#79 The Keto Series (Part 2 of 2), How Keto Saved My Child with Alex Ash

Episode guests

I was asked to join the podcast ostensibly to discuss my younger son, Jachin, and our experience treating his severe epilepsy with ketogenic diet. Our story unfolded in the US where, until November 2019, we were living in Northern California. Jachin began having seizures in April 2018, although we suspect he had been suffering with seizures since being a baby. However, he continued to develop normally in terms of cognition, height and weight percentiles, motor skills, etc. He was treated for seizures with multiple different medications, all of which greatly exacerbated his seizure disorder, causing new and more severe types to manifest in stepwise correlation to the titration of the drugs. The situation rapidly deteriorated by July 2019 by which time he was having ~100 seizures/day, and his cognitive faculties were disintegrating before our eyes. After several ambulance trips to the ER, our lives turned upside down, we decided to place him on strict medical keto diet at a ration of 2.5:1. Within 2 weeks, his seizure count reduced to zero, and this has been maintained for the last 12 months. Aside from the seizure count, we have seen this incredible blossoming of our son as his brain has repaired. We have been able to wean him from 4 of his meds, with one more outstanding, and we hope to have weaned him from this last drug by December. After struggling to find solutions – and be listened to – by conventional neurologists (Jachin was seen by 4 different neurologists at world-renowned Bay Area institutions such as Stanford and UCSF), we decided to move back to the UK. Jachin has been under the supervision of an incredible nutrition expert, Raj Bhachu of Sai Nutrition in NW London. Our story truly demonstrates the power of food to heal, and underscores the limitations of conventional medical approaches.  

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