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arms raised in a T and stopped breathing - seizure?
Wed, 02/20/2008 - 05:07Hey
thanks for any help/opinions on this. Background: my son (9 months) has been sick with a respiratory-type cold/virus (lots of coughing, some wheezing). Earlier tonight, my wife gave him a sip of water from his cup. He quickly let out a loud cry (sounded like he was in pain), then raised his arms into a T shape (90 degrees), face went red, and after this he stopped breathing. After approx 5 seconds he started breathing again. He wasn't a little off (clingy, like he had just "gotten a boo boo") for about a minute but wasn't drowsy or "out of it"... after a minute it was like the episode never happened to him (of course we were in shock, but he looked fine). We called our doc and she said that cold water could have caused his throat to spasm and close briefly. However, this was not cold water (room temp), and she really didn't have an explanation for the arm posturing (or the scream, for that matter) which looked quite seizure-like to me. Definitely "atypical" for him - usually if he's in pain/distress he reaches for us, not straight out to the sides. Anyone else seen something like this? Our doc was fairly blase about the whole thing, so I'm guessing that she's not going to be too open to looking at this more unless I can make a good case for it... at the same time, I don't want to blow something out of proportion... any help/opinions would be appreciated!
Thanks