If you knew that your child was somehow ill because they were eating rotting food each day, you would definitely act to the best of your ability to stop that. The fact is that rotting food can and will make a person sick and over time would lead to awful conditions in a persons physical makeup.
But what if I told you that food allergies and sensitives are just like that too.
Here's my story.
My oldest son is now 4 and doing very well. But it wasn't always like that. He was one of those children that just was not a very content baby. Then he moved into being an extremely moody toddler till finally at the age of nearly 2 he became uncontrollable in his behaviour and I didn't even want to leave the house or go anywhere with him. Me, my son and my new baby at that time became shut ins as it were. My husband was working long farming hours and tried to be of assistance to the growing problem, but wasn't really aware of the seriousness of it until near the end.
My oldest son who had started out with huge moodiness at around 1yr old or so had grown into all out tantrums that would include throwing himself to the ground and continually banging his head on the floor with no regard for the pain it was inflicting. It was extremely painful to see. And would go on for an hour at a time and several times throughout the day . He also had begun to bite himself on the arm in frustration. He would yell and cry and scream these schrill screams and then lash out with hitting. Underlining things I didn't notice until after was that he would often grip his stomach or head and never had a solid stool ever. These should have been warning signs but he was my first child.
Now any person would easily say, he needs to go to the doctor. His aunt has extreme autism and most probably were suspecting that he had autism as well.
I'm a Christian so I was praying all the time for healing or that God would teach me to be a good mom, because obviously I was doing something totally wrong for my kid to act like this all through the day. Near the end I just prayed for deliverance because quite frankly I thought some evil had got ahold of him and I had no idea what was going on.
One day I finally gave in and went down to the health unit in town to get a professional opinion. I wasn't sure what they would think of me as a mom. I was afraid they would take my kids away telling me I was doing it all wrong! I was more afraid they would want to put him on some medication that would just dope him up. But I just couldn't let my son go on like that. It was horrible to see and have nothing console him.
They did an assessment briefly and said they'd send someone over to observe him at home. At the same time I finally made an appointment with my family naturopath for some food allergy testing. I myself have a particular egg white allergy that makes me moody.
I had the appointment with the lady from the health unit the same day I had the naturopath testing in the afternoon. When the lady came my son played on the floor with one car back and forth over and over. She noted his non enthusiastic attitude. He was pale. Although I wasn't sure how to fix that. And sure enough after a little bit he threw a tantrum on the floor with his head banging away.
I just sat there and waited for him to finish. She looked at me surprized slightly at my non action.
"If your wondering why I'm not doing anything..." I said "its because this is what people have advised me to do. To ignore him when he acts like this. To walk away and give him no attention. That this is just a phase and it will pass. But its just been getting worse. I've tried to comfort him but he only gets worse from that too." She paused and thought about the situation. Then comforted my efforts and said she would come back with an action plan on this. To this day I am glad that she actually viewed what had been going on because so few people had seen him lash out.
That afternoon I brought him to the naturopath for the food testing. After we arrived I dreaded the idea of sitting through even a 15 min wait for fear of him lashing out and screaming. Those days I often got to carrying him around like a bag of luggage under my arm so that I wouldn't be kicked in the exit.
I gave him my cell to watch netflix and the doctor did the test, 10 minutes and it was done. No scratching or anything like that. Just an current from a machine through your hand and back to the machine.
It came out Wheat, Egg Whites, Cows Milk, All the food colours, sulphites and oranges.
I knew the egg whites well. This allergy had caused me many an argument and yelling at my home. It was like a thorn in my side that when I stopped eating eggs I wondered how I ever survived emotionally before that point. It literally just changed the way I looked at life and the people around me.
We took my son off everything for 6 weeks. However, within the first 4-6 days of taking him off the food we seen a drastic difference. We could go outside again. He was calm. He had solid stool. He was content. Smiling. He was like a different kid.
As time went on off the foods he's felt better and better. His speech is increasing and so are his social skills. The lady from the health unit helped to get him into regular daycare to give me rest and help him grow. Fantastic. But I know even she noted the huge difference it had on him.
Turned out that the wheat and cows milk were giving him a reaction similar to a gluten allergy. So it damaged his intestinal track and he wasn't able to absorb nutrients. This added to his paleness, lack of reaction, grabbing of his stomach and diarrhoea. The wheat/gluten also gave him headachs. The egg whites contributed to his sever anger and mood swings. The food color gave multiple problems like headaches and attention span issues.
I work at a youth centre and since that time I have noticed two separate youth who have got the food testing done and had anger issues. One is just on the 6 week stage and I hope it will give the life change it did for our family. The other one had different allergies than mine except the egg too. But she noted the anger and paranoia that came with eating egg whites.
For a better understanding of how these food have drastically changed peoples lives there is a great article on this and how it affects people with schizophrenia, alcohol addictions and much more. The education that food can actually change the way your brain works is new to the medical field but very relevant.
This is the link to topics of foods and how they can affect the brain function,
http://www.alternativementalhealth.com/articles/brainallergies.htm
We often complain that our kids are on too much prescription drugs and acting out. But like my son, it wasn't his actual normal behavior. It was his REaction to what he was eating.
Here's another site to finding a great naturopath in your area.
http://findanaturopath.com/301/
The allergy testing they do at the doctor is different from the one at the naturopaths. However, I don't have the information here to explain the differences.
In conclusion, as I work in a youth centre and am around youth all the time I so often see your average young person, diagnosed with some odd thing like personality disorder or bipolar or whatnot. Or I see a average person who is unusually skinny and tired. And I can't help but think to myself...I wonder if its what they are eating.
