“We were told he had everything from viruses to bad luck. Various doctors prescribed medications, bloodwork, scans, and biopsies. The final straw was when a specialist at a prestigious hospital outside of Charlotte mentioned that he could have cancer. William presented to Dr. Kilbane’s office fearful of tests, dropping weight, and tired of the cyclic fevers.”
“On our first visit, Dr. Kilbane spoke at length with William and me about his symptoms and pain. The next visit, it was just she and I alone, discussing William’s birth to present-day issues. I told her during that visit that William is my sick child and his twin brother is my healthy one. Dr. Kilbane immediately stopped me during this conversation and asked me to recognize that I was calling him ‘sick’ and encouraged me to be cognizant of the words I was using. She asked that I focus on how he is healthy in between those six-week periods and how we can keep him healthy.”
“After putting the two visits together, and a round of bloodwork, we finally saw a change. We started daily probiotics and fish oil and corrected his low zinc and iron levels with supplements. A fabulous pediatric occupational therapist (Cindy Utzinger, OT, who has written a phenomenal book called, Why Is My Kid Doing That?: A Sensory Approach to Understanding Your Child) helped us find coping mechanisms to help him with sensory issues and tools on how to bring him out of fight or flight.”
“We transformed our home so he had therapy tricks to help decrease his stress in almost every room. When his fevers spiked or he had stressful days, he would often request ear and back massages that Dr. Kilbane had taught us. When the mouth ulcers increased in number, we performed visualizations to help with the pain and facilitate the healing.”
The OT also went into his classroom and helped modify the environment so his nervous system would feel more at ease and safe during the school day. The entire class benefited from the changes the OT implemented for William.
William’s parents had a great relationship and worked beautifully as a team. They took a closer look at how they could reduce stress in their household. William’s father took a more in-depth look at his work schedule. They had three active boys, and he traveled a great deal. During the week, mom was managing a household and raising three boys, which is extremely rewarding but also stressful and busy. They decided to make some changes, and Dad rearranged his work so he could stop traveling as much. That change significantly decreased Mom’s stress. (Interestingly, Mom herself used to get significantly painful oral ulcers when she was a young nurse working in the critical care unit, a very stressful workplace.) She was then able to get back to enjoying her children, extended family, friends, and professional life as a nurse. The way this family handled this young boy’s health challenges truly knocked my socks off.
“A year after that initial visit with Dr. Kilbane, we celebrated! For the first time ever, William had perfect attendance at school. He was well enough to attend a class Halloween party. He gained weight because he could eat without being in pain. He was well enough to swim an individual medley and completed it in under two minutes (and he did not need his inhaler once)! Tears were in my eyes as he swam, but welled more when we got home, and he wanted to call Dr. Kilbane to share the news! To quote a dear friend of yours and William’s fourth-grade wax museum person, Patch Adams: ‘You treat a disease you win, you lose. You treat a person you win every time, no matter what the outcome.’”
WILLIAM’S CUP OF INFLAMMATION
To this day, William has remained off all daily inhalers, makes near-perfect attendance quarterly, and understands his nervous system and how to calm himself. His mother also told me he wears a permanent smile when sharing his story with others.
William graciously offered these kind words to me after our year of working together. I cry every time I read this!
Dr. Kilbane knows medicine that helps cure you. She is very smart at finding how to make you feel better. She listens to you and wants to make your pain go away. She is very patient and wants to find all the ways that can make you feel better, not only when you are sick, but every day. I am so happy she helped me. I hope one day to cure people too!
William and his family had a profound impact on me, especially the last sentence of what he wrote: “I hope one day to cure people too.” We improved his asthma significantly, but we never fully cured his oral ulcers. However, he felt significantly better, and the whole family had a shift in thinking.
I often distinguish between curing and healing. I’d say a great deal of healing occurred for William and his entire family, but he wasn’t necessarily cured. We can’t always cure everyone, but 99 percent of the time, we can see major healing, improvements, and shifts in how we handle situations. We can be more proactive, just as his parents were when they sought out additional care for William, but we never stopped the conventional aspect of his care either.
My role is to see the child as whole and perfect exactly as he is. I work with the family as a team, to understand the child’s cellular health, physiology, biochemistry, and nervous system. I conduct a thorough history, physical exam, and lab work; I pay attention to the intangible influencers of a child’s health (stress in all its many forms); and I establish a connection and rapport with the child and family.
Living more in the parasympathetic or relaxed state allows us to maintain a better semblance of peace in our inner environment. Life and people will always throw wrenches into our well-intentioned plans to keep our inner state a bastion of harmony, but this is a process, and it takes practice. It’s just like riding a bike: once you learn how it feels to be calm on the inside, you can return to that state anytime, using any techniques that work for you. Mine are meditation, hot yoga, infrared sauna, alternate nasal breathing, Wim Hof method breathing followed by a cold lake plunge, going outside and walking barefoot, stand-up paddleboarding, horseback riding, jumping on a mini-trampoline, and laughing with my family, friends, and the amazing women I get to work with.
