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forceful blinking-possible seizure activity?

Wed, 07/29/2009 - 21:09

Hi everyone,

I have 8 year old twins that both have epilepsy.  They both have had seizures since they were 10 months old. They are both on lamictal. Last week, one of them started blinking his eyes excessively. I was concerned because it was similar to what he did about 2.5 years ago, but back then, he also had some involuntary twitching of his arms. We increased his medication and his symptoms seemed to disapperar.

 I contacted the neurologist and they recommended a vision test. I was livid because I know this had nothing to do with his vision. About a week before, he had a grand mal that caused him to hit his head while we were out bowling with his friends. I was afraid maybe this had something to do with it.

 I really pushed the issue about coming in to see the dr but they dismissed it, which has me seriously thinking about seeing a different dr. I finally got them to do an EEG. It was actually a video EEG and I haven't heard anything back on that.

My concern is that it seems the seizures are becoming much more forceful, almost as if he's wincing in pain. He says it doesn't hurt and he can't help it. I have been having trouble in finding any information.

 What do you guys think? Does anyone have any experience with this?

 

 

Comments

Re: forceful blinking-possible seizure activity?

Submitted by kimberly1975 on Fri, 2009-07-31 - 04:56

Somedays I blink alot. Can't help it no matter how hard I try. When I start to blink sometimes my mouth tends to move back and fourth also. Then I get really tired and have to sleep. My Dr. calls them mini seizures. I'm new to this within the last 5 or 6 months I was having full blown seizures. Now with all the med changes I keep getting the blinking and moving with my mouth. I don't know if they really are mini seizures. I only go by what the Dr. is saying.

Somedays I blink alot. Can't help it no matter how hard I try. When I start to blink sometimes my mouth tends to move back and fourth also. Then I get really tired and have to sleep. My Dr. calls them mini seizures. I'm new to this within the last 5 or 6 months I was having full blown seizures. Now with all the med changes I keep getting the blinking and moving with my mouth. I don't know if they really are mini seizures. I only go by what the Dr. is saying.

Re: forceful blinking-possible seizure activity?

Submitted by wyboemail on Fri, 2009-07-31 - 10:17

Hi, my son had benign rolandic epilepsy. Prior to him ever having a seizure he started have what we thought were little muscle spasms in his shoulder. We thought maybe he was doing it on purpose. We ignored it but then it gradually became shruggs of the shouldeer and arms movements. He was 6 years old when this was going on. We took him to walk in care and they did some blood test and said we should make an appointment with a peds nuero. Our pediatrician had us go to UW Madison Children's Hospital and they did an eeg that came back normal and he was dx with Benign Tic Disorder. Basically in a nutshell it is a non-vocalized taurettes. Said no need to do anything unless movements become troublesome or he starts to cause himself pain from it. He would have these tics off and on for the next year. In March of 2007 he had his first seizure while sleeping. MRI, CT Scan, EEG and we find out he has benign rolandic epilepsy. He also has Arnold Chiari Malformation but he is symptom free of that to this point. A lot of people have ACM but never know it unless they have an MRI of the brain stem area. All the doctors we have seen say there is no connection between the Tics and E. I wonder sometimes. Ethan's has progressed to be more vocal like sniffing, exhaling. It kind of runs it course through different areas of his body. We did notice that artificial colors makes them worse so we try to avoid Red dye 40 and all colors if possible by having him eat organic fruit snacks and juice to avoid the colors. We have also cut out all things containg aspartame and MSG. High fructose corn syrup as well but that is hard since soooo many things have that in it. Ethan just had a sleep deprived EEG two weeks ago and it came back normal so maybe he has outgrown it. The doctor may try a weaning from the keppra. He has had 12 TC seizures since March of 2007 with his last being January 16th of this year. He only has them during sleep. Please email me so we can compare more of our stories.

curtis.wybourn@us.qbe.com

Curt

Hi, my son had benign rolandic epilepsy. Prior to him ever having a seizure he started have what we thought were little muscle spasms in his shoulder. We thought maybe he was doing it on purpose. We ignored it but then it gradually became shruggs of the shouldeer and arms movements. He was 6 years old when this was going on. We took him to walk in care and they did some blood test and said we should make an appointment with a peds nuero. Our pediatrician had us go to UW Madison Children's Hospital and they did an eeg that came back normal and he was dx with Benign Tic Disorder. Basically in a nutshell it is a non-vocalized taurettes. Said no need to do anything unless movements become troublesome or he starts to cause himself pain from it. He would have these tics off and on for the next year. In March of 2007 he had his first seizure while sleeping. MRI, CT Scan, EEG and we find out he has benign rolandic epilepsy. He also has Arnold Chiari Malformation but he is symptom free of that to this point. A lot of people have ACM but never know it unless they have an MRI of the brain stem area. All the doctors we have seen say there is no connection between the Tics and E. I wonder sometimes. Ethan's has progressed to be more vocal like sniffing, exhaling. It kind of runs it course through different areas of his body. We did notice that artificial colors makes them worse so we try to avoid Red dye 40 and all colors if possible by having him eat organic fruit snacks and juice to avoid the colors. We have also cut out all things containg aspartame and MSG. High fructose corn syrup as well but that is hard since soooo many things have that in it. Ethan just had a sleep deprived EEG two weeks ago and it came back normal so maybe he has outgrown it. The doctor may try a weaning from the keppra. He has had 12 TC seizures since March of 2007 with his last being January 16th of this year. He only has them during sleep. Please email me so we can compare more of our stories.

curtis.wybourn@us.qbe.com

Curt

Re: forceful blinking-possible seizure activity?

Submitted by kenausril on Tue, 2009-08-25 - 14:15
My son ( 14) has complex partial seizures when he has a seizure he will turn to the right and he will have extreme rapid eye movement, he will try and stop it with his hands while he is at the end of the seizure.  Also when my son was on Zonegran he would have horrible tic as my Neuro called them he would blink his eys all the time twitch his mouth we soon switched him to depakote and the disappeared almost immediatly...talk to you doctor and if you still feel you arent being heard maybeits time to find a new doc :)

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