GARD FAQ’s

Coming soon… Common questions concerning The GARD.

Dogtor J

Examples:

1) Why hasn’t my dog stopped seizing on the diet yet?

Answer: Other than cheating on the diet, the most common reason for pets and people to continue to seize on the diet is hypothyroidism. The next most common is concurrent liver disease. Any individual who has been on the diet for over three months and is still experiencing seizures should have lab work done to check the thyroid and liver function. The thyroid testing should involve a full thyroid panel (at least 4 tests), not just a TSH level or a T4 level. Ask for the results and even send them to me for interpretation if you would like. There are many out there – human and canine – who are hypothyroid and do not know it or who cannot get properly diagnosed due to inadequate testing or incorrect interpretation of those tests. Google “hypothyroid problems” and you can read the stories of those who have had serious issues getting diagnosed and treated properly. A great book can be found here: Why Do I Still Have Thyroid Symptoms? –  www.thyroidbook.com .

2) Why did my pain symptoms or seizures get worse before they got better?

Answer: This is uncommon but a great question. In these cases, the food opioids are leaving the brain and the neurons are waking up from these depressant effect of these morphine-like compounds derived from cow milk products and the gluten grains (wheat, barley and rye). This worsening of symptoms occurs infrequently but does happen occasionally, happening mostly in those individuals who were consuming the greatest quantities of dairy and wheat – the sources of casomorphins and gliadomorphins, respectively. These opioid compounds depress the brain (e.g. post-meal depression, autism, and the down cycle in ADHD) but serve to prevent over-stimulation by the ‘”excitotoxins” – the glutamate and aspartate – in those same foods. Gluten and casein, from which these opioids are derived, are very rich in glutamic acid and aspartic acid, the two amino acids being restricted by The GARD. So, we see that the depressants in the food prepare the brain for the bombardment by the excitotoxins and lessen their effect until the brain get saturated with the opioids over time and the neurons up-regulate to overcome the long-term depression. At this point, the opioids no longer prevent the symptoms and the individual is “addicted” to these foods.  If we then we suddenly eliminate all dairy and wheat from the diet, we are in effect taking that individual off their Phenobarbital or morphine-based pain killer. This can result in a sudden increase in seizures or pain (e.g. fibromyalgia). Thankfully, although this makes perfect sense, this phenomenon is uncommon due to the simple fact that The GARD also drastically reduces the amount of the excitotoxins in the diet and the benefit of doing this greatly outweighs the downside of eliminating the food opioids.

Much more to come…

Dogtor J