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Hello everyone! Been lurking here for a few days and figured I'd delurk. 
I've had epilepsy since my teens but it slipped out of medication control approximately when I hit 23. I spent the following years trying a new medication combo every 3 to 6 months and some of those medications caused me to gain a LOT of weight. I went from a muscular 130lbs to 195lbs of unhappiness. My neurologist was always on my case telling me I ought to lose weight, but I was doing everything in the book to do so : I was exercising vigorously for an hour a day, eating a low-calorie low-fat diet and taking all my medication with clockwork precision. She even sent me to a nutritionist who hinted that I might not be eating proper portions while I was weighting every food item that came into my mouth with a half-gram precision.
I was told to eat pasta to fuel my workouts. I felt so awful from the weight excess and the medication side effects I could not tell what was making me feel better and what was making me feel worse.
It smelled.
Some of the medication changes were done because my liver could not deal with some of the medications. Eventually, I had to get my gallbladder removed despite eating a low fat, "healthy" diet as it would seem some of the medication I was taking messed that up along the way. Everyone seemed to think I was cheating, lying, and not taking care of myself.
When I hobbled home after surgery, I decided I wasn't going to keep doing what didn't work and that I would research other options. I slowly weaned myself off the meds (against my neurologist's wishes) I was taking and found I did not have more seizures without them and felt a lot better. 20 pounds jumped off of me during that period with no other intervention. I asked my neurologist if there seemed to be any realistic treatment plan she could envision after 12+ medication swaps and she said she didn't know, other than surgery, which seems like a huge thing to cure me of less than 10 seizures/year.
Then I messed with supplements and got some promising results. The more I read about what helped me, the more I found it was related to the production of the neurotransmitter GABA. There seemed to be something that happened in the liver that kept my body from using vitamin B6 to metabolize the right amino acids at the right time.
Crackpot theory? Maybe. Probably! But it seemed 2 things compete for B6 - amino acid metabolism and glycogen manipulation. I started reducing starches in my diet and seizures diminished greatly. Then I stumbled on research done on epileptic kids and ketogenic diets and I figured, these things have to be linked somehow. I tried hunting down a local neurologist who'd know about the diet to steer me in the right direction but to no avail. Then, I spotted this article on epilepsy.com encouraging the use of the Atkins Diet for people in my situation.
So I picked up a copy of DANDR and while it put everything I've ever heard about how to eat when you're active, I decided to give it a shot. When I first considered this I was perfectly happy with my pudgy-but-muscular frame but the Dr. Atkins' words in the first chapters motivated me to aim higher. I never really thought I would LOSE it, as it seemed it was stalled there forever but... It seems my body's a lot happier with far less carbs than it was getting before (and boy was it getting a lot). So here I am! Day 7 of induction, feeling a lot less brain fuzz than before trying this out.
I've had epilepsy since my teens but it slipped out of medication control approximately when I hit 23. I spent the following years trying a new medication combo every 3 to 6 months and some of those medications caused me to gain a LOT of weight. I went from a muscular 130lbs to 195lbs of unhappiness. My neurologist was always on my case telling me I ought to lose weight, but I was doing everything in the book to do so : I was exercising vigorously for an hour a day, eating a low-calorie low-fat diet and taking all my medication with clockwork precision. She even sent me to a nutritionist who hinted that I might not be eating proper portions while I was weighting every food item that came into my mouth with a half-gram precision.
I was told to eat pasta to fuel my workouts. I felt so awful from the weight excess and the medication side effects I could not tell what was making me feel better and what was making me feel worse.
It smelled.
Some of the medication changes were done because my liver could not deal with some of the medications. Eventually, I had to get my gallbladder removed despite eating a low fat, "healthy" diet as it would seem some of the medication I was taking messed that up along the way. Everyone seemed to think I was cheating, lying, and not taking care of myself.
When I hobbled home after surgery, I decided I wasn't going to keep doing what didn't work and that I would research other options. I slowly weaned myself off the meds (against my neurologist's wishes) I was taking and found I did not have more seizures without them and felt a lot better. 20 pounds jumped off of me during that period with no other intervention. I asked my neurologist if there seemed to be any realistic treatment plan she could envision after 12+ medication swaps and she said she didn't know, other than surgery, which seems like a huge thing to cure me of less than 10 seizures/year.
Then I messed with supplements and got some promising results. The more I read about what helped me, the more I found it was related to the production of the neurotransmitter GABA. There seemed to be something that happened in the liver that kept my body from using vitamin B6 to metabolize the right amino acids at the right time.
Crackpot theory? Maybe. Probably! But it seemed 2 things compete for B6 - amino acid metabolism and glycogen manipulation. I started reducing starches in my diet and seizures diminished greatly. Then I stumbled on research done on epileptic kids and ketogenic diets and I figured, these things have to be linked somehow. I tried hunting down a local neurologist who'd know about the diet to steer me in the right direction but to no avail. Then, I spotted this article on epilepsy.com encouraging the use of the Atkins Diet for people in my situation.
So I picked up a copy of DANDR and while it put everything I've ever heard about how to eat when you're active, I decided to give it a shot. When I first considered this I was perfectly happy with my pudgy-but-muscular frame but the Dr. Atkins' words in the first chapters motivated me to aim higher. I never really thought I would LOSE it, as it seemed it was stalled there forever but... It seems my body's a lot happier with far less carbs than it was getting before (and boy was it getting a lot). So here I am!
Day 7 of induction, feeling a lot less brain fuzz than before trying this out.
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