I’ve been on the GF/CF diet for about 10 months now. I’ve had a comment asking I’m how I’m doing now so here’s a short answer:

I’m still on the GF diet. It’s getting more difficult to stay on because of the extra cost and with all the rising fuel and food prices. In the supermarket walking past aisle after aisle of relatively cheap food none of which I can buy because of my diet is getting harder.

Also the diiferences I noticed early on with the diet aren’t so noticeable – but if I came off the diet my anxiety and depression might shoot back up.

But I think I’m beginning to sleep deeper due to the diet.
Also coming off the diet is dangerous because of the danger of Gluten causing auto-immune diseases like diabetes and rheumatoid arthritis – I haven’t mentioned these on the blog yet I intend to.

I’m going to stick with the diet for now.

This post explains how my GF/CF diet is going and any progress I am making after about 7 months on the diet.

After about 6 months on the diet I did experience a second rush of improvements but it was disappointing. It mainly took the form of more regular bowel function and by becoming more focussed and decisive. This was a kind of repeat of the improvements I got after the first few weeks on the diet.

However, in the intervening period I felt I had slipped back, becoming indecisive again, my bowels function going backwards and my becoming depressed.

It’s not surprising I have become depressed again. There is nowhere I can receive support while on this diet. I once saw an NHS Dietician through my GP and she had never even heard of Aspergers! A local charity which supports adults with Aspergers Is not really interested in the Gluten free diet as it would put them out of business as all their service users would improve so much they’d need a lot less support! They also seem sceptical about the diet’s efficacy. But very few people actually go on this diet and, more importantly, stick on it for a significant length of time so its usefulness is hard to judge.

Also I have received hardly any feedback from this blog apart from a few parents expressing interest. I guess most adults with Aspergers are still self-censoring due to their fear of stigma, lack of self-awareness and misconceptions about what Aspergers is (i.e. they think it’s all terrible and hopeless, depressing and too hard to face up to).

Another reason I’m getting depressed might be that I’m experiencing neuro-Typical symptoms like loneliness and also losing my Asperger ability to gain enjoyment from my hobbies and obsessions. I do feel more aware of my aloneness and do seem to seek out the more sociable people to chat to at the place I do voluntary work. This place is full of undiagnosed Aspies and being around them is probably depressing me. You can’t tell them about their Aspergersas they’d run off in fright. Also I’m beginning to see how dead and socially unresponsive they are. In a way my sociability and social skills are being stifled in this situation.

As regards my hobbies and interests: I can no longer be bothered to play the guitar as much, only playing it once or twice a week instead of 4 or 5 times with a drive and keenness to develop it which I seem to have lost; musical expression is probably an Asperger thing and I seem to be losing it. I hardly paint pictures at all now; I had lost interest before and now I have even less.

I’m more interested now in possibly getting a job and improving my life situation and trying to focus my activities on things which could help me move forward such as improving my computer skills, rather than frittering my time away on my artistic pursuits which are leading me nowhere really.

In recent weeks I think I maybe showing signs of further improvements.

The quality of my sleep seems to have improved as evidenced by my recall of extremely vivid dreams every morning. I think I’m probably going into dream sleep and the into deep sleep more often than previously. I’m slightly less tired. So the problems of terminal insomnia, which is experienced by people with Asperger Syndrome, may be receding.
Also I have noticed I’m no longer anaemic. You can test for anaemia by looking at the inside of your eyelids: they should be all red indicating healthy blood rich in iron. Previously my eyelids were only intermittently red during the day, now they look red and healthy all say long. This would seem to indicate better absorption of iron through my gut due to the GF diet.

Also my bowel function is even more regular.

These physiological improvements would appear to show that it is worth sticking on the GF diet. Hopefully all these improvement will become cumulative and I will achieve things like good sleep, more energy, good ability to focus, make decisions, concentrate, suffer less from depression and anxiety and generally be better able to cope with life in a positive manner. These are the kind of areas where I expect to see further progress from my experience of this diet so far. It is questionable whether I will see fundamental changes to my core Asperger personality (although as I have indicated there are some signs of possible changes). I don’t think I have noticed any improvement in multi-tasking or ability to handle stress; and I still can’t filter out background noise and am still fairly sensitive to noise.)

