My son Harry was a hurting little dude as a young child. He was so sickly, that when he was three, I wrote a long, teary letter to an osteopath a friend recommended but who wasn't taking on new patients because she was so busy. My letter must have touched her because she accepted Harry as a patient. I remember writing that conventional medicine hadn't helped Harry and I was afraid he'd die if we didn't find something to make him better. I had been afraid of this at the time because he'd gotten so listless that he'd often just sit on the floor and stare ahead vacantly.
Among other things, Harry had food allergies: wheat, eggs, dairy, and I don't remember what else any more. We tried a alternative-medicine allergy regime where once every couple of months or so (fortunately, I've forgotten many of the details), this regimen required him to go on a diet of anything I could make of tapioca powder and water (which was not much) and yams for a few days. Harry's an excellent person and I knew this then, because little as he was and with as little language as he had then, he took it in stride, ate this boring, mostly tasteless food, and probably went hungry, all without complaint.
Harry got healthy, grew, and grew and turned into a healthy, strapping, 6'2" distance running teen. And then I noticed he started slipping again. He'd take longer than expected to heal, was usually congested, and often tired. The thing that made me worry the most though was he became spacey. Last year I asked his doctor to run a battery of tests, but nothing came up positive.
I've been talking to him about his diet for years. It stinks (the diet, probably my talking about it to him, too). He loves sugar, carbs, and....more sugar and more carbs. But, he's a teenager and there's really not much you can do about a teen's diet except nag. Which I did. More than I should have, but I'm really, really good at nagging and I was more than a little frustrated.
Finally, a couple of days ago, Harry agreed to go on an elimination diet and see if he has food-related problems. I suspect he has a few. I think he has a candida overgrowth (the sugar and carb. cravings are signs of this, and he has a history of many courses of antibiotics which can lead to this.) I think he may be gluten-intolerant and I think that through many years of eating the foods he was allergic to, he's again become sensitive to them.
So, we're eliminating from his diet foods with sugar, foods that get mold easily (such as peanuts, strawberries, jarred tomato sauce, cheese), and foods that cause intestinal yeast to grow (yeast, anything fermented or with vinegar, mushrooms) to test for a candida overgrowth. Wheat, rye, and other gluten containing grains are gone to test for gluten intolerance. Eggs and dairy products are gone because of his past allergies.
We're aiming for a minimum of five days on the diet - if we can handle it (Harry has to eat it, I committed to the shopping and cooking), we'll keep it going longer.
I'd warned Harry he could feel worse before he feels better - yeast die-off, especially, can lead to head-aches and feelings of exhaustion. People who live on sugar and carbs crave it when it's initially taken out of their diets.
Harry mowed the lawn this morning. "Oh, no," I thought when I saw him doing this. Grass also sets him off, so I figured we wouldn't be able to tell if the diet was helping because he'd have an allergic reaction to the grass. But I noticed at lunch that Harry wasn't clearing his throat as often as he usually does. Also at lunch, Harry said he felt good, not as tired as usual, which was notable because this is the end of spring break and he's been staying up late all week.
Late in the afternoon, I noticed two things. First, the quiet. Harry was doing school work, sitting at the computer. He wasn't clearing his throat at all. None. Nada. And we were only 24 hours into this experiment (because, really, even though I called this Day 1 for the post, we started yesterday afternoon). The other thing I noticed was that he'd been sitting and working, for a long, long time. No music was on, he wasn't going from thing to thing. He was just working.
If you're curious, here's what Harry ate today:
Breakfast: Bob's Red Mill Gluten-free hot cereal with 1 T fish oil, 1/2 t flax oil, 1 T ground flax seeds, a really big handful of almonds and a bunch of sunflower seeds, a banana, and water.
Lunch: Chicken breasts (organic) sauteed in olive oil, sauteed kale, raw carrots, tea.
Dinner: Quinoa pasta with fresh pesto (basil, walnuts, and olive oil), green beans, cauliflower, and a hamburger (grass-fed organic beef), tea.
He's taking the following supplements: Oil of Oregano, Solaray Yeast Cleanse, Solaray Multidophilus, and a multi-vitamin.
It'll be a challenge tomorrow to pack enough yeast-free, sugar-free, gluten-free, etc.-free to get Harry through school and track practice, but we'll manage. It's time to do whatever it takes to get Harry back on track...healthwise.
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