Addressing the International Symposium on Dietary Therapy for Epilepsy and Other Neurological Disorders, mother and doctor Deborah Snyder reveals her first-hand experience of the ketogenic diet and its success in curing her son’s epilepsy.  She implores health professionals to recognise the efficacy of the diet in stopping seizures and aims to dispel the myth that the diet is too difficult or not worth the effort.

Does anyone know if a child will lose weight on the ketogenic diet?  I have a 12 year old boy and am looking for any advice about the diet instead of the meds.  He has taken Keppra ...the seizures were under control, however he was a different child.  Now we are on Topamax... again seizures are under control but behavior issues are staring to come back as we increase his dose. 

Any help about the Keto diet would be helpful ... i would love to hear about those for and against the diet.

Thanks so much for offering to help.

Karri

Just want to introduce our story in a nutshell.

Speaking at the 2008 International Symposium on Dietary Therapy for Epilepsy and Other Neurological Disorders, British Mum Emma Williams tells of her fight to get son Matthew on the ketogenic diet.  In an address that brought tears to the eyes of not only this brave Mum but many in the audience, she speaks of her rage at doctors refusal to take the ketogenic diet seriously and the subsequent brain damage her little boy suffered due to constant seizures. 

doctors say that the kenogenic diet is last resort for a child my daughter has absent seizures and i was interested if that is right for her? She just switched meds. But i have heard great results from the kenogenic diet! she still has many seizures thoughout the day! where do i go to find out if she is a candicate?

Hollywood star Meryl Streep was so moved by the Abrahams’ story that she decided to become involved in the fight to inform parents about the ketogenic diet.  She narrates and introduces the information video made by the Charlie Foundation which is available to parents across the world. 

Streep was close friends with movie director Jim Abrahams, who asked for her help to increase awareness of the ketogenic diet as a treatment for childhood epilepsy.  His son Charlie was successfully prescribed the diet and after a few days his seizures ceased completely.

In my last posting I reviewed some of the recent progress in research on the use of the ketogenic diet.  In this posting I’d like to follow up by reviewing an exciting study published this past February by a group of French researchers on the use of the ketogenic diet for patients with focal epilepsy (also called partial epilepsy).

My daughter has been recently diagnosed with a glucose transporter dificiency disorder and will be starting the ketogenic diet soon (after the H1N1 cases calms down at the hospital)

She has refractory absence seizures since she's 2 1/2 and she is now 6 and 1/2 years old.

My school and school board has never had a child in this situation and they are at a loss on what to do.... She will need added supervision during meal times and on the bus, as not to eat something that is not on her menu....

Having a child with special needs of any kind can be difficult. Even something as simple sounding as a peanut allergy can be a nightmare to navigate. It sounds simple, right? I mean, avoid peanuts. Then you start looking at labels because you mention it to the waitress that you need a jelly and jelly sandwich due to your son’s peanut allergy and she gets a serious look on her face.

I am new to the forum. My daughter, a previously normal bright 7 year old was diagnosed with absence seizures 1 month ago.  She was started on Keppra and now on Depakote also.  She is still having seizures up to 30+/day.  Some days only 6 or so.  She loses bladder control with her seizures and some last 45 sec.