RES (Red Ear Syndrome)

Go ahead, I dare you. Google red ear syndrome. Google red ear autism.

As I amused myself yesterday afternoon cleaning the you know what that I discussed in my previous post, I realized something that the teacher told me two days ago while picking up Zach from school:

Zach's ear was red today, but I noticed just the one ear was red.

Damn damn damn. Of course he puked, his ear was red. He came into contact or ingested something. This is the stuff that drives me nuts. We used to tell the doctor about Zach's puking. "Some kids just puke" was the response. We told the doctor about the red ears: "nothing to be concerned about, it's just he way he is."

After months of going through this we determined there was a correlation. He doesn't always puke when his ears are red, but there is a better than average chance when it happens. Since putting Zach on the GFCF (gluten free/casein free) diet, his puking went down from 3 times a week, to maybe once a month. Big change. Not annihilated, but a lot better, and a much welcomed difference. And the red ears - maybe 5 times in a years time.

Anybody around Zach before the GFCF days can tell you - the kid didn't vomit - he exploded. Every family member, several close friends, and even some not so close friends had the opportunity to witness this. I can recall July of 2008 being seated at a table close to the bride and groom at this lovely wedding of Steve's cousin. I remember thinking to myself "damn - why did they seat us here." We were seated with some lovely grandmother types, friends of the bride's grandma, and Mt. Zacharius erupted. The bride and groom came running over to see if all was OK. I was mortified. On a separate occasion, my childhood girlfriend came into town whom I hadn't seen in like 20 years, and sure enough Sir Barfs Alot did it again. There was no escaping the wrath of the Vomit Monster.

When my mother in law happened to notice Zach's red ears, I knew that Steve and I were not paranoid parents - there indeed was something unusual with the way his ears (almost always just one) would turn very red and even swell. I brought him in to the doctor - no ear infection.

I Googled and saw a strong number of parents having similar complaints. I spoke with other parents, and heard the same complaints. In this 1% community called those with autism, it doesn't always appear, but it certainly doesn't feel like it is a negligible percentage either.

You know what is hard about being an outlier - if you don't meet the set patterns the researchers and scientists have made their laws about, you don't mean anything meaningful.
Pediatricians, an allergist, and a gastrointerologist have given us nothing other than the standard: "the gluten free and casein free diet has never been proven to help kids on the spectrum." The allergist at least threw us a bone and told us that she had other clients who were using the GFCF diet and also indicated that it was helpful.

I am trying to figure out how they would study this diet with the appropriate statistical environment.

If you ask me if it is the gluten or the casein - I really can't tell you. It may be one, neither or both. I am hoping that we can one day get him off of it - it is tiresome somedays. But we are OK with it. Thank God for Wegmans, NaturTyme, and the manufacturer of all those products that help those with celiac's and other allergies. We are marking one year on the diet. A lifetime of it? I hope not. But if it helps, we will do what we need to do.

At some point, we will gluten challenge Zach. What makes his ear go red? I don't know. But I just don't by the "some kids just" business.