Hi, i have a 14 yr old daughter and i need some help please.
Her behaviour has started to change this year, getting mouthy at school etc but i put this down to her age. Then the school rang to say she had self harmed herself, this happend twice in one week, she has never done this before. Then the school rang again and asked me to come straight in, and she was having some kind of seizure!!!!!! It started off in class with her neck starting to twitch, then it went on where her whole arm, shoulder and left side shook violently. She stayed conscous but this lasted over 40 minutes. As luck happens there was a DR in the school that day who dealt with my child and she said she laid my child straight down as to her it looked like she was about to go in to a full blown seizure. This was roughly 8 weeks ago, but now my child has totally changed. She has turned into a nasty, mouthy spitefull girl. She is never normally like this, she is so rude and unpleasant it makes me want to cry. It seems like since this seizure she has completely changed. Is this possible!!!! I know nothing at all about fits. She had an appointment with a consultant for September, but 2 weeks ago she suddenly became so depressed i took her to her doctor who arranged for the appointment to be brought forward to 31st august.
I cant belive this change in my child, she has not had any more violent shaking since this one incident, but is always ALWAYS complaining of headaches, alsmost daily. We recently went to watch a show that had bright ligts and she kept covering her eyes saying the bright lights were hurting her head, what does this all mean.!!!!!!!
I am so sorry for your child. It must be very frightening for you & her not knowing what is happening to her body. Is she on any medications? Has she been exposed to any chemicals at school such as pesticides or paint? My GD is allergic to the hand cleaner & disinfectant sprays & pesticides they use at her school. Has she had this reaction at home? I react to toxic chemicals with symptoms same as your daughter has. I hope you find answers for her. Good luck!
Has she been scheduled for a MRI? It's possible it could show something as could a EEG and the brainwave patterns.
The speculations than could be made are far and wide. It could be a number of things from chemicals produced by the body that effect behavior, to others that need the testing I listed above.
Pressure on a nerve (or nerves) of the brain can also produce similar effects. What the instigating factor is or was remains the question here that needs to be resolved.
Best of luck. Keep your hair in. Know that people have your in their minds.
Thank you for your replies, I dont know if my child has been exposed to any pesticides etc! I do know that before the seizure at school the teacher was making them jump up and down on the spot. There has not been any MRI done as we have our first appointment with the consultant on 31st august, hopefully he will then order one. I have noticed that my child sleeps ever such a lot and can spend days in bed. She is just so moody it is unbelievable.
Hopefully this consultant will be able to tell me what has happened to her.
Hi cazajacks, Nice to talk to you. I went through something similar with the behavior part. I was 10 and started this, such as locking myself in lockers at school, and having teachers chase me around the school. Put it this way my parents were picking me up from school on a weekly basis, and they wanted to kick me out of school for this. My problem was caused by a tumor and a cyst on the left side of my brain that needed to be removed. It was growing and the pressure was making me behave that way. It was found after having a seizure and having a MRI done. About five days after it was found my surgent removed it. He did a wonderful job and I was out of the hospital in three days. Hope I could have been help letting you know that theres someone out there that understands. My mom is always open to talk if you want to hear from a parents side.
Sk8ter Girl 23
Thank you sk8tergirl, its nice to hear from someone with first hand experience. I must admit my deep fear is that my child could have a brain tumour. I have a friend who is a nurse and she said i need to get help quickly as my child has also been complaining of deafness in her ear, my nurse friend said that both the seizure and this deafness are both related to the temperal lobe????????? and this needs looking at. I dont even know what a temperal lobe is! But i feel better knowing we are going to see this consultant on the 31st August. Thank you once again for you help.
The temporal lobe is a section of your brain,it does control
behavior traits,can cause personality disorders,it also controls
emotions and your memory.Even though I have always had
problems in my temp.lobe,when I was young and in school,I
had one h*ll of a memory,which was good for schooling.Now that
I have gotten older,closer to menopause my memory is really
starting to go.My problem is in my left temp.
