The Incredible Magical Egg

Through much trial and error, I have discovered the incredible, magical power of the egg. An egg-a simple gooey substance of stuff inside a hard outer shell-is our brain elixir. Before we understood that Alex was having constant seizure activity, and before we put him on seizure medicine to help control that activity, he would have meltdowns that lasted for hours. I was pulling out my hair, trying every behavioral tactic I could find to help him have some self-control. But he would repeat to me, "Mommy, make it stop. Make my brain stop!" These were the meltdowns that led to my insistence on an EEG to understand what was going on in that little brain. But before we discovered that Alex was having constant seizures, and the noise in his brain was making it impossible to function, I tried to solve for the meltdowns. I began to look at his meltdowns the way I look at my own emotional collapses during an ultra run. I always tell newbies ultra runners, as soon as you start having negative thoughts during your ultra runs, it's time to eat. So, when Alex started melting down, I started to feed him. Initially I chose popped chips and other easy to eat and digest foods. But those were all wrong. They made the problem worse. Lots of carbs and sugars, feeding the craziness in his brain. So, I looked around to see what we had that was high in fat. The only thing I could think of was an egg, scrambled in butter, with lots of salt to make it more yummy, and a glass of high fat milk or cream. The hard part was getting him to eat it while he was crying hysterically. But once he got one bite in, he wanted another and another and by the time he finished his egg, he had stopped crying. In fact, he returned to our old Alex. It was as though I had given him a sedative, without the negative side effects. Once he started seizure medicine, he no longer experienced these crazy meltdowns, but he still got upset and cranky over small things. My solution has become to feed him an egg in butter, every day. If he eats eggs in the morning, he is pretty even keeled all day, and if he is off his keel, then I feed him one as a snack in the afternoon. I mentioned this fact to our neurologist the other day and he said, yes, he has heard that eggs can work like this for the brain. But why? (and um, why didn't anyone mention this to me before?...) I suspect the egg has a perfect mixture of fat and protein, with Omega-3 fatty acids and other vitamins and minerals that make it the most amazing, magical brain food around. I have become the biggest proponent of a low sugar high fat diet, and truly believe in the magic of the egg. If you can get hold of free range, grass fed chicken eggs, the cholesterol is significantly lower.