Soya allergy in a young child causing behaviour problems - any experiences?

[gaelicsheep]

Hi there. For a while now I've been puzzled and worried about my 5 year old's sudden behavioural changes and have wondered if there is a link with food. I took him to the doctor to be told "he's 5" and stop worrying.

Anyhow, jumping forward and cutting a long story short. A couple of weeks back we were travelling down to see family and all of a sudden DS got a total bee in his bonnet about some toy truck he'd seen in the Little Chef (toilet stop). He got totally crazy about it and wouldn't let up for a full hour or more. This was unusual behaviour even for him. We realised that not long beforehand he'd eaten a packet of Quavers and we wondered if there was a link.

He's now on half term and for the past couple of days he has spent significant portions of the day being totally obnoxious, usually becoming obsessed with one particular thing and going completely over the top, becoming extremely rude and physically violent.

Both days he has had some Tesco fruit loaf, which I find contains soya flour. He also had a hot dog yesterday that's likely to contain soya, and he's had a bag of salty popcorn on the go this week that contains soya. Quavers also contain soya flour and I am wondering if there is a link. We're thinking of cutting out all foods containing soya for a month or so and seeing if this makes a difference.

Still with me? I have two questions really. Does anyone have any experience of soya allergy causing these symptoms? Where should we go from here - allergy testing?

I'm just re-reading my post and realising it sounds like DS has a really bad diet! He really doesn't, but he's at home with his dad over half time and - well - dads will be dads. Just in case anyone thought it's just bad diet causing a grouchy child. Although he is increasingly fussy.

Soya is in so much stuff. In that sense you could blame anything on it. Because it appears everywhere, crisps, gravy, cereal, mosts breads. Seek and ye shall find.

So it is no surprise to me that you have seen soya in what yoy have loomed at.

Im not sure its to blame, I expect he has it every day, in more things than you think.

This forum is excellent in helping in suggesting alernative foods though or what fooda have what in.

Good luck. x

Scuse the typos. Got no excuse for them.

I know, but on the other hand I've been through our cupboards and found it in very little. Our cereals don't contain it. Most of our biscuits don't, etc. I also believe that soya lecithin - which is the thing in most products - is less likely to cause problems than soya itself due to the concentrations involved? And Quavers is the only brand of crisps he ever has that contains soya. There is most definitely a link between food and his behaviour but I don't think it's frequent enough to be a milk allergy, for example, or wheat. I figure it can't do any harm to cut out these soya containing foods and see?

I doubt it would do any harm at all. If I were you look on Google scholar and see if theres any studies regarding links between soya and behaviour. There might not be but its worth a shot you might find something.

I think you're talking about food intolerance rather than allergy. The two are often confused but are in fact quite different. An allergy involves a response by the immune system and can be immediate and life threatening whereas an intolerance is often harder to identify as the symptoms are not so immediate and normally involve the digestive system in some way eg tummy pain, diarrohea etc but can be very varied from headaches to itchy skin or behavioural problems. It is possible that your DS has an intolerance to soya although I would suggest it could also be something like a food additive or colouring.

Yes you're quite right. That was lazy thinking on my part, sorry. The reason I'm thinking soya is that in the various products I mentioned the only common factor - unless there is something they are not listing - is soya. He's had none of them today and no outbursts of any kind. Not exactly hard proof but we'll keep avoiding them and see how he goes.

I was pretty much going to say the same as freefrom. My child has food intolrtnsces, soya being one where she has diarrhea d aslo terrible behaviour. im never sure if the behaviour is a result of the pain and tummy trouble or a symptom on its own.

I think your only way s to remove it from his diet then introduce and see.