Goodbye Cheerios: The Atkins Diet for Seizure Control

Have you ever documented what your children eat, for even one day? You might be shocked to learn that they are consuming WAY more starch and sugar than you imagined. In my search for non-medical means of controlling Alex's seizures, I stumbled (why I had to stumble, I am not sure...we should have been driven in this direction when his seizures first started...) upon The Johns Hopkins Epilepsy Center and their Ketogenic Diet. The Ketogenic Diet allows for just 10 grams of carbs in a child's daily diet. It is extremely strict and difficult to maintain for some families but it has incredible results in limiting or completely stopping seizures in children with difficult to control epilepsy. In the recent edition of Ketogenic Diets: Treatments for Epilepsy and Other Disorders, there is also a review of the Modified Atkins Diet (MOD) for epilepsy. We decided to start with the MOD, because we are able to do it without a hospital stay and we wanted to see if we got results without such a strict diet. We aim for 50 grams carbs/day. These days, a lot of people are on these kinds of diets, and mostly people get great results, so we were all for making a change. The first step was to clean out the cupboards (GOODBYE CHEERIOS)and stock up on healthy foods. The second step was to come up with some healthy recipes, enter them into www.myfitnesspass.com to see how they stack up on the health scale. The last step was to sit down as a family and discuss our new diet. We are all committed to eating a better diet, eliminating sugar and starchy foods, and to support Alex by not indulging (as in having an ice cream cone) in front of him. We committed. I feel as though I need to cook a lot more than I used to, and I need to think creatively about how to get my kids to increase their veggie intake, but the results have been awesome. We ALL feel better. Alex's personality is much more stable, and he does not have sugar lows. The one day this summer that he consumed white sugar in the form of candy given to him while we were out and about, he came home, had a meltdown, went to bed, woke up in the night repeatedly, woke up looking pale, and had a seizure by lunchtime. Yuck, white sugar! Fortunately, Alex is totally on board with our new diet and he helps me count carbs every meal. He likes to know his total carb intake before bed. He often tells people wise things like, "No thank you, I don't want any s'mores. I can't eat that much sugar." After this last sugar-induced seizure, he gets how dangerous white sugar is, and I feel pretty confident that he will turn candy down in the future if offered while I am not around. Getting him involved has been crucial. And now that we are getting used to our new diet, we don't miss the sweet stuff. Even yogurt seems too sweet for us, and sugary cereals are just disgusting. We should have made this change a long time ago. As a runner, I thought I needed my pasta and oatmeal bread...but my 30 mile runs haven't been affected in any negative way.