Our New "Free" Diet

Several months ago, Air Boss and I had taken 'Shroom to see a neurologist in order to figure out once and for all "what was wrong with him" - to put it bluntly. Ever since he was 15 months old, he was labeled as "developmentally delayed" and that has translated to a lot of different things over the course of his life.

We went to the doctor with the assumption that 'Shroom may have Asperger's Syndrome but wanted further medical insight into this possibility. The long and short of it was that the doctor didn't think 'Shroom had Aspergers. Instead, he cited Attention Deficient Disorder (ADD) as the probable issue at hand. While 'Shroom doesn't have the typical Hyperactive Disorder that oftentimes goes hand-in-glove with ADD (otherwise known as ADHD), the doctor did prescribe medication to help 'Shroom with his ability to concentrate and stay focused in school.

This appointment was back in June, just a couple of weeks before school was scheduled to end. Since I wasn't too keen on medicating 'Shroom to verify the ADD diagnosis and school was ending shortly, we decided to do nothing about it.

Now that we are more than a month into homeschooling (gasp! did I just say we were homeschooling?!?!), I am a first-hand witness to how easily distracted and unfocused my boy is. Sometimes when he's retelling or narrating a reading passage we're working on, he has a hard time getting a complete sentence out. His mind has already moved on to something else (or, more likely than not, his mind wasn't really paying attention to what we were discussing). Word problems are difficult because he reads about half the problem and then tries to solve it. I wonder if he's more concerned about putting down some answer so that it looks like he has something to show for.

In the past couple of weeks, discussions about medicating 'Shroom have come up. Air Boss is all for filling the prescription for Adderall (a stimulant typically used to treat people with ADHD and narcolepsy). I've been reluctant to medicate 'Shroom from the moment we received the prescription and I'm still very hesitant to do so. Part of the reason is the known (and unknown) side-effects. Another reason is that I don't want 'Shroom to have to depend on a chemical stimulant for him to function "normally." I believe that there are coping mechanisms out there - somewhere - that may help him focus and overcome his difficulties without resorting to the use of medication.

Well, this all brings us to our "free" diet that my whole family will try for a month. 'Shroom has tested positive reactions to certain food groups. While he does not have any life-threatening food allergies, we are going to try to eliminate his reactive foods groups from our diet for a month to see if it will increase his attention span (or in any other positive way). We will be doing this as a family and we are going to try our best to be positive about it and not complain about giving up ice cream (me), chocolate and cheese (Lolli), beer (Air Boss) , and yogurt and quesadillas ('Shroom).

We've just about finished all our perishables in the refrigerator that fall under our "free" diet. "Free" - beginning tomorrow, includes: dairy-free, egg-free, wheat-free and nut-free. I guess that leaves us with water and beans to eat for the next month!

My concern is that my 47 pound nine year old with visible ribs from the front and back may lose weight. I'll have to keep monitoring both 'Shroom's and Lolli's weight to make sure they're okay.

In the meantime, I hope this momma doesn't get too crabby from having all her favorite snack foods put "on hold!"