my son tried a DAN doctor in Wanchai (a foreigner) for 6 months, with strict GFCF diet, had the various vitamins/minerals, did the various blood and urine test etc and there was ZERO improvement.
The doctor was expensive and did not explain well the results of the various tests (which are very expensive). He sees the kid once a month and everytime he said the kid has shown some improvement. But as a father I did not notice any improvement however much I hoped his words were true.
May be that treatment is just not suitable for my kid. I cannot say it won't work on other cases. As parent of the special kid, I understand you want to try everything. Just have a clear mind about it and don't over expect.
the urine test was for heavy metal intoxication. the sample was sent to France. The report is full of numbers with lots of technical terms ("uroporphyrins", "heptacarboxy porphyrin" etc are all over the report...very few terms can be understood...tried google some of the terms but most of them don't make sense...my wife has a degree in chemistry and she cannot understand most of the terms). the report has some drawings of charts etc all over the place, some indicating high level of certain substance. the report just does not look organised and it does not really tell you anything.
when we visit the doctor for it, he was flipping through it (not reading, just flipping) and then said gave us the usual subscription without explaining what the report really said. my feeling is that it was a complete waste of money.
the other tests included the stool test and blood test. i cannot find the report now.
GFCF certainly will cost much more than normal esp those products are mostly made in US or Australia. a usual packet of spagetti costs $15, but rice or corn spagetti can cost $40+, yet you could also buy 米線 instead which is cheap. Go to Little Giant for research. In TST there is a shop called Organic Twinkle with rather limited selection but they have more Japanese made products.
My son is now on a half-GF, full-CF diet, and taking some Vitamin B, Omega-3 and pectin (蘋果果膠).
the heavy metal removal process called "chelation" is a process that could cause damages to the body. be careful.
i recently attended a seminar presented by Dr. Ron Leaf of Autism Partnership in HK. he spent the last 35 years in autism including participating in some of the earliest research in the subject. Dr. Leaf said todate, only ABA is the proven solution to autism. all the other like GFCF, TEEACH, chelation, accupunture etc are not supported by scientific research. His list does not include bioresonance therapy though (may be they did not know it exist?).
I asked Dr. Leaf what is the difference between ABA and TEEACH (which is the method adopted by Hip Hong). He said TEEACH tries to change the environment to make it easier for the child, while ABA aims at changing the child. My son goes to Hip Hong and I agree with what Dr. Leaf said.
ABA requires intense and concentrated effort so it is gonna be costly, unfortunately.