With Chubbs having speech apraxia, there is a lot of talk about a gluten and casein free diet helping improve speech. We have tried this before, back in January of 2007. It lasted about a month. I believe we weren’t committed to it and that led to us just quitting. This time, however, we have met a wonderful woman, Erin, of $5 Dinners who we met at a workshop and got to talk to about apraxia and the diet. I think we needed a real person telling us that it worked instead of just reading about it.
So we began.
We cannot financially buy everything, we need to make something by ourselves (fries, chicken nuggets, pancakes, muffins). For breakfast, Chubbs had a bowl of Gorilla Munch cereal. It resembles Kix, but I think it’s much better. He took butternut squash and apple muffins to school for a snack, and when he came home he had four strawberries and another small bowl of cereal. For dinner, I made some whole grain rice pasta and a big spoonful of homemade tomato sauce. Yes, even the sauce he eats has to be homemade. The jarred varieties in stores contain all sorts of things (go ahead, read the label), so it’s easier to just make a big batch and freeze it. It thawed and warmed in the microwave in just seconds.
We are also back to giving Chubbs MB12 injections. These are tiny little shots that go at a 40 degree angle into the upper part of his butt cheek (we alternate each time). These are being shown to help with speech as well. Here’s an informative link: Dr. Neubrander Yes, the site is geared towards the treatment of autism, but many apraxic patients have been receiving the injections and seeing improvements! Some might say it’s weird to give your child an injection, but it’s so quick and easy that it’s no big deal.
Here’s to seeing the benefits!