Gluten Free Diet

It's been a month since I last blogged about GERD, and some of you, (my friends who follow me privately), have been asking where I have been.  Well, I've been experimenting with a gluten free diet for the girls. After my experiment with the goat's milk (which enabled them to sleep better until they simply refused to drink it based on taste preferences), I realized there was a clear tie between their diet and their sleep--and it was possibly related more to protein (casein) than sugar (lactose).  So I took it one step further and decided to try the gluten (grain protein) part of the Gluten Free Casein Free diet, since gluten and casein intolerance often go hand-in-hand.


I began the gluten free diet because I understood it could work miracles on the sleep patterns and behavior issues as well as the dietary struggles of individuals with a variety of conditions: acid reflux, autism, Asperger's, ADHD, Crohn's, colitis, irritable bowel, hypoglycemia, schizophrenia, wheat allergy, etc.  This diet relies heavily on what is considered "the brain-bowel connection."  In other words, the diseases and conditions mentioned above often have overlapping symptoms because what happens in the digestive tract impacts the way the brain is able to function: if the body is unable to absorb all the nutrients necessary for optimal health and well-being, certain "triggers" are going to go off--triggers which (besides digestion) affect behavior and sleep.


I have a very mild wheat allergy myself: I can eat wheat, just in limited amounts.  I don't have to worry about elimination or cross-contamination.  But while mine was diagnosed through a blood test after years of obvious trouble, my girls' symptoms are (according to our medical professionals) more behavioral than physical, and as behavioral problems, they fall under the category of "Mom's not being tough enough."  So runs the repeated advice I get.


Of course, the doctors are not present in the middle of the night when I'm lying awake listening to my daughter struggle to sleep, as she tosses and turns for hours on end, pleading, "Please, please, please, Jesus!  Help me sleep!"  


They're not there when she has random outbursts or meltdowns (not tantrums, mind you) that include physical shakiness or paleness--when a little bite of protein instantly calms her and she's back to normal.  This, from the child who is so self-controlled she generally puts herself into time out when she knows she needs it--sometimes before she does something naughty!


There are times when she awakens on her own, rolls over, and goes back to sleep.  Those are not the issue.  The problem arises when she cannot sleep for 2 or 3 hours at a time.  Usually, she tells me she doesn't feel good but can't explain why.  Last night, for the first time, she offered the strange response, "My hands hurt."  Upon further questioning, she explained, "My hands are trapped and I can't use them."  I don't know if her hands "fell asleep" and she couldn't move them when she first awoke, or if something else was the issue.


Sleep is important--for anyone, but particularly for young children as they are growing and developing.  When they go without sleep, they become easily frustrated and more prone to illness and meltdowns.  Most of the professional advice I have received (i.e. ignore them at night and they will stop making noise when awake) neither works nor addresses the problem.  Ignoring the sleepless child at night may enable the parent to sleep more, but it doesn't enable the child to sleep, which is the core root of the problem!


So I put the girls on a gluten free diet.  It was easier with my younger child, who is home with me all day and never out of my sight.  The diet worked wonders for her.  Random meltdowns during the day diminished, and her sleep at night improved.  She now regularly sleeps through the night, and her night terrors are less frequent.  On those days when she does eat some gluten, the night wakings and night terrors return.  Clearly, there's a connection.


With my older daughter who goes to preschool twice a week, it's been a little more difficult, since she is more likely to get crackers and pretzels during the day.  But with the teacher on board with the new diet, and with my daughter exerting her 3-year-old self-control to eat only what I provided in her lunch box, I was able to eliminate gluten from her diet as well.


Her results were not so drastic.  Her meltdowns during the day are diminishing, but her sleep at night is not improved, and that is a primary concern for us.  Ideally, I would like to keep her on the gluten free diet and switch back to goat's milk to see how she does, but that's going to be a bit tricky.  These things take time, and you can't just switch a preschooler's diet all at once, especially when that preschooler is a picky eater!


While there are plenty of research sites out there on the Internet for eating gluten free, one of the best books I have ever read on the subject is Breaking the Vicious Cycle by Elaine Gottschall, which discusses the specific carbohydrate diet--one that is even more restrictive than the gluten free diet.  However, this book clearly explains the digestive disruption that takes place when an individual has been on antibiotics or acid-reducing (or suppressing) medications.  This disruption is consistent with my post on Proton Pump Inhibitors, so I won't go into repetitive detail here.  Suffice it to say, I think any parent weaning their child (infant or toddler or even older) off acid medication or multiple rounds of antibiotics should spend a month or two placing their child on the gluten free diet or the specific carbohydrate diet, in order to allow the digestive tract time to heal, before gradually introducing the child to gluten products again--if they choose to return their child to a normal diet.  And for those parents whose GERD children continue to suffer from insomnia and random meltdowns, the gluten free diet is well worth considering as an option.