Absence Seizures at 17 months?

kekath, In my opinion, anything is possible is possible when it comes to epilepsy or seizures. What I've read says much the same as you...ages 4 or 5. Bit I did find a link that might give you some additional info. http://www.schneiderchildrenshospital.org/peds_html_fixed/peds/neuro/seizep.htm I'll keep looking and see if I can come up with something that may help you. Good luck and best wishes! -Spiz

Absence seizures are harder to detect in young children. Obvioulsy the grand-mal are quite obvious. But it is not unusual to have them at 17 months. My daughter Melody had her first seizure at the age of 2 months. I caught alot of the absent ones on video tape not realizeing it till I looked at the tape. She had mostly grand-mal or some people call them tonic clonic seizures. My daughter is 14 know. I've been dealing with seizures for years.

My son is now 14 months old and experienced a grand mal seizure in December at 11 months. Upon follow up in a pediatric seizure clinic, I realized that he had been having absence seizures since he was 5 months old. I didn't know what I was seeing at the time, but once I gave the history and talked with the docs (as well as his daycare center) we were able to deduce that they were absence seizures. His first EEG was abnormal. Although subsequent testing has been normal, the episodes continue (had 2 today witnessed by a friend who is an MD) and the docs have ordered a 4-day EEG. Based on the research I've done, I think people rarely know what they're seeing in kids under 4 so it probably goes undetected or undiagnosed. The doc has tentatively diagnosed my son as having simple partial seizures, despite his age. Karin