The results are back.

Over the years I started noticing that what he ate and how often he ate really affected his behavior. I've been really careful about not giving him treats and feeding him more often but it seems that lately nothing I was trying was working. Mark and I decided to have him tested to see if we could figure out what was up. He had to fast for 12 hours which all by itself was a trial because he is so emotional and defyant when he needs food. They had to test him 5 different times and each time I had to pin Luke down as the nurse took a vile of blood. This was one of the harder things I had to do in my life. It is extremely difficult to see your child in emotional stress and pain and know that you are helping out what he considers "the bad guys". We got the results the next day. He has hypoglycemia. This didn't come as a shock. Mark and I had suspected it for a while but it was good to know exactly what it was so we can learn how to treat it correctly. Hypoglycemia is basically low blood sugar. He pancreas overproduces insulin which creates the low blood sugar. This is the root of all (or most) of his rollercoaster emotions. He is on a special diet where he can't have any processed foods, or sugars, no white flours or simple carbs. It is the diabetic diet with 6 meals a day. Somedays I feel I do a pretty good job at keeping my head in the game, but there is the occasional day that I don't do a good job and then I'm quickly reminded that I can't slack. When I don't pay attention to what he is eating it seems those are the days he crashes. He gets hyper, then gets emotional, then he falls asleep....what we call the crash.

He is pretty good about what he can eat and what he can't.  At first when we took sugars out, he had a hard time understanding why other people could eat sugar and he couldn't.  You would often hear him say "dont' eat that, that's got sugar and it'll make you sick."  Now, he doesn't seem to mind so much anymore infact, today at Costco, he picked out some cookies and said "Mom, let's get cookies OK?  I won't eat any.  Lets get some for our friends. OK?"  (the friends he is refering to is Aunt Angie, and her friends Natalie and Tara).  At this point, I melted.  Even though I didn't want a box of cookies in my home (mostly because I thought I could eat them all) I couldn't help but say yes.  His is such a sweet and tender little one.  We sure do love our little Lukie.