Dear Dawn,
I am new to this group and this is the first time I have responded
to a question.

I am not new to the ketogenic diet. My son, was 3 and 1/2 years old
when he started having seizures. Prior to that time, he was
developing normally. He was put on Topamax and became psychotic,
autistic, and regressed to the developmental age of an 18 month old.

By the time he started on the diet, he was taking close to 21 pills
a day (including klonopin, depakote and Topamax), he was still
having 50 to 60 seizures a day.

My husband and I insisted he go on the diet and be weaned from his
medication. He started the diet 5/24/04, and 10 days later, he was
seizure free. It took a long time for us to completely wean him off
all his medications. We did 1 pill per month on the Topamax, then
1/4 pill at a time on the klonopin, then 1 pill per month with the
depakote. As of 12/17/05, he finally became drug free. He remains
seizure free and has regained all of his lost developmental skills.
As soon as we started weaning off the Topamax he slowly returned to
normal.

After seeing what these drugs did to my son, I feel very strongly
that if the first drug doesn't work or has severe side effects, then
the ketogenic diet should be tried. These drugs interfere with the
child's normal brain development, sometimes with permanent damage.
I know this because my son was normal on 12/29/03, and then at 6:00
p.m. he was given a loading dose of Topamax, by midnight, he was
hallucinating and did not know who I was, from there on out he
regressed. Despite continued seizures, he started to return to
normal as soon as we began to wean him from Topamax.

You know your child better than anyone else on this earth. Go with
your instincts. If you want your child (and I agree whole
heartedly) off the medications . . . then demand that he be weaned.
I agree the weaning process should be slow since many of the drugs
are habit forming, weaning slowly allows the child to adjust better.

I hope all is going well and you begin to see your little one
blossom! Thelma