Need support and recipes! ds4 on strict diet!

[atisikitabasket]

Ok. a little background. Our DS4 was diagnosed PDD on the spectrum last october. We recently took him for allergy testing and guess what he is allergic to everything. they started him on shots for all the non-food related allergies and now we will be starting a diet. I think if it was just Gluten and Casein i could find enough stuff for him. However it is worst than I thought it would be. Here is a list of what he can't have.

Gluten, Diary, Eggs, tomato, beef, corn, soy, grapes, cashew, coconut, mustard, safflower oil, turkey, both kinds of yeast, yogurt, barley, cheese, cod fish, lettuce, oats, sesame, walnut, malt, peanuts, wheat, blueberry, Garlic, rye, sugar and nutrasweet

Of course these are the only things he will it. Then the foods he can have are on a rotational diet so if he eats something on Monday he can't have it again till Friday. Including the seasonings we can use, the oil we can you and even what he drinks for the day. Me and DH both work so I will have to pack him breakfast, lunch and 2 snacks to take everyday to daycare and school. Most of the stuff he can have is seafood and fish which I don't know if that is even any good reheated does anyone know?

Sorry I just keep wanting to cry thinking about him seeing all the other kids eating stuff he likes and him not being able to understand why he can't have it. It would be easier if he didn't already know what he likes and never got to have any of the stuff.

If you have any recipes that doesn't have any of this stuff I would be so happy if you could post them.

 

[DannysMom]

What a difficult list of foods to avoid. I have no direct food allergy experience but have heard good things about http://www.kidswithfoodallergies.org/community.html

kidswithfoodallergies dot org

Good luck sorting it all out.

 

[KirstenB]

I don't have recipes, but autismspeaks.org has many threads regarding diet/allergies. Most do pertain to the classic casein/gluten free diets, but you may get some help there. We substituted soy milk for our daughter's regular milk and saw a huge difference in her focus/attention span/vocalization. Obviously you have a big challenge, but I just want to wish you all the best, and hope you see some dramatic changes, too.

 

[barkley]

a consultation with a good nutritionist or dietician could be very helpful-esp. if you can provide the dietary restrictions ahead of time so they could have some info and possible menus.

i would think you might have to start with looking at the nutritional needs each day, find out what foods or combos of foods need to be consumed to create those and build from there. not an easy task i know, but my mil had to do basicly this when her med. needs required a very restrictive diet.

since dairy is totaly out you could look at vegan dairy substitutes-but would have to closely look at ingredients because gluten, sweetners and nuts are pretty common. if he likes peanut butter you might try one of the other butters with an acceptable nut and oil combo (lots of health food stores can help you with the ratio-a realy good blender can make it at home). you might want to check out some bread machine cookbooks-see what kind of breads you can make with the products he can eat (i'm thinking stuff with rice flour). dd was lactose free as a baby-we got her fruit flavored (no sweetners in it) soy yogurt-it was fine as a snack. the fruits and veggies your ds is allowed to eat could be sent to school with a small container of plain (vanilla) soy yogurt with spices in it for dipping.

i'm not sure how helpful it would be but there are some books that include recipeis by dr. macdougal. since macdougal is vegetarian his recipies contain no meat-and the macdougal plan does'nt call for using oils, sweetners and some of the other items you've named-you might find some recipies there.

 

[mechurchlady]

It is not unusual to crave something one is allergic to. I bought for mom low sugar pancake syrup but do not like diet foods. I took a taste to make sure mom would like it and started guzzling it right from the bottle, it was soooo good. I found out later that it had barley in it. I paid for guzzling and had a gluten reaction. I loved Jones soda and found out that the flavour had gluten and when I quit got better.

I use olive oil for cooking. I find it easy to cut up chicken and pork into bite sizes and add seasoning or a barbecue sauce. The easiest thing to do is go to those sites above listed and find gluten and cassein free meals and adjust them. Tarragon imitates licorice, sesame is good for added crunch and I love corriander seeds.

Avoid Rice Dreams which is not gluten free. I love Almond Breeze and other rice, soy, and nut based milks. Some come in chocolate. I can eat corn but not soy so I am not sure which are corn free. Most cold cuts contain unidentified foods which may contain gluten and hot dogs are out for me except one brand but they usually have corn.

Good Luck

 

[WildGrits]

I'm not questioning your judgement, I'm just confused.

How exactly did they come up with this list?

When my DD was in K well removed things from her diet a month at a time to see if there was any difference.

If you remove all of that stuff at once, how will you know which ones are the actual cuprits?

Then once we thought we had one, we kept it out of the diet for awhile then reintroduced controlled so that we could chart and differences.

After we were all done we only found red dye to be a problem. And she out grew it anyways.