Using Diet to Help Illness or Behavior

I have a friend who has successfully used diet to improve her daughter's and her own health. She started seeing a pattern in her daughter with milk and whining and behavior and general just not feel well. She removed milk and EVERYTHING that included it from her daughter's/families diet. Her daughter improved drastically. She noticed in herself that her fibroid cysts completely went away. She makes almost everything from scratch including bread, and has done so for about 5 years now. Mom has had no more cysts, and daughter has no more tummy aches, doesn't whine and is well behaved. They can both tell if they happen to eat anything with milk in it. They said that they feel awful immediately. A book that helped her is called "Is This Your Chid" by Dr. Doris Rapp. She claims it was a lifesaver.

Hi T.,

We used diet which in fact was primarily removal of synthetic chemicals to get rid of my daughter's diagnosis of ADHD. We also detoxed our home so there were no triggers. She in fact was UN-diagnosed because chemical toxicity mimics ADD, ADHD, even to the point of Autism and Aspergers. We could not afford completely organic so we went as natural as we could. We added an absorbable multivitamin and an Omega (which are simply food) and we removed the synthetics from our home including our bath and body product. My extended family noticed her behavior changes first and at the next well visit to the doctor he removed her diagnosis from her chart and apologized,lol.....

I grew up with Ulcerative Colitis and determined at the same time that if the doctors could be without information maybe I had a chance of a different life. I was diagnosed when I was eleven and lived a torturous life. We did the same for me but added a fiber supplement and I have no remnants of the disease. NONE. Food, nutrition and going back to a time when we had NO synthetic chemicals contraindicating in our systems is the key to at LEAST getting to a baseline for a correct diagnosis. In our case, we were healed.

God bless...hope you are able to find the same good results as we did. If you want to know how to detox, PM me and I'll tell you how I did it. It was actually a budget saver and not additional money.

M.

I love this question.

When I was a special ed teacher (before being a SAHM) I had a few kids that did the Feingold Diet and we saw dramatic improvements. With 2 of the kids, the parents didn't tell me that they were doing the diet and I could tell things were different so I asked if they were doing something. One mom burst into tears and said, "Yes! I'm so glad your seeing the difference." The Feingold Diet is basically a diet of all natural foods, no dyes, chemicals, etc., but it also requires a bit of food elimination to see if there are food triggers, such as apples.

We are very conscious of what we feed our kids, we stay away from the food dyes, addiditves, etc. We eat whole foods....meats, tons of veggies, and fruits. BUT our son who is now 2 had been showing some weird mood swings, health issues, etc. We suspected allergies, had him tested for everything, but all came back negative. He just never seemed to feel well and was always crabby. I went to a biomedical nutritionist who said get rid of the dairy and gluten, see what happens. We did and within 1 week we had a different kid! No more runny noses, ear infections, moodiness, etc. It also helped to get some guidance on what foods to feed him and when.

So even though we were feeding him very well......I thought all that good organic greek yogurt was doing him good, it was hurting him. So, yes, I do believe you can improve a child's health and behavior by what you feed them.

YES, YES, and YES!!
“Let food be thy medicine and medicine be thy food”
― Hippocrates
www.betterhealthusa.com
Look on this link to get info on food sensitivities, which are different reactions than an allergy, and can take up to 4 DAYS to show symptoms. I was tested an so was my husband. Eliminating certain foods has CURED his weekly migraines, and has nearly eliminated my back pain. HOWEVER, the most surprising 'side effect' of this 'diet' is that my emotions are so mellow now! I joke and say that I feel like I take Valium every day :) When really, I've stopped eating foods that my body deems toxic. I reacted to 31 out of 115 foods tested. For example (the common ones) wheat, yeast, milk, cheese, eggs,...and then not so common ones such as green beans, watermelon, pineapple, and cranberries! I FEEL SO MUCH BETTER!

We have. We use a modified Feingold Diet for my middle daughter and have for the past 4 1/2 years or so. She has as natural a diet as possible with as few preservatives as possible. She's lactose intolerant, so we're very strict about that. She's extremely sensitive to artificial food dyes and to high fructose corn syrup, so we're vigilant about restricting those from her diet. She doesn't like how she feels when they sneak into her diet, so she's learned to check labels. She's more likely than other kids to react to these kinds of things due to her Autism and ADD, but we've noticed that my other daughters (who are typical) behave better when they don't have artificial food dyes or HFCS.

Kids behave better when they feel better. They behave better when they don't have toxins coursing through them. Yes, you find toxins in everything naturally, but when it can be avoided (mainly in the processed prepackaged foods) we've found that to be a real benefit.

2 Experiences:
I had Chronic Fatigue Syndrome in high school. Basically never got over mono after two years and was so sick I missed most of my senior year. I went to a naturopath as a last resort and got tested for food sensitivities. I did not think it was going to work, but figured that I would lose some weight at any rate. After totally eliminating those foods I was a new person in two weeks. Signed up for cardio kick boxing, got a job, etc. stayed on the diet for about 6 months and now can eat whatever I want.
For my son- Since about 1 1/2 he has always been a jekyl and hyde type. Loving and well behaved one moment, bouncing off the walls, angry, oppositional and impulsive the next moment. Pedi mentioned bi polar. Friend mentioned eliminating red dye. I decided to listen to my friend. That seemed to help somewhat but we weren't totally strict (like letting him have a cupcake at a bday party etc) but then another acquaintance suggested that the only way to really reduce the behaviors completely is to treat it like a food allergy and also eliminate all artificial food coloring. This has made a big difference and the more I read about it, the more outraged I become. Food coloring is PETROLEUM based- isn't that gross- do you really want your child to ingest the same substance that makes gasoline and home heating oil... In Europe, the use of coloring is very restricted, with warning lables- and guess what, they don't have the ADHD epidemic that we have here in the US. Our children ingest 5X more food coloring than we ever did as kids (the occasional glass of kool aid or sprinkles on an ice cream cone, vs food coloring in your waffles, your yogurt, your fruit snacks, multi vitamin etc). It is in everything.