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absance seizures and emotional changes in 6 year old

Tue, 07/03/2007 - 22:40
Hello, I didn't see another thread similar to this one, so here goes: My 6 year old son was diagnosed with absance seizures in January (we had noticed eye rolling that seemed to get "stuck" and asked the doctor at his 6 yr appt. and they sent him to get an EEG, now he sees a pediatric neurologist). There were several tiers of meds that he could go through..the first (sorry! I can't remember the name!) was supposed to prevent absance but not grand mal and of course, what did he have 2 of at school? So, now he's on Valproic Acid (I know that's the generic name, not sure what the brand name is!) and we haven't noticed any seizures at all. At first, we had grandparents and such telling us that they noticed he focused better on them when they were speaking to him (there was some concern about ADHD, but I didn't pursue it, wondering if it was just a young child's attention span!). He did not have any trouble in Kindergarten this year, and "graduated" on grade level for first grade. This summer, though, I've noticed a change in him. We had been trying to get him to stop sucking his thumb and he picked his "prizes" for going so many days without sucking his thumb, really into the whole program. Well, I've noticed in the past couple weeks, the focus is off, he's become more argumentative about things (although he is a sweet child and will apologize to me several hours later, we are pretty close!), and he's consistently sucking his thumb, not just when he's tired, which is when he would normally do it. I can't say that he's turned into a behavior problem or anything, just that he's not "right" and I think he feels it, too, when he apologizes to me of his own free will. No matter how much sleep he gets, he still tends to be whiny and very emotional. We had ended Kindergarten with him expressing his frustration better (asking for help, rather than crying about it), but now we're back to square one. There are times when this normally extroverted child seems very introverted and chooses to play alone, rather than be with friends. I've been over this with my husband and friends . . . is it because he's six or can it be something with his epilepsy or medication? Or just summer vacation? (I teach at the school he goes to, so while I don't normally see him during the day, he comes to me after school every day. Now that we're off for the summer, we're both home all the time). Is anyone else experiencing something similar? As a P.S., I did pursue getting him into "child study" so that his teachers will understand the need for repeated directions, etc. that may affect his learning. It's not exactly a 504 plan, but a "continued child study" where we meet if necessary.

Comments

Re: Re: Re: absance seizures and emotional changes in 6 year old

Submitted by mlecare on Sat, 2007-10-27 - 00:03
Are you sure that when he's acting out he's not in the midst of having a seizure? My son is now 6 but he's had seizures since he was 3. His seizures have changed twice since they started. The doctors diagnosed him with Complex partials, but they looked more like a less severe version of grand mals to me. After playing around with the medications, he stopped falling down and being unconsciousness for 10-15 minutes, but then he started having short drop seizures where he would only lose consciousness for a second. If he was holding something it would fall to the ground and he would often trip or lose his balance and fall. Tranxene finally stopped those, but then he started having two different kinds this last summer. He started having absence seizures occasionally but he also started having very weird behavior problems at preschool. It would only happen in the afternoon between naptime and pick up time. He would all of a sudden hit someone who was next to him or run around the rooming throwing things on the floor for no reason at all. The episodes started out only happening at preschool and church but over a period of several months they began to happen at home as well. I did a lot of research on it and finally found that with complex partial seizures you can appear to be functioning normally when you're actually having a seizure. Even though you APPEAR to be conscious and fully aware of what you are doing, you actually have no control over your actions. I've noticed that right before my son starts to have one of these violent seizures as we refer to them, he starts acting mad about everything. If someone is in close proximity to him, he'll push them away, hit or scratch at them. Then he'll get totally uncontrollable if you touch him at all. If you let him walk around by himself, he'll run around and knock things down or hide under something. From what I've read, hallucinations can occur during the seizure and that is why they act odd and get violent. Since my son's started having these seizures, we've noticed that sometimes he will not respond to you at all during the episode and other times we can say "I have a surprise for you" and he'll stop what he's doing and start acting normal again. Its very weird and we haven't figured out if all the episodes are seizures or if the ones where he responds are due to the combination of the medication and him being in a bad mood. My feeling is that the violent episodes must take place when the seizure is occuring in the part of the brain that controls your emotions and self control, but since I'm a doctor I don't know that for sure. The one thing I do know is that his mood and memory are definitely effected by the medications he's on. We've been trying all kinds of things lately to get him seizure free and every little change in medication has made a noticable difference in memory, mood and balance. He used to only take Valproic Acid and when he first started on Lamictal he became very chatty but he also started getting more shakey and forgetful. Then they wanted us to increase his Lamictal and lower his Valproic Acid. Within hours of the change he started having the violent seizures again and became an emotional basket case. He wouldn't just get upset, he would SOB until he was so tired he'd fall asleep. The doctor told us to put him back on the old dose and added Tranxene to the mix. That decreased the amount of time each violent seizure was occuring, but he was still having them. Last night we tried increasing the Lamicatil and decreasing the Valproic Acid aagain and today he hasn't had any seizures that we know of. Hopefully this seizure free thing is going to last, but who knows. The doctor only wants to keep him on Tranxene for 10 days until his dosage on the other stabilizes. I'm to the point that I cringe every time they want to change his dosage because some things seem to get better and then new things get worse. Emily C

worriedmom2 I have an 11yr.

Submitted by worriedmom2 on Mon, 2007-08-20 - 14:22
worriedmom2 I have an 11yr. old with Absence Seizures. He's had them since he was 8 yrs old. After being on a rollercoaster of different meds (zarontin, lamictal, zonegran) we finally tried Depakote which, to my knowledge, has stopped them. We haven't seen any in about 9 mos. Unfortunately, he is extremely tired and lethargic at school and sleeps in class all the time. His dose is now 500mg at night with a 10 mg lexapro (given for moodiness), he sleeps approx. 9 hours every night and now they have suggested an ADHD med to helphim focus during the day. I'm sure he does need something to help him focus because he forgets his HW, tests, etc. but I'm not sure what it needs to be. I don't want it to be another drug. I feel like we are between a rock and a hard place. Being tired can cause a seizure and stimulants can cause seizures. Any ideas? This is really frustrating to us. Also, when he gets frustrated, he can really fly off the handle too. The brain is a complicated animal. It seems that everything is associated to seizures.

Re: worriedmom2 I have an 11yr.

Submitted by Rainmanmama on Mon, 2007-08-20 - 22:58
Can I qoute you on that? That is said so perfectly and clearly about what it is like to deal with this day in and day out. Email me if it's okay. Sally

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