Remember to check out the Great Daily Practices at the end of section II for a list of simple daily activities that can help you and your child activate your parasympathetic nervous systems.
TAKEAWAYS
We adults set the tone in the home.
We help ourselves, mentally and physically, as well as our children, by spending more time in a state of relaxation vs. the stressed-out fight-or-flight state many of us have grown accustomed to.
Much healing can happen even when an illness isn’t completely cured.
We can start to mitigate emotional and physical distress in ourselves and our children by practicing daily mindfulness techniques and deep breathing.
CHAPTER 10
preparing your mind and kitchen for the program
When the boys were young (preschool), i would pack a lunch with three things only. it made it simpler for me to buy/plan/pack and it made it easier for them to make good food choices. if they only ate one thing in their lunch that day (which happens more than you think), i knew that the one thing would be healthy/nutritious.
—Lauren, my sister-in-law
REMEMBER HASAN FROM THE introduction? He was a little boy on the autism spectrum. His mother and I worked together to get him on an effective anti-inflammatory diet and on foundational supplements. The subsequent year, he was the only member of the family who went through the winter without getting the flu.
Hasan’s experience made me realize I needed to put more emphasis on nutrition for all kids, not just those on the autism spectrum. Hasan inspired and motivated me to create the step-by-step guide I share in section II. In this chapter I’ll give you a brief overview of the program, so you know what to expect. It should all be recognizable now that you’ve read the preceding nine chapters.
• • •
BEFORE STARTING THE HKHM PROGRAM
In my years of supporting families in this transition to healthier living, I have found that the beginning of the school year is an ideal time to start. That’s when you are filled with clean-slate energy and carry the conv
iction of starting on the right foot. That said, if you’re reading this book at any other time of the year, seize the moment the motivation strikes. A determined mother can make anything happen!
Also please do not begin changing your child’s diet right before a major holiday or if you have several special events coming up, including birthday parties. Starting at the wrong time will only add frustration and resistance. Do not start during a particularly stressful time in your family’s life either. The last thing I ever want to do is add stress to your household. Remember that stress is one of the triggers of inflammation and changing your child’s diet can be stressful if not done at the right time, with the right tools.
In short, I recommend beginning the program when your energy is good, you are feeling grounded, and you have a generally positive outlook on life (which is relative if you are parenting a chronically ill child). The energy and conviction you bring to the dietary changes will set the tone for the entire family.
Implementing the HKHM program of healthy eating and drinking means paying a whole lot more attention to food than what most people are accustomed to. When you make the decision to eat more healthy foods, it means planning, planning, planning. Given the poor quality of food offered at most restaurants, this basically means eating at home most days and packing lunches for school. It also means having a cooler with you on a daily basis, especially for long car or airplane trips. You’ll get used to this—I promise.
In order to cultivate the habit of food planning, begin by reviewing the coming week’s activities. Identify crunch times or activities that are close together, which don’t allow for meal preparation. This will help you know exactly when you need to have on-the-go food ready.
Changing your family’s diet won’t necessarily make you the most popular person in the household—at first. But soon enough, when your child and often other family members are feeling better, they will begin to help champion your efforts. Your hard work will prove to be well worth the initial lack of popularity!
PREPARING YOURSELF AND YOUR KITCHEN
Be sure to take a photograph of your child before starting the program, then once a week until you finish, so we have before and after comparisons. You can submit your photos to our closed Facebook group, Dr. Kilbane’s Healthy Kids, Happy Moms Book Club, where you can also receive and give support to other parents in the group.
FIRST: Overhaul on Your Pantry and Refrigerator
Walk through your kitchen and identify the major dairy sources and the amount of packaged, processed foods your child and family are eating.
Get a big box and place everything in it that you think is suspect. This should include all dairy such as milk, cheese, string cheese, cottage cheese, cream cheese, ranch dressing, sour cream, yogurt, and ice cream. And it should include all processed foods, such as packaged foods and drinks other than water and herbal teas.
As you read labels, look for the following ingredients that represent dairy: milk, casein, whey, or lactose. Lactose-free milk is not okay, because it still contains the protein casein. As I reviewed in chapter 4, lactose is a sugar and casein is a protein. Casein is the component that typically triggers most of the inflammatory issues such as eczema, bumps on the back of the arms and cheeks, chronic runny nose, and constipation. Lactose is what creates the gas and bloating after drinking a large milkshake that even those who tolerate milk experience.
