The light at the end of the tunnel

I feel fantastic today. I think I am finally, a week and a half in, at the tail end of die off. I am no longer anxious or fatigued. I woke up this morning from 6.5 hours of interrupted sleep and felt amazingly ready to face the day. I am not on edge with the kids like I have been since cutting fruit (which had been the only remaining significant sugar source in my diet). I haven't yelled or even snarled at my kids through gritted teeth (which I unfortunately did almost daily last week). I've wanted to raise my kids gently, following the advice in Peaceful Parent, Happy Kids, but often failed to do so because I always felt like I was ready to explode. But now? I'm even keel and feel peaceful. I don't have to try to be a peaceful parent because now it is coming naturally. What a great unexpected outcome of dietary change!!!

As for the kids, Grendel and the Hobbit played with each other with only a normal level of sibling fighting this morning. We didn't have as many random crying jags, and Grendel accepted my requests with a wimper or a whine rather than a full blown tantrum. Thank goodness, because Dr. Dad went back to work today and I don't think I could have handled these hooligans if we were still in the same emotional state as we were yesterday. The kids are still a little trigger happy with their meltdowns, but I can tell it's receding and we are seeing the light at the end of the tunnel. 

You know what else is receding? My hair. Check out this picture.

Okay, so it's not receding, but I just discovered that I developed a bald spot. Thankfully it is well hidden. I have a doctor appointment scheduled for next week to figure out the root cause, but my two leading theories are alopecia, an autoimmune hair loss disease triggered generally by stress (I already have one autoimmune disease, so a second wouldn't be surprising), or hypothyroidism which I've been wondering about for a while. Either way, GAPS should help bring my hormones back into balance and get my immune system to calm down. At least I'm  really hoping so, as I've grown rather attached to my hair. 

Then I saw her rash. Now I'm a believer!

I can't get the Monkees song I'm a Believer out of my head today. It pops into my head whenever one of my family members starts showing a new die off symptom. To be honest, we didn't really talk much about alternative dietary interventions when I went to school for medical dietetics (if my professors are reading this and we did, in fact, discuss them, sorry for daydreaming during class!).  We spent most of our time discussing medical nutrition therapy for things like diabetes, kidney disease, lung disease, heart disease, obesity, tube feeding...the list goes on and on.  Because they weren't covered in my education, whenever I would hear about one of these "trendy" diets, like the flat belly diet, the blood type diet, or the anti candida diet, I would scoff and dismiss whatever was being said. I would tell myself that these were being disseminated by self-proclaimed nutritionists and that actual dietitians wouldn't be fooled by such hooey (note: some of them are hooey, so don't believe everything you read). Then I got knocked off of my high horse.


But before we get to my great equestrian fall, I should probably answer a question.  What exactly is die off? The central tenet of GAPS and the anti candida diet are that your beneficial microbes (yeast and bacteria) are killed (through antibiotic use and our toxic lifestyles), pathogenic microbes multiply to fill in their place, and the pathogenic microbes wreak havoc on your health. So in doing either GAPS or anti candida, your goal is to kill the pathogenic microbes and to consume probiotics with beneficial microbes, so the beneficial microbes can fill in the places left by the dead pathogenic microbes and can keep the pathogenic ones from growing back. Basically, kill bad bugs. Eat good bugs.


Although, it's not quite that simple (is it ever?). How do overgrowths of pathogenic microbes in your flora make you sick? Pathogenic bacteria and yeast mainly harm you through secreting toxins. These toxins kill your cells and activate your immune system. Immune system activation is great if some of these pathogens get past your physical barriers and end up inside of your body because you want the immune cells to attack and destroy the invaders. The feeling of being sick is from a combination of the pathogenic toxins and the immune cell action that is taking place to destroy the microbes. But if you constantly have toxins leaking through a damaged gut wall (damaged by the very same pathogenic microbial toxins), then your immune system will constantly be activated, and you will constantly be symptomatic.  Often these symptoms are at a low enough level that they don't ever bother the sufferer enough to do anything about them.  Or, like most people, you have no idea why you feel crummy all the time.  Further, if you feel crummy all the time, you have no idea that you feel crummy because it becomes your new normal.  You don't want the pathogenic microbes in your gut in disproportionately high levels, but what happens when you start actively trying to kill them?  Unfortunately, it's a whole host of awful symptoms known as die off.  When you kill the pathogens, they release all of their toxins.  This means that those low-level crummy-feeling symptoms that weren't really bothering you too much are now going to come at you with a vengeance. 


