The Tooth Soap has arrived

My Tooth Soap from Rose of Sharon Acres came in the mail yesterday and I've now used it twice. The first thing that struck me was that there isn't much of a taste while you're brushing your teeth. I was vaguely aware of a slight "soapy" flavor but on the whole, it's pretty tasteless. That is UNTIL you rinse. Once the water goes in the flavor is unleashed. I wouldn't call it soapy and it's not very strong. It is a little sweet and a little something else that I can only describe as fresh. I did a little experimenting with bar soap as a tooth soap before my real tooth soap arrived and my experience with the bar soap was nearly identical; not much flavor to the suds, lots of flavor upon rinsing. For inquiring minds; the bar soap I used, twice, was Dial white. Word to the wise; if you're planning to wash a child's mouth out with soap, Dial is not a good choice. I'd stick with the liquid dish soaps, especially the already not-so-pleasant smelling ones like Palmolive. It's MUCH more offensive to the palate. Not that I would know you understand...I'm just telling you what I've heard.

Here's a picture of my Tooth Chips. You use one "chip" every time you brush.

Why would anyone consider an Organic Tooth Soap versus a modern Toothpaste? Well for one thing, modern pastes have Fluoride in them, a toxic chemical that shouldn't be in our toothpaste, let alone our drinking water. You can read all about it here. In addition to the Fluoride, there's a laundry list of other ingredients that shouldn't have any contact with the soft tissues in your mouth. For more information on that, click here and here.

If you are planning to order this soap, which I would highly recommend you do, you should probably order it right now before it gets any warmer otherwise, you won't have tooth chips, you'll have a tooth hockey puck. By ordering from Rose of Sharon Acres, you're supporting an American family business while taking care of your family's business! It's a win, win proposition.

I Dreamed a Dream

Every time that Madeline's medications have been changed, and I do mean every time, whether or not they reduced the number or frequency of seizures, the new medications have always changed the seizures in some fundamental and usually profound way.

Although Modified Atkins Diet for Seizure Control (MAD) is not a medication, it too has changed Maddy's seizures and I daresay, for the BETTER. Whether or not this change is permanent, only time will tell but if history is any indicator, the change is permanent.

The change: What used to be a noisy, violent seizure has become a silent, almost still seizure. So silent and still in fact that they don't wake me up. Typically when Maddy rolls over in bed it wakes me up and I look at her to see if she's seizing or shifting but for the last week or so, on the nights when she has had seizures, I've slept right through them.

The Roller-Coaster: Just a few days into the diet, Maddy's seizures disappeared. Then she missed her morning dose of medication (TWICE!) and her seizures returned. She got back on track with her medications and the seizures disappeared. Then she got food poisoning (not at home) and the seizures returned. As she's gotten better over the last three days, the returned seizures have been fewer and fewer each night, and they've been the quiet ones.

Amazing Development: This morning when Maddy got up she had two things to report. First, she had NO seizures last night. PRAISE GOD.

But here's the second piece of news, the AMAZING one: for the first time in more years than she can remember, she had a DREAM !

Her seizures so disturb her sleep that as far as she knew, she had stopped dreaming. Whether or not that's true, we have no idea but she has no memory of any dreams. Last night however, she had a very vivid dream about a book that her sister is reading and she remembered it in great detail!!

How is that for AMAZING!?!?! After ten years of seizures, my little girl is DREAMING again!!

When you put it that way

I've already read Why We Get Fat: And What To Do About It by Gary Taubes, the layman's version of Good Calories, Bad Calories, so the following sentence from Paleo 2.0 A Diet Manifesto should have come as no surprise to me:

My own diet, due to hubris and the belief that I had “good genes”, had thankfully never been deficient in eggs, red meat, butter or bacon. They had tried to teach us that “cholesterol” was something to fret about when I was in medical school, but even my undergraduate and medical school biochemistry at the time made that seem only vaguely plausible. Hadn’t humans been eating meat for millions of years?

Oddly enough however, this was the first time I'd seen a defense of cholesterol approached from this angle. Typically the argument points to the relatively new addition of grains and refined carbohydrates to the human diet as the culprit for skyrocketing rates of Type Two Diabetes, Obesity and Heart Disease which, by implication, clears saturated fats and cholesterol of guilt. But it wasn't until I saw this other side of the coin that the safety of dietary cholesterol was finally settled in my mind. Of course this safety comes with a caveat; if healthy fats are consumed along with grains, sugar and starches, all bets are off.

