Epilepsy and Tics

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My nephew is around 4years old. 3/4 months ago he had started a weird movement by jerking his head and granting (something like tics). We thought it was a bad habit. He used to do it may be around 10 times a day. 3 weeks back he had a seizure(GTCS). And then after 7days he had another one. EEG was normal. Doctor stared medication for epilepsy with Trileptal 3ml per day. He is taking medicine for around 18 days. We almost forgot about his head drop movement, because he stopped doing that around 2 month ago. Now that came back again. He is doing it around 15 times a day. All other activities are almost normal, a bit hyperactive. We have taken appointment of doctor end of the week. If anyone has any experience with tics(maybe, i'm not sure) with epilepsy, please share.

Comments

WelcomeOk so he has had 2

Submitted by just_joe on Sun, 2016-11-06 - 17:44

WelcomeOk so he has had 2 tonic-clonic seizures. Those things you are calling tics are seizures. Yes there are other types of seizures that those tics can fall into. Now his EEG came back normal. Many peoples short EEG's do/ Personally I had 20-25 different EEG's that came back normal. It was one that was longer and I fell asleep in that came back with abnormalities. You said a doctor started him on a medication. Was the doctor a regular doctor or a neurologist that specializes in epilepsy? Did you tell the doctor about the head dropping or had you forgotten about them because those could help the doctor with the diagnosis or let them know the other types of seizures he can have? Is the medication given to him once a day or twice a day and are those times the same time each day? That is important since seizure medications are not like aspirin where once taken it is gone after a certain period of time. The dosage given will start working but it takes 2-4 weeks for it to build up to the therapeutic levels the doctor wants. So since he has been taking it for 18 days the therapeutic levels aren't reached yet. Keep track of those tics and keep a count on them daily. give that information to the doctor which will help them determine the increase in the dosage increase needs to be. Write down anything different that happened those days. His mood and any sickness he had that is known. His hyperactive needs to be noted since that could be a side effect to the medication. Anything that is different needs to be noted because they could be associated to side effects. Once his body gets used to the medication they should be gone which could be 4 weeks from the start of taking it.You might want to look at the EF My Epilepsy Diary which can be found on the get help section. The diary has a not pad and everything that you will be having to keep track of. Just bring it up and read. I think it still has a video which tells you all about it. You can give the doctor permission to bring it up so he can see all the information. He can also look at the graphs that are in it for their use.I hope this helps and he gets seizure freeJoe

WelcomeOk so he has had 2 tonic-clonic seizures. Those things you are calling tics are seizures. Yes there are other types of seizures that those tics can fall into.  Now his EEG came back normal. Many peoples short EEG's do/ Personally I had 20-25 different EEG's that came back normal. It was one that was longer and I fell asleep in that came back with abnormalities. You said a doctor started him on a medication. Was the doctor a regular doctor or a neurologist that specializes in epilepsy?  Did you tell the doctor about the head dropping or had you forgotten about them because those could help the doctor with the diagnosis or let them know the other types of seizures he can have? Is the medication given to him once a day or twice a day and are those times the same time each day? That is important since seizure medications are not like aspirin where once taken it is gone after a certain period of time. The dosage given will start working but it takes 2-4 weeks for it to build up to the therapeutic levels the doctor wants. So since he has been taking it for 18 days the therapeutic levels aren't reached yet. Keep track of those tics and keep a count on them daily. give that information to the doctor which will help them determine the increase in the dosage increase needs to be. Write down anything different that happened those days. His mood  and any sickness he had that is known.  His hyperactive needs to be noted since that could be a side effect to the medication. Anything that is different needs to be noted because they could be associated to side effects. Once his body gets used to the medication they should be gone which could be 4 weeks from the start of taking it.You might want to look at the EF My Epilepsy Diary which can be found on the get help section. The diary has a not pad and everything that you will be having to keep track of. Just bring it up and read. I think it still has a video which tells you all about it. You can give the doctor permission to bring it up so he can see all the information. He can also look at the graphs that are in it for their use.I hope this helps and he gets seizure freeJoe

WelcomeOk so he has had 2 tonic-clonic seizures. Those things you are calling tics are seizures. Yes there are other types of seizures that those tics can fall into. Now his EEG came back normal. Many peoples short EEG's do/ Personally I had 20-25 different EEG's that came back normal. It was one that was longer and I fell asleep in that came back with abnormalities. You said a doctor started him on a medication. Was the doctor a regular doctor or a neurologist that specializes in epilepsy? Did you tell the doctor about the head dropping or had you forgotten about them because those could help the doctor with the diagnosis or let them know the other types of seizures he can have? Is the medication given to him once a day or twice a day and are those times the same time each day? That is important since seizure medications are not like aspirin where once taken it is gone after a certain period of time. The dosage given will start working but it takes 2-4 weeks for it to build up to the therapeutic levels the doctor wants. So since he has been taking it for 18 days the therapeutic levels aren't reached yet. Keep track of those tics and keep a count on them daily. give that information to the doctor which will help them determine the increase in the dosage increase needs to be. Write down anything different that happened those days. His mood and any sickness he had that is known. His hyperactive needs to be noted since that could be a side effect to the medication. Anything that is different needs to be noted because they could be associated to side effects. Once his body gets used to the medication they should be gone which could be 4 weeks from the start of taking it.You might want to look at the EF My Epilepsy Diary which can be found on the get help section. The diary has a not pad and everything that you will be having to keep track of. Just bring it up and read. I think it still has a video which tells you all about it. You can give the doctor permission to bring it up so he can see all the information. He can also look at the graphs that are in it for their use.I hope this helps and he gets seizure freeJoe

The motion of the head in a

Submitted by ffetherbay3345 on Tue, 2016-11-08 - 09:42

The motion of the head in a consistent manner, up to 15 times a day......sounds like a partial or complex partial seizures. These are very commonly onset within the first 8 years of childhood and are hard to detect on an eeg unless they are having seizure like electrical activity in the brain at the time of he eeg. I would keep requesting eegs be done, especially when he seems to be having more frequent episodes. I suffer from temporal lobe epilepsy, with complex partial seizures up to 20 times a day, so his sounds very familiar of me.