How homeopathy addresses the issue of gut dysbiosis and why you don’t need to force your child to change diet
Many childre with autism present with GI issues, like: diarrhea, constipation, bloatedness, gas, intolerance to certain foods and very picky with food.
Typically the main food type preferred by these children is carbohydrates: bread, biscuits, cakes and sugar in general.
Functional medicine and biomedical doctors urge parents to put their child on a GF/DF/SF diet straightaway. If the child is very young or compliant, that is a great idea and it can be very beneficial. The problem is that very often our children are not that compliant when it comes to food choices (or anything else, for that matter!) and asking a busy, stressed out mother to start over-hauling the eating habits of the whole family, with a child who simply will not eat what is put in front of him, is setting her up for failure.
I remember we tried the GF/DF diet for a few months. My son never liked milk or cheese, so the dairy part was easy. The gluten thing, however, was something else. I tried the gluten-free versions of bread and pasta and they just tasted horrible. In the end my husband begged me to stop the madness and my son wasn’t really any different anyway, so I gave up on the idea. At the time my son was only eating pasta with pesto sauce, bread and cakes. No meat, not even a sniff of vegetables or fruit.
Even though I know full well what gluten does to our gut and why most people should be off dairy, I knew diet was not the way to go for my son. Not yet, anyway. Once his autistic symptoms started to improve, he also started to develop an interest in different foods and today his diet is well balanced; he still won’t go anywhere fruit, but I can live with that.
I have seen a similar pattern again and again in other cases. One recent case I am still working on seems promising. This child is eight years old and non verbal. One of his issues was always his constant eating: he literally never stopped eating the whole time he was awake. Always cookies, chips, dry cereals, snacky things. His mother would buy the gluten free alternative, but she was aware that it was still not healthy. I even suspected he could have Prada Willis syndrome at some point (the condition whereby the brain doesn’t know the body is full and the individual literally never stops eating) however, that was thankfully ruled out.
Three months into homeopathic treatment, one of the improvements is this: he is not asking for snacks anymore, he only eats at regular mealtimes. Not only that, but he has started to recognise different flavours: his mother made him some lemonade and he made a face when he drank it, from the tart taste of lemon. He had never done that before. He has also started to drink plain water, which he used to hate! It was always almond milk or fruit juice before now.
His tastebuds are awake!
Hopefully this trend will continue to the point where he will be curious about a wider range of foods, which will in turn improve his overall health.
