Yes, both of them are on the elemental diet, specifically a brand called Elecare. It's been moderately helpful for the girl, who started a little over 8 weeks ago, but it's been absolutely fantastic for the boy, who will hit the 3 week mark tomorrow. We started on a Tuesday... by Thursday he was drinking it without bargaining, and by Friday he wasn't asking for real food at all, even when he saw my stepkids eating some of his favorite foods for lunch (we did try to keep him away so he wouldn't be jealous, but he got in the kitchen anyway.) By the time he went back to school on Monday, he was perfectly content to pull out his two drink bottles at lunch and snack time. Also, that morning he walked in and spontaneously greeted all his teachers and classmates by name, which previously he wouldn't do even with prompting. That's one more IEP goal checked off the list, and his speech and cognition have just continued climbing as the days go by.
Minifobette's been progressing, but it's of the three-steps-forward-two-steps-back variety. In the first few days after starting it, she was showing very big gains for her, with better eye contact, showing curiosity, and babbling constantly instead of being mostly silent. But then it sort of melted away again. We blamed the antifungal that she had just started, because often the antifungals can make you worse before they make you better. But she didn't ever get better, and when the course of antifungals was done, she only very slowly began getting some sounds back--she's still not where she was in those first few days. Plus, she's still having totally liquid poop, which is obviously bad. Minifob was having it too after he started the formula, but then I adjusted some of his supplements and added a vitamin called biotin, and his very next poop was 100% solid. Hooray! So I'm about to add biotin into Minifobette's cocktail to see if it does the same for her, but I have to wait a few days because we just started a different thing before the biotin did its magic on Minifob, and I'm trying to keep her variables as separate as I can.
Dar, have you ever heard of the
Specific Carbohydrate Diet? It's a little less extreme (and a lot less expensive) than elemental formulas, and I've known some people who showed comparable digestive improvements on it, especially adults without additional food allergies to contend with. It's our next pitstop once we start reintroducing foods.