Why We Went Gluten-Free

Many of the questions I get from people (and you might be asking yourself) about being Gluten-Free (which I will now refer to as GF) is, "WHY?!?!" Well, I'm glad you and everyone else asked because that is this week's topic. So, read on and I hope you are blessed...

We moved back to the Sunshine State from a very WET Portland, Oregon in November of 2011 after living there for about 2 years to help some good friends plant a church. Our kids we very excited to be moving back "home" and to live at Gammy and Poppie's house (again) until we could get a place of our own. Although this was a positive change and a familiar move, the transition still posed as a struggle for our daughter. Any type of change in her life, good or bad, has been something she has a hard time with. We had been struggling for awhile to handle some of her emotional and behavioral issues, but this move really seemed to affect her quite drastically. After a few months of trying several differnt things on our own and no success, we decided to seek professional help.

In February of 2012, we started seeing a counselor to help us better understand our daughter, so we could help her better understand herself and her emotions. Through that process we learned that our daughter was more than just "Strong Willed". We learned that she suffers from severe anxiety, she has some PTSD that is attached to any change in her lifestyle and routine, she has some OCD/perfectionism traits, she struggles with how to filter her emotions and can be overly sensitive, as well as having a "Strong-Willed" nature. It was a huge eye-opener to see that she's not just out to make our lives difficult and to challenge us on everything! Some times her behavior and response to different things can be due to these other factors, which is OK because that's how God wired her.

Commonly in today's psychiatric world, the "symptoms" and behaviors our daughter was exhibiting can be diagnosed as ADHD. Our counselor encouraged us to have her tested, but not to rush to medication treatment if diagnosed. She highly recommended researching different dietary changes.

We weren't too surprised that our counselor thought our daughter might be ADHD. When she was 21/2 yrs. old we saw a Psychiatrist because of her exhibiting some extreme emotional and behavioral difficulties. She was tested and labeled AT-RISK for ADHD. We were told that once she was school aged and if she was still struggling with the emotional and behavioral challenges, that she would most likely be tested again and could very well test positive.

So, we continued forward on this journey and started the ADHD testing and research of dietary changes to help ADHD children. While in the testing process and researching, I learned a lot about how different food allergies can present themselves in emotional and behavioral ways and not just physical. The ADHD test results were inconclusive due to testing positive in the home environment, but not the school environment. Most kids exhibit the behaviors both at school and home.

We were relieved when we found out she didn't have ADHD, but knew that something wasn't right and were determined to find a solution for our daughter.

During my research I came upon the "Elimination Diet" method to test for food allergies (more on that in another weeks post). Since so many of her symptoms mirrored those of different food allergies such as Gluten, Food Coloring, and Dairy, we decided to try it.

We waited until May when school would be out so, the changes in her food wouldn't cause any issues at school (we were being sensitive to the new things we learned about her PTSD to change and severe anxiety). Over the course of the 2 weeks that we completed the "Elimination Diet", we saw such a significant change in our daughters over all behavior and mood as well as specific behaviors during times that would normally trigger meltdowns and extreme behavior reactions, that we were sold! The best way to describe how gluten effected her is that it clouded her brain so, she couldn't think and process emotional and behavioral things clearly. After the diet she was able to think much more clearly.

We took all of the information and our findings from the diet to our Pediatrician. He was very supportive (since he administered the ADHD test himself) and could see the difference in her after the dietary changes. He agrees with us, that the best thing for her health is to be GF/dairy-free/coloring-free and low sugar.

Because we all did the "Elimination Diet" together so our daughter didn't feel singled out, we found some food allergies and sensitivities in each of us. With those findings, it made the decision simple for us to ALL be GF/DF/CF and low sugar.

Now that the "Gluten Fog" has been lifted, we get to enjoy who God made our daughter to really be. She still has her moments (being GF doesn't cure the strong willed nature!)but, don't we all?! We are now able to work through those moments a little bit easier. She sees a difference in herself and knows that she likes the person she is GF over the latter.

Going GF has been life changing to say the least, but most of all it's been a HUGE blessing!!!