My son

[Guest guest]

My son is extremely intolerant of rice. I suspected it, but finally

confirmed it by putting him on a strict rotation diet. This is a

very powerful tool in determining your child's " problem foods " . My

son's behavior nose-dived every time it was " rice day " . After

doing " rice day " minus each of the other ingredients on that

rotation, the only thing left to eliminate was the rice. I removed

all rice from his diet, and within 24 hours he stopped flapping his

hands. Within days he made a great leap in general behavior...less

hyper, less irritability, greater focus. On three ocassions I have

reintroduced rice, and each time he has regressed to an almost crazed

state (including hand-flapping, within hours!).

Based on what I have read about the immune system & food reactions, a

certain subset of our kids will react to WHATEVER they are consuming

frequently. That's another benefit of the rotation diet; helping to

prevent new sensitivities.

btw, my son was a reflux baby. On the advice of our then-

pediatrician, we added rice cereal to his bottles when he was 2 weeks

old. Now I know how insane that was, but at the time it helped, and I

did it because " the doctor said so " . I suspect that early exposure,

on top of all the other immune system abnormalities in autistic

children, contributed to his rice sensitivity. Then going off gluten

made it much worse because he was eating so much of it.

Sorry to ramble....I would recommend rotating your son's diet

and " testing " for a rice problem before eliminating it, since it is

such a staple on this diet! Best of luck!