Ketogenic Diet - next treatment!

Jordyn has been on quite a few medicines (not to mention one that involves a shot in her thigh daily) and none have really stopped or decreased the seizures/spasms to our liking. Some people don't mind their child having one or two seizures a day as long as the child is happy and flourishing, and believe me, that'd be GREAT for us. But in Jordyn's case, she is having about 3-5 spasms a day WITH heavy lethargy and a scewed sleep schedule because of the current medicines. She has been on a new medicine from Canada, but it has only helped a tiny bit, even though it is also paired up with another medicine, Zonegran, which has worked in the past but not anymore.
When children have hard-to-manage seizures, the next mainstream step to take after medicines have failed is Brain Surgery. We were going to go that route until John and I saw something so interesting on TV late one night.
We saw a little boy having a Grand Mal seizure on a movie while flipping channels. Those are the kind that throw your body into harsh jerks (also called Drop Seizures). The boy tried every medicine available at that time to no prevail. Then the mom (played by Meryl Streep) went to the library (pre-internet era LOL) and schooled herself on this special diet that had been around for decades, made specifically for seizures. (The movie is called First, Do No Harm)... The doc's didn't want them to try this treatment because "Gee, no money to the hospital OR medicine companies" But she took her son to Johns-Hopkins Hospital where they first did the diet and lo and behold, the seizures shortly STOPPED and the medicines were STOPPED.
The Ketogenic Diet involves foods and liquids that are high in FAT, low in proteins and carbs. Jodyn will ingest about 4x as many fat grams as protein and carbs combined. She won't gain weight because her body will use that fat and not store it. Her body will produce little enzymes called Ketones that we'll check everyday that let us know her levels of glucose and such are normal. One tiny mistake on this diet could throw everything off and EVERYTHING has to be measured on a gram scale to the tenth decimal place, and EVERYTING has to be strict as far as what kind of food, at what gram, and what time of day. WHEW! (we've been through more tedious things... )
Here's the incredible part, though- She will only be on the diet for 2 years, then if the diet has shown great improvement, she will be able to eat regular foods and be medicine and seizure free for the rest of her LIFE. Sounds too good to be true, but it is not unheard of or atypical. The success rate of this diet is incredible. Even if it just decreases her seizures by 50%, we can take her off the medicines so her quality of life is higher.
Also, she is young enough that she won't sneak off to the pantry and eat a cookie or take candy from a friend. We will be in complete control. There's also a special made formula for the diet called Keto-Cal. Since Jordyn has not fully mastered the art of chewing-and-swallowing, we will keep her on this formula for a good year or so.

Jordyn is scheduled to start the diet at Brackenridge Children's Hospital on September 11th. She will stay a few days so they can moniter her levels and make sure she doesn't get dehydrated. They used to have to starve the kids first, to get their Ketones up and running, but they do NOT do that anymore at this hospital. Jordyn will ease into the high fatty stuff for an easier, less invasive transition.
It will take about a month after we start the diet to fine-tune everything to make sure her intake of the foods is comparible to her level of activity and weight. We hope that by mid October, we will be pretty comfortable with the change, and that her seizures will be decreased (or stopped!)

We are so optimistic about this new venture, but as always, we are "Preparing for the worst, but hoping for the best"

Visit the link above to read a little more about this diet. I have a few more links below:

Matthew's Friends:
http://www.matthewsfriends.org/intro.asp

our-kids:
http://www.our-kids.org/Archives/Ketogenic_diet_FAQ.html