Altering Oisín Mason's diet altered his life, writes Sylvia Thompson
Oisín Mason was born on June 18th, 1998, following "a prolonged labour and difficult delivery". He was a very unsettled baby but seemed to be developing normally until about the age of 10 months, according to his mother, Emilie. At 10 months, his behaviour started to change.
"He dropped forward from a sitting position and folded his body in two. At first, I thought he was playing a game. But, I brought him to my GP after he had five episodes like this. We were referred to the neurology department at Our Lady's Hospital for Sick Children in Crumlin."
From that time onwards, Oisín began to suffer from more seizures and his development began "to slip back". Various drug therapies were tried, none of which alleviated the symptoms of what was now defined as a seizure disorder or epilepsy. A single parent living close to her parents, Emilie started a home-based programme of activities for Oisín, including physical and sensory awareness exercises.
Meanwhile, Oisín's seizures increased in frequency to between 30 and 40 a day. During waking hours, he wore a helmet to protect himself from self-injury. Emilie explains how Oisín continued to take medication, the most successful of which she believes was short-term steroid treatment. However, disappointed by his progress with medication, she decided to try out a ketogenic diet.
Oisín Mason was admitted to Our Lady's Hospital in Crumlin. "He had to go to hospital fasting and it took him two days to go into ketosis. It was a very stressful period. All his food had to be weighed gramme by gramme to ensure the correct balance of fat and protein content.
"Seven weeks after he started on the diet, he became seizure-free. It was an absolute miracle. We have gone from strength to strength."
Commenting on the the use of the ketogenic diet as a treatment for epilepsy, Prof Joe McMenamin, consultant paediatric neurologist at Our Lady's Hospital adds, "We have been using this diet in Ireland for 30 years. We reserve it for patients who are resistant to all other drug treatments."
Prof McMenamin cautions, however, that the ketogenic diet is not easy to administer and there is a 50 per cent failure rate because the parents can't deal with it.
"The diet has to be completely restricted in sugar so the children can't have any sweets or sweet drinks. Also, we have to make sure that their medication doesn't have any sweeteners which is difficult.
"However, the major issue for us is that it takes a lot of dietetic time. We have a lot of patients who could benefit from the ketogenic diet but there is a need for a dedicated dietician - or two part-time dieticians - in the hospital to deal with this work.
"In December, Oisín will be two years seizure free and we will gradually take him off the ketogenic diet and move him back slowly to a normal diet over a year," says Emilie.