SCD testimony/ older child

[Guest guest]

Hello! I just wanted to quickly share with you all how wonderful SCD has been

for our family.

Next month our family will have been doing the diet for two years...and I

can't even imagine wanting to go off of it! It has been such a HUGE blessing to

us, especially for our autism spectrum son, who is turning 14 in August.

What brought us to the diet was severe behavioral regression in our son.

While our ASD son was always characterized by anxiety, he was never known to be

'angry.' Between his 11 and 12th year he suddenly took a turn for the bad. He

began having wide, swinging, mood shifts and rages. The rages were always set

off by something ridiculous, such as seeing his dad read the newspaper, or it

starting to rain. Who knew what he would suddenly start to rage over. There was

no rhyme or reason to it at all. He was always very, very sorry and contrite

after the 'storm' had passed, begging us for forgiveness. He acted almost

unable to control himself while in the midst of it, though.

My first thought was that it was puberty related. Ugh! I called around,

trying to figure out what could be done to help him. We started him on a bunch

of

calming amino acids, but they didn't do anything. During one of his rages,

while both my dh and I held him down, I just looked at dh, shook my head and

said,

" Something is REALLY wrong, here. "

In my efforts to try everything before we took the last ditch choice to put

him on drugs (for his and our protection) a biochemist in CA offhandedly

mentioned the possibility of it being a yeast related issue. That stuck in my

mind

and I searched for what to do to address it. We couldn't afford a bunch of

tests, so, not having anything to lose, we just approached it as if it were

indeed

a yeast problem.

We started SCD in July, right before my son turned 12. We have not had a rage

since. He is the healthiest he's ever been. We saw a boost in language,

sociability, and relatedness. His sense of humor has blossomed and he is really

a

very sweet young man. I actually enjoy his company. :~)

Areas of improvement: physical, social skills, behavior, language---All SCD

related. He should have been on this diet when he was a baby. That is regret I

hold, today. How differently things would have been throughout his young life

had we known what we know today.

I want to say that our success at sticking with the diet, especially in the

beginning, was primarily due to THIS MESSAGE BOARD. I have nothing but sincere

gratitude to those individuals who post answers to peoples' questions EVERY

day---Patti is an angel-- I know because I got to meet her in person! :~)

I thank Elaine for her tenacity, perseverance, and smarts, the helpful people

who post on this list, and most especially God, for directing us to the

answer that pretty much saved our son's life.

Keep up the good work, everyone!!!!!

Cathy