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Please help me understand
Mon, 05/01/2006 - 13:12Topic: Living With Epilepsy - Youth
I am really confused and please help me understand ...appericate any help/advise/comments/sharing experiences...I am reading lot of articles on this but can't figure it out if it is Febrile seziures or Epilepsy. My daughter had her first seziure when she was 8 months old. She was perfectly fine, very palyful until she had the seziure which is completely a first time experience for me and felt I amost died watch my daughter not knowning what is happeneing to her when she rolled her eyeballs back and her body got stiff and arms and legs movements with a jerk which lasted may be few mintues less than 5 and called 911 and took her to the hospital and the nurse told that she is have fever more than 102 degrees. The doctor came in and check her and told she is have ear infection. He also told that since my husband had couple of seziures under 3 this could be a family history and very common for children under 3 to 5 year of age. She got her second and third seziure when she was 10 months old and was living with her grandparents in India on the same day with few hours in between each seziure. They did eeg and ct scan which turned out to be normal and assured that these are simple febrile seziures. Then the fourth one was when she was 14 months old. Everytime with a fever and ear infection after the seziure attack not before. Neurologist in India put her on a medication twice a day since Feb 2006(sodium valprote 200mg) and bought her back to me. Now she is 20 months old and had her 5th seizure in last week of Apr 2006 this time her arms and legs did not have any jerky movements as I have seen with the first seizure but her body, arms, legs were stiff. I have seen her regular doctor who refered me to see a neurologist . The neurologist asked me few questions to figure what is happening and said this is febrile seizures and not suprised since it's in family( her dad had them under 3yrs)but my concern is 5 times in like 10 months period? the Doctor changed her medicine to Topamax. I really don't understand why she needs to be on medcine everyday is this is common? Is this really a simple febrile seizure?if not what is this and what type does this fall into? where and How can I start to helping her in getting well and see if she can be a seizure free?
Please excuse any spellings or grammatical language errors.
With regards,
Ms. Rao
Comments
Re: Please help me understand
Submitted by angel_lts on Sun, 2006-05-14 - 19:45
Yes usually you take medication for epilepsy. But some grow out of epilepsy too.
But you can try other things to help with the seizures too.
Make sure the magnesium, calcium, b complex, are not low. And to make sure that the blood sugar, and sodium level is not low. But I am sure that was all checked out already.
Here is a web site that maybe of interest to you.
http://www.merck.com/mmhe/sec06/ch085/ch085a.html
Lisa
http://health.groups.yahoo.com/group/epilepsyapproach/
Re: Please help me understand
Submitted by Susantpy on Sun, 2007-05-27 - 05:49
Hi,
My daughter who is now 16mths is diagnosed as having epilepsy. I have done some research and read a lot abt epilepsy.
My daughter often gets her attach b4 she falls sick ( on the onset of illness) . In fact i was looking at her diary earlier and confirmed that 90% of her seizure attact happened when she was either sick or soon b4 she fell sick. Most of the times was flue.
She just had one episode couple of days ago. She was perfectly fine before the seizure, I did not expect one coming. At first i tot she was too exhausted and blamed my hubby for taking her out but i realized the next day after her seizure, when she started having running nose and shown all the symtoms of flue that it was due to flu again.
I too questioned whether what my daughter has is febrile seizure or epilepy. I was hoping that what she has is febrile seizure since i have read somewhere that febrile seizure is not a form of epilepsy, its benign in nature and most likely children will outgrow it.
However, my doc doesnt think that it is febrile because unlike ur kid , my daughter's temperature was low or sometimes no temperature at all when she has seizure.
Having said that however, I have read somewhere that it is not how high the temperature is when febrile convulsion happens, it is how fast the temperature spikes. I kind of suspect..perhaps my daughter's temperature spikes very fast or perhaps she has very low treshold to temperature change.
My doc told me that more often than not seizure happens in otherwise a well controlled epileptic patient is due to viral infection.
Hm...in my humble opinion, i think it is very likely that your baby has febrile seizure since the temp was always high when she has one.
Let us hope it is febrile and not epilepsy...
Keep me posted...
Re: Please help me understand
Submitted by Missyat on Mon, 2006-05-01 - 18:18
Hi, I am not a doctor nor do I play one on TV (wink wink). If the eeg came out normal, then that could mean a seizure just did not happen during it, or was too deep. IF in fact they are just febrile (Just??) then the threshold for seizures are lowered when your child is not feeling well. To boost the threshold UP dr.s gave you the meds. IMHO (In My Humble Opinion) I would ask for a stateside (United States) EEG, with a trusted neuro. And then go from there. Missy