Yeast-Free Diet

When we called Martha (see Electrodermal Screening post) for the first time she suggested that Kendrick might have a Candida infection and we should eliminate malt, vinager, and peanuts (fermented foods). That seemed very easy to do, and quite amazingly three days later my son was way better!!!! About two months later, when we went to see her, we started a yeast free diet when she confirmed my son had a Candida infection.

The Candida yeast is a part of the gut flora, a group of microorganisms that live in your intestine. When the Candida population starts getting out of control it weakens the intestinal wall, penetrating through into the bloodstream and spreading throughout the body. As it spreads it produces toxic by-products that cause damage to your body tissues and organs, weakening your immune system. Candida infections, also known as candidiasis, can be controlled and eventually eliminated through proper treatment and care.

Tourette’s Disorder is a neurological disorder, which means it originates in the brain and/or the nervous system. It is believed it may be caused by a malfunctioning in the way the brain uses its neurotransmitters. Although sometimes neurotransmitter abnormalities can be genetic and one may be born with them, they may also occur later in response to a variety of other situations. Other factors that alter or deplete neurotransmitters are a diet lacking in adequate protein, a diet high in sugar, white flour and other refined junk food, caffeine, nutritional deficiencies, Candida overgrowth, food allergies or sensitivities.

After eliminating malt, vinegar and peanuts, we eliminated sugar, except for natural sugars in fruits. Then I read two books and used the yeast free diet guide on the women to women’s website. It has a nice list of of foods you can and can’t eat. The books were “An Extraordinary Power to Heal” by Bruce Semon and Lori Kornblum and “Feast without Yeast” by Jeannie and Bruce Semon. They helped alot to understand what we were doing and why. We did not eliminate milk from his diet.

My son is doing way better. He is still taking Resperidone, but we have been able to reduce the dose substantially. He definately has a food sensitivity and his diet is very important to reduce the tics. The hardest part of this diet was finding bread. So many contain malted barley or vinager. The one we use is the Tuscan Pane Bread from Trader Joes. The ingrediants are wheat flour, water, sourdough starter, salt, and natural enzymes.

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Tourettes and Halloween

Halloween just proved to us, once again, that our son is very sensitive to what he eats. Friday before Halloween, there was a party at school, after the parade, and candy was distributed. That evening our Church had a Harvest Party where the kids go and play games and receive candy for participating. Then the night of Halloween there was candy at home. I was away that weekend, and when I got back Sunday afternoon, he was having tics again, one whole body tic about every three minutes or so. They were not harsh, but very noticable. I immediately told him he had to limit the candy he was  eating and sorted through his pile to remove what I knew had maltodextrine and was brightly colored ( of course the ingredients are not on the small candy pieces, you have to read the pack they were from to know what chemicals you are eating). Then there is sugar, which is everywhere. It took a week for the tics to go away. My question is why does candy make him worse? Is it the Candida, hyperglycemia, the food coloring, …

Here are some interesting studies done on additives:

Synergistic Interactions Between Commonly Used Food Additives in a Developmental Neurotoxicity Test. Lau K, McLean WG, Williams DP, Howard CV., Toxicol Sci. 2006 Mar;90(1):178-87, 2005 Dec 13

Neurotransmitter Release from a Vertebrate Neuromuscular Synapse Affected by a Food Dye, G.Augustine, H.Levitan, Science Magazine, March 28, 1980, Vol. 207, pp. 1489-90

“…FD&C No.3 … produced an irreversible, dose-dependent increase in neurotransmitter release … These results suggest that erythrosine might prove a useful pharmacological tool for studying the process of transmitter release, but that its use as a food additive should be re-examined.”

Food, drug, and cosmetic dyes: Biological effects related to lipid solubility. Levitan H (1977). Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, U.S.A., 74, 2914-2918.

“The synthetic coloring agents increased the resting membrane potential and conductance of the neurons in a dose-dependent manner by increasing the potassium permeability of the membrane relative to that of other ions.”

Currently Reading “Lifeforce” By Dr. McCombs

I’m learning alot reading this book on Candida infections and how to elimitate them. As I mentionned in a previous post, just three days after starting a yeast free/anti-Candida  diet, my son was doing much better, his tics dimished in number and in strength. We followed a simple diet where we illiminated a couple of elements at a time. The program description in this book does not work for children, I think, because of the need to sweat in saunas 6 times a week and the pills. It was still very informative.

 

Electrodermal Screening (EDS)

My amazing sister in law recommended we talk to Martha. Martha was a friend of the family and a specialist in using natural therapies. She also uses a machine that can see what the body’s problems are. Electrodermal screening is used to find issues by measuring the electrical resistance on the skin’s surface. The purpose is to detect energy imbalances along invisible lines of the body described by acupuncturists as meridians. The FDA does not believe that this instrument can detect disease, but many of Kendrick’s problems were found through this screening. Electrodermal screening, or EDS, unites 20th century technology with the ancient healing arts of acupuncture. It was first developed around 50 years ago in Germany by a doctor named Voll. In the late 1940s he was studying the Chinese acupuncture meridian system when he had an interesting idea. He reasoned that if acupuncture theory was correct and channels of energy did run throughout the body there should be a way to measure this energy. So he constructed a device to measure the electrical conductivity of acupuncture points on the skin using electrodes.

This is an amazing machine, but from what I understand, you need to find a good interpretor, and Martha is the best. We went to see her in Alabama and with this machine she found that Kendrick had a Candida infection, metal toxicity, a problem with his atlas bone, a very weak immune system, lymes disease, and a problem with his dopamine level!!

She prescribed homeopathic medications for the lymes, herbes for the detox and cleansing, vita food to boost the immune system, and no more toxic cavity filings or tunafish for the toxins. We also immediately went to fix his Atlas bone with a specialist. Ten days later, after implementing all of these, we saw an amazing improvement.

Malt and Tourette

Many chemicals in malt are toxic, and affect the nervous system. Because of this,  many foods that contain malt are bad for children with neurological problems.

Malt is germinated cereal grains. Sounds pretty inoffesive to me, but these grains develop enzymes that modify the grain’s starches into sugars, such as fructose. It is the sugar part that we found was bad for my son.

When we eliminated malt from my son’s diet we saw immediate improvements. His tics would be less frequent and less harsh.

So how did we discover this? We had noticed that Kendrick would have bad days and good days, and that often the bad days would last three days. A doctor suggested that this was the length of the digestive cycle and Kendrick might have a food sensitivity.

I read somewhere that to find food sensitivities one could, for example, eat only rice for a week and add back one food at a time and see the reaction. Of course, if his tics got worse that meant the food was bad. But there was no way I could do that. Imagine how long that would take, and it would require constant attention, and remember, I work full time.

Thank God at about that time we called Martha (see Electrodermal Screening post) for the first time and she suggested that Kendrick might have a Candida infection and we should eliminate malt, vinager, and peanuts (fermented foods). Now that I could do. And three days later kendrick was way better!!!!

From what I understand there are “triggers” out there that can make the tics worse and it is for us to find them. The problem is that every child is different so the triggers are different for each. Anything can be a trigger, like chlorine, scents (candles), new carpeting, etc… And finding them is hard. But by observing our child closely, we found some.

Malt is also malted barley and maltodextrin. We now, of course, check all ingredients and we do not buy anything with malt. Kendrick is on a Yeast free diet to kill the Candida.