Thoughtful House Journey Part 1

Since we are starting to blog in the middle of the story, let me just give a brief history lesson....

Spencer was dx with Autism January 2004, he was 2 years 10 months at the time. He's 8 years old now. We have tried all sorts of interventions but we were always leery of biomed. You know witch doctor, crazy hippies, herbs and potions is what always popped into my mind. But since we are still non-verbal, not potty trained and seem to be getting no where fast, I am at a point that I will let those crazy hippies and witch doctors do their thing with my child to get him well. (BTW-I really don't think they are crazy witchdoctor hippies anymore.) So, we are going down that road, we called Thoughtful House in Austin and started the process in early April, 2009.

April 29th, 2009 we had a phone consult with the nutritionist and were put on the GFCF diet. I won't bore you with all the details and all the reasons why it works. In a nutshell it is a Gluten Free, Casein Free diet, which basically means Spencer can no longer have anything that is made with, from, or derived from Wheat and Milk. Imagine almost everything in your diet has one if not both of these ingredients!!

So off we went....and I gotta say I was not too thrilled about it. I had heard about the diet in the past and thought, there is NO WAY I could pull this off. But, we made the concious decision to give this a try so here we go.

May 2, we removed dairy from his diet. Pretty easy, just started giving him Almond Milk and stopped giving him cheese, yogurt, ice cream etc. He didn't seem to miss it and we saw great improvement in his big bloated tummy. For once in his life he almost looked like he had 6 pack abs!

Over the next few weeks, it was all about research! Finding how I could replace all the wheat products he loves so much. Found great information on the TACA website (that's Jenny McCarthy's group).

May 11, we went gluten free! Saw changes almost immediately. Some people don't notice it too much, it's very subtle, but it is there and you NOTICE if you live with him daily. For one, he "looks" at us more. I caught him one day when I was riding in the back seat with him staring at me. It was really kind of creepy and shocking, he has never looked at me that way before. Second, he follows directions a lot better. We used to have a heck of a time getting him away from the PS2 in the morning and on to the bus. Just days after starting the diet, I could say "Spencer your bus is here, please turn off your game, and get your backpack." And he WOULD DO IT!! He would even go as far as letting himself out the front door and walk to the bus by himself! WHOA!! (I am in noway impling he is some super compliant kid, he is 8 years old and kids will do what kids want to do 90% of the time, he is no exception.)

Part of this step in the journey, it was suggested that we start giving him a smoothie. YEA RIGHT!! The kid who ONLY drinks milk or water! You have got to be kidding me, there is NO WAY he will drink a smoothie. But alas, I was challenged and I love a good challenge. Using his Spongebob PS2 game I sat in the floor with a smoothie (just strawberries, banana and blueberries) and proceeded to feed it to him. I got a big fat NO when I tried to give him the first bite. So, I turned off the TV..."Spencer take a bite and you can play your game" He took a bite! and it went like that for the first smoothie, tv off, bite, tv back on, tv off, bite, tv back on. Well, I am proud to say that today, I say "Spencer do you want a smoothie?" "Ess" (That's yes in Spencer talk) We proceed to the kitchen sit at the island and eat the entire smoothie (No bribery needed). Go SPENCER! Now the gross part, the smoothie today is a far cry from that first yummy smoothie! Who doesn't love a strawberry/banana smoother! We refer to it now as Spencer's Super Smoothie (he has 2 each day):
5 baby carrots
5 frozen strawberries
1/4 c blueberries
1/4c chopped frozen broccoli
1 scoop garbanzon bean powder (protein)-GROSS!
1/2t calcium
1/4t vitaspectrum (this stuff tastes NASTY)
1 probiotic pill
Sounds yummy huh?? :) Can you believe he eats this stuff willingly and actually prefers it over other regular food! Good thing, it's the easiest way to get in all those supplements.

Today, I can say the diet isn't really that hard if you have a Whole Foods, HEB, Central Market or other big chain grocer that carries organic products, you can pretty much find anything you need. It is time consuming...every Sunday I spend about 3 hours in the kitchen preparing food for the upcoming week for him. (Making bread, waffles, cookies, cutting fruit and veggies, etc.) It's a small price to pay for him to be healthy, plus I am learning so much about cooking/baking. (I don't cook and I never really even liked to cook.)


We went back to Thoughtful House yesterday and will blog about it tomorrow, too tired right now and lots to think about.