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5 yr old boy with rolandic seizures
Mon, 09/04/2006 - 23:32Topic: New to Epilepsy.com
Hi...I'm new here.(excuse my english... not from here) My son has been diagnosed with Rolandic Seizures. It was suddenly on Chiristmas night...he was unconcius, pupils dialated, trouble breathing..horrible. He is now on Trileptal twice a day and seems OK, no more seizures. But sometimes at night he would wake up and cry but would not speak to me, like if he cannot tell me what's going on. I think it might be some kind of seizure..I don't know. It has been very hard for us and sometimes I fell like sleeping in his bed all night just to be sure he is Ok. I would like to talk to someone who has a child with this diagnosis.
Comments
Re: 5 yr old boy with rolandic seizures
Submitted by ekoorb on Tue, 2006-09-05 - 18:18
Hi Gaby-
My five year old daughter was diagnosed with Benign Occipital Childhood Epilepsy. The doctor, when diagnosing her, was deciding between that and Benign Rolandic Childhood Epilepsy. They are simliar with some differences. The good news for both of them is they are expected to outgrow it within a few years. My daugther has had seizures similar to the one you described. She has had about 3 (possibly 4) total since last October and the main one I witnessed was very similar to what you described. My daughter sat up as if she would throw up and then just like you described could not speak and her eyes were off somewhere else. This lasted almost 7 minutes. It scared me beyond but I have learned that these nighttime seizures do not harm the brain. If your son is having them at night, which actually is more common with Rolandic (than during the day), be careful to keep a healthy sleep pattern. If my daughter's sleep pattern is off, it lowers her threshold for seizures during sleep. If you want to chat in the chat room, let me know. There are a lot of parents whose children have the Rolandic diagnosis. If you type in Rolandic in the grey search box to the left, you will pull up lots of threads on this topic. Take care and good luck with your son. By the way, your English looked good, where are you from?
Re: Re: 5 yr old boy with rolandic seizures
Submitted by Gaby on Wed, 2006-09-06 - 22:18
Hi.....thanks for answering me so fast!. It has been really hard to deal with it, and it is great to be able to talk about it with someone who REALLY understands how scaring this could be....Last Chirismas was his first seizure...imagine Christmas night 4 a.m. Thank's God my husband was next to him and heard a strange noise. He was not shaking or anything, just the eyes wide open looking to the left, dialeted pupils and not breathing. It lasted for a least 10 minutes (I think it was 2 seizures). My husband perfomed CPR and the ambulance came. Horrible expierence I don't even want to remember (but it comes to my mind every day, and night). He slept for 6 hours after that, and at that time, I wasn't sure if he was going to have any damage, it was the first time I didn't even know it was a seizure. When he finally woke up and smiled to me I was so relieved... Since that he's been on medication and he hasn't had any more like that. Just the ones I've described as waking up unable to talk. But now that you mention that they might be seizures I am going to keep a log of it, write down everything and I'll let the dr. know, and see what happens. He said he'll outgrow them by adolecence...it seems like a lifetime to me...
He goes to bed at 8:30 every night and I am really strict with that (even weekends), and he knows it is for his own good, so that is covered, but thank you anyway for mentioning it. I don't know yet how to chat here, I would like to though, I think it's better so I don't post all the details, you know?. We'll keep in touch! Take care and thank's again. Gaby.
Re: 5 yr old boy with rolandic seizures
Submitted by Essie on Tue, 2006-09-05 - 05:42
Hello Gaby! I'm also not from the USA, but from South Africa. So my English isn't perfect either, and no one seems to mind! They're really a good bunch of ppl on this site, and I hope you'll find it as supportive and informative as I do. I've only been here for about a week or two now myself. My son is 5, and was diagnosed with Juvenile Myoclonic Epilepsy a month ago. He's been put on Lamictal. We're upping the dosage very slowly, so he's not on full strength yet. So far it doesn't control his seizures, and the side effects is bad. But they do get better every week. He's also getting seizures I wasn't always sure was one. Until I wrote each one down, and saw the pattern (eg. same time, same movement, etc.) and spoke to ppl on this site. And realised they WERE seizures. So trust your instinct. If you think it's one, it probably is. Unfortunately I cannot help you, because my son don't get any we know of, in the middle of the night and never wakes up crying. But I hope someone can help you with it. Take care Essie (mom to Nian(5))