th percentile for height and 10th percentile for weight, whereas before we took her off gluten she was <3rd percentile for both.

 

She had previously tested negative twice for celiac (2nd time with the extended panel) and negative twice for food allergies (again 2nd time with the extended panel). She also had not shown any obvious GI symptoms (though it is possible that she had more subtle symptoms but was not verbal enough to tell us about them).

 

I wish I could say that her autism symptoms improved after we switched her to GFCF, but I didn't notice any change. However, I don't think she would've benefited as much from the other treatments & therapies we've tried had her body continued to physically react so badly to gluten. Kind of like if you had a painful splinter hurting your foot while trying to take violin lessons. Removing the splinter isn't going to miraculously make you play the violin, but stopping the pain will allow you to better concentrate on the music instruction.

[prairiewindmomma]

One kid improved behaviorally through diet change, the other 4 havent/didn't.