Every child is different, but I can tell you what we see:

Eliminating Gluten: Seems to improve his focus. Takes about two weeks, and you don't notice any sudden changes. The only way to really know it is working is if you add it back and things go downhill the next day.

Restricting casein: Seems to improve his repetitive behaviors. only takes about 3 days.

Restricting sugar: Seems to limit the "frantic energy" that we associate with non-compliance and unexplained aggression. Only takes about 1 day.

Adding zinc and magnesium: Improves sleep. Seems to work very quickly.

Adding iron: Only works if iron is low. Otherwise it keeps him awake at night.

Adding omega supplements: Seems to help language.

Those are the ones I would start with. If you get through those, then you can start getting fancy, but for us, those were about 90% of the battle.

Lab testing can be unreliable so I wouldn't waste money on it but rather just do a trial of the diet followed by a challenge in 6 months (it can take that long to get gluten out of one's system). My DD was tested twice for celiac (2nd time extended panel) and food allergies. Everything came back negative. She had no obvious GI symptoms. But within 6 weeks of going GFCF, she had a dramatic "catch-up" weight and height gain. All her doctors agree that she has some type of non-celiac gluten intolerance that we never would've known about had we not done a trial of the diet. GFCF doesn't have to be expensive if you're willing to cook from scratch (which is healthier anyways).

Our developmental pediatrician is also a naturopathic dr( he practices both) he suggested to us that rather than immediately starting Gluten free, casein free diet is get them allergy tested first. He says parents will see a big improvement when doing these diets but then seem to plateau he believes this is because you

Hi there, how did you and zinc and magnesium to the diet? Tablets or liquid? Thank you

thanks everyone! its so hard to get an allergy test done, have to fight the doctors for it, but I think I might be able to!!