Any use of the letters GAPS on this website are used solely as an acronym for Gut And Psychology Syndrome
Dr Natasha

Blog

29/05/2018

A Mother's Story

Dear Friends!

Another powerful story from a mother! Jessie's story: "I just want to write a quick encouragement to any of you who may be feeling overwhelmed and wondering if this is really going to help you or your kiddo.

Will all this work actually bear fruit??

That's certainly what I asked countless times before we started.

Here is what I have found with my 9 year old son who was diagnosed with rather severe ADHD and depression with 'suicidal ideation' last spring, for which I was told medication was the only option.

Before GAPS:

1) MAJOR screaming fits, sometimes with hitting most every day, sometimes more than one, where I was left completely torn apart emotionally. The energy of it was astounding.

2) School: it took him 5 times longer than the other 2nd graders to finish any amount of writing work. He was unable to memorize almost any math facts and was very distracted and felt like he was ridiculed and laughed at (even though sometimes I am not sure that was the case at all, but this was a reflection of how 'off rhythm' he felt with his classmates).

3) He could not make eye contact barely at all with adults (interestingly with kids it seemed ok).

4) He was just all around in obvious pain and confusion and anger. It was terrifying to watch. This is all true even as he used to be an incredibly sparkly happy and sociable small child/toddler.

(Side note: in addition to my gut flora being a mess when he was gestating and me ending up with Hashimotos at the end of his pregnancy, he also had lyme at 4 and was treated with 8 weeks of anti-bios. This is when I saw the change in him begin).

These things all crept up little by little from kindergarten on, but second grade just really knocked his socks off.

On GAPS Intro:

Within literally a week I saw his eyes clear, his mood relax, his sleep improve, his body soften (he had not allowed me to hug or often even touch him without his whole body tensing for about 2 years, which was not at all true when he was little), his eye contact became marginally better and he said himself that he felt much better. All this within the first week of intro. I was blown away... and totally hooked to this path.

Here we are 6 months later:
He is no longer refusing with piercing screams to go to school... in fact he almost likes it most days, most days are 'good' days, he is making great eye contact most of the time, he *hugs* me (and others) back and will ask for hugs occasionally when he needs them (he is not an overly affectionate child by nature but this is a HUGE improvement!), his writing and math skills are more or less up to grade level (that's not to say that he doesn't still struggle sometimes and he is receiving some basic accommodations for ADHD). I asked his teacher if she thinks she would have even mentioned possible ADHD if he presented in the same way last year and her response was "hmmm I'm not sure I would but it's hard to say now that I know what I know."

I don't think that my boy would likely, at this point, not receive this diagnoses if he were re-tested. But I firmly believe it would be in the mild range instead of severe and I don't think meds would be necessarily recommended. I am now confident that I will succeed in keeping him off of meds especially as we are only 6 months into this. And I am now allowing myself to believe that he may not live with this diagnoses the rest of his life! This is truly a miracle to me. A miracle, yes, AND it makes so much sense physically! I have the urge to shout from the roof tops.

Oh and one more thing! He is completely compliant with the diet. He *likes* it and says he can see and feel the difference. I never could have believed this would come about! He was soo incredibly attached to 'his' foods."