Gluten is evil. Well in regards to my granddaughter Amy, gluten is certainly the enemy.
I will start at the beginning for those of you out there amongst the interwebs not able to read my mind.
Veronica was reading a blog post where the writer was describing her daughter’s behavioural changes when she ate anything with wheat in it.Tantrums, mood swings, manic behaviour and meltdowns.Yet again the blogosphere provided a light-bulb moment for Veronica as the writer could have been describing Amy.
Veronica rang me and told me that she was thinking of eliminating all wheat from Amy’s diet. During the course of our phone conversation, I pulled out half the contents of my pantry and we examined the ingredients. Massel stock cubes are gluten free yay, but homebrand french onion soup is chockers full of the stuff. Spring Gully worcestershire sauce is good, Holbrooks is bad and so it went on.
I found gluten in some very unexpected places. There is wheat in marshmallows. The sneaky fuckers! I was going to make rocky road for Amy’s birthday. Gah!
Fast forward a few gluten free days.
Yesterday Amy stayed with me for a few hours and the change in my granddaughter is very obvious. Amy was much, much calmer. We still did all the things that we normally do but we did them much, much, much slower.
Normally Amy has me tearing about the place at breakneck speed. Feed the fish.Look in the cupboards. Check the chooks.Collect the eggs. Cook the eggs. Throw the ball for Harry.Play in the dirt. Look for tadpoles. Eat the beans in the garden. See Poppy. Run in circles. Come on Nanny chase Amy! etcetera, etcetera, ad infinitum.
Generally after spending a few hours with Amy I am exhausted, happy that we had fun together but totally exhausted. Yesterday after I waved goodbye to my granddaughter I compared notes with The Spouse and we both agreed that WOW, there was a marked difference in Amy’s behaviour. And double Wow I also,wasn’t completely knackered and in desperate need of a nanna nap. *cue applause.*
The most exciting behavioural improvement from my perspective, was that Amy allowed me to correct her speech. Previously when I would correct her speech,Amy would sometimes listen and sometimes not. Yesterday she not only listened to me but she practiced her pronunciation with me, until she had the tricky word down pat. I am thrilled to bits.
Gluten is now the enemy.It also seems that there is a link between Ehlers Danlos and food allergies or intolerences. *sigh*
Also whilst we are on food related issues, my friend Barbara has just discovered her 22 month old son is allergic to peanuts.
Our issues with gluten aren’t life threatening and the changes needed are fairly easy to implement. Gluten wont send my Grand Daughter into anaphalactic shock it just sends her into meltdown mode, but it does mean a re-think on the foods we eat and it looks like I am going to have to add a whole lot of new sites to my reader.
So my lovelies that was my weekend, How was yours?
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Well that’s a bit of a breakthrough. Has Vonnie checked if it’s just wheat or actually is the gluten element as gluten is in most if not all grains.
Glad you had a relaxed time with Amy. They are such great fun at this age – except when they aren’t lol!
There is a blood test, that you can have, that will tell you what you’re allergic too, i.e. wheat and whatnot. i’m not sure though who to ask to have it done. But I do know, that it exists, since my husband had one done (he has Aspergers)
Agree with Sharon…and if the intolerance isn’t too bad, you won’t have to worry about food that is processed on shared equipment, nor will you have to worry about oats (in Australia, for several reasons oats, even though they don’t contain gluten, can’t be sold as “gluten free”).
You might also try cutting back your own wheat/gluten consumption and see if it makes a difference to how YOU feel!
Veronica is going to ask her Doctor to have Amy checked for Coeliac’s then we will know if it is an allergy or an intolerence.Fingers crossed that it is just an intolerance. At this stage though the change in Amy has been nothing short of remarkable Until we know exactly what it is we are dealing with I will treat it as a gluten intolerance which will be tricky but not impossible. I just need to find a gluten free flour so that I can make some pasta and noodles and flat breads.. I am off to do some research right now.
You wouldn’t believe the size of my Reader list right now!! The internets is a very lovely place though, taken with a pinch of salt you can find out just about anything you need to.
Another thought, if we ever get together the list of things we can eat is going to be really really small! Glass of water anyone?
Zach had a low level infection in his intestines for a couple of years…when they were trying to figure out what was going on they mentioned gluten. Zachary declared he would rather have occasional vomiting and diarrhea than give up wheat. Lucky for him it was an infection easily cleared up with a dose of antibiotics…
I hope it’s just an intolerance to wheat, rather than Celiacs. Celiacs is such a bastard…good luck with the research!
My weekend was lovely, thank you for asking. The weather was cold and very rainy, perfect for staying in and cooking a lovely lamb roast, reading lots of blogs and completing several crossword puzzles. Only the easy ones though, the cryptics do my head in. I left a long comment on V’s post about the allergy thing, I’m also hoping it’s just a wheat intolerance for Amy, not gluten or coeliac. My son-in-law is a coeliac and T has had to rethink the way she buys food and cooks it.
My weekend was good, thanks! Nice and quiet!! Interesting about the gluten and Amy. Bradley, my grandson, is allergic to sulphur – has Stephen Johnson syndrome – but he has been absolutely fine without sulphur. We check food labels before we give him anything (we now know more or less what contains sulphurs) and he knows not to eat ‘strange’ things at parties or friends houses. It’s really not a hassle anymore.
Don’t totally give up on the idea of marshmallows if you feel up to making them from scratch. There are a bunch of recipes online that don’t require gluten.
Good luck!
IF it’s helpful, my blog friend Rational Jenn’s son is deathly allergic to peanuts… and they live in Georgia. (I know, wow!)
http://rationaljenn.blogspot.com/
You might look at her sidebars as she links to various allergy food carnivals, websites, etc. A place to start if you wish.
Another thing? I hate getting too much advice when I’m feeling overwhelmed, so I’m ok having my advice not looked into. Just hoping to help a tiny bit. :]
Thank goodness Veronica acted so quickly. There are probably 1000s of kids out there who having issues with wheat and whose behaviour is affected by the same.
I have drastically reduced my wheat intake over the last 5 or so years and am now less allergic to cats & dogs and don’t need regular antibiotics for UTI’s. My poor system was constantly in overload. Now I can have a little bit of wheat (a toasted sandwich or a pastry) and it doesn’t upset as badly. More than that and I really see/hear/feel the effects.
You should have a loot Gluten Free Girl’s blog (http://glutenfreegirl.blogspot.com/).
San Remo make a fabulous gluten free pasta including macaroni. I buy the Orgran gluten free flours to bake with and have good success with their other products (buckwheat pancakes – yum yum!).
Cheers on your gluten free journey!
We believe gluten is evil in this house too, at least it is for one member of the family. We mostly eat GF now.
Good to hear you didn’t need that nanna nap!
Knowledge is power, and it is exciting to know that you can contribute to Amy’s well being! I did the same with my youngest, and it made a world of difference.
This is such wonderful news! I always wonder why nobody talks more about this stuff. I’ve taken Wynnie off (among other things) food with dyes (ie: red #40) and have INSISTED that her doctors, teachers and the like give her NOTHING with fake food dyes. NOBODY knows what I’m talking about… but it’s the exact behavior you describe with Amy. It seems to me that this is so prevalent, yet nobody has ever heard of what I’m telling them.
I guess we are the teachers, not the students, in this case.
I cannot give you any advice on this. All I want to say is I’m glad you descovered this and the results you’re getting are spectacular. Keep up the good work, I’d say?
i hear ya.