Disclaimer:

Nothing on this website is meant to be a substitute for an accurate diagnosis or proper medical care by a licensed doctor or veterinarian. The facts, experiences, insights, and theories presented on this site are meant to educate, enlighten, and stimulate the reader. If there is anything written on the medical portions of this site that is inaccurate, potentially harmful, or does not make perfectly good sense to the reader, they are encouraged to contact me by Email at dogtorj@bellsouth.net .                         

Also, please read the new welcome message before proceeding onto the site. It will give you a little insight into why this site was created, what it is all about, and where it is headed. In response to your Emails, there will be a biography of Dogtor J. following the welcome message in the near future. This should allay any fears that I am not who I purport to be or that I am not qualified to offer veterinary advice.

The medical information is just that: information that I have gathered while researching of my own medical conditions of the past. I am not an MD and do not have a license to practice human medicine. Therefore, I am not qualified to make diagnoses or prescribe therapy for people. The dietary recommendations that I make are suggestions based on my own medical experiences and are supported by medically-based Websites such as www.mercola.com. I would encourage all readers to visit Dr. Mercola's site, as he has created a phenomenal reference site that independently supports nearly every thing that is said on this site. His "optimal eating plan" is the perfect example and will improve anyone's health, including that of our pets.

Once again, if there is anything on the medical sections of this site that you have any questions or concerns about, please contact me at the Emails address below.

Dogtor J.

(Read:  The Answer-  to "Why is the plane of our nation's health in a death spiral?" )

Welcome

Welcome to EpilepsyDiet.net. This site was established on November 26, 2006 and will be undergoing major construction over the upcoming months... if not indefinitely.

If this is your first trip to this site, it won't take long for you to see that, like the parent site DogtorJ.net, it is a bit different from most medical sites. Not many attempt to tackle medical problems that occur in both veterinary and human medicine but after the reader grasps the vital role that nutrition plays in the development of disease states, it will be easy for them to see why I have taken on this task.

But let me say this right up front. I am well aware that the readers of my work fall into two main categories: those that love my style of writing and those that hate it. I am the first to admit that I love to hear myself talk as much as anyone on the planet. My Mom explains that, as a baby, my tongue was tied down and after it was "released", I never shut up. My fourth grade teacher who gave me the "D" in conduct will attest to that. But even that part of my personality ties right into this site.

My style of writing is meant to be conversational to a great extent. If you don't care for it, then I am truly sorry but I hope that you will still glean something useful from the site. Just be glad that you are not one of my clients. They get this mouth every time they walk in the door. Ha, ha. Part of this trait is "genetic", but part of it arose from the constant comments from my veterinary clients over the years. Most were very positive when I launched into an explanation of the body and how it related to the condition at hand. They were shocked to have a doctor that actually talked to them. They seemed to really appreciate it.

But, talk about pouring gas on a fire. Whoa! This gave me free reign to ramble on and forced me into a thirty minute (or longer...."How much time do you have???") office calls. Little did I know that I was being prepared for the biggest lecture, the most important teaching engagement, of my life: you guys! Each lecture I gave was carefully filed away in this brain of mine to be built upon and reorganized into the essays that now fill these pages. Long? Yes. Boring? Perhaps, but they certainly weren't meant to be, any more than a novel that is filled with lengthy descriptions in order to set the reader up for the next important event.

I promise to add page and article summaries in the near future, but I do have mixed emotions about that. In this day of fast-food mentality, much of the wonder and wisdom that life has to offer is missed. Our bodies suffer from the convenience foods and our minds go right along with it. I will not editorialize too much right here because most of you know the powerful truth behind this simple statement.

Also, I apologize for the homemade nature of this site when it comes to some scrolling and reading the text of these pages. The fact is that this is exactly what it is...a homemade site. It started out as a place where I could put my first food handout and some of the exam room lectures so that my clients could go here and recover from the barrage of information shot at them in the exam room. They could log on, come here, regroup, and actually assimilate some of the facts and ideas that I bombarded them with in that 20 minute dissertation. "Humble beginnings" is the term to apply to this site, I believe. I was pleasantly surprised at the initial response and I am now pleasantly shocked at what it has turned into, with the site now getting over 8000 hits per month.

And, I am very encouraged by the degree of positive feedback and will do all that I can to improve this site and make it more accessible and readable. It will at some point require a total overhaul but I was at least able to upgrade it recently to include more pages that allowed the use of click-on links to most of the papers.

So for now, please try to put up with the centered text and the love affair that you've been forced into with your mouse. I also suggest that you consider copying and pasting the selected text to a word processing program and printing it out of you would like a hard copy. People have asked whether that violates my copyrights. My answer is "only if you claim that you wrote it, and who would want to do that? Haha"  Plus, you can then give it to someone else who needs it (and they are everywhere) when you're finished with it. 

In the meantime, my name is John B. Symes and I am a veterinarian with over 25 years of clinical experience (Auburn, '79). I am licensed in four states in the U.S. I do have a small but quite busy one-man practice that I happily go to at least five days a week. I have one wife of 22 years of marriage, two teenagers, and 6 pets, all adopted from the hospital. I am a real person with a real degree and a real life, just like all of you. I have had major medical problems in the past, all of which now make sense and most of which are now completely gone. I am now prescription drug-free for the first time in my adult life. The papers to follow explain how this could be.

This site will offer the reader the opportunity to learn about the newest approach to epilepsy in both veterinary and human medicine: the elimination of things rather than the addition of more and more drugs and expensive supplements. This will be accomplished through its emphasis on the role of nutrition in the prevention and treatment of epilepsy and other neurological conditions that afflict our pets and us. What you don't know can hurt you and blissful ignorance of the detrimental effects of the ingredients in our and the pet's diet is a prime example.

