Healing with GAPS

[meow]

We've just started the GAPS protocol about two weeks ago. Would love to chat to anyone else interested or doing it too

We found GAPS because my eldest son is autistic and we're hoping to heal him. We also hope to heal our youngest before his gut flora gets out of control and he ends up with the same issues.

As a GAPS mum I want to heal myself too!

GAPS is used by people wanting to treat psychological disorders such as autism, depression, anxiety, schizophrenia and physiological disorders such as crohn's disease, ulcerative colitis and autoimmune conditions.

[Bumperstump Cummerbund]

I want to do this, but it seems so much WORK! I might start it once we move in with my parents in a couple of weeks, I think it'll be awesome for us. Let us know how you go!

[meow]

It took some getting my head around it... try starting as vegetarian and THEN complain it's a lot of work

But it's actually not really nearly as hard or as much work as I expected. Well, the cooking anyway. Getting my resistant eater son to eat new foods is the hardest thing I've ever done. I figure the alternative, to not heal ourselves, is worse than spending some extra time cooking up broths and making my own yoghurt (which is super easy in the dehydrator anyway).

I hope we start to have some good news to report once my son actually starts eating enough of it for it to do anything! I have a long way to go myself. To cope with my sugar addiction I'm eating way too much fruit and honey so I'm not really doing GAPS very well at this point. And I can't do the detox anyway because I'm breastfeeding, so I hope to look to healing myself and doing intro in about a year or so when my youngest should be feeding much less and can cope with my detox.

Do it Keike! you wont regret it! Do you have the book? Get that and study it now- it took me a couple of months of "practice cooking" before I felt ready to really start.

[Bumperstump Cummerbund]

Yeah, I'm worried about the detoxing mainly. I know I'm hopelessly addicted to sugar, and it won't be pretty coming off it

No I haven't got the book yet. You've reminded me, I wanna ask my surgeon if it'd be safe to do after my surgery. I'm getting weight loss surgery, and I figure if it's safe to do after surgery (when I can eat again of course), that might be the best time to do it, when I've gotta take time off and when my gut will REALLY need the help.

I know Yeddi does it as well, I'm not sure if she's still around BB though, I haven't seen her for ages.

I look forward to reading how you go, and I'll let you know what the surgeon says!

[LionsandBears]

I'd not heard of this particular diet but it seems to be what I was looking for. I've been moving to a healthier, chemical free lifestyle and been reading about the importance of gut health and how fermented products are good, sugar bad etc. I call it my Paranoid Person lifestyle but this ties in nicely. It doesnt look easy which just shows how many unknowns are in our food and other products.

The other thing I'm researching is the effect of electro magnetic radiation on the body. There are links to gut health there too because it seems that gut health is the key to health overall.

Anyway, I'm interested in learning more. I doubt DH would do it though.

[meow]

Yeah, Yeddi was doing a modified version of GAPS. I miss her- hope she comes back and lets us know how things are going soon!

GAPS is a really healthy diet Keike so I would think it would be fine after surgery. I'm not sure if they are doing something to change your ability to digest fats or anything though. If your stomach functions are being altered and bile supply affected for example then it may not work. A good naturopath should be able to help you out there if needed.

I've been pretty much doing full GAPS with cheating for 2 months. I cut out all grains as we ate out a lot of the pantry and got used to new breakfast etc. And I had cheats like a biscuit when out and about or a few pieces of good dark chocolate every day. In that time I lost 7kgs! Not that everyone loses weight- those that are underweight put weight on. I've seen it referred to as a "weight normalising" diet which makes sense as it's just healthy eating. It includes a lot of fat, which your body uses and needs because it's mostly made up of fat. Eating fat helps curb the sugar cravings too.

I think you would REALLY like the GAPS (Gut and Psychology Syndrome) book Tashy. It talks about how and why the industry has pushed us away from good food like lard and onto crap like canola oil. Sounds wrong huh? All part of the smear campaign on natural, not as money earning, fats. It's funny that we see something like lard as really unhealthy but it's hardly eaten now and heart disease is rapidly increasing.

