Rewind to last March, precisely one year ago, when John began reacting to "safe" meals. After two months of confusion we decided he had developed a new suite of food sensitivities - rice in particular. This may be the case, or maybe not, but with a year's worth of data we could see another pattern, a precipitous decline during the month of March. Of course this "pattern" was defined by two, and only two, data points, but we were desperate!
We attended two parent-teacher conferences in the first week of March and came to the same conclusion about each child: "He/she hasn't behaved this badly in months." Because John is in special ed, we had a history of documentation to consult. "Precisely one year."I concluded. John was doing well, by last year's standards, until March, when something terrible happened. At the time we were taking him off meds and changing his diet, so there were too many variables involved. All we could do, as parents and teachers, was endure, with no explanation in sight. Fortunately John improved dramatically over the summer. We attributed these improvements to his low carbohydrate diet, but were other factors at work?
It is March once again, and something is amiss. Mary has also jumped the tracks, and she is on a different diet. Is there something in the air?
Throughout March I documented a negative correlation between scholastic performance and nasal congestion in both children. In fact,if John wakes up with a stuffy nose, I don't send him to school at all. He'd just be in time-out all day, and what's the point of that? We know that spring pollen can induce sneezing and watery eyes; might it also exacerbate neurological conditions such as AD[H]D? I decided the answer was yes, though I was hard-pressed to explain why.
NFF: Spring pollen had nothing to do with it. Certain foods caused his nasal congestion and his bad behavior. The two symptoms were correlated by an underlying food chemical, hence his congestion served, and still serves today, as a harbinger of rising hyperactivity, although the former does not cause the latter, just as your alarm clock does not cause the sun to rise.
I will spare you the details of the additional steps we took (e.g. air purifiers etc) to protect John from the spring pollen, which was suppose to be causing so much trouble. These measures accomplished nothing, and I abandoned the underlying premise in short order. Fortunately I didn't spend more than a couple hundred dollars on this venture, but precious time was lost. Another month of John's irreplaceable childhood consumed by ADHD.
Of course some children do react to their environment, quite apart from foods, so I really shouldn't chastise myself. For instance, both my kids are allergic to cats and cigarette smoke. These were all reasonable steps to take; they just didn't help my son.