absent seizures?

RE: absent seizures?

Submitted by crysta95 on Mon, 2005-06-13 - 15:02

Hi.From what little I know, you yourself don't know if and when you have an absence seizure. My 7 year old has them. And she has no clue whatsoever, when we tell her that she just had a seizure. She finally understood when she watched the video that we took of her for the neuro. She also has myoclonic jerks, but she can tell you if she's having those. In Jordan's case, her absence are eye flutters. When the previous meds didn't work, they would get VERY bad, almost continuous. That was what landed her in the ER and classified as status 2 months ago. Absence can also just be 'zoning out'.Here's some info... http://www.epilepsy.com/epilepsy/seizure_absence.htmlCrystal

RE: absent seizures?

Submitted by jennamay on Tue, 2005-06-14 - 07:41

Absence seizures are brief episodes of staring. (Although the name looks like a regular English word, your neurologist may pronounce it ab-SAWNTZ.) Another name for them is petit mal (PET-ee mahl). During the seizure, awareness and responsiveness are impaired. People who have them usually don't realize when they've had one. There is no warning before a seizure, and the person is completely alert immediately afterward.

Simple absence seizures are just stares. Many absence seizures are considered complex absence seizures, which means that they include a change in muscle activity. The most common movements are eye blinks. Other movements include slight tasting movements of the mouth, hand movements such as rubbing the fingers together, and contraction or relaxation of the muscles. Complex absence seizures are often more than 10 seconds long.

For more information you may go to : http://www.epilepsy.com/epilepsy/seizure_absence.html

http://www.epilepsy.com/epilepsy/seizure_atypicalabsence.html

Best,

Epilepsy.com Editor