A Possible Culprit: MSG and Seizures

Regular readers here know that I often talk about Hannah, My 3 year old niece who has seizures. She has had MRI's and tests done but no cause has been determined. We have racked our brains trying to come up with anything environmental or food related that could be a possible cause.
We think may may have an answer, I hope we do anyway. Apparently this morning Hannah had another seizure. She also had 4 Monday morning. On both days she'd eaten sausage in one form or the other. My sister called me to ask me about the one time she had a seizure with me and whether or not she'd had sausage that day. The answer is probably yes as i do tend to keep sausage/biscuits on hand for her because she loves them.

Sooooooo, I don't know why it hit me but when she told me why she was asking i immediately thought of MSG and wondered if it was in sausage. It is. So i googled MSG + Seizures. The very first search result says that MSG is a neurotoxin. I went and read up on it some more and read the information to my sister. Apparently, MSG is known to interfere with anti seizure medications as well as induce seizures. It also stated not only on that site but several others that what it basically does is that it over excites the central nervous system. So does aspartame. I was floored.

My sister has been doing exactly what the doctors tell her to do for Hannah. They gave her lists of things to avoid and such, but not one single thing said anything at all about MSG. NOTHING. So we've been letting Hannah have what she likes to eat and may have been causing her to have more seizures than she would have had.

Sooooooo my sister will be checking food labels like crazy being sure that she eliminates MSG from Hannah's diet as well as the rest of the family's. The plan is to begin today and remove all MSG from the diet as much as we possibly can and see what happens. I really really pray that this is the answer. This way hopefully she'll not need to be on this medication which has really changed her personality and not entirely for the better. She's more combative and sometimes just plain mean, where before she didn't put up with anyone's crap, but she wasn't outright ugly to anyone either. So here's hoping.

For more information please check out these sites. I was really surprised at what MSG can do to a person and how many ways it can be in your food under other names.

Truth In Labeling
MSG & Epilepsy
Epilepsy & Seizures
MSG Myth
Naturodoc

Nessa