Emma Goes On a Diet

Monday, August 24, 2009

To any of you who think I'm crazy after having read this, let me tell you that it's taken me a long time and a lot of research to get to the place that I am now. I didn't know anything about nutritional therapy for allergies, asthma, ADD or autism. I didn't even know the 4 were related. But now that I do know I can't pretend that I don't and hide under a rock. I have to do something about it.

Emma goes on a diet.

Emma's recurrent symptoms - yeast infections, diarrhea, itchy rashes, and mood swings have had me buried under a pile of books for almost 4 months now. I'm ready for air - and ready for action. Today we start the GAPS diet, or Gut and Psychology Syndrome diet, book by Natasha Campbell. What that means specifically is that she starts out eating vegetable soups, homemade broths, ginger tea, and small amounts of homemade yogurt for an indefinite period of time. It shouldn't take longer than 2 weeks, but her yeast is persistent and stubborn (it didn't clear with 1 month of Nystatin!) and it's hard to tell. After that we slowly add foods and watch for reactions.

There are several approaches to this diet, but I chose to start it "cold turkey". Might sound harsh, but you should have seen Emma yesterday. At bedtime Emma was suffering from the above symptoms like I've never seen before. My biggest fear was that generally she does not eat soup. And I am happy to report that this morning, she drank it through her straw Thermos. But really this is a small victory seeing that we have to continue this on for a few days. To help me understand her better, I am following along, too. It will be good for me to conquer my cravings for sweets. And I'll be able to focus just on this one menu:

Week 1/Step 1 Menu (that's to say it might not take 1 week, it could take a few days)

1. Glass of room temp water 1st thing in morning
2. Homemade chicken broth seasoned only with salt and pepper
3. Soups made from this broth and meats that came from making the broth
4. Ginger and honey tea
5. Probiotics in the form of homemade yogurt mixed into each bowl of soup or broth
6. Cod liver oil and other probiotic supplements.

What is this supposed to do? The Dr. says it best...

People with food allergies and intolerances should go through the Introduction Diet in order to heal and seal their gut lining. The reason for allergies and food intolerances is so-called "leaky gut" when the gut lining is damaged by abnormal micro flora. Foods do not get the chance to be digested properly before they get absorbed through this damaged wall and cause the immune system to react to them. Many people try to identify which foods they react to. However, with damaged gut wall they are likely to absorb most of their foods partially digested, which may cause an immediate reaction or a delayed reaction (a day, a few days or even a couple of weeks later). As these reactions overlap with each other, you can never be sure what exactly you are reacting to on any given day. Testing for food allergies in notoriously unreliable: if one had enough resources to test twice a day for two weeks, they would find that they are "allergic" to everything they eat. As long as the gut wall is damaged and stays damaged, you can be juggling your diet forever removing different foods and never get anywhere. From my clinical experience it is best to concentrate on healing the gut wall with the Introduction Diet. Once the gut wall is healed, the foods will be digested properly before being absorbed, which will remove most food intolerances and allergies.

If you want to read more about our journey with Emma, see these posts:

Food Blog Letter to Readers

June 4 '09 Update

Searching for these links made me realize that I haven't commented too much about this. We deal with it everyday, but I guess I just tried to keep the blog light and cheery.

Well, I'm starving, so I better get in the kitchen and make myself some soup before I raid the chocolate stash! Thanks for reading!