Our First Week

We finished our first week of GAPS.  I can say we are all still alive :-)  I'm not sure I can write it all down without it turning it into a novel.  Seriously, 9 people, 9 different reactions.  For the most part the most common reaction was "complaining"!  Seriously!  The whining and drama were out of this world.

For myself (I'm going oldest to youngest here :-)):  Extreme fatigue, and achy sore musles.  Waking up each morning on a normal day is hard enough to do, but this past week....whoa!  I've been battling a sinus infection, something that this diet can not address in the short term.  My hope is that a change in gut will lesson any future allergy and cold reactions so that they don't turn immediately into a sinus infection.  I wasn't going to go to the doctors to get meds, and can't afford a consultation with the homeopath.  I tried some homepathic remedies with no success. So I looked up online for home treatments of sinus infections.  Some were way too drawn out so I went with the echinachea/goldenseal combo and some oil of oregano.  Unfortunately the oil of oregano is so strong that it will kill off the good bacteria too.  However the copious amounts of garlic and immune tea were not making a dent in my infection.  I am glad to say that it seems to be improving already.  Other than that there was a whole lot of brain fog.  I also have an itchy rash pop out on my stomach.  I can only pray that it is benign.  I shudder to think it could be something else, something that I would have to treat the whole family with.  I've lost 6 pounds thus far.

Jeremiah:  I think he's been experiencing a lot of what I was as far as the fatigue and brain fog.  I know that his gut is in a healing state as he attempted to get a wholesome meal when taken out to lunch.  He thought a salad would fit the bill.  However, salad is not on the acceptable foods list at this time for the very reason that they are to rough on the intestinal lining.  He found that out in short order!  But, hey, at least we know his gut is working to heal itself!  He's lost about 6 or 8 pounds on the diet so far.

Isabella:  Lots of fatigue.  As a matter of fact all the kids have been taking naps pretty regularly since we started GAPS.  She's been having tummy pains, or has felt really sick to her tummy on and off.  It is hard to tell what from.  Not sure if she is reacting to anything.  It appears that besides her hiatial hernia she may have another hernia.  Right now we will wait and see.  As far as the hiatial hernia she has a swallow study test this Friday. Everyone, but me, wants her to have surgery.  I am hoping that we will have enough time before the surgery's date (which hasn't been scheduled yet) to make a difference in the hernia.  One week is clearly not enough time, but hopefully two months would be.  So far Isabella has lost 6 pounds.

Moira:  Again, experiencing fatigue like the rest of us.  I think she has had a harder time with tummy pain and upset than all the rest.  She is finally feeling better in that regards, but says she is still tired all the time.  She's lost 4 pounds

Flannery:  Well besides the fatigue there has been a lot of tummy pain, plus a sore throat on and off.  Above all, the absolute drama from the sugar withdrawl!  We are talking *withdrawl*!!!  That child cried and cried and stomped and broke down again and again, all over food.  I knew she had a sugar problem, but I didn't know it was that bad.  Due to her unwillingness to eat much of the food we did have for her to eat she lost 2 pounds.

Saoirse:  This kiddo has had tummy pain daily.  She had a lot of tummy pain before we began the diet, so I'm not sure what to make of it all.  The problem with intro is that there are so many unknowns.  Is this pain normal?  Is this a die off effect?  Is this....?  Who knows.  So we wait.  I try to reassure her that she will eventually feel normal, but that for now we kind of get worse before we get better.  For a while there she had a huge increase in the number of times she needed to use the bathroom.  I'm wondering if it's her IC.  Things are a bit better now.  She's also had leg and arm pains.  She is usually on the quick side to be able to melt or loose it in a stressful situation, but now she is melting down at the oddest and smallest things!  Saoirse has not lost any weight.