So, as an added "bonus" to the focus on veterinary care, you will gain much needed information concerning the origins of many of the conditions that threaten human health. This is especially true in my main paper, The Answer. Your pets will teach you some surprisingly vital lessons in the origins, pathophysiology, and management of many of the conditions that they have in common with their owners.

Most of the diseases that people suffer from also occur in our beloved pets. Diabetes, arthritis, thyroid problems, epilepsy, inflammatory bowel diseases, and cancer are just a small sampling of such conditions. The similarities are startling and much can be learned from examining these correlations.

Through the essays, FAQs, summaries, and links provided, I will try to cover this vast topic in such a way that you will be able to better understand the serious illnesses that plague both man and animals. The ideas, facts, and conclusions may surprise you at first, but the most common response to this information has been how much sense it makes. It is logical. It will make sense, even to those who are not medically inclined. Sure, there is a fair amount of "medspeak" involved, but I will be more than willing to explain anything that requires clarification. My Email address is dogtorj@bellsouth.net and it provided in many places throughout this site. Write to me anytime.

So, get ready for the ride of a lifetime. The research I have done on the subject of food allergies, intolerances, and additives has uncovered some amazing things that will change your life and the way you look at your refrigerator and your pet's food bowl. I have studied everything from Alzheimer's to Zinc deficiency with an intensity that eclipses all efforts in my years of academia. Added to that were a number of trips into our medical history in an attempt to unravel the mystery of how we ended up as an advanced society with such severe medical problems.

For now, I would direct the reader to the papers found on this site. First, I would first have you read The Epilepsy Diet Made Simple, found in the Epilepsy and Diet section.

Next, I would direct you to The G.A.R.D. Made Simple found in the The G.A.R.D. section. This paper is about 5 pages long and is a summary style article that describes the cascade of events that follows the damage done to the intestinal tract by the "big 4" (gluten, casein, soy, ands corn). It also lists many of the secondary factors that dove-tail with these food issues to produce syndromes like epilepsy, fibromylgia, ADHD, insomnia, and even neurodegenerative diseases such as MS, ALS, and Alzheimer's. You will see the vital role that serotonin, viruses, and lectins play in the development of these conditions that are reaching epidemic proportions.

One of my favorite aspects of this work has been the response of epileptics to "The G.A.R.D.". In my paper Idiopathic Epilepsy- The Dietary Solution, I chronicle the discovery of the glutamate-aspartate restricted diet and describe how it's application yielded absolutely amazing results, completely halting seizures in the vast majority of my idiopathic epileptic patients. The responses have continued to be as dramatic, while being nearly instantaneous and permanent in most cases. The paper explores the likely pathomechanism behind this otherwise "idiopathic" condition. I describe the thought processes behind this discovery while offering a valid medical explanation for nearly all aspects of this serious and often times debilitating medical condition. The proof has been in the results, with nearly 100% success in controlling seizures, even in those pets brought in to be put to sleep for refractory seizures. This condition is actually a "done deal" as far as I'm concerned, but it will be on the rise in the near future without this knowledge due to recent changes in the food industry. This paper explains how that could be so but at the same time how it should be easily prevented.

So, I don't claim to be a writer. I am one by default (or something like that). I now really enjoy writing, but I hate to proof read. So, I'm halfway there. Ha, ha. I will eventually get to all of the typos and syntax errors, but please do not let them distract you to the point that you miss the message. Hey, have you tried to read the King James Bible, the Torah, or the Koran recently? Takes a little time if you want to dig out what they really have to offer, doesn't it?

Finally, I have now published my 40-plus page paper entitled The Answer- to "Why is the Plane of Our Nation's Health in a Death Spiral?" to this site. It is a work in progress, but is in a stage of completeness worthy of being on the site. It is the culmination of nearly two years of research on the subject of food-related disorders and contains an amazing amount of facts that have been hidden from public view concerning this subject. How certain foods came into being and common usage and how they directly relate to such conditions as epilepsy, chronic fatigue, irritable bowel syndrome, insomnia, ADHD, pain syndromes, depression, allergies. Severe immune-mediated diseases like diabetes, lupus, and rheumatoid arthritis are also covered. It is getting to be quite long, but there is truly no way to shorten this vital information. Like I tell my clients, "There is no law that you have to read it all in one sitting. Think of it as a free, short book rather than a long research paper. It's all how you look at it, right?" This information WILL change your life...guaranteed!!!

I am attempting to share this information (that I consider vital) with all mankind. It is intended to help every person and animal that it possibly can. I have no ulterior motive and no desire for fame or fortune to come from this. You will note that there are no sponsors and nothing to buy here. The information is free for the taking. And like the television, you are also free to turn it off at any moment and direct your browser to something else.

However, I hope that you will get something very valuable from your time spent here and that you will return frequently for the regularly scheduled updates. The site is in a dynamic state. This is, in great part, due to your feedback.

Please do take your time here and write to me with any questions or comments that you may have. It may take a while to get back to you, but I will try my best. If you have trouble viewing this site, please Email me concerning that as well. 

But "be not ignorant of this one thing": Your health is much more in your hands than you have ever believed, certainly more than you have ever had explained to you. That is the mission of DogtorJ.com. I hope it carries that out to your greatest benefit.

Dogtor J.
Read "Food Intolerance- Man and Animals versus Gluten, Casein, Soy and Corn OR How We Won the Battle of Helm's Deep"