Thanks for sharing. It’s great to hear that a change in diet is helping so much!

I’m glad to hear that you’re doing well on a Vegan diet. Overall, the long-term studies of health outcomes on the ketogenic diet have shown that overall cardiovascular risk is actually reduced, even though LDL does sometimes go up. Cardiovascular risk is more complicated than just LDL. It includes blood pressure, triglycerides, HDL cholesterol, levels of insulin resistance, levels of inflammation, etc. All of these other metrics tend to improve with the ketogenic diet, so that overall risk decreases. But again, I’m happy to hear that you’re doing well. For others who aren’t doing well despite trying innumerable treatments, the ketogenic diet should be an option.

Meredith,

Here is a list of dietitians skilled in the medical ketogenic diet who could work with your son’s treatment team.

Cecile

Thanks for your note! Great to hear that you are feeling so much better!

Please stay safe! I strongly encourage you to include your medical team, especially during the fat adaptation period, because symptoms can get worse before they get better. This journal article gives you a sense for both how effective ketosis can be and the minority of folks who self-reported adverse symptoms along the way. In this article 8 out of 165 individuals reported “mood destabilization.” Campbell, I. H., & Campbell, H. (2019). Ketosis and bipolar disorder: Controlled analytic study of online reports. BJPsych Open, 5(4), e58. https://doi.org/10.1192/bjo.2019.49 You can download a full pdf of the article for free.

In addition to fasting, you might want to consider the version of the medical ketogenic diet used in pediatric epilepsy. The 3 dietitians on this list are very experienced and can work with you remotely.

Please consider working with your healthcare provider to have your results published as a case study! That is the best way to change the medical establishment and help them to adopt this therapy and keep patients safe! Here’s an overview of the process. Why write medical case reports about unique cases? While there are many anecdotes of fasting helping bipolar, it would be great to have case studies in peer-reviewed literature. I (Cecile) can help support your healthcare provider if they have questions. They will be more likely to be comfortable writing a case study if you involve them along the way.

Sounds like you are successfully figuring out how to make fasting work for you! If you have questions, then The Fasting Method is a quality source of information.

Keep up the great work!

I’ve now been sober 3 weeks and am on my first 72 hour fast. I’ve been feeling really bad lately, down, no energy, sad, anxiety and obsessing over things.
This morning I woke up feeling great! I’m in an awesome mood!
I checked my keto strip and it was significantly pink and this made me wonder and worry if fasting might bring on a bout of mania and I came across this great article.
I hope to abstain from alcohol indefinitely and remain on a fasting focused lifestyle.

From the short history I have with ketosis, I can say for sure, it seems to make a huge difference in my energy levels and mood.