Jedidiah:  Well, this is the kiddo that kind of started the whole search for health to begin with.  (Although I had been on that journey for a time, he really put the urgency in it.)  He had gotten that horrid tummy bug before we started the diet and had lost 2 pounds from it.  I was nervous to say the least of how he was going to handle the diet.  Because I couldn't get him to eat the foods (the broths in particular) I took the advice from the book and gave him a reward after he did eat it.  That reward was a fruit smoothie (by his choice).  There was no way we could afford for him to loose any more weight, so I felt this step was neccessary.  After a few days he was pretty much gobbling up his food, so I decided to stop the smoothies.  Oh, my!!  Not good!!!  Not because he was upset, but because of the reaction his body had.  Basically there are just too many toxins in his small body for his body to handle at that rate, so I had to add the smoothies in as they help to slow that reaction.  He was completely lethargic, and sick to his stomach.  Not 30 minutes after having a smoothie he was on the up and up.  It took a few more hours before he was back to himself.  I am happy to say that Jed has not lost any weight.  He hasn't gained any, but that's ok, he will eventually.  My goal is to move him along the stages with the rest of us, but he will just have that smoothie at the end of his meal.  He will still get amazing healing, but just at a slower rate.  I think that come a year from now, after we are on the full GAPS for a while we will redo the intro.  That way Jed should have had enough healing to go through it properly.  Almost forgot to add that Jed's speech took a huge nose dive for the worse.  Not only did he start talking NON STOP!  But we couldn't understand anything he said.  Talk about frustrating!!!  For those who don't know, Jed has speech apraxia, and failure to thrive.  His speech is making a come back finally!  He actually had fun doing a reading lesson with me today.  I wasn't sure if I should attempt to teach him to read yet, as the apraxia can really get in the way.  I didn't want him to be more frustrated than he has been this past week.  But I took the chance and he had a lot of fun and did a great job! 

Jonah:  I can't say this kid has experienced any fatigue!!  He certainly has had tummy pain and leg pain (Jed has been having leg pain as well).  Because he does everything his brother does that means Jonah gets a smoothie as well.  I'm ok with this because there is only so much chaos I can take.  I can not take a 3 year old, who can not understand why all his favorite foods suddenly vanished, can't have the smoothie his brother is drinking.  Jeremiah was the first to notice, that for the first time ever, Jonah's tummy isn't 'bloated'.  I'm not sure if that's what I would call it, but it's true.  This kiddo has always, always been ummmm, soft around the edges?  He's always had this rounded tummy.  I guess I never thought much of it because he's always had it.  I was waiting for that toddler stage to end, when kids generally kind of thin out and loose that baby fat look.  However, Jonah never did that :-)  Well today, as Jeremiah pointed out, Jonah doesn't have a bloated tummy!  Wow!  Plus, just like Jed he has not lost any weight.

Aubrey:  Well, not much to report except that he must be teething again or something as he's been a basketcase the past few days.  He still nurses 90% of the time, but he really, really loves food.  More so than Jonah did, which is kind of scary :-)  He gobbles down his carrots, peas, avocado, and broth.  I'm just giving him the foods we are eating, minus the meats.  I am thankful that there doesn't seem to be a milk supply issue this time around.  I had to add in oatmeal when we tried the full GAPS diet in the spring as my milk supply dropped.  I dont' worry too much as now he can eat table foods.  He's had a wee too many taste tests of some less than healthy foods in the past, and a round of antibiotics so he needs this diet just as much as the rest of us do.  He's the only one who isn't giving me a hard time about eating thier meal :-)

I realized after typing this out some people may not know our history with certain things.  It may seem odd for me to be including the information about our weights.  I did this for various reasons.  There are four of us that are over weight, and we need to loose weight.  There are four of us who do not need to loose any weight, and there is one who desperately needs to gain weight.  I put our weight loss/gain/or not up for other families who may be questioning doing the diet and are worried about thier children loosing/or gaining weight.  As far as gaining, it seems odd to be eating a ton of meat and fat, along with veggies and broth and wonder if your child will gain weight from it all.  If you've read the GAPS book or anything on the Weston Price Foundation site, then you know that will not be the case.  Or maybe you are like us with a child who is deemed failure to thrive.  He isn't the 'classical' case as described in the GAPS book, as he was failure to thrive when exclusively breastfed (and we know for a fact it wasn't a milk supply issue or a milk calorie issue, my milk was actually on the high calorie side of the scale).  So I am reporting his weight here for others to see our experience.  We also have a few children who don't need to loose weight, and so far they haven't.  So that means, thus far, the ones of us who need to loose weight, have and the ones of us who don't need to loose weight haven't.  Unfortunately the one who needs to gain hasn't either, but I'm not expecting to see that until there has been a whole lot more healing in his gut.  By the way, the failure to thrive child is 5 years old and currently weights 26 pounds.  Our 8 month old weighs like 18 pounds already!  And our three year old is in the 30 something pound range.  So the five year old has a lot of ground to make up, and we are praying that this diet will give him the correct base to be able to start that climb up the growth charts.