Why the vagus nerve is so exciting to scientists

Re:Why the vagus nerve is so exciting to scientists by tempaway43355 on Wednesday August 23, 2023 @09:05AM (#37235226)

My child has Dravet syndrome so its quite major seizure activity and many different seizure types (tc, absence, focal, myoclonic). I think slightly more left lobe than right but its been a while since we had a full EEG. VNS is known to help with Dravet in enough cases that they were prepared to try the VNS.

The VNS can help stop seizures but also there's a sortof long-term effect from just having it firing every few minutes all the time, seems to re-train the brain in some way. I'm not sure if they really know how it works, just that it seems to help.

Another non-medication treatment that was very good for us was the ketogenic diet. Like, hardcore proper ketogenic diet, 4:1 ratio, prescribed and monitored by an NHS dietician. Every meal measured out by the gram. Its hard work but it did work very well. Its been properly researched - https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/16146451/ https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/25524846/ - for Dravet syndrome at least, keto is as effective as the best AEDs with fewer side effects.

[ Parent | on HN ]

Re:Why the vagus nerve is so exciting to scientists by yonibot on Wednesday August 23, 2023 @09:40AM (#37235670)

The effectiveness of the ketogenic diet for childhood epilepsy is the reason I thought I'd try the diet for myself - many people believe that it has some neuroprotective benefit in general.

But now after some time has passed I no longer believe it makes sense to do that, until these benefits for non-epileptic people have actually been demonstrated. It's not an easy diet to follow and if you follow it to the degree required for epilepsy therapy, you're restricting your protein quite a bit.

[ Parent | on HN ]