That brings us back to today.  I am experiencing die off.  Dr. Dad is experiencing die off.  The Hobbit is experiencing die off.  And Grendel definitely is experiencing die off.  And therefore, I'm a believer.  This whole experience is kind of horrible and is giving me flashbacks to last summer when Grendel went through gluten withdrawal.  Now that we are experiencing die off, the exact same toxins that were released into our bodies at low levels resulting in crummy feelings are now being released at much greater levels making us feel extra super crummy.  How is this playing out?  Essentially, we are getting worse before we can get better.  I feel anxious and am suffering from reflux that had largely subsided.  My psoriasis is awful and my face, which had been relatively clear for the past couple of months, broke out last week (my die off symptoms began before everyone else's because I wanted to try out the fruit and honey free portion of this diet before subjecting the rest of my family to it).  Dr. Dad is just kind of fatigued (lucky duck).  Unfortunately, the kids seem to be getting hit the hardest. The Hobbit is irritable to a level that she hasn't been since before we started Full GAPS (a few weeks ago).  The last time she acted like this was when she was suffering from a perforated eardrum and took antibiotics to get rid of the ear infection.  Once the ear pain was gone I expected her to go back to being her normal self, but she was still acting like a crazy child - I think that the starch and remaining sugars in her diet combined with antibiotics throwing her system even farther out of whack were too much for her little body to cope with.  As soon as we started GAPS she was a new calm and focused child.  But, alas, now we are back to the crazy, mal-adaptive child who doesn't sleep.  Oh, and she has developed a rash on her arm and leg. 

Blurry picture brought to you by: a squirming, uncooperative toddler

As for Grendel, she is throwing tantrums or crying uncontrollably for somewhere between 3 and 4 hours a day.  She's a real gem to be around this holiday weekend. 

I go back and forth between feeling really bad for her (I mean, look at that face!) and getting really super irritated because I'm only human.

One of the most pronounced symptoms that has returned is her hand flapping.

It's hard to tell from a still photo, but this is her hand flapping.




She hasn't done hand flapping since we removed gluten from her diet.  At that time, many of her autistic symptoms diminished (this is why, even though she scored "probable autism" on her autism screening questionnaire, the psychologist did not diagnose her as autistic).  She has also started to regurgitate again. 


Unfortunately, we can't move forward in the GAPS Introductory diet from stage 1 to stage 2 until her regurgitation and my reflux resolve as GI symptom resolution is a great way to determine when your gut has healed enough to handle foods that are more difficult to digest.  I am hopeful that this happens soon because I'm getting tired of soup, and the kids have let me know, in no uncertain terms, that they also are tired of soup.


In the meantime, there will probably be a little extra screen time in our lives.  You gotta do what you gotta do.

Thank you Wyatt, and the super readers, for giving this mommy a break today.

GAPS Intro Day 1

We did it! We took the plunge! I've been thinking about and analyzing the pros and the cons of GAPS since November. But every time I seriously thought about such a significant alteration in the lives of each and every one of our family members I had this internal dialogue: But it seems so hard! What do you mean I can only eat soup and sauerkraut juice! I can barely get my kids to eat vegetables let alone sour vegetables. And what will we do for snacks? Or at parties? Or while traveling? Where will we go out to eat?

