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Epilespy or not?
Wed, 02/07/2018 - 20:26 My Dad was taken to the hospital yesterday because he had a seizure at home. This was his second seizure in 4 months. Last time he had one seizure and came too after. This time it is much worse. He is in the hospital and is being sedated. As soon as they try and take him off of the sedation medicine and wake him up he has more seizures. He is combative (not like him at all), confused and agitated. Every test came back ok. They told my Mom when he had the first seizure it was not epilepsy. Do you think it sounds like it is now? How long can someone keep having recurring seizures? It has been a day and a half since he had one and he has not been awake and coherent since then. We just don't know whats going on or what to expect. He is currently in the ICU.
Comments
Epilepsy is something that is
Submitted by just_joe on Thu, 2018-02-08 - 15:26
Epilepsy is something that is not a definite yes or no for some people. Many people that have it have no cause found and even tests can not show up on tests. If the hospital does not have an epilepsy center then you do need to find a neurologist that specializes in epilepsy. Like Amy Jo stated the 2 main tests are an MRI and the EEG. The MRI shows the brain as it is with anything on it. Anything different means just that anything. It could be a cell formation that didn't grow right or a tumor or scar tissue. The EEG is a brin wave test showing the electrical activity in the brain at the time of the test. The neurologists will be looking for abnormalities.(any activity that is different) and if seen they will know where in the brain they came from.Most hospitals have medications that will be used to stop seizures if they are too long or they become back to back which are called cluster seizures which can lead into status epilepticus..
Doesn’t sound like he’s back
Submitted by Amy Jo on Wed, 2018-02-07 - 23:50
Doesn’t sound like he’s back to his baseline yet, so I hope they are still looking hard. Does his hospital have an epilepsy center where they have the specialists in epilepsy?What kinds of tests did they run? They probably did a CT but may not have done an MRI (they have different uses, an MRI may be called for if they don’t figure things out). Has he been hooked up to an EEG? That isn’t a definitive test (they can be clear in epilepsy patients) but it can be helpful if they see something. Epilepsy is a more of diagnosis of elimination but few docs are well versed in epilepsy. So the easy stuff was probably checked already. Neurologists who specialize in epilepsy are called epileptologists.