It can't be! It's just not right.
Only two weeks ago, not last year, not even last month, but two weeks ago, he had chicken, a heaping bowl of rice, a tumbler of orange juice, and a big bowl of ice cream for dessert. There must be 200 carbs in that meal. And he looked great the next day, and the next! It can't be candida.
But what about the smell? The "smoking gun"?
I went through my records, all four years of them. He spent about one year of those three on a gluten free diet. No reason in particular, but when you don't know what you're doing, gluten is one of the first things you eliminate. Anyways, he's had some very good days without gluten, and some very bad days without gluten. Really bad, violent, no doubt about it. However, he has never had that smell during his gluten free months. Never. If the volatiles come from candida, they should be caused by rice and potatoes and fruit, as surely as wheat, but they're not. Apparently John and Mary both react to wheat, specifically, and that "fermented grain" smell is a result of maldigested gluten.
At the same time, I received a pivotal email from Jack, who runs the MSG web site. This is new, hot off the presses. He told me some glutamate responders react to phosphates. I never thought about phosphates, because everyone said they were safe. In fact, most of the failsafe recipes call for baking powder, which is half phosphate and half carbonate. No wonder we could never bake anything for him, no matter how clean the ingredients.
And what about the sodas? Sprite and 7-up are nearly failsafe, and very low in glutamates. Yet John reacts badly to these. I was blaming the sugar, and thinking about candida, but it could be the phosphates. Soda always contains phosphoric acid. Or it could be the benzoates??
I deliberately tested the candida theory, one more time. Two glasses of fresh-squeezed apple cider, baked beans, a peach, and a banana. What happened next day? He looked great, and he had a great day at school. I guess we don't have to count carbs after all. Thank God!!
I hate to flipflop on this critical issue again, but I don't think he has candida, and I don't know, really, if he ever did.
But why am I reading all these autism web sites? Why is the data taking me down this path? I mean, he's not autistic. Well actually, maybe he is, when he's on ritalin. He twirls around on the floor, bangs his head against the wall, waves his hand in front of his face, and cannot speak. All the classic symptoms appear. (Guess that's why he's not on Ritalin, eh?) So maybe there is a connection to autism after all. I couldn't see it, because his day-to-day symptoms fit the classic definitions of ADHD and ODD. Of course all these diagnoses are man-made and ill-defined, separated by fuzzy and arbitrary boundaries.
John continued to improve on the gf diet, a "build-down" reaction I suppose. I also began to suspect ground beef (i.e. hamburger), although steak seems to be ok. This is so weird that I still have trouble believing it.
I think most of his reactions are delayed and cumulative. Thus he can have a truck load of wheat, and be fine, if he hasn't had any in a couple weeks. And maybe he can have some more the next day. But by the third day we start to have trouble. People on the autism list have reported the same thing, but you have to replace days with weeks. Some of those kids challenge wheat every day for two weeks, then throw a party, because everything looks good. But after a third week, or a fourth, the autism symptoms return. Then it takes a full month, gluten free, to return to good health. The more you read, the stranger it gets.
I think John has a build up reaction to gluten, hamburger, and possibly dairy. He has a relatively fast (16 hour), direct reaction to glutamates. We'll never forget the one day, in the past four years, that he ate MSG. I don't know about other artificials, they seem to be tolerated. But we cut out artificials three years ago and his asthma went away. Why are they tolerated now? And that's not the only apparent inconsistency in my data. Salicylates are ok now, but I don't think they were before. Remember his racing heart, the adrenaline reaction? It stopped over night when I cut out salicylates. Now he eats apples and tomatoes all the time, and his heart has a steady beat. Was he really sensitive to these chemicals, or did I inadvertently take out something else when I eliminated salicylates? If salicylates were a problem, has he outgrown that sensitivity? Some kids do "outgrow" their sensitivities, if you can keep them away from the problem foods for several years.
If John's reactions change with time, then I am aiming at a moving target. No single theory will explain all four years of data, because John three years ago is not the same as John today. In fact, any information that is more than two years old is probably irrelevant. What matters is how he is reacting right now.
A week later I thought I smelled it again, just for a moment. That fermented grain smell, just for a moment. So we took John off corn. That helped a little, but then he seemed to react to white potatoes. Here we go down the carbohydrate trail again. I decided, for the fifth time in three years, that candida was John's biggest problem. I don't know why the smell is so pronounced when gluten is involved. But smell or no smell, we need to cut way back on carbohydrates.
"I won't do the diet if I can't eat at McDonalds." John declared, with is usual frankness and honesty. Well let's see - where does that leave us? A 9 piece McNugget meal with salad and diet Coke - 30 grams of carbohydrates - that's the best I can do. I hate to authorize anything at McDonalds, but that's where the class goes, and he wants to be part of it.
He also is not willing to give up sweets. I reluctantly decided it was better to give him nutrasweet than ritalin. I still don't feel very good about this decision. But everyone in his class drinks pop, and he insists on pop, so it's either corn syrup (promoting the candida) or nutrasweet. (Yes, we have some pop at home based un sucralose, but all the diet sodas in restaurants and stores are still nutrasweet.) I wish he would just do water meat and vegetables.