9:57am July 8, 2013

➸ Trying to find the right words: goldenheartedrose: Water Tribe Avatar in Training: Restricting an...

goldenheartedrose:

Water Tribe Avatar in Training: Restricting an autistic child’s diet is dangerous

tal9000:

josiahd:

One really common purported cure for autism is to force a child to eat a very restricted diet. GFCF is one common diet, but there are others.

This is really…

Same here. I became vegetarian, the vegan, then the quack prescribed the (worthless because quackery) Candida diet, and a migraine diet, and an allergy diet for allergies that didn’t exist, and some other diet, and then I developed full blown orthorexia and began restricting anything else I ever heard could be connected to autism, and then began starving for reasons totally unrelated to orthorexia.

And after I realized I was orthorexic, I had too be really firm with myself never to restrict unless it was medically necessary through actual science based medicine.

So I did low fat because gallbladder disease. And low fiber later because motility problems that actually make fiber cause constipation rather than solve it. And a few things because reflux. But that’s all. And I was careful never to go overboard.

And then later on my gastroparesis got so bad that I really could eat nothing other than broth and tiny amounts of grits. And after I got treatment I could handle Ensure for several months.

And honestly I never realized how liberating tube feeding would be. Because I only have one food, called Osmolite. It’s formulated for my dietary needs: low fat, low fiber, high protein. I don’t even notice that I’m eating anymore. I never feel hungry. I rarely feel over full. The feeding goes on about 21 hours a day. I never ever even have to think about food anymore.

I never even realized how stressful food was because of lingering eating disorder issues, until I was tube feed and have been able to totally forget about eating. Of course it was stressful anyway because the physical act of eating is painful for me, and with gastroparesis my stomach becomes extremely upset and I have to put all my energy into holding it down. Plus it was only adding to the reflux issues that were being life threatening because of aspiration.

So all in all, the feeding tube has greatly simplified my life. And besides all that stuff, I just love how efficient it is. It’s very much like being a machine, but in a good way – I just plug something into me and eat that way rather than through my mouth and stomach. After the initial shock to my system wore off, it’s been great.

But definitely I’ve always had a tendency towards food restriction, and when I could still eat, restrictive diets were not safe for me. Although I like most meat so little I had to force myself to eat it or find exactly the right foods. And my food still tended towards healthy stuff. Not health food, just a reasonably healthy diet with very few food vices –cookie dough ice cream being one. But I couldn’t get rid of that restricting tendency entirely, so being completely free of food and eating the normal way reduced stress a great deal more than I expected.

And that’s besides the issues with food not seeming edible, which I didn’t even realize anyone else had problems with. Lots of food reminded me of wood or rocks in its lack of resemblance to real food.

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