Autism, Gluten Free Diets, Diet and Food Sensitivies

I have been reading up with fascination on the Gluten Free and Casein Free diets that some parents are using with their Autistic kids. From what I understand this is also being combined with other treatments and therapies and it is having a fantastic amount of success for some. When my son was little we did not have this information available to us but when I look back in retrospect though I can see some amazing connections.

When my son was a happy healthy 6 month old I was having some difficulty nursing him and had to put him on a bottle. He had a severe reaction to the formula; diarrhea, gas and painful cramps. I tried formula after formula and even asked the doctor. Finally as a last resort a found a soy based formula. It worked like a magic charm. He was suddenly ok. When he was around 18 months I took him off the bottle and started giving him milk in a sippy cup. I don't know why I gave him milk, I don't think it occurred to me not to. I was reading all the baby books about weaning your baby off the bottle and I don't recall any mentioning not giving milk. The ones I remember all boosted milk, even heavily promoted it as necessary for your child. With so many knowledgeable authoritative figures agreeing on a subject why would any mom think to do any thing different?

It was around that time that we noticed he seemed to be acting like he was deaf and not very responsive. He was diagnosed with Autism shortly before he was two.


When my kids were little and we were going through some tough times I was ever so grateful for all the help and food we got from WIC. If your not familiar with WIC it stands for Woman, Infants and Children. WIC provides Federal grants to States for supplemental foods, health care referrals, and nutrition education for low-income pregnant, breastfeeding, and non-breastfeeding postpartum women, and to infants and children up to age five.

Even when we had no money for food thanks to WIC we had an abundant supply of cereal, eggs, cheese, milk, peanut butter, dried beans or peas (they later added tuna and carrots but we didn't have that option). My kids loved it. I can remember having so much of it that the fridge and cabinets were over stocked at times. That's a lot of gluten and casein they were eating. When my youngest was five and my son was seven we stopped getting it. We no longer had an over supply of milk products and cereals.

Personally I don't like milk very much so I really didn't push it on my kids after this. Sometimes I wondered if I was a bad Mom for not making my kids sit at the table and drink a whole glass of milk with their meal. I guess when you don't like something it changes your opinion of it and it's need.

My son was saying one or two word sentences when he was 5. By the time he was 8 he was talking in sentences.

Some of this new information that has come out on autism and Gluten and Casein talks about diet, and in particular the B vitamin, being very important for autistic kids. When my kids were little my sister was going through college studying to be a nutritionist. At times we would talk on end about vitamins and also autism. She liked to look up all the new information out there on autism and tell me about it. One day she told me about a new vitamin being used for autistic kids. I can't remember what it was now but we had to order it through a company that makes drugs because it wasn't being sold. I gave it to him for about a year and when we ran out I gave him kids vitamins all the time.

Now when I look back on it all I can see those very possible unlucky connections we had with gluten and casein and also those lucky things like running out of WIC, not pushing milk because I didn't like and My sister introducing us to the vitamins.

I can't say for sure if these were causes or cures. We weren't deliberately playing with his diet. I can say that my son is going to college this fall and has very few Autistic traits left. Most of his difficulties are with staying social and persevering on some things, and we all can do some of these things sometimes!

Honestly, I don't know why there are so many nay-sayers against some of these new diets and treatments for Autism. There have been scientific studies done on how a good diet or poor diet effects the brain. There have been studies done on how too much sugar affects kids brains. Why couldn't it be possible for autistic kids to be effected by something in their diet?

When my son was little we looked for help and hope in any place we could get it. These diets and treatments are giving a lot of hope.

You can find some great books on the subject at the Autism Research Site.