she has been having several tummy issues and her doc ois confused as to y. because of her tummy issues she is missing school. I am not looking for something to fix her autism. I haved accepted that diagnosis. I am concerned because of her tummy issues, and missing school, and the school really not helping. im just soo flustered right now. I dont know what to do. soo many test for her and soo much drama from school. I want to make things easier for her.

Ty all. Im just worried that because she's such a picky eater and then this whole leaky gut thing. It makes me worried that I might be doing something wrong. :(

It didn't seem to make a difference with my son, but a friend of mine had custody of her niece and nephew for a while and she gave her nephew digestive enzymes and the difference it made was really amazing. I get probiotics into my son however I can and luckily he loves kefir, so I almost always have some on hand. We don't drink cow milk, he drinks almond milk or coconut milk, because my little sponge soaked up the mention of RbGH on a documentary I was watching while he was in the other room. He's never liked the taste of white milk anyway, but it was a good reminder that he soaks things up from anywhere within hearing distance! :) I also avoid processed food for the most part and that seems to keep his behavior on a more even keel. He doesn't seem to reach the extremes of frustration that he reaches after he's been somewhere where he ate a lot of processed food.

Gluten, casein, and soy all mimic opiates in the brain. Google the terms "casomorphin" and "gliadorphin". I really think there's something to the theory that our kids get addicted to the "highs" these problem proteins cause to the point where that's all they'll eat. Once I put my DD on a GFCF diet, she became much more willing to eat a variety of foods.

Yes and no. Many autistic children have low stomach acid. With low stomach acid, it is hard to digest certain proteins. This is not as scientific as it sounds, though, because when researchers increased stomach acid with medication, it did not seem to help the symptoms of autism.

Because of the low stomach acid, it is also common for autistic children to get yeast overgrowth inside the stomach. This can be a fairly severe problem, since the yeast displaces normal "good" bacteria. In addition, the yeast releases poisons into the system that are similar to alcohol. (In some cases, the yeast actually produces alcohol.)

The yeast can be a very hard problem to control. Even if you kill it with medication, the yeast can come back very quickly, and it thrives on foods that kids like best: sugars, carbs, and starch.

Yeast can also do long-term damage, including holes in the stomach lining. This is the "leaky-gut" that people always complain about.

I don't buy the theory that stomach problems are at the root of all autism symptoms, but there is no doubt that stomach pain and stomach yeast can make the symptoms of autism much worse.

There is a lot of good research on the web about this, but there is also a lot of false information. Be wary of anything that sounds too good to be true.