A trip to the doctor is all good news these days for 4-year-old Max Irvine.
Just a year ago, however, Max was enduring more than 100 seizures a day. Even a barrage of tests at the famed Mayo Clinic’s Epilepsy Laboratory revealed no clear medical explanation.
Epilepsy was consuming every waking hour of Max’s life.
“It got to the point where he couldn’t walk or talk or function, or even eat hardly,” said Max’s father Troy Irvine.
Medications control epilepsy for 75 percent of children, but not for Max. His family watched helplessly as the light disappeared from his eyes. Max’s playful nature vanished. Priceless intellectual developmental time was being lost.
Finally, Mayo Clinic Pediatric Neurologist Elaine Wirrell, an epilepsy specialist, proposed trading all of Max’s meds for a radical change in diet. The Ketogenic Diet is very low in carbohydrates and super high in fats. Max’s initial diet meal plan contained 80 percent fat.
“I just remember having tears and thinking how can I be giving my child so much fat,” said Max’s mother, Kristine Irvine. “The majority of his meal was bacon and butter, or oil and maybe one strawberry. It was very hard to adjust to that.”
Butter as an entree. Bacon as a main course. Flavored Canola oil as a beverage. Dr. Wirrell said the strict diet is worth a try for nearly any child who does not respond to medication.
“Over half of them have a meaningful reduction of seizures and nearly a third of them become seizure free on the diet,” she said.
Exactly why the diet works is unknown. Wirrell said research suggests it stabilizes brain cells and alters neurotransmitters, the brain chemicals that allow cells to signal each other. The Ketogenic Diet has actually been around since the 1920s. It was first described at the Mayo Clinic, in fact.
An obvious question the Irvines had was whether the cholesterol would create a new problem for Max’s health.
“We monitor the children very carefully,” Wirrell said. “We monitor their blood for cholesterol problems. And in truth very few children actually end up with cholesterol or lipid problems on the diet.”
Max’s remarkable improvement is documented on his EEG, an electroencephalogram. The previous lightning storm of misfiring electrical activity has now calmed. Max is taking no epilepsy medications and is seizure-free.
Wirrell said many children are able to come off the diet after getting better and their epilepsy does not necessarily return. Max’s brain is thought to have recovered enough that he is being gradually transitioned to normal meals.
Source: High-Fat Diet Ends Epileptic Seizures For Boy (WCCO)
