Posted 6/4/2007 7:50 PM (GMT 0)
Hi, I wanted to share my story of my sons epilepsy because I think it might help some parents out there who are considering alternative therapies. I know my signature says I have a son with epilepsy I guess I should remove that because I feel he has been cured, although the doctors say he might get then again. Anyway here goes, I hope some might find they relate to this story.
My eldest son was born healthy and normal, a quick birth he was a quiet child who rarely cried and was happy sitting looking around for hours on his own. I breast fed him for almost a year and I guess the first indication something was wrong was when he went off breast milk and I tried to put him on normal milk. He utterly refused to drink it. As well as this he refused to eat foods kids normally love like icecream, cookies, cake etc. His favorite treat as a child was canned green beans and soda crackers. I coudl buy cookies and end up throwing them away after they went stale cause he would not touch them. I remember when my step sister was so happy she got him to eat 1 chicken nugget at mcdonands. He was also extremelyskinny, but tall as well, not to the point that it was a concern for his doctors but like the 30%-40% percentile in weight and 75th in height. Infact when he was 6 he wore the same sized pants as his three year old brother (waist size).
So we just accepted this was how he was, until he was 9. We went through a period of stress (seperated from husband) and moved, three days later he had a grand mal seizure that lasted over 5 minutes and took him about 30 minutes to really come around from. After that point he started to have them weekly, massive seizures, sometimes more then one in a row. We had frequent trips to the ER.
In the next few months he went through EEG's and MRI's and many tests at the Calgary Childrens hospital and their top nerologist who specailizes in childhood epilepsy. He had what she called noctural tempral lobe seizures. She actually said she had seldom seen such massive seizure activity so quickly after falling asleep. What also struck her as odd was that he knew he was getting them. We knew this because more then once he staggered out of his bedroom 30 minutes after going to bed gripping the right side of his head behind his ear, trying to talk, unable to until he collapsed into a grandmal seizure. He said he felt a weird fuzzy feeling behind his ear (where they saw the activity on the EEG) From what the neurologist said this was highly unusual.
During the whole time they were running tests they never once asked me about his diet or nutrition I should note. Basically after all these expensive tests I was told he had epilepsy he may or may not outgrow it and they had no idea what causes it and we could medicate him but since most times it was 30 minutes after going to bed he had it and his trigger was sleep related medication might do more harm then good. Then sent us home to 'deal with it'
Months went by I was in a constant state of fear because he sometimes threw up during seizure and I was paranoid he would choke on his own vomit and die in his sleep. My mother in law, god bless her, decided she would take him to her naturalpath who specailizes in brain disorders. One of the first things she did was ask me everything about his childhood. When I mentioned his lack of eating fatty foods like cookies, cake, icecream etc, and his aversion to milk she ran some tests and she found out my son was intollerant and could not process either animal or vegitable fats. Which accounted for his odd food tastes and his lack of weight.
She also reported to me that she had studdied with a man in Las Vegas, another naturalpath, that had also found similar cases with children with epilepsy. Some so sever the child actually starved to death due to their inability to process fats.
If we look at brain chemistry we know that the developing mind needs fat, our neurons are coated with it. And once my son was treated for his inability to process fat and the deficiency he had, suprise, his epilepsy cured itself. Not a single seizure since the treatment!
So if your child or yourself has epilepsy don't always trust there are not other issues at work. Sometimes it pays to keep looking for a reason, even if our medical professionals cannot see one does not mean there is not one present!