Naomi Schachter is a sophomore at Goucher College. This is her first article for a national publication.

By Naomi Schachter, Special to Everyday Health

In a way, my story is simple: I changed what I ate and stopped having debilitating seizures.

But it wasn’t so simple getting to that point.

When I was just 12 years old and in eighth grade, I began having terrible migraines. They were so bad that I’d have to leave school and sleep for several days before I felt like myself again, and the only thing that made me feel better was vomiting.

I went to a neurologist, who ordered an electroencephalogram (EEG). The results were very abnormal, and from that EEG, she figured out I was having absence seizures, which, according to the Epilepsy Foundation, cause a short period of “blanking out” or staring into space. I’d have hundreds of absence seizures each day, causing one side of my face to twitch and my mouth to droop.

Side Effects: Gaining Weight and Losing My Hair

Now I had an answer: Epilepsy.

But I had a hard time accepting my diagnosis. Though the seizures lasted no more than 15 seconds, they completely interrupted my life. In school, I’d miss parts of what my teachers said in class, as well as parts of conversations with other people. I had seizures during gymnastics (fortunately, I was never injured), and I even had them while I slept.

My seizures dominated my life. I saw multiple neurologists and constantly tried different medications. I had many EEGs, both at home and in the hospital, and each time a neurologist ordered one I had to wear electrodes in my hair, making me look and feel weird.

By the time I reached my junior year of high school, the seizures and medications I took to control them were so incapacitating that I could barely think. The side effects from the medications were terrible: I gained weight, my hair fell out, I could barely wake up each morning, and my cognitive abilities decreased with each passing day.

The Diet That Changed My Life

Finally, I made a decision that changed everything for me.

On November 1, 2014, when I was a senior in high school, I started the modified Atkins diet (MAD) to try to control my seizures.

This highly restrictive, high-fat, low-carb diet puts the body into ketosis, meaning it raises your ketone levels — basically mimicking the effects of fasting.

On MAD, instead of using mainly carbohydrates for energy, my body began using fat. I ate only 15 grams of carbohydrates per day, high amounts of fats, and no more than 4 ounces of protein per meal. My doctor and my mom both thought it would be the best thing for me to do to help control my seizures, since medication alone had not yet done the job.

Eating according to MAD was so much harder than you can imagine. When I competed in gymnastics, I practically lived on carbs. I loved to eat pasta, pizza, bread, fruit, and chocolate. On MAD, I could only eat low-carb breads, and there was only one type my mom and I found that didn’t interfere with my seizure control. The only fruits I could eat in a quantity that was actually satisfying were raspberries and blackberries, which are both pretty low-carb.

Inspired to Change the Way I Thought About Food

At first, I was really embarrassed by this diet because it made me feel even more strange than I already felt. I didn’t want to eat in front of other people, and for a while, I stopped eating out at restaurants. I had a hard time committing to the diet because I didn’t fully understand and accept the impact that the seizures had on my life.

My perspective changed during my first visit to the NYU Langone Comprehensive Epilepsy Center in New York City, near where I live in New Jersey. The dietitian I saw there told me about a woman around my age who became seizure-free within one week of starting MAD. Not only this, but she was off all of her medications and was driving, which really inspired me.

I realized that although I was nowhere near seizure control after two months of being on MAD, I had never felt so clearheaded and cognitively able until that point. I knew then that, despite my ongoing seizures, I wanted to continue this diet.

Simplifying My Diet Even More

My mom took me to the Johns Hopkins Epilepsy Center in Baltimore. Together with her, my doctor, and my dietitian, I changed my approach: Instead of trying to replace familiar, processed foods with low-carb versions, I found it more effective to eat a simpler diet. With the exception of dinner, I began eating nearly the same foods every day, and surprisingly, I wasn’t bothered by the lack of variety.

I adopted a new mindset: Even though food is one of the most important things in my life, I have to treat eating as one of the least important parts of my day.

In the Closet About My MAD Diet

I’d told very few people that I had epilepsy or that I was eating according to MAD until the summer of 2015, when I began working for the first time at the sleepaway camp I’d attended for nine years. The camp kept kosher and barely had any of the meat meals I’d relied on. I wondered if I should continue keeping all this to myself, or if I even could.

Finally, I “came out.” I began telling my fellow staff members and friends that I had epilepsy and was on MAD. That decision became a major milestone in my life, and I felt like a weight had been lifted off my shoulders.

Several months later, when I started at Goucher College in Baltimore, I decided there was no reason to be embarrassed about having epilepsy or being on MAD, and that I wanted to be open about it. I told my roommate about my seizures before I even met her, and she was totally accepting.

Being on the diet only added to my busy college workload, but while at Goucher, I became seizure-free for the first time. And I came out to everyone about my epilepsy diet. This past March, I posted a link on Facebook to a podcast about the ketogenic diet produced by WNYC Studios, where my dad works. It felt so liberating, and I was very proud of myself.

Finally Seizure-Free

Now, I enjoy sharing my story to inspire others and to clear up people’s misconceptions about epilepsy — and because I’m really proud of what I’ve accomplished. On May 2, I posted on Facebook that I had been seizure-free for 100 days! The support I received even from people I hadn’t talked to in a long time was amazing.

It was then that I realized I had taken control by staying on this diet. I had a lot of help, especially from my mom, but I was the one putting the right foods in my mouth to make my seizures stop.

This past school year was the best I’ve ever had — academically, socially, medically, and mental-health-wise. I have never felt so happy or self-confident, and I attribute that completely to the ketogenic diet.

And the person I thank most of all is myself.