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Staring Spells
Tue, 06/07/2016 - 13:55I am new to this board. My daughter, not yet 2 years old, was diagnosed with staring spells. She will just start staring off with a vacant expression and we cannot get her attention by name calling, touching, waving hand in front of face, etc. She will just snap out of it afterward like nothing ever happened. We did an hour long EEG (which came back normal), so the doctor does not want to diagnose her with absence seizures, but said what she was having is still seizures. We were able to get catch her staring spell on camera and the doctor determined from that video she was having a seizure. I am just trying to make sense of all of this. We will be going for an MRI once getting approved through insurance.
If I google anything about staring spells, the only information I come up with is absence seizures. Has anyone else gotten a diagnoses of staring spells and not absence seizures? Did your doctor want to put you on seizure medication? Our doctor feels that we should put her on Keppra if she keeps having these spells. I guess I should mention we do not see these spells that often (even though they are hard to miss because they only last 5-10 seconds). Only about 5 times a week.
Welcome newbeestaring spells
Submitted by just_joe on Thu, 2016-06-09 - 22:13
Welcome newbeestaring spells (absence seizures). They can last seconds but in some cases minutes. While in one the person is basically unconsious. Won;t remember anything during that period of time. They will pick up right where they left off with little delay. Another seizure that will look like that is a focal seizure. Focal seizuresare different since they can be listed in several sections of types of seizures Most of my seizures have been focal seizures. In school I was gettint written up for day dreaming in class. The teachers wouls ask questions while I was in a focal seizure. My answer didn;t come out until the seizure was over. Hey they had gone to the next student. Those day dreams were seizures. They started in my right hand feeling weird. Si yes there are many different types of seizures and I did read your response to Amy Jo. If your daughter has had more then 2 of the staring spells then the neurologist can diagnose epilepsy. The type is what they can't tell that much about. Those petite mal (staring spells AKA absence seizures) got more frequent the focal seizures did the same. But they were over looked hey you don't mess around with a teen that digs th garden and has his paper route and loves running around and climbing th mountain. A few months later is when I had my first grand mal seizure (tonic-clonic), Doc Ben put me on medications starting the next morning and I saw him bi monthly after the first 6 weeks. After being put on meds the seizures slowed down and the intensity was reduced,From my point of view the soomer meds are started the better because it takes time to get the right medication and dosage set up for the patient. AS for not seeing th espells the only person that saw mine was my older brother but that too was rarely. As for diagnoses of staring spells and not absence seizures. My neurologist doesn't asy which type of seizure I have when I told him what happened during them. In my files they have gambut petite mal grand mal simple partial partial complex partial focal. generalized and others.The oloder names were Grand Mal and Petite Mal which means Big Fit and Little Fit Staring spells would land in petite mal and absence land there tooI hope this helps and in order to get her the best results and control always ask th neurologists questions.Joe