When deciding on a food for the first challenge, we chose soy. Soy had never been a big part of our life and given the symptoms and patterns, soy seemed unlikely to be a problem.
Boy was I ever wrong.
He had his first dose of soy at the end of the school day on Friday. By Friday evening he was positively loopy. I won’t go into all of the problems, but they included falling asleep in public and acting strangely. On Saturday he had a second dose and could barely read anything and was having meltdowns once again. Ah yes those meltdowns. In two weeks I had forgotten how much fun they were. His bathroom habits became erratic. Fortunately he had no heavy social commitments that weekend. He was OK at his friend’s birthday party on Sunday and was mostly functional at school the following week, but he was definitely not quite right for five days after eating soy.
As the studies had said was true of the children who were initially tested, once the offending food was reintroduced the repercussions were swift. By Sunday he never wanted to eat the stuff again.
Many people think that their children will never willingly give up a food. My experience has been the opposite. I can still remember when we first pulled gluten four years ago and he needed to use a bathroom in a rural part of Florida where there were no rest stops. We went to a fast food restaurant and he was terrified that if he even set foot in there he would be sick again. Not only did he NOT want to eat there, but he was afraid to use the bathroom. He was three! He loved french fries (still does) but he was so happy to finally feel decent that there was no way he wanted to go back.
So yes, he asked about the hot cocoa we used to get at Starbucks. But all he needs to hear is “It contains soy” and he is no longer interested. To be fair to Starbucks they use organic soymilk and if we has no food issues we would drink the cocoa. It’s just that now, he prefers to feel well.
And I really respect that.
So now we have added soy to the list of banned foods. Nuts are next to be tested. We shall see how that works out.
