Sleepwalking connected to Seizures??

RE: Sleepwalking connected to Seizures??

Submitted by kodankk on Mon, 2005-03-28 - 01:30

I can't connect the dots for you by drawing a conclusion although our situations are similar.As a preface, I am told by doctors there is no connection between night terrors and epilepsy. That neing said, I am not convinced.My son suffered from night terrors that, on occasion, included sleep walking. These incidents occurred roughly between ages 3 and 6. They came in clusters but stopped for good in November of 2003 (a few months before he turned 7). In July of 2004 he had a grand mal seizure (his only one of this type) and in October, after a cluster of simple partial seizures, we made the decision to medicate. Since then, there have been no seizures.Do night terrors and sleep walking automatically lead to seizures? No. Can they? Medical opinion says they are not related but as I said above, I am not convinced.Trust your instinct and at least have it checked out.-- kodankk

RE: Sleepwalking connected to Seizures??

Submitted by benosmom on Mon, 2005-03-28 - 07:53

Yes, I understand this. Several days before my son had his first tonic clonic seizure that we know of (son is 8 and it happened this past January) he had a weird sleep walking episode that I caught. I heard a noise and assumed he was either going to the bathroom or coming in to cuddle with me during the night. Well, when I heard no toilet flush nor him coming in---I was alarmed...especially as his bedroom door is by a flight of stairs. Well, I found him down the stairs looking up at me blankly. He walked upstairs and jumped in my arms crying like crazy. I brought him into my bed where he immediately fell asleep and didn't remember a thing. I let go of this weird situation until the big seizure came. Then upon pulling together weird situations like this one for the emergency room doctors then his soon hired pediatric neurologist, we saw that in all likelihood he had a seizure during this time. I guess you must suspect seizure or you wouldn't be on this website. Have him get an EEG. It sounds like you may be on to something. Just to let you you know---my son is fine now. He is taking medicine 2x a day but appears to be under 100% control. I am glad we caught the seizures (which are primarily associated with sleep) before something awful could happen such as having on the monkey bars at school.Email me if you want. I'll talk. I remember.Dianedlechter@comcast.net

RE: Sleepwalking connected to Seizures??

Submitted by batman on Mon, 2005-03-28 - 13:43

For every one of you who have posted and replied, what you're describing and the matching signs of complex partial seizures. Unable to be woken up, or appear conscious, and yes, loosing control of his bodily functions (bowel/urine) is possible. And doing other things, which look like theyÂ’re fully awake. Wandering around, jumping around like crazy, moving their mouth like chewing gum, picking at their clothes and maybe taking them off.

Grand mal seizures, which are medically labeled as generalized tonic clonic seizures, are the most popular seizure, but these are NOT the only type of seizure. Also, the grand mal seizures are NOT the number one mostly happening. The complex partial seizures are #1 on the list.

Mine are under complete control because of the antiepilepsy medications I take [Lamictal & Keppra], but I have had over 200 hundred of them. Please take a glance at the details about complex partial seizures on this website www.epilepsy.com/epilepsy/seizure_complexpartial.html

For first aid & safety reasons, hereÂ’s a weblink about what to do when a complex partial seizure takes place. www.epilepsyfoundation.org/answerplace/Medical/firstaid/firstaidother.cfm

For more information about epilepsy, take a trip to the home page [epilepsy.com] and spend a good amount of time going through the menu listing along the left side of the screen. Each one will advance to other sub-menus and possible related articles.

Bruce J