Cheese or Super Nu-Thera?

T has been a different kiddo the past few days. As I see it, there may be two possibilities for the change – and the changes are mostly good ones. I’ll detail the two below, but let me talk about the changes themselves. The screaming when thwarted has returned, but that’s about it for the negative. Tonight, he watched a football game with us, PRETENDED TO BE AN ELEPHANT (said “elephant” and crawled on the floor, making a growling/trumpeting sound), PRETENDED to water the houseplants, said “night night Daddy” unprompted, is happier and smiling more, and honestly, when the shrieking occurs, it’s because he’s been thwarted and is justifiably frustrated. Overall, we had more presence from him these past few days than I’ve seen in a long time.

I can count on one hand how many times he’s engaged in pretend play.

So, the possible culprits: cheese or Super Nu-Thera. Only it’s not what you’d expect: we’ve ADDED cheese and WITHDRAWN Super Nu-Thera. (SNT is a mega dose of vit B6 which he’s been on for at least two years.)

It will come as no surprise that I’ve been questioning seriously the dietary interventions for the past month or so. A few days back, we had the great joy of having a play date with some friends from Small College Town – it was great to see the kids together again and catch up with their mommy, who is my lifelong best friend whom I just met two years ago. Ever met someone like that? Anyway, her kids had Colby cheese slices as a snack, and two pieces were left out on the kitchen table. I’ll admit that I wanted to see what would happen. T never even put orange cheese to his lips before – it had to be mozzarella string cheese or it wouldn’t be eaten. Lo and behold, he saw the cheese, and it almost looked like he was slowly moving in for the kill. Approaching slowly, looking at it from a few angles, he reached out and picked up a piece. I watched the whole thing. He put it to his lips, decided it was a go, looked directly at me to see if I would scold him (which I did not), and he took a bite - and another, and another. Soon, both slices were gone. I let him do it because darn it, he’s looked so pale and been so sickly lately, and he’s really been a hungry little guy since the antibiotics kicked in for his ear infection. The next day, I asked him if he wanted some cheese. He said “Cheese”, and watched me intently as I sliced more Colby for him. He’s had cheese (hello DAIRY, hello CASEIN) for the past 4 days. Stools haven’t changed markedly.

Note: he also had a few tortilla chips Friday night at our favorite Mexican restaurant. Okay, here’s the thing with all this: the entire time he’s been on this diet, only one other time did he go for foods that were “illegal” – he’s only eaten foods that were put right in front of him. He’s been an incredible trooper and only eaten his food – and this has been remarkable.

I guess I want to see if there is any difference when we add these foods back in. But I’m doing this at his instigation. I didn’t put the cheese out at first, and hundreds of times in the past 10 months, he’s ignored illegal foods. It was his idea to reach for the cheese Thursday, and the tortilla chips Friday – they were not offered.

The kid wants food back.

We also took him off Super Nu-Thera at his DAN doc’s suggestion, when we were struggling to come up with what could be causing the soft stools/diarrhea. He’s been off it since 10/18. So that could be the reason behind the happier behaviors, if the SNT was disagreeing with his system.

Okay, and he’s also been on a 10 day round of antibiotics for that ear infection. So I suppose the changes could be from that, too. He had his last dose of it today, so I’ll keep an eye on all this and report back soon.

But this has been SO COOL!