Gluten-Free Lukas

A few weeks ago, we decided to have Lukas tested for food allergies. We got the preliminary results last Thursday. We now know that Luke is allergic to gluten. This finding actually came as a huge relief. We'd been struggling with Luke's erratic and often irrational behavior for months (or years?). We hoped that something as simple as eliminating certain foods from his diet could make a difference. So we are taking the diagnosis of gluten allergy (and likely celiac disease--an intestinal biopsy is needed for a true diagnosis, but there's no reason to do that now) as pretty great news. Gluten is highly linked to behavior, so the allergy doctor said it was likely that we would notice a huge change in our sweet boy once he stopped eating it.

Perhaps surprisingly, Lukas thinks his gluten allergy is great news as well! Luke has never been a huge fan of gluten-containing products (this may not be a coincidence), so he doesn't have to stop eating any of his most favorite foods (sushi, brown rice and beans, and quinoa). He's always preferred rice cakes to regular crackers, and now he has an excuse to eat them everyday. We left a bag of rice cakes for him at school (they serve the kids snack there, and it often contains gluten in some form or another), and Lukas finds that especially thrilling. After just a few days of being off gluten, he told us that he was really glad we had had him allergy tested. He said that he felt different in his body and that he didn't feel like he had to do things that he "knew he shouldn't do" anymore.

Eliminating gluten from his diet hasn't really made a huge impact in what we can feed him. But it has motivated me to think ahead a bit more about what he's going to be eating all day. This past weekend I made him a ton of avocado maki that he blissfully snacked on all day long. Probably the biggest change is that there aren't a ton of options for him when we're eating out. We can't just grab him a bagel or a muffin from the café in town. He has already adapted to checking labels of everything he eats and loves to find the words "gluten-free" on every package. He asks us if we're sure that whatever we're about to feed him doesn't have gluten in it.

"Lukas? Do you want a smoothie?"
"Umm, I don't know. Does it have gluten?"
"Nope. I wouldn't offer it to you if it did."
"Okay, then. Sure!"

And, knock on wood, we are already noticing pretty significant changes in his behavior. Gluten-free Lukas is much less angry and aggressive. He's much calmer and rational. He seems to be listening better and treating us all more kindly. He hasn't growled at us at all since we changed his diet. We are holding our breath a little, waiting to see if this is just a coincidence or if gluten really was to blame for some of what we were seeing before. But we are optimistic that this new gluten-free Lukas is here to stay.