The GAPS protocol isn't just about diet though and it's been good to do all the other stuff too. We've now got pot plants all around the house to clean the air in our home, we NEVER use the microwave... I'd like to find out more about electro-magnetic radiation. I bury my head in the sand about that sometimes as we depend on wifi and mobile phones so much!

[organic-girl]

GAPS is used by people wanting to treat psychological disorders such as autism, depression, anxiety, schizophrenia and physiological disorders such as crohn's disease, ulcerative colitis and autoimmune conditions.

He he he crohns disease isn't a physiological disease... Lol (typo )

I've heard gaps is good for asthmatics but my asthma is flared with ALL forms of dairy incl goat and sheep forms. I get the pro biotic aspect of the diet tho. My hubby has crohns and colitis. We manage his diet through raw and loads of greens, no red meat animal as it's acidic and we want to prevent cancer. He isn't on medication either.




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Leah and Dan
Lucy 5
Minnie 2
Pippi due 29 sept

YOU are what YOU eat!

[meow]

I'm braindead these days but I have no idea what the typo is?? I get zero spare time and barely any sleep so I function in a haze sorry

Tashy- quinoa is actually not allowed on the diet. It's not just grains but rather all high starch foods so potatoes, quinoa, most beans (including chickpeas) are off the list too. It's to starve the candida. If you want to keep the seeds I believe The Body Ecology diet allows them and you might like looking into that. It's a similar diet with emphasis on probiotic foods restoring the gut flora and people report good healing on it. But I don't think the author is as well researched as Dr Campbell-McBride, who I think doesn't allow these foods for good reason. I personally have more faith that GAPS is the diet to really heal on.

I am not drinking broth. Personally I'm a very poor example of being on the diet. I eat well but I don't put a lot of thought into my own eating (see haze above) and I'm not focusing on my own healing at this point. I use the broth I make to make soup which the boys eat and my H takes in a thermos for lunch at work. But we don't drink broth like we 'should'. E is only eating the soup so I'm not pushing onto anything else just yet and my H and I tried to drink broth once but coming from being vegetarian it's just more than I can stand at the moment. I eat cultured dairy and eat fermented vegetables but I haven't started to take probiotics yet. I'm nervous about triggering too much die off and A) passing toxins in my breastmilk and B) sending myself mental when I need to hold it together to heal E before I worry about myself.

I have Biokult, which are the GAPS probiotics I'll have to try one- they are jsut capsules so I didn't think they would taste bad? You can get them in Oz off the GAPS australia website.

I'm considering doing the intro diet and looking at healing myself when F is at least 18mths, or maybe 2 years old, depending upon how much he is still BFing. If we decide we want to have another baby then I want to spend at least 6 months before trying to make a healthy gut flora so that might persuade my timeline.

You don't have to commit for 2 years, it depends how much you need 'fixing' as to how long you will take to heal. Those with minor complaints can be helped in about 6 months apparently. I think I'm fairly minor as my mental health is pretty good so I'm not overly affected by my git flora. As E is autistic he his clearly very affected so we'll have him on the diet for at least 2 years.

Have you heard about earthing sheets? I'm dubious but I've seen people say good things about them and they are supposed to help with grounding out of the electrical fields we're exposed to I think.

I'd LOVE a thermomix. I looked them up when we were started and was shocked to see I can't get one in USA!! I'll be getting a vitamix or blendtec soon because I need a super blender but I'd rather a thermomix.

[organic-girl]

.... and physiological disorders such as crohn's disease, ulcerative colitis....

Get it now?? He he eh




---------
Leah and Dan
Lucy 5
Minnie 2
Pippi due 29 sept

YOU are what YOU eat!

[meow]

No. Can you spell out your issue for me?

[LionsandBears]

Meow - you can get Thermomix in Canada but if the voltage is different, I wouldnt bother. Using the converters stuffs up the warranty and can stuff up the machine.

