Zane update

Since Zane's drop seizure last Friday he had a couple good days. Both Saturday and Sunday were seizure free. Monday morning though, he had 3 myoclonics and 1 grand mal within about 10 minutes of waking up. It had been nearly 4 weeks since his last grand mal. We had to give him Diastat on Monday because it went longer than 5 minutes. It was different than usual though. The normal jerking movements had stopped around 4 minutes but he never really came out of it. He was still staring off with dilated pupils and couldn't speak to us or look at us or squeeze our fingers. He slept nearly 2 hours after the Diastat, had one myoclonic right after waking up and was pretty groggy for a bit while the Diastat wore off. Then before we knew it, he was in pretty good spirits and didn't have another seizure the rest of the day. Yesterday and today have been seizure free.

Now this is speculation only because there is much debate over these issues, but it's possible that the processed cheese Zane ate on Thursday could have caused the seizure on Friday. And it's possible that using sunscreen with Sorbitol in it on Sunday caused his seizures on Monday. It's just a guessing game really. All in all though he seems to be responding well to the diet. I think we have seen lots of improvement over where he was at the start of the diet.

Today we saw Dr. Crisp and the Dietitian for follow up appointments. They both think things are going well and that we still need to give the diet more time. His ketones were in the acceptable range. Dr. Crisp said we could start weaning Zane off the Keppra anytime. He left it up to us, but said we could give it another week to see how he is doing and then cut his morning dose in half. Amy and I played with another cheesecake recipe in the computer program and I'm hoping it cooks up a little more like traditional cheesecake. The only one I've tried so far has a lot of egg in it. I've got plenty more things to try in the way of foods for Zane. So far, much of this diet has been trial and error.