After about two and a half months on my GF/CF diet I feel like weighing up my progress.

The tedium of the Christmas and New Year festivities was more bearable this year. I normally get terribly depressed at this time of year due to assessing my life, and usually coming to the conclusion of another “wasted year”. This year this did not happen because I’m feeling less depressed generally, due to my diet, and also I genuinely felt I’ve actually achieved something through my diet.

I’ll try to list the main positive effects of my diet:

1. I am a lot more mentally alert and decisive. I seem to be able to sort out problems and make decisions all of a sudden. For example, I had a problem with a technique for playing the guitar and spent a week or so thinking about it and researching it and I sorted it out; I had been thinking of giving up playing. I’m less tired; when I yawn it’s as if I’m about 80% less tired than before.

2.  I feel a lot less depressed.

3.  I feel a lot less anxious about things generally.

4. I have a lot less social anxiety.

5. I feel like I want to relate to people and get on with them.

6. My body, muscles and joints are incredibly loose; I feel 20 years younger!

7. I’m more aware of any aches and pains in my body.

8. My bowels are functioning better and I feel less bloated; and I’m not constantly hungry and thirsty.

9. I feel more optimistic; if I see a problem I start thinking of solutions rather than getting depressed.

Here are things which I’m still having problems with:

1. I think I’m still slow at verbal processing.

2. I’m still not completely comfortable with eye contact.

3. I’m still not good at meeting new people.

4. I’m not sleeping as well as I’d like.

And finally here are new problems I’m having as a result of losing my Asperger symptoms:

1. I get bored doing things I previously enjoyed, for example: going for a short walk, doing boring repetitive tasks like gardening.

2. I probably enjoy my own company less and find socialising more enjoyable than before.

In general I would estimate that I’m 50-60% cured of my Asperger symptoms and it has to be remembered my body is still awash with stored Gluten so it will be months yet before the full effects of the diet will show.

A piece of good news: I’ve managed to persuade my doctor to give me a prescription for some gluten free foods so I can manage the cost of the diet better.

This is continuing my Gluten Free diet diary post. I’m about 2 months into the diet.

Three weeks ago I stopped drinking milk and other Casein containing foods. So now my diet is Gluten Free/Casein Free, (GF/CF).

I’d put off eliminating Casein as it only takes 3 weeks to get rid of the withdrawal symptoms and it doesn’t leave any residue in your system like gluten does.

I find black tea tastes pretty awful but other wise I’m coping without milk and Casein. And also I seem to be starting to get another little burst of improvement; I feel more “together”, less anxious and less “tied up in knots”, more decisive.

I seem to being experiencing more physical pain sensations; my right arm is aching fairly badly. This must be due to the removal of the Opiate (like Morphine), painkilling effect of the Peptides from the Gluten and Casein. It makes me wonder what other bodily aches and pains I might have been unaware of in the past.

My bowel function seems to have settled down. I don’t need to be careful about my fruit and vegetable intake. But I’m still breaking wind more often, which is nice (!)

As far as I can see this diet works. I wonder why don’t more people try it?

To be continued

It is routinely put forward that the causes of Autism aren’t known for certain. But I think all the evidence so far shows that Asperger Syndrome and Autism are caused by genetically inherited abnormalities in the functioning of the gut. People just seem to be uncomfortable with the idea that ASDs are genetic in origin.

I was moved to write this post after seeing a famous author on breakfast TV. He has a son who has Autism and he has said, in the past, that it is unknown what causes Autism. Well having seen him “up close” it’s obvious to me this person has Asperger Syndrome judging by his facial expressions and the way he talks. So it’s no great mystery where his son’s Autism came from – his father, and most likely his mother too.

It has to be said that the material (on the internet) explaining gut functioning and ASDs is very hard to understand for the layman. There appear to several gut problems which could cause ASDs, and also different digestive processes and systems involved , and different substances such as yeasts and antibiotics, for example.

