Not sure what caused seizure?!

[higg2020]

Hi ...

I hope someone can help me. On April 30, my healthy 4 year old son had a seizure at pre-school. He was playing at the time in a very hot gym on a very hot day. We didn't witness this but a teacher did. She told us that he was on his stomach lying in drool and jerking. She said it only lasted a few seconds. They called 911 and the parmedics said he had 2 seizures in the ambulance that only lasted a few seconds, also. My son is a very shy and fearful kid...so I wasn't sure if the stress of being in the ambulance with strangers brought on the other 2 seizures.

When we arrived at the ER the doctor said he had a fever of 102.5. They ran a CT scan and drew blood and everything came back good. My son's peditrician wanted to keep him overnight and run a EEG test the next morning. So my son was given a EEG test and it came back abnormal. These were the results:

Dominant Posterior Rhythm: 7 Hz slow Alpha variant, 30 to 70 microvolts, over the occipital and parietal regions seen only rarely. Moderately high amplitude sharp waves are seen over the inferior frontal/anterior temporal and mid temporal regions only on the left. No similar abnormalities are noted to the right. Drowsiness seemed to increase the left frontotemporal sharp waves slightly and cause a brief run of sharply contoured Theta over the same irritative area.

The ER doctor said it was probably a febrile seizure but my peditrician didn't think so. That happend on April 30th and so far my son has NOT had another one. But, here lately he has be blinking strangely with his eyes. So I did some research and found tics to sometimes be associated with seizures.

Can anyone give me their opinion or has anyone experienced anything similar? Thanks so much!

[lacyndarella]

I am so sorry that you and your son are going through this. The seizure could have been triggered by the fever, even if he doesn't have typical febrile seizures. My friend Liz had "febrile" seizures as a young child. They continued into her teen years and beyond and in college, she finally got a neurologist to label her seizures as epilepsy. But fever does still trigger seizures for her to this day. My point in saying this is that just because the doctor is thinking he has a seizure disorder, that doesn't mean that the fever didn't trigger the episode. Now for the blinking. My son does some "hard" blinking that is odd. Sometimes he does it and then seizes...sometimes he does it and does not seize and sometimes he seizes without doing it at all. I personally do not think it is a seizure as he remains alert throughout, but it is definitely related to the seizure disorder.

Lacy

[higg2020]

thank you! you have a cute son....i noticed the birthday...i have a girl who was born on 6-22-06.....

thanks for your post!

God bless~

[lacyndarella]

Thank you. Yes I do believe he is a cute little cookie monster. And no matter what anybody on this board says, I don't brag on him too much!:p Well maybe a little. He might end up with a slightly swelled head by the time he's a teenager. Oh well. Truth is he's a good looking boy! And happy belated birthday to your little girl.

[Emeric's_mom]

I don't know much about the results of the EEG but my son was just diagnosed with a Generalized Seizure Disorder and his only "symptom" is usually eye fluttering/blinking.

[higg2020]

thanks for your post.....your kids so adorable....your boy looks so much like my boy at that age....even my husband thought so.....weird?!

[PaulaScott]

I can't help you with the EEG either, but if you repost the EEG portion and change the title to ask for Scientist Bill to interpret it, he may be along to help translate into English. Bill is a dad here who is also a brain researcher and he's been very helpful with our EEGs.

[Little JT]

Hi! I'm so sorry you're dealing with seizures. When my son first started having seizures, they presented as eye "twitches". Has your pediatrician referred you to a pediatric neurologist? You may want to catch some of those "blinking" episodes on video to show to your ped/neurologist. When my son first started having seizures they were very subtle and a few doctors wanted to dismiss them as reflux or normal baby mannerisms, but showing them the video got their attention.

I think it's a great sign that your son is healthy and developing. Hopefully, with some treatment you can get the seizures taken care of and this will all be a bad memory.

Keep us posted.

[LIZARD]

((((((((((((((HUGS)))))))))))))))).

