Daughter's First Seizure

most seizures stop on their own. the emergency department is only really geared to seizures that don't stop or some other emergency - like seizures caused by diabetes, dangerously out of whack salts, bleeding in the bain, etc.. diagnosing and treating seizures from epilepsy falls outside that. I know tv shows imply they do more but they figured out it wasn't an emergency and passed you over to the slower path. bad smells, bad tastes, vision changes, and even vomiting can be partial seizures. partial seizures (and related discharges) can be hard to get on eeg, some seizures are too deep or too small to be seen by an eeg. or the patterns don't show up during the scheduled test. 'normal' mris are common enough too. it's better to have an unremarkable mri than not.  mris don't catch all problems but the ones they do see imply a harder course for epilepsy.  it is often the case that small/minor seizures go unrecognized as seizures and the first realized seizure is a tonic clonic.so your experience is surprising, frustrating and common. it takes some time to come to terms with a new reality of a scary or undetermined health condition for one's child. it sounds like your daughter is on the right track for seeing the right kind of doc. it also sounds like her pcp has done all the right first steps - the most important was to listen and not blow it off.

most seizures stop on their own. the emergency department is only really geared to seizures that don't stop or some other emergency - like seizures caused by diabetes, dangerously out of whack salts, bleeding in the bain, etc.. diagnosing and treating seizures from epilepsy falls outside that. I know tv shows imply they do more but they figured out it wasn't an emergency and passed you over to the slower path. bad smells, bad tastes, vision changes, and even vomiting can be partial seizures. partial seizures (and related discharges) can be hard to get on eeg, some seizures are too deep or too small to be seen by an eeg. or the patterns don't show up during the scheduled test. 'normal' mris are common enough too. it's better to have an unremarkable mri than not.  mris don't catch all problems but the ones they do see imply a harder course for epilepsy.  it is often the case that small/minor seizures go unrecognized as seizures and the first realized seizure is a tonic clonic.so your experience is surprising, frustrating and common. it takes some time to come to terms with a new reality of a scary or undetermined health condition for one's child. it sounds like your daughter is on the right track for seeing the right kind of doc. it also sounds like her pcp has done all the right first steps - the most important was to listen and not blow it off.

one resource to look up is your local epilepsy foundation affiliate. they may have outreach and support options. our local affiliate has 5-6 excellent conferences a year (~Apr/Nov different cities as the affiliate covers multiple states). the one in the next city over to us is held at facilities which allow for web participation so while I've usually gone in person, I've done both. about a month afterwards the video is available online.