Specific Carbohydrate Diet (SCD)

I'd never heard of the SCD, so I went to the site and found this description:

The SCD diet excludes and removes ALL starches and complex sugars. This
removal helps kill major yeast and bacterial overgrowth. Malabsorption
decreases, rebalancing gut flora and encouraging healing. Feeding SCD
yogurt or probiotics repopulates the gut with "good bugs" that keep
yeast and bad bacteria in check. Digestion normalizes. Behavior,
cognitive and language development begin to improve. We have seen how
well it works for many, many children.

When the diseased intestines are inflamed by the effects of *dysbiosis,
they cannot break down molecules that are too large to be transported
across the small intestinal surface into the bloodstream. Instead of
entering the bloodstream, undigested starch and sugar molecules serve
as a continual source of food for bacteria and fungus. The mission of
the Specific Carbohydrate Diet is removal of all sources of those
carbohydrates with a molecular structure that is too large for entry
into the bloodstream.

Removal of starches and complex sugars corrects dysbiosis and is
followed by a decrease in intestinal inflammation so the
gastrointestinal tract can heal.

The SCD priority is to deal with the CAUSE of the gluten and casein
intolerance rather than just treating the symptoms. SCD looks at things
from an advanced scientific perspective and takes things a step further
than some other diets because SCD deals with the structure of the gut
wall first, not just the gluten and dairy culprits.

This reminds me of some other posts on yeast overgrowth and epilepsy, because one of the things that happens when kids have Candida (yeast) is that they get a similar problem with the gut.

The more I read about vaccines and epilepsy and autism and diet and autoimmune diseases, the more sure I am that all these things are somehow related. I don't know how, but I just know they are.

I just feel like we're all shooting in the dark when it comes to epilepsy. Diets help, meds help (maybe or maybe they make things worse), supplements help, neurotherapy helps--but none of these help everyone in the same way or to the same degree. I just feel like there's an explanation that is almost within reach that'll make all the difference to our kids. Meanwhile, I'm shooting in the dark like crazy, too, trying to make sure Sean doesn't have more seizures. Just crazy ranting tonight. :)

As well as the SCD diet, Mikey is taking supplements and on a list about Vitamin K2. Sometimes seizures can be caused by open calcium channels. This happens when our kids get calcium in their diets and by supplementation and their bodies can't utilize it properly. Many kids have osteoporosis etc...

Vitamin K2 can help with this. It has shown improvement with teeth, colour, strength etc... also with bone health. Some of these same kids have calcium oxalate crystals in their urine. This can be improved through diet, magnesium supplementation and vitamin K2 among other supplements. Again, I was very skeptical, but Mikey seems to be doing much better with it than he was. A recent trip to the orthopedic surgeon showed some improvement in his ankle strength etc... There are studies that have been done and papers written on the subject, but few doctors know about them. I can tell you that much of the information is available in the VitaminK group at yahoogroups, in the file section. The owner of this list is very knowledgeable to the point of being able to help decipher results of certain blood tests.

Phyllis

Hi Phyllis -
That's really an interesting point about calcium. I get what you're saying about open calcium channels, which would make brain tissue more excitable.
Vitamin K2 is manufactured by bacteria in the gut, and deficiencies occur when it either isn't manufactured or can't be absorbed. This is more fuel for my 'conspiracy' theory that guts and brains are intimately connected. I used to think that people who attributed things like ASD and epilepsy to gut problems were crazy--and now I'm quickly becoming one of them.

Hi Annie, I was one of the worst skeptics and even thought yeast overgrowth and gut flora problems were ridiculous sounding. It's funny how you get to the end of your rope so you are willing to try just about anything and the last thing you would expect to help, does. I think the problems stem from a horrible North American diet. We as a general population tend to eat far too many carbohydrates (not complex carbs) just junk, white flour, white rice, bread, lots of foods that are processed and change to sugar too easily in our bodies. They cause so many problems, diabetes, gut issues and so on. If Mikey didn't respond so well to the diet I wouldn't have posted this information. When I changed the diet to add in more carbs, he responded poorly. It took some time, but the seizures started creeping back in. I have just recently taken him back to a more strict diet and what a difference in a week! He went from having 2 sets of cluster seizures a day, to only one seizure (not even a cluster) in the a.m. around 4. He is able to go to school and complete his day happily. I am hopeful that some of his words will come back too. Phyllis

I'm completely with you. Even six months ago, I thought all those colon-cleansing, carb-eliminating people were absolutely wacko. I'm still not sure about the colon-cleansing (like I could even get Sarah to do it!), but I'm eliminating all the simple carbs from our house.
She's having more seizures and it's hard for me to just put her on the diet because she's old enough to eat what she wants and to go off her diet if she's away from the house. She hates her meds, though, so I'm hoping she'll see the sense in eliminating some foods instead of increasing meds.
What you write about Mikey's response is so inspiring. The difference you noticed in just one week is truly amazing. I'm going to show it to Sarah. Thanks for posting!

A few weeks ago we started making changes in my son's diet to prep for the SCD due to Candida yeast overgrowth. Problem - he's allergic to chicken and that (stock) seems to be the mainstay for the beginning of the diet....

I pulled all juices except apple cider and, believe it or not, 100% welch's grape juice; not frozen, is also allowed. Made other small changes and really need to pursue more (everyone in my house got sick and passed it around for weeks, so not much progress was made on anything 'new' around here).

Has anyone else used this to specifically treat Candida? If so, what happened?

 Amber Kane

I just heard from our neurologist yesterday that Logan has myoclonic-astatic epilepsy. This is thought to be genetic but it is not known for sure. I was trying to implement this diet, does anyone know if it has been reported for this type of epilepsy? The ketogenic diet has done well for some of these children some not. I would like to try a less restrictive diet first but not at the expense of his health. I have an appointment set up with his nutritionist on the third to discuss a special diet for him and I would like to come as prepared as possible.