Welcome! I don't read here as often as I used to, so I missed this earlier this week. My son has brain damage as a result of severe hypoglycemia at birth. As a result, he has epilepsy, poor vision, lousy fine motor skills, and is developmentally delayed. A few years ago, we figured out that dairy is his biggest seizure trigger. As a result of being dairy-free, we were able to take him off his seizure meds (yay!). Eleven months ago, we gave gluten-free a try and discovered he has a problem with it, too.

I had genetic testing done on Tom. He does not have either celiac gene, but does have two versions of DQ1, which tend to have more neurological symptoms than gastro ones. Since going GF, he seems to be more aware of his world, his fine motor skills have improved, his vision is changing (I *think* it's going in the right direction), he no longer runs like a toddler (legs wide apart). It's definitely been worth the effort.

I had to laugh at your autism comment. I usually say, "Tom is not autistic, but he does have some autistic tendencies." Right now, he's obsessed with clocks and learning to tell time. We have just begun taking him to a DAN! doctor (Defeat Autism Now!). (Insert my "Tom is not autistic..." statement.) We're trying to heal his gut, and using lots of supplements to get his body back to a more normal state of being. One comment from the doctor was that things that inflame the gut can also inflame the brain, yielding autistic characteristics.

I don't know a lot about chiari, but I thought it could also be responsible for autistic characteristics. Did the surgery completely fix it? (I don't know enough about chiari to know how much surgery can fix it.)

We are a mostly GF household. Mr. Kay refuses to follow the diet; he's low gluten. He has oatmeal and some forbidden candy in the house. Otherwise, he eats what we eat, and enjoys his gluten at lunch at work.

Good luck in your journey.