Pseudo Seizures

Hi Star, I am new here and wondering about this topic as well. My 13 yr old daughter started having seizures everyday in school last year, she was placed on medical home-bound schooling for the first semester. She had tests (mri, ct scan, EEG, VEEG), they told us that she had some abnormality in the EEG and increase in white matter on the mri. They first diagnosed her with Temporal Epilepsy, since we have a family history of Epilepsy. The medications were not working, they tried most of them. She was being taken by ambulance to the hospital at least 3 or 4 times a week. Her seizures were different than the grandmal type my brother has, she would kick her legs and make a clawing motion with her hands (sometimes clawing me, her dad, the floor, wall or whatever was close), sometimes she drewls or kind of snorts, she would have 2 or 3 episodes at a time and would continue for over 10 minutes total. The dr stopped all medication and she went back to school for the second semester. She had at least one every month, but the last one was in May. The dr. told us after seeing a seizure on video, that they were not epileptic seizures they were PNES. We thought it was because she has alot of difficulty in school and therefore doesn't like school. But this year, she has done really well and has even become alot more confident and independent. She's been fine since the end of May, now all of a sudden she has started having them again. They called this morning from school that she was seizing, by the time I got there she had 3 lasting a total of 14 minutes. So now I am confused, I don't know if maybe it has to do with her body changing. She is 13 and we have had signs that she is going to start menstrating, and the symptoms and signs have been this way since last summer. The dr told me she was getting ready to start when she had a urine test done last summer, but she still hasn't so I don't know if this could be related or not. It is very confusing and hard to know where to turn with this, and how to approach her about it. I don't want her to think we think she is faking it or can control it, I just don't really know how to help her deal with it. Hope you have gotten some answers, would love to know if you have learned anything new with your situation. Kim

Hi star :) Let me give you some information on pseudoseizures. First off they are properly called Psychogenic Seizures as the cause is psychological as opposed to neurological. Those wityh PS suffer the same seizure trauma but, physiologically, the brain isn't affected. Here are some sights: http://www.epilepsyontario.org/client/EO/EOWeb.nsf/web/psychogenic+seizures http://www.epilepsyfoundation.org/answerplace/Medical/seizures/types/nonepileptic/weinonepilepsy.cfm I hope that helps.. (*for more info just put 'psychogenic seizures' on your search engine) & best wishes ~sol