Sunday, April 10, 2011

Keto Update: 7 Months

Soren is going in for his 7 Month Keto Check-up tomorrow, so I figured it was about time I did another update!

The great news is that Soren is continuing to do fantastic on the diet. When we decreased his calories to 1000/day, we got his seizures down to 2-3 a week. These seizures usually happened on Sunday and Monday, which indicated to me that they were triggered when Soren wasn't burning as many calories as he did at school (and then he was still ramping up on Monday). I even tried to increase his activity on the weekend, but I just couldn't get him as active as he is at school.

His Keto dietitian gave me the okay to drop Soren down another 100 calories bringing him to 900 a day. This meant adjusting all his menus, but it was totally worth it. Soren had 2 weeks without any seizures and then had one last Saturday. But now he has gone another week without any. So clearly this drop in calories has made him more ketotic. And with deeper ketosis, we have better control!

Because of the decrease in seizures, Soren is continuing to get more expressive. He is now making amazing noises that he never did as a baby. He's experimenting with his voice and really working on communicating. If only we understood Soren Speak!

Another bonus is we are getting smiles and laughs back again. He seems to give much more at school than at home. But even we've gotten a few good rounds of giggles recently.

My next goal is to get Soren off Depakote. He was on 3 pills twice a day and I've gotten him down to 2 twice a day. We'll see what his neurologist says tomorrow, but I'm hoping over the next 4 months I can get rid of it completely! Amy