Guest guest Posted October 23, 2004 Report Share Posted October 23, 2004 , Hi. I'm eavesdropping from the atkins board and noticed your comment about weaning from Lamictal. We've been on the atkins diet 2 months now with major seizure reduction (not seizure-free), but our 6 year old is still on 100 mg of Lamictal, twice a day. How do the doctors usually do the weaning, and what kind of danger withdrawal symptoms do we look for? Thank you so much! Tammy > Hi Viola, > A decrease in seizures means Caden is 'responder' of some sort, so that is the good news...some kids see no improvement whatsever, sometimes even a seizure increase, so def a reason to be optimistic. > The bad news (well not really bad, more frustrating than anything...) is that yes, medications can mean the difference between seizure control and not - and basically the only way to find out if weaning the meds is the answer, is to go ahead and do it and wait for the response. > This can take a long time, er, still not med free after 3 yrs on keto here with , but - don't take his scenario as a benchmark, lots of other road bumps interfered with his control in that time. His main problem included the benzodiazepine medications he was plagued with for the first 2 yrs on the diet (and pre diet as well). > In answer to your question - have others started out that way to go on to become seizure free? Def yes, more so than those who are seizure free from the word go. > Some on here have taken months, cripes - even yrs to get there, and a big percentage of those cases have involved drug complications. It is very hard to finetune the diet aspect when meds are on board, trust me on that.....and v difficult to know what to do first when control is still elusive. > If ketones are in a good place (like not too low or too high) and weight is stable (not too big a decrease or increase), then meds would prob be the first place to start. > We didn't get the go ahead to wean with , we did it ourselves based on advice and experiences on this list. He had daytime control early on (about 3 days after diet intiation), still sleep sizures in the early am, but we were happy enough with that at the time, until about 2 weeks later when the seizures came back in the day bigtime - turns out the ketosis/AED combo had tipped him into toxicity and in the end a rapid reduction (lamictal in his case) in hospital was the way we got control back again. A Jnr Dr at our hospital agreed to take a punt on our theory and 'allow' us to reduce, and 5 days afterwards (following a short hit of diastat to break the withdrawal cycle) 'came back' to us. > Every case is different as to how they will react with meds on the diet, and how they respond to weaning etc, but med weaning/rationalisation is deifnitely high on my list as fine-tuning measure. If there are any signs at all that the dep is interfering, like not attaining stable ketones, seizures more prevalent as the med doses peak, anything like that, I personally would try reducing sooner rather than later. Perhaps telling your Drs that there are children on the diet you know of who didn't get control till after meds were weaned, or even reduced, may help him support you more in attempting it? > > > > ----- Original Message ----- > From: vihairaffair2000 > > > Hi my son Caden has been on the Keto diet for about a month now.We > have seen some decrease in the seizures, but still having some > everyday, i hoping its his meds that are interfering with the diet , > he is on Depakote, ive heard that this is not a good drug with the > diet. Hope his doctor will try to take him off soon to see if there > is a improvment.If you dont see the seizures stop pretty quickly, is > this the best they are going to get , iknow we have to do some fine > tuning still.Was wondering the longer you work with diet the > seizures will get better or you have abetter chance of them > stopping, i know its early in but you just worrie so bad that this > is all your going to get.Has anybody started out this way and end up > seizure free after awhile. iknow iam asking alot of questions, but > iam just so new to this diet you just worrie about everything. > Caden,s mom Viola, Thanks. > > > > > > > > > > Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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