Before becoming a parent, I never
thought I’d be so interested in poop. But
when my son began having severe
gastrointestinal problems, it was all I
could think about.
My son, Ian, now 3, was diagnosed
with autism at 27 months. In addition
to developmental problems with motor
function, language and social skills, he
had chronic bloating and alternating
constipation and diarrhea. At its worst,
he could go seven days between bowel movements — and
when he finally went, it wasn’t pretty.
According to the Autism Research Institute (ARI) in San
Diego, California, approximately 50 percent of children on the
autistic spectrum have significant gastrointestinal issues. For
many, the gluten-free, casein-free (GF/CF) diet reduces
intestinal symptoms as well as many problem behaviors. The
GF/CF diet excludes all gluten, the protein found in wheat,
barley, and rye, and all casein, the protein found in dairy
products. For some, it doesn’t work at all. And for some, it sort
of works, meaning it helps with autistic behaviors but not with
bowel problems. That’s what happened with Ian.
Kathryn Scott
shares her experience and lets you be the judge.
A year ago, we tried the GF/CF diet. At the time, Ian was non-verbal, irritable,
too thin, and highly sensitive to sound |
and texture. His meals often consisted of a combination of
apples, chicken nuggets, soy milk, and corn chips. Two weeks
after we removed gluten and casein, Ian started talking and
became less irritable. He also began having normal bowel
movements for the first time in his post-breastfeeding life. But
after ten days of intestinal bliss, he went back to the
constipation/diarrhea two-step. Happily, his language skills and
mood continued to improve – but the trouble with his
digestion persisted. I was stumped.
Then a friend gave me Breaking the Vicious Cycle, a book
written by Elaine Gottschall, a biochemist who cured her
daughter’s “incurable” ulcerative colitis in 1958 using the
Specific Carbohydrate Diet (SCD). According to Gottschall, the
foods that Ian loved most – soy, corn, potatoes, and rice –
contained carbohydrates that he could not digest. Those
undigested — and, therefore, unabsorbed — carbohydrates
became food for the yeast and bacteria in his intestines, leading
to a process called fermentation. “The waste products of
fermentation are gases such as methane, carbon dioxide, and
hydrogen, and both lactic and acetic acids, as well as toxins,”
Gottschall says. “All serve to irritate and damage the gut.”
In other words, the microbes were eating great, but Ian wasn't getting the
nutrition he needed. |
