A NINE-year-old girl with a  severe form of epilepsy has  improved her condition by   eating virtually nothing but  cream.

Lucy Murphy is on the  ketogenic diet, which uses  fat not carbohydrates as fuel  for the brain.  The fat produces ketones which can  help prevent seizures and is  supported by a specialist dietician funded by the charity Daisy Garland.

 Before she started the diet  12 months ago Lucy, from  Exeter, suffered frequent violent seizures and had to  take large doses of medication which could affect  her mood.  Now she has  started ballet lessons and is  going to  Brownies.

Her mother, Denise, said:  “It’s given her back some  sort of life.”

Mrs Murphy, who has another daughter called Katie,  11, said: “We had to live life  on a knife edge for years and  years.”

Mrs Murphy, 47, a teacher, said the modified Atkins  diet has made a huge difference to her daughter’s  life and she now only suffers  a seizure once every one or  two weeks.

“She can now participate  in activities that her peers  do  — she loves  going  to  Brownies, ballet and music  lessons. She is  learning to  play  the keyboard and violin.”

Mrs Murphy has not had  too much trouble adapting  to Lucy’s new diet and she  has lost a stone in weight  herself.

“You can be creative with  the diet it is not a huge  problem,” she said.

Her ketogenic diet is a  high-fat, low-carbohydrate,  low-protein diet. Lucy, who  has a healthy body mass  index, now eats a diet that is  a whopping 80 per cent fat,  which she gets from butter,  cream, oils and other naturally fatty foods.

A typical breakfast for  Lucy would be pancakes,  made with a prescribed supplement called Ketocal, and  smothered in butter and  lemon juice.

“She has cream with everything,” said Mrs Murphy. “One of her favourite  desserts is rhubarb crumble  with lashings of double  cream — she gets through  100ml of cream a day. When  she has a cup of tea she has  cream instead of milk.”

“Her staple food is  aubergines because when  you cook with them they  soak up every bit of fat.”

Lucy is limited to 20g of  carbohydrates a day, which  is the same as just one slice  of brown bread.

“She has never been a  chip eater or carbohydrate  eater,” said Mrs Murphy.

Lucy is still on special  medication for her epilepsy,  but with her new fat-rich  diet the next step is to slowly  wean her off them.

Charity-funded dietician  Alison Hill, who is based at    Derriford Hospital in Plymouth, said the diet  did  more than help control  seizures.

 She said: “Children are  remembering things that  they couldn’t before and   saying words that they  haven’t said before.

“Lucy has taken to the  diet well — she was naturally eating a high-fat,   low-carbohydrate diet anyway.

It is hoped that the dietician will be funded by the  NHS in the future.