Look at the number of drinks in your kitchen. Most drinks other than water or herbal teas should have made it into the box when you were going through the pantry. Next, take a look inside the box. Let your children decide if they want to finish everything in the box before beginning this adventurous program. Or ask them if they are ready to chuck the junk food and get started! Consider motivating them by watching one of Jamie Oliver’s TEDx talks about obesity, food, and sugar. See if you can entice your whole family to watch it together.
SECOND: Figure out Food Substitutions Before You Begin the Program
Review the “Remove and Replace With” lists in section II and begin considering substitution foods. You can start taste-testing some of the substitution foods before you officially begin the program.
Just to note, eggs are not dairy. So many families at one point or another ask me this question, and it always makes me chuckle. For some reason, we tend to link eggs and dairy, but they are separate food groups. I think the association may come from the farmyard. We see pictures of chickens on the farm alongside milking cows. I guess we associate the two.
At any rate, if your child does not have an egg allergy or sensitivity, and if your family is not vegan, I think it is fine for kids to have eggs. Pasteurized, free-range eggs contain good, healthy omega-3 fats, and they are also a good source of protein.
THIRD: Get a Blender for Smoothies (Or Make Do with the One You Have)
Make sure you have a working blender. Just about any blender will do. Please do not think you have to go out and spend $500 on one just to get started. For a long time, I used a Target blender my sister bought me years ago. Even after losing the lid, I held a plate on top while I blended, and it worked beautifully. I didn’t get a new one until a friend came to visit and made herself a smoothie. She could not understand why I was still using that thing! She ended up sending me a Ninja after her visit, which I love and use to this day.
In my observation, the three most powerful blenders are Blendtec, Vitamix, and my parents have a KitchenAid blender that works great. These are best if you have a picky eater and need the smoothies to be very creamy. I love my Ninja because it has two individual mixing containers along with the larger one, but it’s not as effective at making things super creamy. If your family has different tastebuds, you can easily make two different smoothies without too much fuss. I am not a morning person, so I put all the ingredients into the individual blender cup in the evening. Then, when I wake up, all I have to do is add water, chia, blend, and go.
FOURTH: Stock up on Storage Containers
Take inventory of your storage containers for both food and water. Ideally, move toward glass and stainless steel and away from using so much plastic.
Do you have small containers that you can take with you on the go so you aren’t too reliant on packaged snack foods?
Do you have little containers that might hold hummus and cut-up carrots or nut butter and apples that little fingers can open and close?
Do you have a thermos you could send to school with black beans, rice, and avocado, or soup for your child’s lunch?
Avoid endocrine disrupting-chemicals (EDCs) and plastic containers. I encourage you to move away from using plastic, especially plastic that contains Bisphenol A (BPA). BPA is a chemical that has been used in creating plastics since the 1960s. It is also in the lining of most canned foods. It has long been suspected to have detrimental effects on our health, in particular on the brains, behavior, and reproductive organs of fetuses and young children. This may result in reduced fertility and an increase in some diseases, including obesity, diabetes, endometriosis, some cancers, and ADHD.1,2,3,4
EDCs mimic, block, or enhance the effect of various hormones in our bodies, including estrogen. It is thought to do this even at very low doses, so please pay attention to the number of plastic containers your child is eating and drinking from. Let’s not only begin to form healthier habits for ourselves by purchasing reusable drink containers, but let’s also be good to our planet that we are leaving for the next generation.
I try and use as little plastic as possible, and I never put plastic in the microwave or dishwasher so as not to expose it to high temperatures. (High temperatures cause BPA and other chemicals to leach out of the plastic.) I don’t want to expose myself or my family to the possible health risks of this EDC, and I don’t want to contribute more waste than necessary to our small planet. The FDA banned BPA in baby bottles and sippy cups in 2012.
I have some glass storage containers with plastic lids that snap on and off that I bought from Costco. I like these c
ontainers because in the event that I do need to heat my food, it means I am not putting plastic into the microwave. I simply take the lid off before heating it.
FIFTH: Get the Right Cooler Bags
You will need ways to keep food cool when you are on the run. Do you have small, medium, and large cooler bags available so that when you are headed to soccer, to the pool, or on a long car ride you can take everything you need and keep it cold and ready to eat?
Do you have small water bottles that your kids think are cool and they enjoy drinking from? I find sometimes kids’ water bottles are so big they end up not drinking much of the water while at school. Experiment with getting a smaller bottle they can refill once or twice while at school in the drinking fountain and see if that motivates them to drink more. Consider making a chart and inviting them to place a sticker next to each bottle they drank that day.
I would love for you to also ponder the Montessori philosophy here: Don’t do for your kids what they can do for themselves. Let your kids help you cut things up, and then in the morning or the night before, set their options onto the counter and let them pick what they will bring in their lunch. This will take much longer than if you do it yourself, but they may have more buy-in and may be more likely to eat it if they had something to do with packing it.
SIXTH: Review the Recipes in Section III
Healthy Kids, Happy Moms Page 13