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Infant - 2 years - Absence Seizures - Help
Fri, 01/19/2007 - 19:47Topic: Parents & Caregivers
when my daughter was 19 months old, she had one occurrence of febrile seizure due to high fever. After a month (of recovering from fever), we noticed her rolling up her eyes for 3 to 4 seconds for about 5 to 6 times on a given day. we kept a close watch on her and count of "eye rolling"
episodes everyday before visiting a doctor. In Dec'06, Doctor advised as to have an EEG and diagnosed the occurrence of Absence Seizures in my daughter. The whole thing came as shock to us, as neither of our families have had any one with history of seizures and she was our first baby.
The doctor prescribed "zarontin" 125mg in liquid form but then we had to discontinue after 4 days as the medicine curbed her appetite and my daughter stopped eating. After that the doctor gave her "Depakote" 125mg in sprinkle powder form. We are having tough time administering the
Depakote medicine thru food or liquid as my daughter is still not taking enough food. To be regular with the dosage, we are just sprinkling the medicine into her mouth and giving her water to swallow it down. Many a times, my daughter doesn't swallow the medicine and instead chews it
before swallowing it. But one thing is obvious with both medicines -> during the day, we haven't noticed even one occurrence of "eyes rolling" episode since she started taking the medication. Further, we haven't noticed any "eye rolling event" before falling asleep either (which use to
happen earlier). The medicine seems to be working although the doctor says that 125 mg is very small dosage and would like her to take 250mg. My daughter is about 25 pounds.
My concerns are -:
1. Would chewing the powder reduce the the efficacy of medicine??
2. As my daughter is hardly 2 years, would taking depakote affect her liver or pancreas?? How often should one check her ? what kind of tests would indicate such issues?
3. What are the chances of my daughter outgrowing these seizures? ( I read different stories all the time) I am really concerned about this.Any study or stats available? Has anyone recovered totally from absence seizures when they had it so early in life?
4. I am not keen on increasing the dosage from 125mg to 250mg. Am I correct with that notion?
5. How long would my daughter require medication. any idea?
Please help me with answers to above questions.
Thanks
Shrinisun
Comments
Re: Re: Infant - 2 years - Absence Seizures - Help
Submitted by shrinisun on Tue, 2007-01-23 - 21:27
Thanks for your kind reply.
How is your daughter doing now ?? did your daughter also have petit mal? Does it eat normally? Does she have any learning or language difficulties ? My daughter will be 2 years in March this year and still is not speaking any sensible words..still talking a lots of gibberish or sounds that we don't understand. All the time, she is indicating or making gestures for everything.
I will mention about trileptal to my doc. At the moment, the depakote dosage is just 125mg and it seems to keep her normal atleast during the daytime - when she is about to fall asleep her eyes do rollup for a second or two .. apart from that nothing we can notice. Even before the treatment began, my daughter rolled up her eyes only 4 to 5 times on a given day.
Regards
SS
Re: Re: Re: Infant - 2 years - Absence Seizures - Help
Submitted by d00r on Thu, 2007-01-25 - 14:19
Hi Shrini.
My daughter who is now 4 years old has petit mal sz. (50-100 a day)and is also on Valproic Acid (the generic of Depakote). This med is not affecting her appetite, but while she was trying Ethosuximide(generic of Zarontin) her appetite did decrease. I do notice that she has more sz at night, at least between suppertime and bedtime. Maybe it's because she's getting tired. She also has more sz if she is upset.
My daughter is now 1/2 way through junior kindergarden with no learning or speech issues. Though she has been having socialization issues. She doesn't get along with other kids very well. We're not sure if it has anything to do with the seizures or if it's just because she's a bit immature emotionally/socially.
I also have a son who will be 2 in March, but so far has not had any sz other than the febrile. He is also not talking yet, but understands everything and tries to communicate in other ways(pointing, nodding, etc). We had his hearing tested to be sure. His hearing is fine. he just doesn't want to talk yet, just gibberish too.
I'm not sure about the dosage, as I am not a doctor. What I have found is "The usual dose is 15 to 45 mg per kg (6.9 to 20.7 mg per pound) of body weight to start. The doctor may increase the dose gradually every week by 5 to 10 mg per kg of body weight if needed." If you are not comfortable with increasing the dose, talk to your doctor about it. Maybe they can give you more information on why the dose increase would be better. Doctors do want to try to eliminate the sz altogether if possible, so the increase may be because your daughter still might be having 1 before sleep.
You can take a look at my blog for more detailed info on my kids' sz activity. You can email me anytime.
Dor.
Re: Infant - 2 years - Absence Seizures - Help
Submitted by littlebug on Tue, 2007-01-23 - 16:16
my daughter was 2 when she started having seizures.she is now 6.she was put on liquid trileptal that was flavored.she loved it.I keep my daughter at the lowest possible dose that still works.I only increase when necesary.sometimes when shes sick we have to give her an extra pill and it has increased some with her growing but she is still on the low scale of dosage.most meds require routine blood testing to check the levels of meds and the organ fuctions.I chose the trileptal because it requires almost no testing and doesnt get processed through the liver or kidneys.you will have to talk to your talk about how your daughters meds will affect her organs.