The most significant problem seems to be a vulnerability to Gluten (and Casein). When a young child starts to eat gluten containing foods, around 2 years of age or sooner, the improperly digested Peptides from the Gluten then pass through the “leaky gut” and into the brain resulting in the symptoms of Aspergers or Autism.

(See “What is Leaky Gut Syndrome?”  )
(There is a danger of oversimplification here as the enormous variation between different
people with ASDs needs to be explained; for example two adults with Aspergers are
always slightly different, they have varying levels of symptoms, this has been called the “Fruit Salad” by Donna Williams, someone else has used a Graphic Equalizer as a useful analogy. It is most likely that the variability in symptoms is due to qualitative and specific differences in the malfunctioning of the gut in different individuals.)

So in my view there is no need to look for environmental causes of autism like MMR or mercury in teeth fillings (which has now been disproved). I think people are attracted to these external causes because they are more comfortable with them. But it is calculated that 97% of Autistic Spectrum Conditions are genetically related. We can’t all be part of the “magic” 3% of non-genetic Autism!

Also the reason there appears to be an increase in the incidence of Autism I think is due simply to greater awareness of Autism and Aspergers. And today’s society is much more socially sophisticated, it is much more difficult for someone with Aspergers to blend in; society is so conformist and judgemental these days with the obsession with fashion which affects not only clothes but also ways of talking, behaviour, interests and hobbies, etc.. What is deemed socially acceptable or normal is becoming ever more constricted. Of course being a quiet serious thinker is also frowned upon, while loud asininity is de rigeur.

It has to be conceded that the stigma attached to Autism is still in enormous in our predominantly ignorant, judgemental society. Most people’s conception of Aspergers and Autism is simplistic and erroneous. Our society in the main still refuses to accept people who are different, for example gay people who are still derided and stigmatized in a totally abhorrent manner. So therefore it’s understandable that people are so reluctant to acknowledge having Autism in their family let alone in their very genes.

Hopefully it may be possible to educate both neuro-Typicals and people in the Autistic community, including parents, about what Aspergers and Autism actually are.
A final note: how can Asperger Syndrome be such a terrible, shameful condition when most parents of Asperger children will have managed to go through their entire lives without knowing they themselves had a neurological disorder?

This is my Gluten Free diet diary post. Not a great deal is happening as I’m into the waiting phase.

There isn’t a great deal I can report about my Gluten Free diet as I’ve had the initial improvements (see earlier posts) that you get after 3-4 weeks on the diet, and I’m now got to wait 5 months or more for further changes.

However, there are a few things worth mentioning.

My bowel function continues to improve. As I said previously I’ve started breaking wind (!) for the first time in years. I’m continuing to be very tuneful if not fragrant. Also I’m having to almost completely stop eating dried figs and prunes which I had previously needed to eat due to constant near constipation. In addition I am now restraining my intake of fruit and vegetable because my bowels are starting to feel queasy at times due to too much looseness. This is quite remarkable after so many years of poor bowel function.

As I’ve previously said my body and muscles feel a lot looser (stiffness is a symptom of Aspergers). I’ve been having a few accidents recently, for example spillages and sending things flying in the kitchen. I think this is due to my body being so loose and my using the same strength in my motor movements that my arms, for example, move to quickly and accidents happen. Also all my movements are so much freer and faster, e.g. walking and moving around.

To be continued

I read somewhere that Jean-Paul Sartre, the famous existentialist philosopher, had written a biography of Gustave Flaubert, the author of Madam Bovary, in which Sartre said something to the effect that Flaubert’s very detailed descriptive style and poor understanding of social relationships exhibited in his fictional writings, were due to Flaubert being “Autistic”.

This aroused my interest as I have a liking for Flaubert’s novels and wondered if this may be due to both Flaubert and I having Asperger Syndrome.

I hunted down copies of Sartre’s work: Sartre, Jean-Paul: The Family Idiot: Gustave Flaubert 1821-1857, University of Chicago Press, 1981. It is in fact an enormous three volume biography and is an almost incomprehensible analysis of Flaubert’s life combining historical, philosophical, psychological and psycho-analytical approaches.

