Testimonials
I wanted to circle back with you just to let you know that this diet change has made a huge impact on my son! His aggravations and melt downs completely melted away! He used to do the same thing that you showed your daughter doing in the beginning of the video. It was awful to watch, and not be able to help him!
Thank you so much for sharing your story. Please know that it has helped us so much!
We have seen much progress in his ability to focus and being aware of his surroundings. We also have been able to control is eczema and see little to no reactions most days. We have found out that my son is high reactive to gluten and and fruit that is acidic (tomatoes, strawberries etc.) the only thing is that he is craving junk food and fruit.
The fruit is not so much of a problem but we don't know how to curb his hankering for junk food (which he hasn't eaten.) We have seen a medical team and they told us he falls in the autism spectrum but are hoping with therapy and more socialization with other children, we may be able to remove that label. Thank you for you help.
I've also been meaning to post to say that I think we are really seeing a difference in my son, who was diagnosed with autism and Down syndrome, even though we haven't totally eliminated all the food items yet.
Changes are a little harder to discern with his Down syndrome as a confounding variable, but it's pretty remarkable. He is so much more communicative and present. He's listening more, has less "crazy" behavior (he often throws his body or things around and gets really loud) and is responding appropriately in conversation!
Some days he seems cloudier than others, so I'm wondering if that's when he is getting more glutamate. He has a pizza day at school every other week and we've sent GFCF pizza in the past, so we're trying to figure out what to do about that. He absolutely loves pizza, so I hate to have him just miss out. We're thinking of making our own crust using wheat berries that we grind ourselves, pesto without the cheese and then making mozzerella out of raw milk. It seems like mozzerella wouldn't have so much glutamate since it doesn't really undergo a fermentation process. We haven't tried it yet, but it looks quite easy to make. What do you think of that plan? Other than that, we just have eating out and eating at friends' houses to tackle. I think we'll just abstain or bring our own for a while until we get it entirely out of his diet.
My son was diagnosed with autism and epilepsy about 2.5 years ago. My son was on antiepileptic medicine when I met Katie. When we started on the diet, my son wasn’t sleeping and there was no spontaneous language. His language and interaction with others started to change two weeks into the diet. The speech therapist said that he rattled off 30 words spontaneously, which hasn’t happened for over 2 years. My son’s sleep has definitely significantly improved over the past month+. We attribute it both to the diet, his new anti-epileptic medication (Onfi) and his potty training... after 4.5 years of scattered sleeping, he now sleeps throughout the night at, well, I would say 75% of the time...
He is making a big progress in other areas as well - much more focused and 'present'. Language is also improving (according to his speech therapist), although I'm personally still waiting for a bigger breakthrough. Again, we attribute this both to the diet and the medication. There are several scientific articles discussing the success of medication with children on the spectrum with identified epileptic seizures.
We have begun the glutamate free diet about a week ago.
We were already pretty close to this diet in that we were not consuming casein, gluten or soy and we are very confident that there was zero of any of that stuff in our diet. (That said we did have to take about three grocery bags of food to the homeless shelter after we learned how much of our "good" food had msg in it!) The changes: for our child first of all we are noticing a willingness to try new foods. She is willingly putting things in her mouth that she has never had AND enjoying them. We are noticing an increase in her joy and smiling. We are noticing a more talkative child and spontaneous engaging social exchanges. The other morning I zombied my way to the coffee machine and from behind me I heard, "mommy, I'm making pancakes with papa." I almost dropped my cup on the ground. She never acknowledges someone in the room unless prompted. We can't really put our finger on what is "different" about our child since the diet change but something is definitely happening with her.
What hasn't changed so far is her repetitive behaviors. We still see a lot of pacing and we still see a lot of repetitive play themes and unwillingness to divert. We also are still having a rough time with focus. Being that we are only a week in I am hoping to see even more improvement.
Helpful hint to parents starting the diet: we are keeping a food/behavior journal as each day goes on. It's so much easier to track this stuff and go back to see what changes are occurring when it's written down.
Our son was diagnosed with autistic spectrum disorder (PDD-NOS) in first grade, about one year ago. His main disabilities were noise sensitivities, difficulties with social interactions and explosive behaviors. I came across Katie’s video and received additional information from her and decided to tried to remove free glutamates from our family’s diet. It was not an easy task; I had to overhaul our pantry as many of the items had ingredients on Katie’s no – no list and I had to learn how to prepare meals that did not include any gluten or dairy. Two weeks in the diet, we all started to experience foggy head, irritability and my husband also had flu like symptoms; we learned that some of these symptoms are associated with “gluten and glutamate withdrawal”(it lasted 3-5 days). At the one month mark, we started to experience the true benefits of the diet not only for my son but for me and husband also. My son’s noise sensitivity seemed to have disappeared, he became much calmer, more aware, and he was better able to manage his frustrations. I lost about 10lb and had a lot more energy; my husband’s gastrointestinal issues resolved and he also felt more focused and alert. We have been on the diet for 4 months; the biggest issue we have now is finding food in restaurants that does not have any MSG added to it. On a recent trip (despite our best efforts to ask the staff how the food was prepared) we had food with MSG and my son’s behaviors and my gastrointestinal issues returned. I recommend this diet approach to anyone who wants to improve their health; our whole family has been so positively impacted – truly life changing experience!