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Abnormal EEG - Absences and other stange symptoms in child
Thu, 07/30/2009 - 08:34Hi, new here, hope someone can shed some light on my 12 year old Son's symptoms.
He has always been considered as having some ADHD traits, not diagnosed though, and always high functioning. Has had a lot of strange symptoms that we had pinned down to psychological: seeing things ie. meteors, hearing things like name called, voice like sounds, (never bad though), de ja vue, feeling of electricity going through his body, numbness in lower teeth, occasional occurances of sudden strange vocalisation (but not like a tick) without knowing why, facial grimaces without knowing why, gets angry v easily - always had trouble with concentration, staying on task, remembering instructions or being in trouble for not listening at school. He is becoming more aware of missing important instructions, and even some time lapses in class, where he actually notices missing time. He can been seen staring for up to 30 secs, this is noticeable by his friends (who get bothered by it) and us.
Anyway, finally got an EEG done, results are "from the outset of recording, multifocal sharp waves seen in both frontal regions, and over the frontal poles irregular 3-4 and 4-6hz activity is seen. At times, sharp slow wave discharges spanning both cerebral hemispheres. Hyperventilation induces slowing to 3-4hz with increasing sharp wave activity seen in both the temporal and parietal regions, spreading in to the frontal poles with sharp slow wave dischares.
So -as we haven't been able to see the neurologist yet, we are wondering if this could be causing all the other symptoms as well as the Absences. Or are the visual and auditory disturbances something else? Does anyone have any ideas or comments. Our Son is otherwise a normal functioning able 12 year old who lives a very normal 12 year old life.
Thanks for your help
Michele
Re: Abnormal EEG - Absences and other stange symptoms in child
Submitted by rdnx2 on Sun, 2009-08-09 - 18:25
I'm no medical expert , but epilepsy runs in my family. Brother has it , I had it ,my daughter has it , my son has it . Please notice I said I "had" it. All seizures are a form of epilepsy and in my teens I had grand mal seizures with severe memory loss (longest was 38 hours). Every member of my family has weird and different symtoms with it. My daughter has memory loss of varying times , my son has grand mal and is fine within 30 minutes after or can't remember anything for a few hours (I question him afterwards to see if he's "there"). My brother had "staring spells" , grand mal - especially at night, was violent in personality and pretty much drove my poor mom crazy. I'm trying to teach my kids what I did to get rid of the affliction. I was put on phenobarbitol when I was about 17. And it did help. For a while.
When I had my first seizure while I was taking the meds - I did'nt understand why or how that could happen. I started thinking about my brother. Tried to remember what happened on those nights. Tried to remember how he acted the during the day. The more I thought about it -there were warning signs. His eyes would be kind of glassy:bloodshot - my son has the same thing ,so did I. My daughter can't keep her eyes open when hers are coming. The only difference between me and my kids is that I learned to understand signals. For myself -when one was coming on , I had a strange desire to run. And my eyes were the other signal. I had trouble keeping them open , like my daughter does. But I was on meds and damn it -why was I still having these things? I'm one of those people on a "need to know basis" !!!
So I started reading health books. I read medical books (this was all before internet existed -reading was a virtue). Then I started reading about vitamins ,minerals and nutrition. That's where I struck paydirt. I learned more about the human body and even how my own worked. I learned how certain things like B vitamins , C,D,K the ones your body does not make - played into overall health and how allergies to certain foods could really be devasting to the body. I became my own guinea pig. Changed my diet , certain eating habits (like food with additives). Believe me certain food additives wreak havoc on your brain and body. Not going to go into that unless someone really wants to know.
I sincerely believe that all disease is reversible. Epilepsy included. For now I'm just going to keep on my kids til they understand.
I'm no medical expert , but epilepsy runs in my family. Brother has it , I had it ,my daughter has it , my son has it . Please notice I said I "had" it. All seizures are a form of epilepsy and in my teens I had grand mal seizures with severe memory loss (longest was 38 hours). Every member of my family has weird and different symtoms with it. My daughter has memory loss of varying times , my son has grand mal and is fine within 30 minutes after or can't remember anything for a few hours (I question him afterwards to see if he's "there"). My brother had "staring spells" , grand mal - especially at night, was violent in personality and pretty much drove my poor mom crazy. I'm trying to teach my kids what I did to get rid of the affliction. I was put on phenobarbitol when I was about 17. And it did help. For a while.
When I had my first seizure while I was taking the meds - I did'nt understand why or how that could happen. I started thinking about my brother. Tried to remember what happened on those nights. Tried to remember how he acted the during the day. The more I thought about it -there were warning signs. His eyes would be kind of glassy:bloodshot - my son has the same thing ,so did I. My daughter can't keep her eyes open when hers are coming. The only difference between me and my kids is that I learned to understand signals. For myself -when one was coming on , I had a strange desire to run. And my eyes were the other signal. I had trouble keeping them open , like my daughter does. But I was on meds and damn it -why was I still having these things? I'm one of those people on a "need to know basis" !!!
So I started reading health books. I read medical books (this was all before internet existed -reading was a virtue). Then I started reading about vitamins ,minerals and nutrition. That's where I struck paydirt. I learned more about the human body and even how my own worked. I learned how certain things like B vitamins , C,D,K the ones your body does not make - played into overall health and how allergies to certain foods could really be devasting to the body. I became my own guinea pig. Changed my diet , certain eating habits (like food with additives). Believe me certain food additives wreak havoc on your brain and body. Not going to go into that unless someone really wants to know.
I sincerely believe that all disease is reversible. Epilepsy included. For now I'm just going to keep on my kids til they understand.