Elimination Diets

Hi my name is Carolyn I have a son who just turned 6, He has food allergies. It run in my family. My suggestion to you is to really watch the colors in foods yellow 5 and 6 red 40 blue 1 they are all bad. You even need to watch the toothpaste and cold medicine and vitimins they all have to be natural. It's alittle hard at first but you, your family and any teachers will be much better off, trust me.........

1 mom found this helpful

I would be curious to know what you define as hyperactive in a 2.5 year old. They have the attention span of a gnat normally and are very high energy which is all normal. Of course you did not describe what's going on so I don't have any way of knowing. But talking with other moms about what is going on (specifically) might really be helpful.

1 mom found this helpful

Hi L.,
We did an elimination diet with my son about a year ago. We read the book Is This Your Child by Dr Doris Rapp. It has a step by step plan to do the elimination diet.

The 3 "allergy" questions are "what did he eat? Smell? Touch?" A lot of times its food, but it can also be related to smell . . .toxic cleaners. We are finding this at my son's school.

We use Shaklee cleaners (and Dr Oz was just talking about SHaklee on Oprah yesterday) about how its non-toxic, etc.

If you have questions about any of this, please let me know. I'd be happy to share our elimination diet results and other tips.

Good Luck!
B.

I am going down the same road, probably a little too late, with my 4 year old boy. We are going to the doctor tomorrow...there is blood tests an allergist can do to identify food allergies. I would highly recommend going this route...a few years ago I had one done and found out I had a severe brewers yeast allergy (vinegar). Elimination diets are so hard on a little one. I also had the scratch tests done at the allergist and would not recommend those because I did not show allergic to ANY of the foods they test in the blood, and they didn't do Brewers yeast which is my main offender.

Good luck. I too hope this shows something that can help my son because I believe his issues are food related.

My baby sister was "hyperactive" when she was little (ADHD by today's standards). The doctor's wanted to put her on Ridlin (not sure about the spelling), but my parents refused and found The Feingold Diet. She had to eliminate artificial colors, flavors, and preservatives and she was fine - calm and in control of herself. If not (if she drank Hawaiian Punch for example) she was bouncing off the walls and competely out of control. To this day, she can feel a difference when she drinks some Hawaiian Punch. There has been debate about this diet since it was introduced in the 70's. However, my family will attest to it...it works!
Good luck!

Try "Eat Right for Your Type". It is a blood type diet and it has resolved many of our allergy problems. We've been using it for 7 years. The books lay it all out.

I have two friends who kids have EE. Do a google search for "EE food allergies" to read more. There's a lot you can do to help with behavior and growth problems with the right diet and formula. There are only a few doctors who deal with this. Let me know if this helps you. There are support groups so you can meet other parents dealing with this disease.

L., we just went through this with my 3 year old son - after he was diagnosed with Sensory Processing Disorder and the school system was calling him "autistic." We did an elimination diet with the help of a nutritionist - Bonnie Minsky of Nutritional Concepts. She has a book - Our Children in Nutritional Crisis - which describes how food can contribute to behavior issues in children. It also explains an elimination diet in detail. She helped us do a modified one for my son who is an extremely picky eater. We found out excess sugar and artificial colors and flavors contributed a lot. Also, milk. We are currently testing gluten. We also added supplements (a multivitamin and magnesium) to his diet. He has done SOOOO much better! Now we are looking at probiotics and enzymes to see if he can have some milk. It is easier than it used to be to try these diets with alternative foods being offered in many grocery stores.

Also, many of the allergies do not show up on tests. My son does not show any positive reactions to milk on the allergy tests. However, his behavior is tremendously different after eating milk for awhile (loopy and less verbal and interactive) for a child who is normally off the wall! So, even if you have allergy tests done - it may not be the answer if it is only an intolerance.

Good Luck,
M.

Hi L.,

I was diagnosed with allergies when I was around your daughters age. My mom tells me that I would jump off furniture and act crazy with energy. They took me to dozens of doctors. She finally took me to an allergist after a friend of hers told her it might be allergies.

I was tested and found out that I was allergic to almost everything:
Artificial coloring and flavoring, farm animals, potatoes, strawberries, cats, birds, perfume, make up, plastic, and on...

One of the kids I had in my daycare was allergic to red dye #40. She was extremely hyper active if she had food with the dye in it. (Note: dye is also in other things like make - up) I heard this is a common allergy among young children.

I don't have any book suggestions. I just wanted to let you know what I had experienced.

Good luck.
M.

I don't have any book recommendations but with both my boys they could not have anything with red dye in it. It made them crazy, so that is something you might start with.

www.feingold.org
Look up this site. It's great! He wrote a book called "why my child can't behave". My sister read the book and loves it...it's really helped my niece and my sister tries to follow the diet herself and for the whole family since it's really a better diet for everyone because the whole point is to eliminate artificials...dyes and flavors. Some bodies are more sensitive to the artificials than others. Her daughter used to act VERY VERY moody and the diet has REALLY helped her. Even if she has gum with the artificial flavors, my sister said that she notices her being really moody the next day, but as long as they stay away from the artificials, she's relaxed and even tempered. It took her quite a while to figure out the problem, but this has helped them so much. My other sister is trying it for one of her sons now because he's pretty moody as well. Eventually I want to read it as well and try to go with it. For now, my sister lets me know some of the good brands to buy. Things that are obviously colored with food coloring you want to stay away from. The book has an entire list of brands that do not use artificials so the key she says is just knowing what to buy. Like I remember Giradelli chocolate chips, Pringles potato chips, Meijer pretzels are all on the good list of things without artificials. And she shops in the organic section a lot for things without artificials. Best wishes!

You might want to look into wheat, glueton, or celiacs disease (not sure if I spelled that right) I know people who have had that with the same symptoms. Good luck!