update: children's healing journey 18 months on

Progress update: 18 months on for the children,

2 years on for me

The twists and turns of healing just astonish me... I would never have thought we would have had such a dramatic turn around in our diets over the last 2 years. When I look back and read about where we started and then the progress just over a year ago, I am so excited to share with you how far we have all come...


Here are the previous posts to give you a history:

http://www.kerstenskitchen.com.au/2012/12/our-story-to-healing.html
http://www.kerstenskitchen.com.au/2013/01/childrens-journey.html
http://www.kerstenskitchen.com.au/2013/08/update-childrens-healing-journey-six.html

My children grew up eating a very small selection of foods... initially just rice and lamb, then they were able to tolerate celery, choko, chicken, potato. We used Nuttelex and Sunflower oil for cooking. Luckily so many things can be made using those ingredients and you can find all the recipes in my first couple of books.

When we started biomed we were able to add in some moderate salicylates - cucumber and carrot mainly. But we got stuck, I could never increase from one quantity a day... any more and they reacted. So I decided to try adding in small amounts of healing foods (which is discussed in detail in the above posts). The progress was exciting but again we got stuck...

So we decided to try homeopathy. This was not a quick fix, it has been challenging but we have seen amazing healing. I think this has been the key for us.

I continued trying to increase the children's tolerance to foods and we began seeing success!

I wanted to keep adding more healing foods:

BROTH

We cooked everything in broth... to cook rice pasta, I would add a cup of broth to the cooking water; to make savoury mince, I would add broth instead of water; to make sushi rice I would add a cup of broth to the cooking water

FATS - GHEE and COCONUT OIL and TALLOW

We continued to cook all meat in ghee. Tallow was added and we now cook all roast veg in that. Coconut oil is used extensively in baking.

BAKING - COCONUT FLOUR and NUTS

Slowly the kids were introduced to cookies and cakes baked with nut flours and coconut flour. The cookies were very well received by all. My girls loved the cakes, but my son was very attached to his egg free rice based cupcakes. I was really pleased when he eventually (after many many efforts of sampling) he declared he liked them and refused to eat the rice based baking... yay!

FERMENTS and KEFIR

We don't use Kefir and fermented drinks often anymore, but we do eat sauerkraut and other fermented vegetables. My girls and I enjoy them very much, my little man not so much... one day he will join in :)

SALICYLATES and AMINES

They tolerate everything now... slow cooked meats, all manner of fruit and vegetables. They even eat tomato several times a week... Very exciting!

FODMAPS

We had major issues with all the groups of FODMAPS. So these were the last foods to try. At first I added leeks to our broth when cooking... then when that was tolerated, I added them to meals where broth was used, eg casserole, soup, bolognaise. Then I started adding in Brussels sprouts to meat balls, casseroles, bolognaise. Now I add lentils to dishes as well.

With fruits, we started with low fodmap ones and now have progressed to include the others too. They are so excited that this month we introduced apple with success. Started with a tiny piece, now they have a whole one each day. (Last time we challenged apple, we landed in hospital for a week)

TIMING

Healing started slowly but about a year in, it jumped into top gear and progress was really fast. In the early days we would have a tiny portion once a week, then every three days, then every second day, then daily. Once ok, we would do another food.

WHAT DO WE AVOID NOW

We are coeliacs, so we avoid all gluten.
We choose to avoid soy and corn. I have challenged corn a couple of times for the children and it has always been a very big fail.
We avoid cane sugar - we use coconut sugar and rice syrup as sweeteners.
We minimise grains but still enjoy them every so often. They are no longer an every day food. I use buckwheat and quinoa often.
We avoid beef - still causes bleeding bowels.

So what does our menu plan look like now:

BREAKFAST

lamb meatballs and toast
(bread is homemade multi seed buckwheat and rice loaf)

scrambled eggs

LUNCH (school)

one protein portion:
sushi made with broth cooked brown and white rice and cucumber
sausage roll
chicken schnitzel
buckwheat pizza with tomato passata and lamb mince

fruit:
selection of rockmelon, watermelon, strawberries, blueberries, kiwifruit, banana, apple

treat:
bliss ball (dates and coconut)
berry custard (coconut custard cooked with strawberries)
chocolate yogo (homemade yummo)
cinnamon coconut cookies
chocolate cake or vanilla cupcake

DINNER

spaghetti bolognaise
slow roasted lamb with lots of veg
roast chicken with lots of veg and Yorkshire pudding
meatballs and pasta
chicken schnitzel and chips
chicken and vegetable casserole
stir fry

 

SWEET TREATS

All baking is grain free and made with either coconut flour or nut meals and recipes can be found in my Grain Free and School Lunchbox books.

chocolate from Loving Earth
chocolate cake with frosting
vanilla coconut cupcakes
macadamia cupcakes
pikelets
cookies
marshmallows
jelly jubes (pomegranate juice and gelatin)
bliss balls
coconut icecream (plain or fruit flavoured)
ice blocks (coconut water and fruit)
potato chips


It has been a crazy healing journey and each path has been important, even when I felt it was not the right path, each taught me so much and introduced me to lovely women who have been my support network. So take each step as it comes, give something a try and if it isn't right for your family, jump back up and try something else. We are all different and what works for one, will not work for all. Good luck on your journey xo

 

Homeopathy

the amazing world of Aperture Homeopathy

Diet and Aperture Homeopathy has been part of our journey and for most, you know how I have worked through diet to heal. Homeopathy is new and strange for some and I am often asked how and why I use it; what is it like; what are the benefits; criticised because it isn't scientific and questioned about how do I know it works...


I wanted to put together some information for those progressing through their healing journey with themselves and their children. I am not a doctor, a medical professional or a homeopath... I am a mother who has investigated and studied and made decisions for my family. You need to decide for yourself the path for your family. This information is just my experiences.