And after coming up with all of these reasons why it was a bad idea (notice none of the reasons have anything to do with health!), I would talk myself out of it and we would choose to make a less extreme dietary change. The first change was that we went from being gluten, casein, soy-free vegetarians to eating meat. We were feeling better, but we're still having many of the same health problems we suffered from before. Next, we went paleo using the thought process that if gluten was problematic then maybe all grains were (they all have similar proteins), and the same for soy and legumes. And boy, did we feel great! Many of our health problems disappeared...for a while. But paleo was just a band aid. It wasn't going to fix the problem. And then, a few weeks ago, I got fed up with all of the health problems, and impulsively, in the course of one morning, put us on the full GAPS diet. And it really helped, so much! But even with that, Grendel's GI symptoms were still making her miserable. So on Wednesday I took away fruit in preparation for today when we started the GAPS Intro diet (which is stricter than full GAPS but only lasts 4-6 weeks, providing gut rest and healing). 

How's it going? It, of course, is too early to see any improvements. The kids both seem to be miserable wrecks as their pathogenic bacteria are dying off and releasing toxins into their bodies (die off started when I took fruit out of their diets, but seems to have hit a new level today). In die off, whatever your specific symptoms are, they tend to get worse before they get better. The kids are irritable, Grendel has been hand flapping and randomly having complete meltdowns, and the Hobbit is having a lot of trouble, as her therapists call it, self regulating (which is just a fancy way to say that she is not adaptable and needs my help almost constantly to calm down about one thing or another). I've been holding her screaming for the past 30 minutes because she is tired and can't figure out how to fall asleep. Grendel is playing quietly in her room for quiet time, but is extremely anxious. And this will probably last for a few days to a few weeks. But ultimately, it's for the greater good. Going gluten free was followed by 5 weeks of gluten withdrawal in Grendel, which was miserable and made her act more Grendel-like, but so beneficial in the end. 

The moral of this story is that I'm glad I started this on a day when Dr. Dad is at home so we can divide and conquer. Or at least split up the kids and survive. 

I might have to sock them in the face

I know it's not a big deal. I'm sure that it is meant as a compliment. I know that they are only seeing a moment in my life and have only that information to make a snap judgement about what my entire life must be like. But if I hear one more person say, "Your child is such a healthy eater! I wish my kids would eat healthy foods like that!" then I think I might have to sock them in the face. 

The most recent example of this was when I was grocery shopping last Wednesday. That morning Grendel woke up looking sicker than she had been in a long time. She spent 2 hours laying on the floor or the couch hugging herself because her tummy hurt.  I have spent over a year slowly removing foods from her diet in an attempt to heal her tummy and her mind, and we have definitely been moving in the right direction. I haven't jumped into removing any food without carefully considering the pros and cons because I wanted her to have as varied a diet as possible and to feel like she fit in around other kids. Plus, as her safe food list has gotten smaller, cooking for her has become increasingly complex and time consuming. Each time I remove a food or group of foods from her diet, we face a few days of tantrums about wanting to eat that food, understandably. Which is exactly how I ended up in the grocery store on Wednesday morning. 

After Grendel woke up with a tummy ache, I realized that I needed to remove a group of foods that I had been dreading: fruits. The kids eat fruit every morning and as snacks throughout the day. Grendel can't eat the crackers or yogurts at snack time at school, so I send her with a dried fruit and seed trail mix. Fruit was our last easy school-approved snack (we eat a lot of almond butter around our house, but all child friendly activities outside of our home are nut free). It was the last easy toss it in the diaper bag as we run out the door item. It was the last safe snack the kids could eat at play dates and parties. Plus, it's fruit! Fruit is so nutritious. How could it be harming my kids?

I knew that we were planning to start the introductory phase of the GAPS diet this weekend, in which you temporarily can't eat fruit, so I figured I would start the fruit restriction a few days early to ease into things and hopefully see a resolution of belly pain. But as soon as I told Grendel and the Hobbit that we would not be able to have fruit for breakfast, the crying and the tantrums started. When Grendel found out she couldn't bring her favorite fruit and seed mix to school things escalated. I hadn't planned on the kids going fruit free and was ill prepared, so I packed Grendel a jar of guacamole for her school snack (ordinarily the idea of eating guacamole by the spoonful would thrill her, but instead it infuriated her because it was far inferior to her beloved trail mix). I finally managed to get both tantrumming kids out the door, into the car, and off to school, albeit 15 minutes late. 

