While going through the epilepsy newsgroups I got a few very valuable suggestions, one of which was the book, "Prescription for Nutritional Healing" by Phyllis Bach. This along with the food elimination and staying with a modified Atkins diet is how we were able to come to the appropriate diet for V. I believe that the way we look at appropriate changes frequently. This was not the end of the road and there are issues and changes as we went along.
Realising that he needed extra calcium, and having given up on administering him supplements, I increased his milk intake from two glasses to three and more recently to four. He does have at least two yoghurt/goghurt servings in a day as well. He needed iron and I had already started with the daily boiled spinach.
I had read quite a few articles and emails supporting Vitamin D whole milk for brain-related issues. So somewhere along the way we switched to whole organic milk for V which is what he still has. Weight was not an issue at the time - it still isn't - he runs so much that he burns any fat that he consumes; in fact, in the past two years though he has grown vertically, he is at the same weight.
He needed a multi-vitamin kind of boost. Again, I wasn't going to rely or even try the supplements not knowing how his body was going to react. For the B and E supplements, I realized giving Ovaltine was ideal – it has no sugar and is nutrition rich plus has a chocolate flavor to it. Ovaltine with each glass of milk meant tons of extra vitamins a day. Extra vitamins also meant I wasn't going to cut out fruit even though the Atkins diet doesn't encourage it and even though fruit contains sugar and carbs – the sugar is natural in fruit. So I give him any fruit he likes; bananas are not a choice – they are a must.
A daily dosage of magnesium is a must; daikon is added to his boiled spinach and cashews being high in magnesium are a part of his daily diet. Other vegetables that I added along the way to his boiled spinach which were necessary for him as part of the daily diet: asparagus (Vit. K), onion and garlic (for their numerous qualities, especially garlic; also over a period of time I had found that if foods contained a large amount of onion and garlic he did way better the next day ), carrot (Vit. A), ginger for digestion. These are absolutely essential in his food. The rest I sometimes add other vegetables because extra vegetables never harm but they will always add value – cauliflower, broccoli, green beans, peas. Now this became a part of his daily diet. As I had said previously, salad was anyway a part of his daily diet.
When we first started with the spinach, and adding and eliminating, it was too hard to eliminate all carbs right away. Over a period of time, I realized that the rotis were causing more harm than the rice – rotis are wheat – so I managed to convince him that this wasn't good for him at all and he cannot eat it. Even today, if I am making them for R and my husband he will come by, smell it and say – something smells good but will not touch it – he has developed immense self-control and maturity in this regard knowing that his head is not going to feel good with that food.
Pasta was harder to cut out since he really loved to have it everyday. I stopped buying and cooking it. On a couple of occasions when I had to go out with my friends and the topic of which restaurant came up I would say Italian because I would crave for pasta and refused to make it at home. If I could crave for it so much then how much was his craving? As a small boy, I have been impressed at his self control on this matter – it is not easy at all. I know that there are several allergy cases these days and those kids must be going through something similar but I imagine the brain is wired to sending a signal that says – this stuff is no good; don't eat it.
We kept the rice up for a while longer, thinking it was the only really solid thing and it was the only way for him to eat the spinach. However, the carbs just did not suit him and gradually we completely cut out rice. Once in a while he would crave for rice and if it was a Friday evening or a Saturday, I would give in to a few grains of rice, literally and that would satisfy him. However, that would make him so very sleepy, tired and out of it the next day, even impacting his behavior negatively that it just wasn't worth it – he realized it too and doesn't ask for it anymore. The same with dosas, pizza – basically anything containing dough was ruled out from his diet. He couldn't eat cupcakes or cake either. For cakes, we decided that he could eat a little icing from the cake – that gave him some amount of satisfaction at having had to eat a bit of the cake.
Vitamins B6 and B12 were considered very important for V – for the brain connections from my reading. B6 he was getting through bananas and Ovaltine. B12 – the only sources are dairy and meat; Meat is way more B12 than dairy; this was the main reason for the daily meat intake for V.
I found out that nuts were a huge source of iron, protein, B6 as well. Almonds were high on the list but he refused to eat them – then we found a savior in these cinnamon almonds that were sold by Trader Joe's – he loves cinnamon and started feasting on these almonds. Raisins – another strong source of iron and fiber – became a part of his daily diet. He loves raisins so it wasn't an issue. Cashews like I mentioned earlier had also become a part of his daily diet. These took the hardest to get him to start eating – somehow we managed to get him to eat the salted ones and he eats them; he now even asks for them. Walnuts and peanuts and pistachios are ruled out because of their omega3 content.
Extra Vitamin C is something that his body needs. He doesn't like orange, orange juice or any of the citric fruits. So I added tomatoes to the spinach when boiling it. There's a ton of extra nutrition that then goes into his body.
I then looked into spices. I had read about cinnamon being a great source of iron - this is before V got hooked onto the cinnamon almonds. Well, why not add cinnamon in his spinach and a bunch of other spices that are beneficial for various reasons including digestion and mucous?
If that's going to be his daily intake of extra vitamins and minerals why not add milk and cheese for good measure? Milk dilutes the strong flavor of the veggies and the spices as well.
All the above took several months to figure out and implement – it was a very slow process and the results also take time to show but believe it or not, the results do happen and they are there for the world to see – not just in the seizures but in every other aspect – his behavior, his memory, his focus, his activity level. He has this spinach concoction every single day for dinner without a complaint. He sometimes asks for it for lunch, particularly when he wants to wrangle out of eating his chicken :-)
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