New to this Group looking for thoughts on casein free diet for ASD son

[jzbalt71]

Hi, I'm new to this group, but my son is 7 and is on the spectrum.  He is lactose intolerant, but have been thinking about putting him on a casein free diet to see if I notice anymore of a difference in him and am looking for others thoughts on this???

 

[KayCee24]

Hi.  I too am new to this group.  I have to write quick, I have my 1 & 3 year olds running around and I need to get my son up (5 yr old autistic) for school.  We got our provisional diagnosis just before my son's 2nd birthday.  Before I got the diagnosis I researched and started the GF/CF diet.  We did an allergy panel a little after 2 years of age and it showed a lot of sensitivities, athough no real full out allergies.  We did the diet for 2 years strictly and when we retested his allergy panel everything came back normal.  We are off but I am leaning on going back to a SCD diet as I know my son has issues with yeast and I balk at keeping hm on meds too long.

Best of luck!!

[Apple1]

 

I think doing the casien free diet with your son is a great idea.  Often times parents with children who have autism will also remove gluten and do the GFCF diet, so many parents see so many positvies doing the diet with their children.  Some parents will start by removing one at a time, and some will remove both at the same time...when we started the GFCF diet with my son we removed them both at the same time (Gluten and Casien) and saw huge gains...it can take a few months to see the improvements, but so many parents do see the benifits and do stick to the diet.  A wonderful group here on cafemom called the biomed momma's group talks about the diets including the GFCF diet and the SCD which is called the specific carbohydrate diet.  Hope this helps...

[TinaNicu]

My oldest didn't see an improvement on the gfcf and soy free diets. But my other son has seen great improvements in his negative, defiant behaviors. It is worth a shot. I'd go off for a month at least for casein and then reintroduce it to see if there is a regression. For gluten at least 3 months.

[Kate00]

Hi -

We started a GFCF diet with our son in January.  There was a lot of improvement although it wasn't as immediate as some other parents described (I think b/c we introduced the diet very slowly).  Over a 6 month period he had huge language improvements.  We actually wound up reintroducing casein in the form of cheese and occasional yogurt (he had been milk free since he was a toddler b/c we noticed that on days he had cow's milk he was up all night) with no noticeable effect, so now we just limit dairy.  But when we tried to reintroduce gluten, it was a disaster.  Extreme behavior changes that even people who didn't know we were gluten testing (so they were independent observations) noticed.  

I would personally recommend that you try it.  It's not like it will hurt him, and you may find that it helps.  But for us removing gluten had the most results.

[nikkic30]

I put my son on a casein free diet and he has improved more than words and say. He is calmer, nicer, thinks clearer, not so busy, and talks more now. Within 3 days you will notice a huge improvement. the first 2 days he may get mean and angry. That is because it is the detox period and I suggest you do it over the weekend where he doesn't have to go to school while detoxing. As milk and dairy is like crack to a person addicted to it.  It has  the same effect on many kids with autism and other behavioral issues.