I started to read Volume One. I doubt I’ll finish it. I’ve skimmed through it and found no reference to Autism. (An index would have been useful addition to such a large book, 627 pages; I expect the translator was exhausted after managing to translate Sartre’s impenetrable musings!) However, I did discover stuff about Flaubert’s naiveté and credulousness as a child and one revealing incident in particular.

Sartre quotes Flaubert’s niece writing of Flaubert:

The child had a calm, meditative nature and a naiveté, traces of which he preserved all his life. My grandmother told me that he would sit for hours one finger in his mouth, absorbed looking almost stupid. When he was six, a servant called Pierre, amusing himself with Gustave’s innocence, told the boy when he pestered him: “Run to the kitchen….and see if I’m there.” And the child went off to question the cook, “Pierre told me to come see if he’s here.” He didn’t understand that they wanted to fool him, and in the face of their laughter he remained a dreamer, glimpsing a mystery.

(Sartre, Jean-Paul: The Family Idiot: Gustave Flaubert 1821-1857, Volume One, University of Chicago Press, 1981, p.7)

It was incidents like this, and his proneness to falling into long stupors that led to the young Gustave coming to be seen as the “family idiot”.

Sartre then goes on, in his usual way, to speculate upon psychological and philosophical interpretations of this incident. How could the young Flaubert have been so credulous to believe the servant, Gustave was old enough after all to know that it was impossible for one person to be in two places at the same time. Sartre talks about the Other, language, etc. and attempts a “regressive” analysis of the incident

However I believe the reason Flaubert believed the servant was because Flaubert had Asperger Syndrome: it was not in his nature to expect people might tell him lies or play tricks on him, he thought people just used communication to transmit factual information with each other, he had no awareness of the social aspect of it and the games which non-Autistic people love to play with each other.

This may be an extreme case of Asperger naiveté but I believe that is all it is. There is no need for Sartre endless intellectual perambulations.

[It is now well known that many famous artists, writers, scientists and musicians had Aspergers and that this explains their peculiar combinations of eccentricities (including extreme naiveté sometimes) with great intellectual abilities. Other great Aspies include Einstein, Newton, Mozart, Beethoven, Erik Satie, Bartok, George Orwell, Herman Melville, Edison, Cezanne, Van Gogh, Edvard Munch and Andy Warhol.

For more on Aspergers and famous creative artists read: The Genesis of Artistic Creativity: Asperger's Syndrome and the Arts, by Michael Fitzgerald, Paperback, ISBN: 9781843103349, available from Jessica Kingsley Publishers.

I have to say I get extremely tired of reading endless critiques of so-called “tortured geniuses” of the Art world such as Van Gogh and Mozart. To me it’s no mystery why they were such incredible geniuses and they were so "tortured", they had Aspergers!

Michael Fitzgerald has just recently explained how the structure of Asperger brains leads to artistic creativity, at The Autism 2007 - Third Awares International Online Autism Conference].

In order to get to the bottom of whether Sartre really thought Flaubert was Autistic I decided to read a critique of Sartre’s 3 volume work on Flaubert: Sartre and Flaubert, by Hazel E. Barnes; University of Chicago Press, 1981.

Having read Barnes’s book I have come to the conclusion that in analysing Flaubert Sartre only e used the terms “autism” and “autistic”, both with a small “a”, and that he was using these terms very loosely in a way similar to how “conservative” with a small “c” is used. (What he means in the instances he used these terms I cannot begin to fathom or explain).

So I don’t think Sartre thought Flaubert was Autistic. Sartre was writing before Aspergers Syndrome was widely known about. It’s my contention that Flaubert did have Aspergers and that if Sartre had known about the condition his biographical study could have been markedly different. However, as Sartre was so wedded to psychological and psychoanalytical approaches he may have still held to his long-winded intricate explanations.

If one looks at some of the features of Flaubert’s life and personality which Sartre brings to attention, we can see that they could be explained in terms of Asperger Syndrome, rather than psychology, for example: Flaubert’s passivity; his self-doubt, his lack of confidence in his artistic ability; his artist creativity; his high ambitions or perfectionism and his workaholism in their pursuit his jealousy towards others ho are able to empathize and feel very strong emotions about others; his naivety as a child as seen in the servant incident ( see above); and his feeling “different” from everybody else.

