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).

The parents of kids with epilepsy in this community might be interested to know that research on the effect of dietary therapy on childhood epilepsy is moving forward  rapidly. The ketogenic diet, if you're not already familiar with it, is a diet that carefully controls and balances nutrients to provide low carbs, adequate protein, and high fat, in order to change the way the body uses nutrients.
 
A Big Year in Ketogenic Diet Research

Jenny McCarthy is speaking out against vaccines, not because she is against the vaccines themselves, but because of the loads of unnecessary toxins in vaccines. Why is she so against the "toxins"? Well, she believes there is pretty good evidence these toxins can flip the switch and trigger autism in many children just like her son. Autism is an epidemic in the United States. Currently, 1 in 94 boys in the country has autism.

The neuro appointment yesterday was not to bad.  We talked about all the aspects of her seizure the night before.  Then we got down to the fact she has now been on a total of three medicines, none of them fully controlling the seizures.  That with the fact the seizures always last an hour or more before finally stopping.  I was then told we are down to just three options now because the chances of any medicine stopping them was very slim.  So now our options we have ranging from the most effective to least.  1.

On 12/15/08 my sweet 7 year old daughter had another seizure.  We gave her the 20mg Diastat and began to monitor her.  The medicine didn't work, as usual so we called and had them send an ambulance.  Once in the ambulance they hooked her up to an IV.  She was still seizing so they gave her 10mg of Ativan while on our way to the hospital.  The hospital is 15 minutes from our house.  Once there they got her settled and the doctor came in.  Still she was seizing so they gave her another 2mg of Ativan.  My poor little girl 32mg of medicine and it still wasn't stopping.  Finally after 2 ho

Having the opportunity to chat with Jim Abrahams from the Charlie Foundation was a real honor.  It was because of Jim that my son Adam is seizure and drug free today!  The ketogenic diet changed our lives and it was wonderful to chat with Jim for an hour as he recounted his story of his own son Charlie and the struggles they went through trying to gain seizure control.

ABC is an acronym standing for: Antecedent, Behavior and Consequence. The ABC ideology promotes knowing what happened before your child behaved in a certain manner, the details of the incident itself and how the behavior was subsequentlyresponded to. Keep a written record for determining patterns or triggers and you’ll be better prepared to identify strategies to modify them.

I am really not sure what to do right now. My son was diagnosed with epilepsy about 4-years ago, and we have yet to find a combination of medication to work for him. He is not having seizures everyday but it is getting to be more frequent. I know that it could be worse but it has affected him in school. He repeated the first grade which was ok because I did not feel that he was mature enough to move on nor did I feel that he retained the foundation that is needed to go to second grade.

Stephen Wiltshire from London is a star among savants. Stephen is autistic. He did not speak his first words or "pencil" and "paper" until he was 5 years old. Yet, when he was age 11 he drew a perfect aerial view of London after only one helicopter ride.

For this film they tested the "Living camera" in Rome. Stephen had never seen an aerial view of Rome before and went on a 45 minute helicopter ride scanning the buildings and streets below.