Community Forum Archive

The Epilepsy Community Forums are closed, and the information is archived. The content in this section may not be current or apply to all situations. In addition, forum questions and responses include information and content that has been generated by epilepsy community members. This content is not moderated. The information on these pages should not be substituted for medical advice from a healthcare provider. Experiences with epilepsy can vary greatly on an individual basis. Please contact your doctor or medical team if you have any questions about your situation. For more information, learn about epilepsy or visit our resources section.

3-year old girl epilepsy

Fri, 08/04/2017 - 05:09
Dear All, My 3-year old daughter is bright, intelligent, full of energy, always want to have her companionship to concentrate on her, but also has quite abrupt temper changes from being happy and jolly to nervous, stubborn and angry (I believe it is common among girls/women). Something like half a year ago, we have noticed that during having fun on the trampoline, she abruptly stopped jumping and needed to have a sit for 3-5 seconds with her face muscles stretched. From that day, we see that she is experiencing that more/less on the daily basis, having 3 to 10 of such episodes. It lasts up to 10 seconds, it seems that she is fully conscious during that episode, because she is answering the questions while being asked at that moment (but she is not doing it with dexterity and quickness as usual). It seems that she is also having feelings that the episode is coming because she is leaving her activity and having a sit before that. She has developed her own description for that phase saying “I need to think for a while”, but as indicated by her she is not experiencing any pain during that moment. What is quite often, it happens that she pees/has problems with keeping her pee during that moment. As said, she is 3 years old and still wears diaper during the night and sometimes during the day (sometimes she indicates that the wants to pee/sometimes she forgets). We have diagnosed her in our hospital. Magnetic resonance and CAT scan were ok, EEG was bad showing the discharges. She started to take Depakene (valproic acid) with minimal dose at the beginning of July and up-to-date we do not see any improvement in her well-being. Currently, the doctors want to increase the dose, but we have second thought and would like to better understand what we are fighting with and that we are not hurting/intoxicating her without reason. I am writing to you to ask, if:there is anyone that happened to experience similar signs and how he is handling them. Any comment, would be highly appreciated. Thank you.

Comments

epilepsy meds are started low

Submitted by Amy Jo on Fri, 2017-08-04 - 10:25
epilepsy meds are started low and increased until seizures are controlled or side effects become unworkable or one exceeds the max recommended dose. usually the starting dose is no where near the actual dose the drug usually works at (the therapeutic dose). since the effective dose is different for each patient, they need a systematic approach. too much can be just as ineffective and starting with a high dose can cause other bad effects.

Seizure medications are

Submitted by just_joe on Sat, 2017-08-05 - 17:08
Seizure medications are started at a low dosage and gradually raised. It does that time but it is far better to start low and increase it. Seizure medications are not like aspirin where once taken it is out of your system in a few hours. Doctors was to get to the therapeutic levels for each dose and see if the number of seizures have been reduced. If seizures were reduced then they would determine how much to raise the dosage to. It takes 3-4 weeks to get to the therapeutic levels for those dosages. If they started the medications at the dosage they thought might stop her seizures that dosage might be higher then what she needs. Each persons medication and dosage is different. Besides too much medication is just as bad as too little. 

See if you can get her

Submitted by Epilepsy_Warrior on Sun, 2017-08-13 - 04:48
See if you can get her referred to an epileptologist, not a neurologist. God bless. 

Sign Up for Emails

Stay up to date with the latest epilepsy news, stories from the community, and more.