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14 Year Old Daughter with 1 grand mal and lots of little seizures
Tue, 11/21/2006 - 01:35Topic: New to Epilepsy.com
My 14 year old daughter had a grand mal seizure out of the blue about a year ago. She recovered completely (we thought), but (without telling anyone) continued to have almost daily auras and an occasional 10-20 second "absence" seizure. She then had one 30 minute absence seizure that sent us to a neurologist, where MRI and EEG revealed seizure activity associated with the hippocampus area of her brain. The neurologist prescribed Trileptal, starting with 150mg twice a day, and escalating to 450mg twice a day. She was fine for several weeks (other than an occasional aura) but recently experienced another "medium-sized" absence seizure while on the medication....a big disappointment. We are headed back to the neurologist...any similar stories out there, ideally with happy endings?
Comments
Re: 14 Year Old Daughter with 1 grand mal and lots of little sei
Submitted by tsmum on Mon, 2006-11-27 - 12:50
Hi
I have a similar situation, my daughter is 15, she started out having absence seizures when she was 7 and then in April of this year had her first grand mal and then again today. She takes lamictal which worked great until today and we are increasing it. On the lighter side of things she leads a full life she played on the jv football team, is in the band does debate and rolls with life as an epileptic. There are no clear answers as each person is different and doctors certainly do not have all the answers. Do research, question everything, we tried many drugs until lamictal and most of them affected her moods. As with all teens control is an issue and often not taking meds is a way to exert that control. I also have seizures and when T had her first one I called my mom to apologise for being so difficult about taking meds.I have tried to help her realise she is not just an epileptic epilepsy is just a part of who she is, over time she has embraced that as part of her being she is open with friends etc.
Re: Hi & welcome, I don't like
Submitted by SurfDaddySF on Sun, 2006-11-26 - 17:41
SOL -- Thanks for your comment....In discussing her symptoms, my daughter uses "aura" as a word for just strange feelings that she gets, without any other symptoms (either during the aura or after)....She uses the term "seizure" for times when she is suddenly absent, AND when she cannot remember the preceding time period, and has post-ictal symptoms (for example, she needs to take a nap)...Our neurologist (who specializes in epilepsy) seems to feel that the auras will not likely be controlled with medication, and are neither here nor there in terms of assessing her condition...Is your experience different, eg, your doctor feels that these kinds of "auras" can and should be controlled? SurfDaddySF