Who would think that "Fruit and Veg" could be a child's worst enemy. We were all brought up with the belief that you had to eat a variety of these foods in order to stay healthy.
On December 27 1999, the three of us started the "Royal Prince Alfred Hospital's Elimination Diet". I had hoped to see over the school holiday period whether food might be causing some of our problems. Unfortunately, not every one felt the same way about trying this new dietary regime, so Jessica and Matthew had to restart the diet again in January. We did the food "challenge" on Matthew for "salicylates". He ate one and a half "Granny Smith" apples. After about 2 hours he started to become extremely "trying". (We all know what that kind of behaviour is like....don't we???) After another couple of hours we began to see a side of him that no-one knew existed. He tried biting, kicking & punching anyone that came too close as well as breaking things, upending things and generally being extremely aggressive and destructive.
As night grew closer, we hoped that this would all blow over and that once he was asleep, quiet would fall on the house again. How wrong I was....again. This, it seemed, was just the beginning. Every couple of hours he would scream for about half an hour. I describe these sessions as similar to "night terrors". There was no way of consoling him and any interaction would make everything much worse.
I will finish their stories as soon as time permits.
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