Success Stories: Tourette’s and Feast Without Yeast Diet

This Success Story about treating Tourette’s and the importance of staying on our Feast Without Yeast Diet comes from our archives on our old website’s discussion forum.  We originally published it in 2007, and it drew thousands of hits.  We no longer are able to support the discussion forum, so we are republishing this article so you can read it in the author’s own words:

I am writing to let readers know that diet alone may ward off Tourette’s and related symptoms in children. Some parents I have talked with seem fearful of starting this treatment approach due to the difficulty in obtaining nystatin for yeast treatment (their physician won’t prescribe nystatin). My son was cured two years ago using this diet and nystatin. Our story is posted in this forum [note to our readers: his story is posted on our Tourette’s page], so I will not retell that. This year we have seen an increase in symptoms that may be TS or related disorders. These include OCD behaviors, ADHD, mood disorder, vocal sounds, and trouble with school work. We had pretty much gone back to very poor eating habits: lots of bread, pizza, cakes, candy, soda and the use of mayo and ketchup. Finally, as I was preparing to allow his pediatrician to start him on a new medication for ADHD, I decided to try improving my son’s diet. I didn’t even start with the nystatin. I simply stopped allowing him to eat cafeteria food, and took away bread, sugar, soda, cakes, ice cream, and anything with vinegar or malt. The improvement was seen nearly overnight. The vocal noise stopped, the eyelash pulling stopped, he could do his homework with ease, remembers tasks whereas before it seemed nearly impossible for him to remember to bring books home or follow instructions. He went from moody and defiant to sweet and compliant. I have started giving him nystatin, but feel he almost doesn’t need it. It is so important to provide concentrated and balanced nutrition to kids in this age group. Now, rather than sending my son off in the morning with a bowl of cereal in his stomach, he gets a high protein (bean, meat, egg) breakfast with high fiber fruit and lots of water. I have increased vegetables for both lunch and dinner. He drinks nothing but water, and limited fruit juice with no added sugar. This seems to have worked miraculously for my son… again! Thanks Dr. Semon.