Even Flaubert’s nervous breakdown or neurotic crisis in 1844, which “saved” him from a life of bourgeois drudgery and freed him to become an artist, could be seen as related to Asperger Syndrome. I’ve heard increasingly of people on the Spectrum who have had a breakdowns in their early 20’s, including psychotic incidents. Flaubert described seeing fantastic images or hallucinations when his breakdown struck, and felt he was going mad. I’ve also heard of people with Aspergers descending into psychosis. It’s not surprising really. There is a failure of mutual understanding between the Autistic world and non-Autistic: someone on the Spectrum finds it hard to understand the seemingly illogical way that most people behave, and the derision to which he or she is subjected is very hurtful and at the same time hard to understand for the victim because he or she has no awareness of what he/she is doing “wrong”; on the other hand the neuro-Typical cannot understand why the Autistic person behave so strangely, seems so naïve and stupid and at the same time appears very intelligent. It is no wonder that some that people with Aspergers go mad. It’s more amazing that we all don’t lose our sanity!

In conclusion I think that Flaubert is just another person, and yet another great artist, with Aspergers who has been misunderstood and analysed psychological terms when he really had a neurological developmental disorder. Join the club!
————————————————————————————

For those interested in Sartre’s main points on Flaubert’s life, personality and work like this here is a quote from Barnes’s book:

“……I find Sartre’s central thesis convincing : that he has traced a unifying pattern of development in Flaubert’s life history which finds its climatic moment in the crisis of 1844 and spreads its consequences over the future as the rivulets of water trace their way to the shore from the breaking wave. At the very least Sartre has effectively demonstrated the essential and inextricable internal relationships of the following: Gustave’s feeing (well developed in early adolescence and never abandoned) that this life is unadmirable and nonnfulfilling, that the universe is indifferent, that reality and limitations of human nature frustrate all attempts to achieve the impossible ideals that some few amongst us can imagine; his growing conviction that the artist, creating his creative imagination with the imaginary survol [the overseeing author], could give being to his impossible dreams of absolute beauty and harmony and in so doing rise above the horror and triviality of the real world; his determination that he would be a writer; the psychosomatic pattern of behaviour leading up to the crisis, a desperate strategy intended to free him fro a hated professional career so that he might devote himself to art; the conviction that his aim could be accomplished only by the sacrifice of one part of himself; the final liberation at the time of his father’s death and his own subsequent cure; Flaubert’s ambivalent attitude toward Napoleon III, his delight in moving in court circles and his disillusioned despair at the demise of the Second Empire, his feeling at the end that he had outlived himself. To this extent at least Sartre has demonstrated that we need not concede that the detailed study of this man’s life has revealed only “heterogeneous and irreducible layers of significations.” To my mind he has successfully interwoven this individual thread with the strand of literary history and the surrounding social fabric. His accomplishment is splendidly evident in the discussion of the way in which the public accepted Madame Bovary, responding to the book’s inner meaning yet distorting it by proclaiming its author a realist. Despite my criticism of certain points in Sartre’s discussion of the literary tradition, I believe he has succeeded admirably in showing how Flaubert’s personal conflicts and literature itself find their solution in the aesthetic creed that, in opposition to the realists, lead us to Mallarmé and the twentieth century. Whether or not one is willing to accept everything that Sartre says about Flaubert, his society and the literature of the period, I think nobody can well deny that he has brought them altogether. He has made good on his promise to describe how a particular person is inserted in his period, how he both reflects and modifies it, how he is “a singular universal.”

(Sartre and Flaubert, by Hazel E. Barnes; University of Chicago Press, 1981, p.407-408).

This is a record of how my Gluten Free diet is going.

At the end of my last post I related how I’d resolved to be more determined than ever to stick to my GF Diet and get gluten out of my body. At this stage I was still eating 2 slices of bread a day and decided to go totally gluten free as soon as possible. (I have been reducing gluten in my diet very gradually to avoid withdrawal symptoms). I therefore went down to 1 slice per day.