I have been on this journey for 18 years... the last 7 years has been intense. We have moved through so many different twists and turns. I am excited by the current change to our path as we have seen the most positive gain so far in our journey.

DIET... is it enough?

Please read all about how we introduced healing foods very slowly.
http://www.kerstenskitchen.com.au/2012/12/our-story-to-healing.html
http://www.kerstenskitchen.com.au/2013/01/childrens-journey.html
http://www.kerstenskitchen.com.au/2013/08/update-childrens-healing-journey-six.html

This took time and patience and was full of frustrations. I found we got to the point where we got stuck... I couldn't find a way forward. Tolerance was not increasing anymore, even though we were using Biomedicine to help us. The children were doing well. They had increased their foods from 5 to 12. And that is awesome... but I wanted more. I desperately wanted them to have a healthy diet, be able to eat all vegetables and fruits... be able to make them all these lovely GAPS and Paleo treats I was enjoying. I also had some issues with my health that were not resolving with biomedicine. I heard about the Dhanvantari College of Homeopathy from a Failsafe friend on the Facebook groups. I could see how well her children were going and I was curious.

Our journey with homeopathy

As a Christian, I initially needed to make sure this therapy would not go against my faith. After discussing this with the homeopath, and earnestly praying, I could see it would be fine. And so I took the plunge and started remedies for myself. I didn't understand the process of detox and found my emotions difficult to cope with. It took quite some time for me to realise that the way the toxins leave the body and the emotions that come to the surface, move through quickly and easily if you are calm and let go. It is not a pleasant time if you fight it.

The other thing that was so different from my previous path was trusting my homeopath to do her best for me. In Biomedicine, we are so busying researching and trying to find the answers... Homeopathy is very different. We have to let all of that go and let the homeopath find our healing path. It is strange and foreign and hard to understand... I have no idea what we take each month, I just follow her instructions.

Once I had dealt with my initial panicked reaction, I calmed and started to enjoy the process. I then decided to start the children. When I realised they were stuck and I was unable to increase their food tolerance just by introducing small amounts slowly, I had to make a change to their path. They coped much better than I did initially and embraced this new change.

Within a month we had stopped all our biomedicine treatments and supplements and relied solely on homeopathy. The results have been nothing short of amazing!

The Gains

The positive outcomes make all the detox so very worth it. For my son, who has Sensory Processing Disorder, his gains have shined. He was a very anxious boy, who barely spoke, had no fine motor skills, was unable to tolerate noise or crowds and had massive separation anxiety.

Increasing his zinc through biomedicine had a positive impact on his anxiety. He was able to separate and go to preschool. However he still clung to me when I left him (although no longer crying) and when I returned, was standing at the door waiting for me. Now he runs off, with a half forgotten 'bye mum' and I have to go looking for him and wait for him to finish playing with his friends when I collect him.

He now chats all the time and his language pronunciation is so improved. He can hold a pencil and participate in art and craft. He has fun with groups of children. He is not scared of noise... He even loves getting his hair cut now, chatting to the hairdresser (he used to scream and cry)

His food tolerance has improved dramatically as well.

For my youngest daughter, her gains have been mainly seen through her food tolerance. She was already a confident and social little thing. Her diet is now unbelievable. I would never imagined when we started homeopathy that in just four months we would have such success.

Previously the children's diet was just
chicken, lamb, rice, tapioca/arrowroot, potato, celery, choko, Nuttelex, sunflower oil (meats cooked quickly with no browning)

Now they have
slow cooked meat, chicken broth, gelatin, ghee, tallow, coconut oil and flour, cucumber, carrot, sweet potato, capsicum, broccoli, peas, pumpkin, avocado, eggs, macadamia nuts, honey, pomegranate juice, banana, strawberry, kiwi fruit, blueberry, passionfruit, rockmelon... the list is continually growing.

Isn't that just amazing!

The Detox

Detox is hard work... your body is getting rid of years of bad stuff. Sometimes it passes quickly, other times, not so much. The more you relax and accept it, the easier it is to cope. For those of us used to food reactions, I found it very similar on occasion. The best bit being, you always get a gain.

For me, detox has been headaches, bloating, skin rashes, varying emotions - sad, angry, anxious, calm

For the little ones, detox has been much easier than I anticipated. There has been fevers, vomiting, bowel issues, sore bottoms, rashes, nose bleeds, irritating and cranky behaviour, sleep disturbances. I found that once I was calm and didn't panic, the children moved through each detox really quickly. And although that list sounds bad, they still played and went to school and coped with daily life. You receive remedies to help with the detox and they really do help so much.

Detox is very individual, so we will all go through something a bit different.


To give you an example of how well our healing is going... there was a terrible virus going through school last week. We caught it and had a fever overnight and that was it. Totally fine the next day. Other kids were off school a full week. Early this year when a similar virus was going around, I had both children in hospital on drips for a week.


The exciting thing about detox is waiting for the gain. After each detox, something really cool happens. Last detox, my son started creating with his Lego. Before he would just play with components already made. He now pulls them apart and makes his own. And he started saying "L".

 

The Homeopath

My wonderful Homeopath is Michelle Amor. She has been a constant support to me and has helped us achieve healing I never thought possible. You can contact her via email, mobile, website or her Facebook page  http://journeytoawareness.net/about/

Good luck from my little people to yours xo

Not all of us can heal with diet alone. It is very important to remember, you are all doing your best with the information you have. It is a difficult, frustrating journey, full of many twists and turns. Don't lose heart just because one aspect didn't work for you. We are all so very different and our journeys are different... we learn something new from each stage and I hope that one day you will all be able to share your success.

Be patient and kind to yourself while you heal