Restoring my soul.

There has been a proliferation of blog posts from parents touting the cure all of a gluten free diet, “I went gluten free and cured my sons Autism”, “I went gluten free and cured my digestive issues”,”I went gluten free and my skin cleared up”.

Well I’m so happy for all of these people that they found success with their issues by going “gluten free”.  However how does it make me and other parents like me that have gone “gluten free” and our children still have Aspergers or Autism? Are we failures? Did we do something wrong? Should we keep asking ourselves how many ways it’s our fault our child or children are still suffering? 

What of the parents whose children don’t have ASD but have other digestive or behavioural issues and are constantly told that Gluten free is the answer – only to have it not work for their child?  

The truth is some children do find relief from behavioural issues or digestive issues by going Gluten Free, most of these children are  Celiac sufferers and have an actual allergy to Gluten/Wheat.  This is not the case for children with Aspergers or Autism, there issue is neurological and genetic a diet of Gluten free will not “cure” them. In some/few cases there may be a small behavioural change in ASD kids by going Gluten free, there are no studies that prove one way or the other that a gluten free diet will fix ASD behavioural issues.

http://www.babble.com/kid/do-gluten-free-casein-free-diet-help-autism/  “My guess, though, is that science doesn’t match parent reports in part because autism is not one disorder. Hundreds of genes and an unknown list of environmental influences wrap together to produce the outward symptoms of what we know as autism – and in different combinations for different children. So far we don’t understand how to divide these children up in a meaningful way, we only know how to group them together and call it a “spectrum.” In reality, autism is probably multiple disorders, each with its own profile of genes, behavioral struggles, and physical symptoms.”

It’s offensive and cruel to say to a parent of an ASD kid that “going gluten free” will help or fix them or to blame us when we don’t go “gluten free”.  We love our children and most of us would bend over backwards twice and tie ourselves in knots to help our children. So to have it assumed or intimated by a complete generalisation that gluten free is the answer to every health issue and ASD is offensive and irresponsible.  

So please, please STOP it. I’m glad it worked for you, truly I am, it didn’t work and still doesn’t work for my child and that doesn’t mean I failed it just means my son is not wheat intolerant or has an allergy.