I left a grumpy Grendel with her teacher and brought the hobbit, who had been on a hunger strike throughout all of breakfast, to the grocery store with me so I could find acceptable snacks for the kids. I started in produce so I could buy guacamole ingredients, in case Grendel decided during school that it had, once again, become desirable and might want more later in the day (spoiler alert: it didn't). While I was picking out some Roma tomatoes, Hobbit started grunting and bouncing up and down in her cart seat. I noticed she was pointing at a carton of cherry tomatoes. They were organic, and since hobbits go into starvation mode rather quickly after missing one meal, I popped the carton open and let her snack on them in the store. She had several grandparent-types gushing over the "cute little girl eating the cherry tomatoes as a snack." We managed to get all of the groceries into the cart without any further tantrums and were on our way to the checkout, when...

Stranger, a woman about my age: What's she eating?

Me: Cherry tomatoes. 

Stranger: Oh, I wish my kids would eat healthy snacks like that! You're so lucky!

Okay, full disclosure: I can't recall if she actually said "you're so lucky" at the tail end of her comment or if my brain has inserted it for the re-telling, but it was definitely implied. And I thought, I'm so NOT lucky! I spent 2 hours this morning with my sick child trying to explain to her why she can't eat fruit, one of her favorite things. The doctors can't figure out what's wrong. She and her sister both do hours of therapy each week to be able to cope with things that other kids their age don't even have to think about: chewing, walking on grass, going to semi-loud places, dealing with disproportionate fears and anxiety. I spend at least 3-4 hours in the kitchen every day because there are virtually no prepackaged foods that my kids can eat. That bone broth and those fermented foods aren't going to make themselves! Plus, I've had to convince a 4 year old and a 1 year old that our food is just as good as the food that they see their friends eating. I have jumped through hoops this year ensuring that Grendel was able to eat a cupcake at every class birthday party this year. Do you know how hard it is to make cupcakes with no sugar, flour, or butter?!?!?! And Grendel hasn't always eaten this way! My background is dietetics, so I did my best to feed her a healthy diet, but I certainly fed her many of the toddler-friendly foods that her peers ate. Before we had to remove gluten and dairy from her diet her favorite foods were mac and cheese, ice cream, cookies, goldfish crackers, cheese sticks, gogurts, and cake. She also wouldn't touch anything green and dinner was always a battle of the wills. But through hours of research, cooking, tantrums, self-doubt, and cleaning up uneaten food, she has become more adventurous. She has adapted. I'm very proud of how she has accepted this nutrition plan much better than most adults would have. As for he Hobbit? Well, she's kind of just along for the ride. I think all of these dietary changes are necessary for and beneficial to her as she seems to be following right along in her big sister's steps with regards to her health, but she never learned the joy that is Kraft mac and cheese so she doesn't know what she's missing. However, she does know that it is watermelon season and her precious has suddenly disappeared from the refrigerator. 

All this to say, I wasn't lucky in getting "good" eaters. (What is that anyway? Why place value words like good or bad on the way a little kid eats?) we have worked through blood, sweat, and tears to get to this point. I've earned a child who will eat cherry tomatoes from the carton. So please, don't compare my kids to yours. If you see us in the grocery store or at the park and you wonder about the seaweed my kids are eating you can say, "That is so great that they are eating such healthy foods!" or "Way to go, momma, thinking outside of the box with that snack!"

When someone makes the comparison between my adventurous eaters and their picky child, I usually just smile and say thank you. Or when I'm having a really hard day and the kids have already had a dozen tantrums because they just want a bloody piece of fruit and I have to tell them no, I might say, "Well, thank you, but they have multiple food restrictions so they have had to learn to eat this way. I guess it's a blessing and a curse that they react so badly to so many foods that they have kind of been forced to eat a healthy diet." But one of these days, and it may be tomorrow when I have to tell the kids no more nuts or seeds, only soup, for the next couple of weeks, I might just sock them in the face.