At the moment, I'm researching Rayguard technology wrt to stopping EMFs, but it's expensive. About $2.5k for the house. 2 tiny things on my iphone cost $50. Unfortuantely, it seems grief & shock have left me supersensitive to things like that. I'm trying to heal with healthy diet and a heap of supplements and time.

[organic-girl]

Crohns and colitis are not physiological it's a inflammatory bowel disease to do with the digestive system, not mental...




---------
Leah and Dan
Lucy 5
Minnie 2
Pippi due 29 sept

YOU are what YOU eat!

[Bumperstump Cummerbund]

Physiological is physical, psychological is mental

[organic-girl]

Haha I wiki-ed the word and everything before I wrote that and miss spelt it! OMG bahahahah jokes on me!


---------
Leah and Dan
Lucy 5
Minnie 2
Pippi due 29 sept

YOU are what YOU eat!

[Bumperstump Cummerbund]

It's alright, I always hafta triple check those words, I mix 'em up all the time!

[organic-girl]

Well I'm 36wks pregnant with number 3, so I'll jist blame pregnant brain 3 times and baby brain twice!


---------
Leah and Dan
Lucy 5
Minnie 2
Pippi due 29 sept

YOU are what YOU eat!

[meow]

I'm just glad it wasn't MY foggy brain!

[meow]

All is going really well here. I keep a blog diary of E's progress and I thought I'd share the latest update

Weeks 5 & 6
Still a few wakeful nights at first but through week 6 E has been sleeping all night and getting up rested around 7am- perfect!

After two days of soft formed poos since taking the digestive enzymes E's poos have gone back to sticky peanut butter consistency. But they are dark, do not have undigested food and he's doing them himself!! Poos once or twice every day or second day.

So we've stuck with no dairy for now. Thinking of trying some ghee again soon to ease back in.

Loads of energy!! Happy, happy. Very happy and loves to be out again. Still a bit addicted to his shows since he watched so much while unwell. He's also had a HUGE appetite so he's eating all day and the habit is there to eat in front of the computer. just noticing by the end of week 6 that this is triggering aggressive behaviour like it used to. Working on weaning back off it.

We started adding one soft boiled egg to 1 full cup of soup and he's still eating about 6 cups a day. Each cup has 1 teaspoon of SK juice and he has 5000IU of vitD a day.

All weight has been regained and he's a solid 17kgs. Looking healthy and his tummy has stopped blowing up like a balloon when he eats.

At the end of week 6 we moved to stage three so each cup of soup has the egg, 1 teaspoon of avocado and 1 teaspoon of actual SK (not the juice). All seems well so far except his nappies are eye burning smelly again so it must be triggering more die off of toxins.

Played around with starting to give fish oil. We have a cinnamon & banana flavour whihc is high in DHA but seems to have GAPS illegals so we switched to NN ProOmega which is lemon flavoured and high in EPA. That's going down without too much trouble and we're up to the daily dose of 2.5mls. Still putting FCLO on with his night nappy. Tried to put it in his mouth for two days but it was a disaster so we've ordered the oil, not gel, to syringe it in.

Took E to the supermarket for the first time in a LONG time and he spied apples. Oh the pure delight on his face! His eyes were googling out of his head. He could hardly believe it. He was grinning from ear to ear and nabbed one. I was not going through that fight so I caved and he had an apple. The day after one of his poos was formed so the fibre went well and he hasn't reacted in a negative way.

He is talking so much more! Still lots of echolalia but he repeats everything we say, rather than just script from TV shows and he uses those sentences to talk about what he's doing all the time. So wonderful! He's dancing again. Loves to play with balls still. Loves to dig in dirt and sand. He just plays in the sandpit at the playground- digs sand to fill up and then empty a dump truck. Or makes lines and shapes in the sand. Or lines up trucks. Still lots of lining toys up. Mostly puzzle pieces or cars. While away last weekend he actually did some dramatic play with a teddy!! He said "Time for your nappy teddy" and laid him on the change mat, then picked him up and said "There you are. All done!". Amazing!