I had a son who suffered from childhood epilepsy. He was tried on multiple combinations of drugs for about 4 years from sodium valporate, tegratol, lamictal, and tamoxifen. We lived in Australia the UK and then America during this process of trying to get him seizure free. We found a neurologist in the US who by using sodium valporate at higher doses and then tapering down managed to get him seizure free. Before this he had been labeled in the UK as having untreatable seizures. No they just did not have the skills to treat him. I did during this process consider putting him on a ketogenic diet but obviously this was not neccessary.
Epilepsy is actually poorly treated and people need to be aware of this and find a decent neurologist who has the skills to help them.