He was released from Hospital 10 September, been doing keto for 16 days now. His blood levels were mostly over 0.5 for two weeks and now finally got a reading of 1.6. Still has delusions but said a few things that gave me hope.
Today it has been 3 weeks and 3 days. His ketones were 0.4 yesterday but actually had measured 1.9 a few days previous. Blood glucose (non-fasting) running between 90 and 110. Having him busy assisting me in little projects seems to distract him out of some of the autodiadactical conversations and praying he has. Delusions still present but not as central these days. Violence is greatly reduced. I’m not sure how much is progress or me learning the schizo dance, when to set limits, his recognition of limits and consequences (for which enforcement can be conflict ) . Less destructive this week. Not having a good day today. He is cooperating with the diet which is mostly beef, pork, fish, eggs, pork rinds, cheese, heavy cream, salad with light dressings.
5 weeks of keto today. Still has had delusions a four days ago he was yelling at the nieghbors house. Three days ago ketones were 2.4 highest yet but yesterday dropped to 1.0 when measured with keto mojo blood tester. The hydrazine poamate (vistril) makes him sleep alot which is helpful to me getting a break and perhaps the extra sleep might aid brain healing. I sure hopes this starts working and can get Risperdal reduced. I question how much it helps but he was much out of control without it so it does seem necessary. Been drinking straight heavy cream with a little stevia, tastes like a milk shake.
I had an emergency surgery and are 9n the mend. My bother, and son in law had to step in to watch him. They say he’s still eating keto food but eats to much. I’ll take it. I will be bak to feeding and testing him in a few days.
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I’m glad you are on the mend from your surgery and had someone to step in and help. Take care and have a good recovery.
Tested his blood today 3 Nov 2025. Ketones 0.9 Blood glucose 97. According to Google this is a glucose ketone index of (97/18)÷0.9=5.95 which is just inside the “moderate" level of ketosis, with a level of 3 or less being desirable for epilepsy therapy. So I need to try to limit his overall consumption and get the blood glucose lower and maybe more fat . His behavior has been a peculiar but the outbursts were mininimal the last few days. Only a few yelling at night incidents, which is a big improvement from busting holes in the wall and him taking off not knowing where he’s going (under a delusion). Really better.
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Well, the science behind the keto diet has been around since the 1920’s but before the diet called the Keto was the Atkins. The Keto diet is similar to the Atkins and I went on the Atkins in 2004 and it worked for me. I don’t think anyone was saying the Atkins diet could improve schizophrenia but I mainly write about it here to show it’s possible to lose weight even if you’re on medication. As you probably all know, anti-psychotic medication can cause weight gain but I lost 55 lbs on the Atkins while on prolixen. I was living by myself when I went on it and I remember I used to shop for a months worth of groceries at a time and every month I would fill my freezer with beef, pork and chicken. I bought a lot of low carb diet recipe books and that helped. It took me about 9 months to lose all the weight. I didn’t notice any difference in my symptoms.
Thanks for you feedback Nick. They say for therapy the ketones often need to be higher than for just weight loss. I have recently gotten a blood level of my sz son of over 1 and over 2. Thats where some at metabolic mind say it starts to work for those that dont get results at 0.5 or so. The Dr changed his Rx to abilify and didn’t taper his risperidone and he’s been off the chain excitable. Broke the kitchen faucet last night, I got it fixed now but that’s where we’re at. I’m going to keep him on the diet as long as I can. To get the ketone levels up , more fat and less protien is the way (in general]. I lost 30 lbs on the diet. I had a twisted intestine and didn’t eat for a week and lost another lost another 10 lbs but it is good to be alive and better. Surgeon said he didn’t think the diet had any causal association with the twisted intestine, just something that happens sometimes. But living with a SZ is definitely making me wonder if the expression “tying my stomach up in knots" has some real world basis to stress.
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Well another crazy week of psychosis. Banged on the neighbors door under delusion his imaginary daughter is being assaulted. Got a trespass warning from the sheriff. His ketones ran low last week ( about 0.5) and I had him start taking a tablespoon of MCT oil. The ketones were back to 1.0 yesterday. His Non-Fasting Blood Glucose has been mostly under 100 which is pretty good (86 -102) but could be better. Tomorrow will mark 12 weeks of continuously on the diet. No big breakthrough yet, but he was “cold turkeyed" off of 6 MG Risperidone four weeks ago, to Abilify when he got a new Dr. I think that may have exacerbated his psychosis. I take him to the gym regularly and he hasn’t had any police encounters there: so he’s getting exercise and seems to have a Dr Jeckle and Mr Hyde aspect to his behaviors. I think the Home environment affects him negatively because they regress to child like tantrums around me the parent in the childhood home (even though he is an adult). I pray for the day he comes to me and says Dad I’ve been crazy.
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Despite keeping him in a mild state of ketosis with some high days he got manic and aggressive. I convinced the sheriff to put him back in the hospital. I plan on continued keto when I get him back. I did notice with ability (and keto) he has been keeping his mouth shut (not agape like with the risperidone). So less neurological but still under the influence of psychotic suggestion.
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Sorry to hear about your son. I haven’t tried Keto for schizophrenia, but heard about it for that purpose. I want to try it but don’t like meat. But have heard water fasting helps with schizophrenia, probably due to ketosis, but once you go back to the way you ate before it will come back. So there maybe something to the keto diet.
After the hospital for a week he was still psychotic and fighting with me. I left him and he allegedly broke a neighbors window and is back in jail. Never seems to end but we have to hold onto hope someday I get him to a situation he can just live in. They increased the abilify to 15mg a day. That stiff doesn’t seem to be working. He was on it for a coulple of months.
As for intermittent fasting there is an article written in the 1980s about complete 30 day water fasts with 4 hrs of exercise daily used in the soviet union in moscow .
It’s very intense. The interesting thing is ketosis mimics fasting .
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thanks for the article on fasting. I’m on 20mg of Abilify, works for me, sometimes they try you on different ones till they find one that works. They use clozapine for difficult cases of schizophrenia, but it has a lot of serious bad side effects, and causes severe weight gain, if you try that, your son would have to take a GLP-1 or something just to manage weight from side effects. I think I will try to see if ketosis works and then reduce medications to low dose as possible.
Hi all, I’m the mom of 2 people with schizoaffective disorder and I have AuDHD, GAD, etc. I tried keto earlier this year mainly to help with anxiety and BFRBs, and it was helpful but the diet was so difficult to maintain that I quit. HOWEVER, for the last several months I’ve cut all processed foods and try to limit sugar/carbs early in the day. This has made an appreciable difference. Someone else recommended Dr. Palmer; I read his book and found it helpful. I’d love to see if keto helped my kids but they are not currently interested in trying it. I highly recommend following Lauren Kennedy on youtube.