Epilepsy and diets

unstableunicorn

After reading through the thread it sounds like the problem is your approach, not diet. When you tried keto (or any other weightloss attempts) did you gradually transition to it over a couple months or jump right in and quit a couple days/weeks later? If the latter, the cause of the seizures was much more likely from the physical and psychological stress of radical changes.

Another factor to consider is your exposure to potential triggers. If you tend to go overboard with things like caffeine, nicotine, sugar, alcohol, etc, you will likely experience worse and more frequent seizures if you quit them cold turkey instead of weening. It’s much safer and more effective to gradually decrease your exposure over time.

In terms of personal experience, I have a confirmed diagnosis of focal onset seizures that we believe has been going on since childhood. Whether it is specifically epilepsy is yet to be determined, however indicators and worsening mri results suggest I am living with temporal* lobe epilepsy. I am responding well to lamotrigine and will be beginning my maintenance dosage tomorrow.

As for diet, my doctor and neurologist both recommended I aim for 1,800-2,000 calories daily on physically active days (work, walks, swims, etc), and 1,700 on inactive days. Prior to the recommendations I averaged about 1,500 daily and was regularly having focal seizures after walks no matter how careful I was about my water and electrolytes. After the increase, my seizure frequency reduced dramatically. All dietary changes I’ve made (increased veggies & meat, reduced startches, etc) have been gradual and I *try* to balance my macros at about 1/3 each. Diet improvement has not reduced seizures related to sleep or external triggers like overheating or stress from toxic coworkers and relatives.

[Edit: It’s actually temporal lobe epilepsy that is suspected, so just wanted to correct that to avoid any confusion in the future.]

imabeevampire

unstableunicorn wrote: »

After reading through the thread it sounds like the problem is your approach, not diet. When you tried keto (or any other weightloss attempts) did you gradually transition to it over a couple months or jump right in and quit a couple days/weeks later? If the latter, the cause of the seizures was much more likely from the physical and psychological stress of radical changes.

Another factor to consider is your exposure to potential triggers. If you tend to go overboard with things like caffeine, nicotine, sugar, alcohol, etc, you will likely experience worse and more frequent seizures if you quit them cold turkey instead of weening. It’s much safer and more effective to gradually decrease your exposure over time.

In terms of personal experience, I have a confirmed diagnosis of focal onset seizures that we believe has been going on since childhood. Whether it is specifically epilepsy is yet to be determined, however indicators and worsening mri results suggest I am living with temporal* lobe epilepsy. I am responding well to lamotrigine and will be beginning my maintenance dosage tomorrow.

As for diet, my doctor and neurologist both recommended I aim for 1,800-2,000 calories daily on physically active days (work, walks, swims, etc), and 1,700 on inactive days. Prior to the recommendations I averaged about 1,500 daily and was regularly having focal seizures after walks no matter how careful I was about my water and electrolytes. After the increase, my seizure frequency reduced dramatically. All dietary changes I’ve made (increased veggies & meat, reduced startches, etc) have been gradual and I *try* to balance my macros at about 1/3 each. Diet improvement has not reduced seizures related to sleep or external triggers like overheating or stress from toxic coworkers and relatives.

[Edit: It’s actually temporal lobe epilepsy that is suspected, so just wanted to correct that to avoid any confusion in the future.]

I also have temporal lobe epilepsy! Taking lamotrigine too. This was really helpful to read thank you! I'm usually good at reading my body but I can see the sudden drop in calories is very significant (especially over Christmas where I probably ate more)

Will approach it a bit slower and make sure I'm more hydrated because I know that's definitely a trigger.

Will look into keto again for the new year.