Not long after this I was in a pub and noticed how relaxed and unself-conscious I was. This cheered me up no end and I began to feel euphoric again for a time.

I think I’m also beginning to realise that I’m not the centre of the universe. That’s what you think when you’re Autistic, that must be why I always felt so incredibly self-conscious and uncomfortable in public. For example, when you hear someone laughing that awful sniggering, ridiculing laugh, so beloved of neuro-Typicals, I always used to think they were laughing at me. Now I realise that they aren’t laughing at me; once recently this happened and I noticed an obese young man crossing the road and realised that he was the target of the sneering cackles from the uneducated morons standing a few yards from me; previously I would have assumed they were laughing at me, because of my unfashionable clothing or hair style or whatever, and I would have suffered yet another battering to my self-esteem. Now this doesn’t need to happen any more and I can get on with building up my self-esteem.

Also I seem to be getting more decisive. For example, I’m going out and buying a few things I’ve been thinking about buying for ages. I’ve also uploaded some photographs on to an image sharing web site. Again I’ve been thinking about doing this for ages.

It seems to me when you’ve got Aspergers every decision seems so big and important that you take for ever deciding. I always I have a whole number of projects and things to do on the back burner which I usually get around to doing but it takes an eternity, So this is something else which my diet is changing.

Also I like to paint pictures and I usually find this a tremendous struggle: getting started, getting in the mood, and actually doing the painting. Now all of a sudden I can paint with ease and enjoy it. Maybe it’s to do with increased decisiveness, painting is all about decisions: what area of the painting to work on next, what brush to use, what colours to mix, what effect to create, deciding if what I’ve done is good enough or needs going over, etc..Usually it takes me months to finish a painting, now I’ll be able to do one in a few weeks.

I find this amazing, the whole chemistry of my brain is changing.

Yet another thing I’ve noticed: I’m still tired a lot of the time but when I yawn it’s as if I’m only feeling about a quarter as tired as I used to do.

My body, arms legs, muscles feels a lot looser. The other day I was squatting down to look at the bottom shelf in a shop and when I stood up instead of feeling my usual muscles aches and strains I felt nothing, just an incredibly looseness in my body!! Also when I move around, doing anything, I move faster, probably because my body is so less rigid. I didn’t realise how stiff my body was till now.

(A physiotherapist once told me I had the stiffest body she’d ever seen! Stiff bodily movement is of course another symptom of Aspergers.)

At the start of November, 2007, I went totally Gluten Free (apart from traces of gluten in processed food).

Another aspect of my improved functioning is that I am no longer so worried about problems in my family. There are a lot of physical and mental health problems going on in my family, they’re all related to Asperger Syndrome, or more specifically to my siblings’ refusal to recognize their Aspergers and try to deal with it – a common problem to say the least. Anyway I now seem to be able to separate myself off from their troubles and not worry so much about what’s going to happen, or feel so negative about what may happen to them and how it will impact on me.

To be continued

This is a record of how my Gluten Free diet is going. In this post I relate how after initial dramatic improvements nothing seemed to happen and I start to wonder if I was deluding myself.

My last post described how my GF diet had evaporated depression and anxiety. At this stage in my gradual introduction of a GF diet I was still eating 4 slices of bread a day. The diet is definitely having an affect on me. I’ve noticed my social anxiety has reduced a lot. In the supermarket where I normally fee as if everyone is looking at me and thinking critical thought about me, I seem to be very relaxed and don’t feel very self –conscious when dealing with the checkout assistant.

Also I don’t feel so hungry all the time, I’ve even gone without my normal mid-morning cereal bar once. And I’m not so desperate to eat biscuits all the time.

Around mid-October I started sleeping not too badly after a bad period of insomnia. Also at this point I stopped drinking beer, as this obviously contains gluten, and I reduced to 2 slices of breads a day.

I successfully baked a loaf of bread using Doves Farm GF flour following the instructions on the packet. It was quite easy but took ages and the ingredients are expensive.

For a time I seemed to have more energy and kept noticing positive changes like being less irritable: the stupid people who put their car headlights on during the day didn’t bother me as much, they normally send me into a rage; possibly I wasn’t as sensitive to the brightness of the headlights.

