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Hello, my name is Lynn and I am the mother of 4.5 y.o. twin boys,

one who is NT (so far) and the other who has a dual diagnosis of CP

and autism due, imo, to significant prematurity (28 weeks).

My son with autism is primarily non-verbal (he has a few words that

are somewhat garbled and we hear very infrequently) and uses a

speech device sporadically. His overt autistic behaviors are

giggling/squealing, flapping pieces of paper and poor eye contact.

He also struggles with attention and retaining skills.

I have been a member of the GFCFKids chat list for about 6 months or

so, trying to gear our family up to begin a restricted diet. I have

great concerns about our ability to sustain such a diet but am

willing to do so if that is what it takes. Several reasons we are

considering a biomedical/dietary intervention is that our son is a

picky eater with a penchant for carbs, he has difficulty falling to

sleep at night, often wakes himself in prolonged fits of

uncontrolled giggling or squealing, has a bit of a rash on his

cheeks and red ring around his rectum, and often has fits of

squealing and inappropriate giggling. Based on feedback from other

parents, it seems we may have some phenol and yeast issues, along

with possibly other issues.

We have seen a DAN! doc once and are in the process of having

several tests done including an ELIZA test, an ion/chemistries test

and one other that I cannot recall the name of. Financially, it is

stretching us pretty thin so we are simply having the tests done as

we can afford and taking one step at a time.

My primary question is this - many of the parents on the GFCFKids

chat list use a combo of diet and enzymes to help their children.

Is it possible to do this with enzymes only? I know there are many

parents who make the diet work but I am not so sure. We travel a

lot, we spend a lot of time away from home at various therapy

appointments for our son and both my kids go to school outside the

home. I am not sure how we will be able to manage the diet so I

want to explore other options before doing the gf/cf diet. If there

are any parents on this list who have successfully used enzymes only

or used a combo of a lesser restrictive diet and enzymes, I'd love

to hear from you about your successes, recommendations, cautions,

etc. Is it possible to start with enzymes and move on to dietary

restrictions if no improvements are seen? Any thoughts are

appreciated.

Thanks in advance -

Lynn