6 months seizure free!

It’s Nora’s 6 month seizure free anniversary!

We had the Charlie Foundation’s Silver Dollar Pancake recipe for dinner, with berries and cream. This is a gem of an original recipe. Mmmm, macadamia nuts. They are a decadently delicious gluten-free alternative for pancakes if you haven’t tried them yet. Nora is not deprived in the least.

To mark the occasion I also made bacon. Mmmmm, bacon.

For those keeping score at home, this meal was:
35 g Silver Dollar Pancake batter
16 g Wood Family Farm smoked bacon
10 g strawberries (warmed from frozen)
10 g raspberries (warmed from frozen)
15 g cream (1 T, spread on pancake)
1 gelatine Cytra heart + 1/2 T cream
Sleepytime Vanilla Tea (no carb)

Nora licked her plate clean. The rest of us had buckwheat pancakes because macadamia nuts cost a fortune and I still had some mix to use. Although we were out of syrup, so we had berries and applesauce on top.

Happy pancake eaters!

 

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This entry was posted in Nora's History, Recipes by Christy Anderson Brekken. Bookmark the permalink.

About Christy Anderson Brekken

In no particular order... Instructor and Researcher, Department of Applied Economics, Oregon State University. Educational background: University of MN Law School, 2005. MS in Ag and Resource Economics, Oregon State University, 2011. Teaches: Agricultural Law, Environmental Law. Mother: brilliant 9 year old boy; brilliant 6 year old girl with benign myoclonic epilepsy on a modified ketogenic diet therapy. Married to: Ted Brekken, OSU Department of Electrical Engineering. Ride: Xtra-cycle Edgerunner with kid seat; 400-pound cargo capacity. Grew up: Devils Lake, ND. Lived in: Minneapolis/St. Paul, MN, Pohang, South Korea, Trondheim, Norway, Corvallis, OR. Interests: Cooking, knitting, eating, yoga, laughing, hiking, traveling, staying sane.

14 thoughts on “6 months seizure free!

  1. Congratulations on that 6 month mark! What a great accomplishment as a family! Getting so many ideas from your site, I was coming back to print your wonderful instructions for the high fiber rolls… And there it is, a great post of the news and a picture of your two beautiful children! So good to see them so happy! I might as well print the macadamia dollar pancake recipe too… On a side note, I couldn’t find the recipe for cheddar crackers so I decided to check if by any chance our local library system had the keto cookbook–and surprisingly they do! Just ONE copy in all of our county, and it’s now reserved for me!
    Lots of hugs to Nora,
    Nat

    • The pancake recipe is really versatile too. I haven’t done it yet, but it can be used to make waffles or donuts (I think Dawn at ketocook.com has a donut recipe with the same basic recipe).

      I didn’t directly post the cheddar cracker recipe because it’s from the book. And I’m amazed that it’s at your local library! I think I will check our library and request that they buy it if they haven’t already (although I bought it for myself, someone else might benefit from having it there).

      Thanks Nat! Keep us updated!

  2. Congrats!!! That is awesome! I hope my son to be there soon, but as his dietician says, “Its not a race Some kids respond faster than others”.

    • That’s right, it’s not a race. But if you could call it a race, it’s an extremely long iron-parent-kid marathon! We do realize just how fortunate we are to have it working so well so quickly. I’m have been so inspired and impressed by the parents that stick it out for so long even though it’s hard and not totally seizure free, but then finally see the results.

    • Thanks Roseanne! You will probably like the pancakes too! Just decrease the oil in your recipe, it’s really just there to pop up the ratio. If I were making them only for myself, or when Nora can decrease her ratio, I’ll leave it out.

  3. Congratulations!! So thrilling to hit that landmark!! Those pancakes look delicious, too.

    For Holly: it took us 18 months to get seizure freedom on the diet. Our daughter started doing better right away, but the last of her seizures (tonic seizures as she was falling asleep) stuck around for a long time and didn’t go away until we went all the way up to 5:1. Sending you good energy for your son!

    • Yes Fawn, when talk about parents who have stuck it out for so long, I’m thinking in your direction! Your work and experience has made a huge impact on parents and kids. Thank you for sharing your story and being here for us. (Geez, how many times will I say that to you? Probably never enough!)

    • Thank you Fawn! My son is on MAD (Modified Atkin Diet). We have seen so much improvement other than seizures on the diet, its been worth sticking it out. I know I can do a better job with increasing fat so I’m just trying to be diligent with that right now. Owen’s cognative, attention span and speech have all got SOOOOOOOOOOO much better. Reading everyone’s struggles and celebrations provides me with the fuel to keep going!!

  4. Thank you so much for this site. My son is only a week and a half into the diet. I think it is helping, but it is hard to tell. We started on Mad, but then gradually are upping the ratio. The recipe ideas are amazing. My son’s seizures started at the table, we thought his elbows were slipping at first. His head drops and sometimes his shoulder shrugs. We are trying the diet before medication, which I realize is quite unusual, but it feels right.

    • Hi Anja–we wish you and your son the best! Nora always had a lot of seizures at the table, or maybe we just noticed them even more. You are fortunate to be working with doctors who are willing to try the diet before drugs.

      Don’t worry if it takes some time to see results. You’ve read that we started the same way that you did. Keep upping it as long as it keeps helping. It can take some time to get results, even for people who start straight into a high ratio, so be patient, keep at it, and keep making adjustments until it is working.

      • I told the doctors that I needed to think about the medication, especially since the doctor wasn’t giving it a name or narrowing it down to a type where one medication works better than the rest. After much research and soul searching I decided I would be more comfortable trying the diet, it seemed a more natural, less mysterious way to help, not realizing that want considered possible before trying drugs. I stared him on MAD while we waited for an appoint ment and am hoping we will get more support with this soon. Otherwise I will be using his GP to monitor health, blood work.

        • Hi Anja, that makes a lot of sense. We were told that we could basically go ahead and start trying MAD on our own. We didn’t get a whole lot of training from the medical team. I think it’s a good way to approach it with the doctor. If you give MAD a good try and see that it helps at all, I hope that they will be supportive of working with the diet without adding a drug. In our experience, and other parent stories that I have heard, the doctors really want to go with a drug because they feel that it is easier to administer. Of course, you are the parent and do the daily administration of either treatment, so it should really be your choice, as long as you are doing something that works!

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