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Feingold and GFCF Diets Perform Well For Some Children

There are some diets which have been promoted many times for children with developmental issues such as Failure To Thrive. The Gluten Free Casein Free and Feingold Diets are among the favorites for this field.

Changing The Paradigm

I want to applaud the developers of these diets for breaking the paradigm about what might be the root of the world-wide explosion in the incidence of developmental problems for children. For years our modern doctors could not believe that what a person consumed could influence that person’s developmental health. These diets are understandably popular in the communities affected by Failure To Thrive, as well as other developmental problems and these diets are displaying that they are dramatically and positively improving the lives of many of these children.

These diets succeed for some children with significant improvements in a variety of symptoms. For other children there is less improvements. And, for others there is no improvement at all from these diets. One of the unanswered questions about these diets is why are some dramatically helped by these diets and others are not?

Isabel and I have been working with children with developmental problems for decades. We are now concentrating in this area of re-energizing the developmental process and getting it back on track. One of our breakthroughs has been an understanding of the relationship between intolerances and developmental problems.

Sensitivities and Intolerances

We all have some factors in our environment to which we are sensitive, or of which we have an intolerance. This is not so much an allergy where we have a strong and immediate immunological response to some thing. This is much more a subtle defensive reaction we have to something in our environment over time.

If someone is allergic to bee stings, they have an strong and immediate reaction to being stung by a bee. They can have swelling or even start to have a life-threatening anaphylactic shock. But, consider the possibility that someone has a sensitivity to, or an intolerance of, a deodorant soap bar. They might not have a reaction to it unless they use it for many days, and then they may develop a minor rash as the reaction because of that sensitivity or intolerance. If you determine that this rash is related to the deodorant soap bar, you can stop the use of it and the rash will fade away.

Developmental Problems

We determined that children with developmental problems, such as Failure To Thrive, have multiple environmental factors to which they have these defensive responses. And, it is the stacking of these multiple responses which seems to be the cause of these developmental problems. The collections of these defensive responses ends up with the body shutting down functions which are not needed for survival today.

This defensive reaction process evolved in a less contaminated era and the body only needed this defensive reaction to sustain itself for a few minutes or hours while the person walked or was carried away from the environmental factors to which the body was responding. A few minutes of a conservative, defensive reaction was usually enough for offending thing to be over the hill. So, if the body shuts down some functions not needed while getting away from the offending thing, it would not affect the long-term survival of the person.

Shutting Down The Developmental Process

The problem is that our world is much more contaminated and children with developmental problems are much more sensitive to contaminants than when we evolved these response processes. If the child has these kinds of collections defensive reactions to something that is eaten at every meal, the defensive responses will never end. If the child has these collections defensive reactions to the laundry detergent or fabric softener used in the house, the child always has residue of those chemicals against the skin, so the responses will never end. Imagine if the child has a series of these kinds of intolerances and reactions and the child’s body never has a chance to stop having these reactions.

One of the functions commonly shut down in these compounded defensive reactions is the developmental process. If a child’s defensive reaction includes shutting down the developmental process, and the defensive reaction never stops, the developmental process never gets to move the child forward toward maturation. In this case, the child does not get to develop.

Feingold and GFCF Diets

Here is where the Feingold and GFCF Diets come in to play. These diets restrict a set of environmental factors to which numerous children with developmental problems are responding defensively. So, the children with developmental problems who have an intolerance of the items restricted by the diet will show some amazing results. The children who have an individual menu of sensitivities which is aligned with the diet will benefit from it. For those children who try the diet, but whose set of sensitivities are not aligned well with the restrictions of the diet, there will be little help.

For this reason we applaud the significant contributions the Gluten Free Casein Free and Feingold Diets have made in our understanding of developmental problems. They help us all understand that the children with developmental problems are reacting to some things in the environment and we can help these children re-engage their developmental process, if we eliminate those things from the child’s environment.

These diets are on the right track, but there is an assumption that some particular things in the environment are causing the developmental problems. The difficulty in this assumption is that the defensive reactions these children have is about their own list of offending factors (not a generic list). Their own list might not include all the restricted items of the generic diet. Each child should be using a diet program which is tailored to their own individual menu of intolerances.

Sensitivity Evaluations Is The Key To Success

We have developed an approach for testing each of our client children for their own specific menu of intolerances. This gives the parents a precise menu of things to eliminate from the child’s environment. So, instead of a generic diet plan which might (or might not) have the items a specific child needs to avoid, we give each parent a precise list of things their child needs to avoid.

This Is Much More Than A Diet Program

Our testing technique includes everything that the child eats, breathes, and touches. This includes more than the child’s foods and drinks. It involves testing the child’s reactions to medications, household cleaning chemicals, and everything else in the child’s environment. Our thorough testing approach will help you develop an appropriate plan to clear all of the offending environmental factors from your child’s environment.

What Happens When Your Child Stops These Defensive Responses?

There are many different types of developmental problems in children. Each of them have their own set of signs which are identified as the set of signs of that specific diagnosis. Many children have so many of these symptoms that they have multiple diagnoses, because their own set of symptoms cross boundaries from one diagnosis to another.

Because of this symptomatic complexity, we would not be able to forecast which symptoms a child will develop out of initially as a result of living in an environment free of their offending factors. But, our experience is clear that when children enter and stay in an environment free of their offending environmental factors, their developmental process restarts and their developmental process begins to move them through their missed or next developmental steps. You know this approach is being successful when you see your child start moving through developmental stages.

We encourage all our clients to establish a developmental baseline with our free Developmental Checklist before they start working with us. We encourage them to use this same checklist, monthly, to track their child’s progress as they continue working with us.

By tracking the child’s developmental movement, parents can see that their child has restarted the developmental process. This movement means that the child is developing past the symptoms which were the basis of the child’s diagnosis in the first place.

Sensitivity Re-Evaluations For The Long Term

After some time of developmental progress using our program, we encourage parents to re-test their child. Many of the offending environmental factors will have stopped producing defensive reactions, and the child can slowly bring those things back into the environment. Many other things will still cause those defensive reactions and will need to stay on the list for this child. Which items can be brought back and which items need to stay restricted is individual for each child.

It Is Time For Your Child To Re-Engage The Developmental Process

If your child has developmental problems such as Failure To Thrive, it is time to get that blocked developmental process restarted and encouraged to get back on track. With our proprietary testing process, you can take control of this problem and get your child to catch up with peers.