But then I started to be getting depressed again and there didn’t seem to any more changes coming. Although I’m definitely feeling happier and less anxious, I’m beginning to wonder if this is another false dawn.

Then I started I thinking that I’m still eating gluten and also that there must loads of gluten still in my system, I’ve been eating the stuff all my life after all(!) and it must still be affecting me and getting into my brain as it drains
out.

So I re-read some of the Sunderland Protocol and sure if enough they say what I’ve found is the usual pattern and that after these initial improvements you have to wait quite a while before there is another burst of positive changes. They recommend GF removal for at least 3 months and possibly not to expect further dramatic developments for even 7 to 9 months. Also in a study of patients on a GF diet they found that “there had only been a 26% reduction in urinary levels of specific compounds (thought to be related to gluten) after a 5-month period”.

They say that the gluten/peptides are stored in body fat and muscles and the older you are the more gluten there is stored up and the longer it takes to remove it.

This restored my confidence in the diet but I had to steel my resolve to carry it through. I decided to go totally Gluten Free as soon as possible without provoking withdrawal symptoms. I cut down to 1 slice of bread a day.

Also re-reading the Sunderland Protocol and seeing how it fitted with my experience reinforced my belief that gluten is extremely harmful for people on the Autistic Spectrum and how it’s so vital I get it out of my system.

On a more optimistic, but less fragrant (!) note, I’ve started FARTING!! I hardly ever fart. Breaking wind is a sure sign my bowels are clearing. It remind me of when I visited a friend who was in hospital with serious bowel problems and whenever a patient farted all the other patients cheered loudly because on a bowel ward normal etiquette as regards farting is inverted, breaking wind is positively approved of because it shows any blockages in your bowels are clearing.

To be continued

This is a record of how my Gluten Free diet is going. In this post I relate how this diet has cured me of depression and anxiety.

At the end of September, 2007, I was still eating 4 slices of bread a say but now I cut out biscuits. I noticed the following improvements:

 reading music better (I play the guitar and have difficulty sight reading music);
 chest and back are clearing up (I get a kind of eczema);
 dry ears have also cleared up (I’ve been suffering with eczema on my ears just recently);
 ankles (heels) not as dry;
 gut feels a lot less bloated;
 much less thirsty;
 much less hungry between meals;
 sometimes had kind of pain in gut which went after I ate something;
 when I wake up in morning I seem to be aware of more bodily aches and pains.

Being able to sight read music better is a sign my brain is function better.

If you read the Sunderland Protocol it says somewhere that gluten has a “diminutory” effect on the brain (for people with Autistic Spectrum Conditions). It doesn’t really explain what this means, presumably it means gluten reduces your brain power, makes it harder to concentrate, reduces your mental energy, depresses your mood, and generally interferes with the normal functioning of your brain. So possibly my reduced gluten intake is already increasing my brain power and concentrating ability.

My bowels are obviously starting to function better. I’m normally virtually constipated and my gut feels bloated.

I normally always have a small bottle of water with me as I’m constantly thirsty. I don’t seem to feel so thirsty and my mouth seems to stay moist for longer now, so again this must be due to my diet.

The first week in October, 2007, I had a bad time: I was rather depressed and also wad hardly able to sleep at all. I wondered whether this was a reaction to the gluten I was still having; maybe I was becoming more sensitive to it.

However, soon afterwards I suddenly seemed to feel a lot less anxious and depressed. Normally I’m very anxious: about my future, about what I’m going to do in my life, for examples decisions and choices about whether to try to get a job or just do voluntary work, and worrying things like this usually churns me up all the time. Amazingly my anxiety seemed to evaporate almost completely!!!!!

At the same time I started to feel more cheerful. Again truly AMAZING!!!!!!!!

I had always thought I would never cure my depression and anxiety without achieving some kind of success in my life, like getting a job or a relationship, but I’d just altered my diet and years of suffering seemed to at an end!

A constant background level of mild depression is a symptom of Aspergers and my diet seems to have removed this so I now can live with just the normal ups and downs that everyone has.

To be continued