What if I don't get results after a long time on the diet?

We recommend the following actions:
a) Increased doses of digestive enzymes with every meal. For example, the standard dosage of SerenAid is 2 capsules at the beginning of every meal. Consider giving three capsules 4x/day.
b) Increased vigilance to make double sure that there is no contaminated food getting through (check things like gum, supplements, playdough, and vigilance at school).
c) You can also try 14 days of "stone age diet", to make sure that nothing even remotely capable of causing problems is entering the system. In particular, we would try eliminating soy protein and eggs. If this restricted diet seems to help, don't stay on it indefinitely. You should reintroduce one type of modern ingredient at a time, with 3-5 day intervals, giving large quantities of each product in turn, and watch out for reactions. Remember that the most obvious part of the reaction can be delayed by up to 3-4 days.
You may want to add nutritional supplements that may be deficient in your child's diet. There is a test offered by Doctor's Data called the "Red Blood Cell Elements" test that can identify deficiencies and/or excesses of essential nutrients. Even though your child may be given supplements each day he/she may not be absorbing them, especially with a leaky gut. For example, in some gut diseases, the gut does not heal even with dietary intervention if there is an underlying zinc deficiency. Check with a doctor and/or a nutritionist who is knowledgeable in this area. -CL
If you have done all of the above for at least 3-6 months (some researchers recommend a year), and you decide to stop doing the diet, proceed with caution:
On an empty stomach, first thing in the morning, give the child a significant amount of dairy such as a glass of Lactaid milk (lactose reduced products will keep you from confusing the peptide issue with a possible lactose intolerance).
Resume the strict GF/CF diet for four days -- watch for changes in pupil size, bowels, sleep, and behavior. If there is no change, do the same challenge with gluten.
If there is no effect, and you decide to take the child off the diet, watch carefully for regression. This can occur for up to three months, especially if the gut had healed and becomes leaky again due to slow damage from the gluten. -KS