On November 14, 2009 16 year old Julie McCawley had the honor of speaking at the Ketogenic Diet Conference held in Scottsdale, Arizona, where she encouraged medical professionals to offer the Ketogenic Diet as a first form of therapy for children with epilepsy. Julie’s emotional introduction was given by Charlie Abrahams of the Charlie Foundation. Charlie was diagnosed with epilepsy at 20 months old and treated with numerous anticonvulsant drugs and brain surgery before his father Jim, read about the Ketogenic Diet while researching treatments at his local library. As Charlie explained he and Julie have a lot in common, we’re both in high school, both love music, we both had epilepsy and our parents found out about the diet later than they should have.

Julie presented a slideshow narrated by an original radio program from December 1994 entitled Christmas wish number 11 of the 12 days of Christmas. Julie’s aunt, Leslie Farrell had written to the radio station asking them to help put Julie on the Ketogenic Diet. The slide show featured pictures of Julie, before, during, and after, Stevens Johnson Syndrome. Julie developed Stevens Johnson Syndrome as a result of Phenobarbital used to treat her epilepsy.

YouTube - Julie Ketogenic Diet

Julie received her Christmas Wish and after two and a half year s on the Ketogenic Diet , she was successfully weaned from the diet and has remained drug and seizure free since. The Ketogenic Diet is a high fat , low carbohydrate diet that has been available as a treatment for pediatric epilepsy since the 1920’s but is rarely offered as a first option. Julie hopes her presentation will help change the protocol and put the diet at the top of anticonvulsant therapy. To find out more about the Ketogenic Diet visit the Charlie Foundation.