Introducing gluten after 4 months gluten free (ds8)

[MunRoLy]

ds8 has been gluten-free for 4 months.  I drastically changed his diet at that time to test for sensitivities due to some very bad behavior issues.

 

He went gluten-free and food dye free at the same time.  I know for a fact that food dyes cause horrible behavior in him (he has accidentally ingested food dyes 4 times in the last 4 months and each time it caused 1 week of bad behavior).

 

I'm not sure if the gluten is also an issue since I stopped at the same time as the food dye.  I would like to try him on gluten again to find out, but am not quite sure how to go about it or if I should expect it to cause stomach aches or anything like that. 

 

If you have any experience with this please let me know! 

 

 

[idnib]

Start small.

 

In my kids it always causes bedwetting if they're exposed to gluten. Or sometimes even lost urine even while they are awake.  DS gets a rash around his mouth. Put down an extra towel on the bed and take a change of clothes with you if you go out for the next couple of days.

 

Some kids have behavior changes and have stomach problems as well. My son, who sometimes flaps his arms, will flap more. But his general behavior remains the same.

 

HTH.

[kbutton]

I would give small, easily identified amounts and track it (on the calendar, etc.). You might consider giving the gluten at the same time each day. I did a general elimination diet a couple of years ago. It wasn't clear when I added gluten back in that it was the issue because I wasn't as careful as I should have been (adding it in coincided with the holidays and stress). I was not doing the diet to test for gluten problems, so I wasn't expecting a response either. My symptoms with gluten are anxiety and migraines (and a few others if long-term). So with the very high holiday stress, I wasn't sure what was causing the panicky feelings, etc. since it all looked like stress.

 

I also get a subtle sense of brain fog (wouldn't know what it is if I didn't know what I felt like without it), and sometimes I feel almost claustrophobic or on slow motion (but much more subtle). That's usually my only early warning response that I've had gluten. It doesn't always last long. The anxiety/migraines follow.