P*O*P*C*O*R*N

Popcorn is a major meal staple in Noah's diet. It's a great way to get the butter and coconut oil into his body too! Noah's popcorn meal consists of popcorn, butter, coconut oil & parmesan cheese. It's fun to have my child help me prepare his meals. He can measure out the unpopped popcorn and pour it into the popcorn popper. Popcorn popping is always facinating. Of course his meal is accompanied by a cup of cream too.

One more great thing about popcorn..... it helps to keep a Keto Kid "regular" too.

I love my Keto Kid!!

THIRST

How do you deal with water and the diet? It's strange isn't it? We monitor not only their food intake but their water intake too? Too much is bad. Too little is bad. Uuggh!!! I've been posting less because Noah's life (= my life), has been crazy lately trying to find out what triggered those 3 breakthrough seizures. Meanwhile, as I'm trying to figure out if Polycytra is the culprit or the NanoVM, Noah started crying a lot and begging for water.
We decided to remove the Polycytra as the NanoVM absolutely has no carbs. For those of you that have a child on Topomax & the Diet, you probably know this stuff. Topomax is a carbonic anhydrase inhibitor. It attaches to the bicarbs in Noah's body and causes him to pee them out. Loss of bicarbs results in renal stones & osteoporosis. Not good. So, Polycytra or Bicytra are liquids that bring the body back out of acidosis to a more alkaline state by flooding the body with bicarbs. I'm sure this isn't the way a physician or dietitian would describe it. But this is how I understand it.
Anyway...... Our dietitian figured out that we could give him 3/4 t. Baking Soda, four times a day as a substitute for Polycytra. We went with that last Friday. Fast forward to Sunday and Monday...... Noah is chasing me around all day, weeping and begging for water. "I'm thirsty" became his constant wail. His hydration level was 1005, which is way too hydrated. This is similar to what happened the previous month on the higher dosage of Polycytra and during his illnesses. Whacked out hydration levels and thirst. The Problem was sodium. Too much sodium in the Polycytra and too much sodium in the Baking Soda. The sodium didn't cause the breakthroughs but it did exacerbate his thirst and caused hydration problems. 30 ounces of water for Noah is plenty but on those days, he could have drunk 60 ounces easily.

For Noah - more hydration = lower ketones = breakthroughs.

The search continues!! Right not we're trying to decide whether to wean him from the Topomax. I'll keep you posted! Thanks to Karen, our dietitian & Dr. Brown, our neurologist, for not giving up on Noah and working with us day-in and day-out!!

Stay vigilant. Don't give up! The diet can change your life. If you do have to let go of the diet, at least you will be able to move forward knowing you gave it your best shot!!

I love my Keto Kid.
Cathy

Searching for Solutions

I've gone through every food, every med and every charted keto note looking for a possible cause for Noah's three breakthrough seizures since the middle of February. Our super dietician, Karen, is really plugging away trying to help me find the culprit.

Yes it could just be that he is a growing child. But, at this point, I'm not accepting that answer. He was ill at the time and that causes the seizure threshold to drop. But he had several illnesses in the Fall that were far worse than these pasts colds without breakthroughs. So, I'm targeting one of two variables; PolyCitra OR Nano VM. Karen doesn't think it's the Nano. Whatever it is, it's wreaking havoc on his Specific Gravity. We are our children's advocates. I have to do the best I can because we don't want to see Noah seizing 150 times a year again.

My keto kid can catch his pee in his own cup! He brings it out to me for his urine test twice a day. How many kids can do that? How about this one...........He swallows three capsules at once with water. My 10 year old just began swallowing one capsule with water this year.

Noah rocks! I'm going to keep searching and fine tuning! We can't lose control now! I'm not going back to the scary & crazy existence we had for three years of GEFS+.

Pray for us!