The mission, should you choose to accept it...

Is to Blog every day for the next seven days...starting...NOW!

The amazingly creative and ever witty Trish, of JustChickenScratch.com, and I have decided to Blog every day for the next seven days, even if all we have to say is that we really don't have anything to say. :) Why on Earth would two busy women with husbands, children and jobs make such a pledge? It's quite simple you see...we both happen to be brilliant and passionate about the people and places in our lives and we decided that it's about time we got busy sharing that brilliance and passion with anyone that we can entice, trick, cajole, nag and/or force to read our Blogs!

Step one (of our evil plan) is now complete...

See you tomorrow!

Tooth Chips are on the way!

I was inches away from making my own toothpaste using Virgin Coconut Oil, Baking Soda, Organic Peppermint Oil and Stevia from a recipe that I found here, but once I saw the whites of the Coconut Oil...I lost my nerve.

SO, it's back to my original plan; trying the Tooth Chips with Neem Bark and Xylitol from Rose of Sharon Acres.

My Peppermint Chips shipped today and I am breathless with anticipation. No pun intended. :) Stay tuned for a review...

Wellness Mama - My new favorite Blog

My new favorite blog, Wellness Mama, is hosting a give-away for a cookbook that I would LOVE to get my hands on! If you've been converting your household to a more natural/whole foods based way of eating, check out both the Blog and the giveaway!!

First Week of Modified Atkins Diet (MAD)

What a rocky weekend!!

History: Maddy started MA on Monday 03/14. Monday night and Tuesday night, seizures were up.

Wednesday-Friday night - NO SEIZURES!
Saturday night - Stopped counting seizures at TEN. :(

Sunday morning: I was depressed because even though I'd said we were keeping our feet on the ground and our expectations low because we'd seen seizure honeymoons before, my hopes WERE high.

BUT...when Maddy looked at her medication box, what did she find? Her Saturday morning medications UNTAKEN. Whenever she misses a dose of medication, she has a 'bad day' or a 'bad night' and this alone could explain the return of the seizures. Hope returns.

Sunday night - ZERO SEIZURES!!!!!!!!!!

So...I'm not kidding myself anymore. My hopes are high and so are Madeline's. But the diet really does seem to be working!!!

The Long and Winding Road

Madeline, March 2011

It doesn't seem possible but it's been ten years since we started this journey through Epilepsy with our precious Maddy May.

In those ten years, she's been through daily seizures, countless EEG's, three VEEG's, more tests beginning with the letters 'MR' than I can possibly recall, every scan known to magnetic and nuclear science, a SISCOM, IVIG therapy, VNS implantation, two surgical consultations and a dozen different medications and yet, we're still just about where we started.

Now that her Doctors agree that we're at the end of what they can do for her, though they're still willing to re-run a test or two and throw in a new one for good measure, they ask us a question that we asked them almost ten years ago; have you ever considered the Ketogenic Diet? I can't tell you how it grieves my heart to hear those words. What happened to your initial assessment that she 'was not a candidate for Keto'? I go over it and over it in my mind and I wonder how different things might have been if only we'd pushed a little bit harder or asked just one more question.

But, the past is the past, and since it's our experiences that make us who we are, we wouldn't be the same people that we are today had things gone differently. I also take great comfort in the knowledge that all things work together for good to them that love God, to them who are the called according to his purpose. And so, we move on.

As God would have it, almost two months before Madeline's last VEEG hospital stay, I had begun researching the benefits of a low carbohydrate way of life for myself (for weight loss) as well as educating myself on the dangers of sugar, refined carbohydrates and processed foods (for the whole family) so when the question was asked, we were nearly ready to go low-carb as a family. This would no doubt make Madeline's adjustment an easier one because she wouldn't be surrounded by her parents and siblings eating foods that she cannot have. God is an amazing planner, is He not?

In mid-March we had a weekend long goodbye to sugar and carbs blowout and on March 14th, 2011, we all went low-carb and Maddy began the Modified Atkins Diet for Seizures.

Here's our first report:

Madeline (18) started Modified Atkins on Monday and we were getting a little worried as her seizures sky-rocketed Tuesday and Wednesday but then suddenly, last night, there were ZERO seizures!!!

I'm trying to keep my feet on the ground, knowing that for every step you take forward you sometimes take two steps back and remembering too that we've seen honeymoons before when new medications were tried but even so...it's been so long since she went a day without a seizure that I can't even remember when it was.

At any rate, she actually got some real sleep last night and I am overjoyed for her. :)