Have your child tested for food intolerances

This could be a fairly extensive post, but I don't want to go into all the medical details. I'll try to keep it really simple and short.

The Short Version:

A healthy child is a happier child. If you remove all the things that the immune system is reacting to, then the body has a chance to rest and strengthen it's immune system. The better the immune system, the healthier the child. The healthier the child the less problem behaviors you see, and the more progress you'll see. Or a simple metaphor: if your child's body is a fortress under attack, you want to only send in the troupes that will bring provisions for the soldiers, not the enemy troupes that will attack and weaken your child and that it will have to fight off, when what it really needs is reinforcement. Our job as parents is to figure out what our child's body considers enemy and what reinforcement.

OK. Great idea. Where can I do that? 

There are two ways I think. Through bioresonance (non invasive) or blood test. We used Alltess lab. It cost $160 for 180 IgG test.  We had the kids' blood drawn here in the Netherlands and sent it via Fedex to the US.
Disclaimer: Food intolerance (IgG) and food allergy (IgE) are not the same. A food allergy can be life threatening whereas an intolerance just causes problems with the immune system. It's best to just google the difference (and test for both).


A bit more explanation


There are so many different explanations for what causes or exacerbates autism/autism like symptoms. The most simple and elegant explanation that I've ever read is by Dr. Melillo. He states that Autism, ADHD, and all those kind of brain problems are really a problem of the brain halves not communicating in sync, because one of the brain halves (in ASD that is typically the right side) didn't develop at the same rate as the other half (and here is where you could come up with lots of different reasons why, such as genes, toxicity, vaccines, viruses, etc.) The function of the immune system is divided up between the left and the right brain. When the left brain is doing it's job nicely in producing anti-bodies to patrol the blood for harmful pathogens and the right brain isn't keeping up it's job to check the anti-bodies, then the child develops a lot of food intolerances, because the immune system is compromised.
The solution to this is to strengthen the brain half that is weaker so it can communicate in sync. There are various ways of doing that. Here are the methods I read that will strengthen the weaker brain side:

1. Brain Balance program by Dr. Melillo. Costs around $5400-$6000 for a 3hrs/week treatments for 12 weeks. Some include the intolerance blood tests in that price. All the parents I have talked to that did this treatment say it helped their child recover completely from the intolerances and even from autism. Read the book Disconnected Kids, by Dr. Melillo.
2. Interactive Metronome helps the brains communicate in sync to some degree.
3. Handle   I haven't done much research on this but my friend tells me that this does the same thing as brain balance, but with the benefit that you don't need your child's cooperation.
4. Neurofeedback training. This is highly effective, but as with all these treatments the efficiency depends on the number of sessions you have the development gap you are trying to fix. I heard it can take up to 100 sessions or more. 
5. Cranio Sacral Therapy  Read this from a fellow blogger with a child that had more allergies than I have ever encountered.

What have I done so far? Well, nothing. Mainly because of costs. I was going to go to Florida this summer for three months with the kids, so I could do the brain balance program with Ezra, but we didn't quite get the support we needed to do such a venture.
What would I do if I had the money I needed ($22,000)? I would do two 12 week programs of brain balance, and then also buy the Zengar institute's computer and software so we can do neurofeedback training at home with Ezra and Micah with unlimited sessions. Then I would find someone to do Cranio Sacral Therapy with Ezra, and I think we would be good to go.

However, fixing the brain is only 1/2 of the solution. The wrong kinds of foods cause havoc in the digestive system, and once damaged, it will not operate the way it needs to. Everything I've read indicates that the digestive tract doesn't heal itself or recover spontaneously, but needs dietary intervention to heal what was hurt, and restore proper balance. One without the other won't work long term, i.e. just diet alone won't fix the reason the digestion is off, and just fixing the brain, won't help the stomach heal.
Ezra is totally obsessed with food. He wants to eat all the time. He can't get enough into himself, and wants basically only carbs. However, he simply doesn't get enough nutrition from it because his digestion is messed up. So his body keeps demanding more. It's a vicious cycle, which is why the next thing I would recommend is putting your kid on a SCD, or GAPS diet immediately.