Lacy's right on about me. Any minor thing that can trigger a fever in me--even a small one--will put me at a greater risk for seizure. Lotsa fun with an autistic adolescent in the house...:rolleyes: I just have a drill: If I experience body temp 2 degrees or more above my normal 97.5, I take phenobarb and Tylenol and head to bed for the day. My hubby, bless him, is very accommodating about this. My simple partial seizures--little things you'd hardly notice--will come in large clusters and result in fever, due to hypothalamus involvement.

Having said all of that, I have to say my money's on heat exhaustion in your little guy's case: http://www.medicinenet.com/heat_exhaustion/article.htm This is something that can happen to anyone. Just make sure he takes frequent breaks and drinks lots of decaf fluids, especially water.


LIZARD :)

[Mother's Heart]

I too think a referral to a pediatric neuro would be a good idea. And that video-taping incidents if you can catch them would also be helpful.

The seizures most likely were triggered by overheating. THere may or may not be an underlying seizure disorder. Strictly febrile seizures are typically grown out of.

The abnormal EEG is probably what makes the ped think a seizure disorder exists. My question would be: is that pattern always there? or are the abnormalities seen just evidence of the occurrences from the day before, leftovers, so to speak? Probably a future EEG would answer that question.

my gut says that the area of irritability is underlying this, and the stressor of heat and possible overactivity just brought the seizures to light. My hope would be that it's a one=time occurrence...and it well could be. ANYBODY...EVERYbody is vulnerable to having a seizure under certain circumstances, including the one your son was in.

[mpalmer118]

I am sorry that you are having such a scary new thing develop for your son.

My dd had mulitple febrile seizures in her first year of life, and I was told by her ped. at the time that an EEG would probably be normal, so none was done at that point. I now question whether that is true. I guess what I am trying to say, is that I agree that you should see a pediatric neurologist, who specializes in epilepsy or seizures.

((((hugs))))

[just laurie]

Background slowing can be a post-seizure trait on an EEG, so that might explain that. Maybe. I'm not a total expert, but my dd had background slowing after a febrile seizure.

A fever can also be caused by a seizure, so if you don't know for sure whether he was running a fever before the seizure it is sort of a chicken/egg question. Hopefully you can get some definitive answers soon.

[lacyndarella]

So in a nutshell:

The fever could have caused the seizure, or the seizure could have caused the fever. The heat could have caused the seizure. Dehydration could have caused the seizure. The light in the gym could have caused the seizure. Jimmie is very photosensitive and the lights in Walmart really bothered him when he was on ACTH.

Everyone (I mean everyone) has a seizure threshold...and cross that threshold and everyone can seize.

You may never know what caused the seizure. At this point it's only theory.

I agree that you need to get your son into a pediatric neurologist, preferrably in affiliation with a good children's hospital.

Seizures abound in my world. My son has them, my best friend has them. Ugg they suck big time. Anyway. My boss's grandson had a tonic clonic (previously called grand mal), the typical fall down and jerk seizure you think of when you hear the word seizure, when he was 1. He never had another. They took him to Mayo, and he was put through a barrage of tests. Nothing was ever found. He was on an AED for a few years. He's six and still has never had another seizure and is med free. It's possible it's just one of those things...God willing. But better to go to a good pediatric neurologist and have the proper care just in case.

Lacy

[RathyKay]

Welcome to our forum! I'm sorry you need to be here, but welcome. Seizures suck.

My son Tom has only recently been having febrile seizures. (He's been in the seizure business for a while though.) They seem to happen when he's first getting sick. A friend once told me that if your body wants to raise its temperature quickly, it'll have a seizure. So... sometimes I'm not sure if Tom had the fever first and I just didn't notice, or if the seizure was to raise the fever. Regardless, he's always sick for the next couple of days.

I do hope you'll see a pediatric neurologist. The eye blinking does sound suspicious. Try and videotape some of his "episodes" to take with you to see the doctor. A picture's worth a thousand words. Some of those neurologists won't believe anything you tell them... only what they observe.

If you're interested in reading up on epilepsy (and that's what a "seizure disorder" is), check out "Seizures and Epilepsy in Childhood" by Freeman, Vining and Pillas. They manage to write an upbeat book about a depressing topic. And again, welcome.