My son

[Guest guest]

Dear Steph and ,

I have tested my son using " Food detective " and it turns out that he

has anti-bodies for the following : Egg, cow's milk, gluten, wheat, rice, corn

and gluten.  This is very similar to me and obviously I am worried about how all

this could turn out, given how I have ended up!

He is sensitive to noise, smells, light and heat.

He has been complaining on and off for years about having pins and needles in

his fingers and has been prescribed magnesium by our doctor on several

occasions. (I think this may be due to vitamin B12 deficiency.  Because of the

mad cow business and a dioxine scare when he was little he never ate any beef

until he was about 10 when organic beef started to become readily available in

the shops.)

He is given to reacting violently to people who insult him, although I must say

his reaction always follows a provocation and is not gratuitous.  On the other

hand he is very demonstrative and affectionate. For me this is symptomatic of a

great emotivity.

He is often tired after eating.

He gets easily flumoxed in group situations and is not great at dealing with

problems through discussion.

He is around a 100 - 110 lb, just over 5 foot 7 inches (my height) and is 12

years old.  He has grown quite a bit this year, I think he started 2010 shorter

than me.

Puberty seems to be going along nicely.

He is a very talented student at school but gets stressed easily.

I am proud to say that as yet he has no fillings and never will have if I can

help it!

He has slight shadows under the eyes, like me.

He has similar behaviour to me at the same age.  I would like to deal with his

allergies and behavioural problems but I am not sure how to go about this.  I

think he may have been born with some sort of adrenal problem because he slept

15 hours a day until he was four (I was the envy of the village!). He was always

full on when he was awake and then pooped after lunch.  (May be I was pinching

his cortisol or something because I felt great when I was pregnant.)

Any way he is going on a gluten, cow's milk and egg free diet.  Could iodine

help with his allergies and behavioural problems?

The more I think about it the more I am convinced that I and some of the other

members of my family have undiagnosed food intolerance issues.  My sister has

had some very bad episodes with her health (endometriosis and polycystic

ovaries) and my Mum died of cancer at 51 (both breasts, I believe this is quite

rare).  My son takes after my side of the family physically.  I have a suspicion

that he might have a leaky gut or something, because of the number of " light "

allergies that he had on the test tray (light stains instead of dark ones

indicating low level of anti-bodies).  Is there something that I could do

to improve his gut flora?

Excuse me if this message seems to jump around a bit, but I don't know how to

approach this.  I am very concerned to see in this forum and in the other ones

that I frequent that the age at which people are getting thyroid disease and

iodine deficiency related issues seems to be getting lower and lower and that

many people in my position have teenage kids that are ill with thyroid disease

or gut or adrenal issues.  I am also seeing the same thing among our friends and

the kids my son goes to school with.  I strongly believe that this is the first

part of an epidemic.  My instinct tells me that to do nothing is not the

solution.

I have driven my very patient and understanding husband mad talking about iodine

but even he now thinks something is up and maybe we should give him some iodine

for his allergies or as a pre-emptive treatment.  I have only very vague ideas

how much to give him and what else he needs (except may be for the vitamin B12).

Any help gratefully received,

MacGilchrist