I'd get her to a neurologist asap, and get them to do tests like TravisMN mentioned, to rule out things, or maybe figure out if she has underlying changes in her brainwave activity aside from the seizures. Forty minutes is a LONG time for a seizure- and may indicate a non-epileptic seizure....that doesn't mean she's doing it on purpose, just that it's not an electrical change in her brain. OR, she may have been in status epilepticus, which really needs ER attention to stop it with medications.
Did she get put on any medications with the behavior changes?
Hi Neuro, Well to be honest no one has really done much since she hd the seizure!!!! No one has given her any meds at all, even though i have asked for help with this horrible behaviour, also she seems to be sinking into a depression! I got so desperate that i took her to our local dr and said i felt she needed some aniti depressants, but the dr has just refered her to the local psycologist, who we are seeing tomorrow actually. they have brought forward the appointment with a consultant, from September to next Friday, so at least they may let us know what could possibly be happening.
The thing is here in the UK you get to see a consultant after waiting weeks and weeks, once you see him/her you then wait months for any tests, I.E. mri etc. My concern is that she could have a tumour, because she has so many headaches, they are not raging headaches, just constant headaches that come and go . I just cant wait until next Friday ( 31st) to see someone who can help.
You mentioned "bright lights" caused issues with her. Do Flourecent Tubes or Compact Flourecent lights cause eye issues or worsen the headache? They have a "flicker rate" properly called "cycle rate" as the "tube moniters" do as well.
These are two items that are known to cause seizures in a SMALL group of epilepsy patients that are "photo sensitive". That means flashing lights as well (emergency vehicals) can also trigger seizures in patients that are effected in this manner.
One item that can help a little bit is polarized sunglasses. The darkness of the glasses is not important. Only the fact that they are polarized can help reduce the effect with SOME people. I can't verify if it will in all cases.
As this is all so new to us i am not sure if lighting makes things worse,!! I had never noticed anything wrong until she had this full blown shaking session. It was just last Sunday when we went to this show with lots of coloured bright lights that she suddenly started to complain. She laid down on the seat and covered her eyes, but did not have any shaking!
It is so very hard to tell with my daughter what symptoms she has, as she has Autistic Spectrum Disorder, and does not always understand when something is wrong, so will not think to tell anyone.
She can be seriously ill and just sit and carry on watching TV!
We have now seen the psyciatrist, who is going to give her some help, but she wants to see what this Consultant says next week first, in case this horrible behaviour is linked to this seizure.
Thanks.
caz
I had my first seizures when I was about 11, atleast 4 of them were around flashing lights (video games and concerts). That was while they were working on getting the seizures under control. Now that I am older they are better controlled and flashing lights don't bother me. If it will take weeks or longer to get a mri or eeg, if she has another seizure longer than 5 minutes call a ambulance (hopefully she won't), you may be able to get an mri done at the hospital if she is brought in by ambulance. I have a prescription that my neurologist gave me for if I go into a seizure lasting more than 5 minutes but someone has to be there to use it on me, it is called Diastat.
Good Luck
Flashing lights have never caused a seizure for me, but they always make me feel funny- like police cars, strobe lights at concerts, and fireworks (when they let off a bunch of those huge bright white ones at the same time). I usually have to cover my eyes because it makes me feel kind of disoriented, and lights never did that to me before I started having seizures.
Hi, well she had her appointment with the consultant and he said hopefully its a one off attack. He said he will do an EEG, but did not feel it necessary to do anything more. He also said he would see us again in 3months time, which is next month. Well we still have not had any appointment for the eeg, and now my daughter has had another seizure. I am worried they may be missing something more serious. Again she did not go unconscious, again it was just her left arm/shoulder shaking and twitching/jerking. she said she felt cold first of all, this started her sort of shivering which made her twitch which led onto the seizure. What should i do now.
If it's only one side of the body shaking that may indicate what region (left or right side) of the brain (hemisphear) the seizures are occuring. Thats in reality a GOOD thing to make note of. As well it's only the one part, shoulder/arm. It is good that the seizure (electrical mis-firing) is not crossing over to the other hemisphear possibly effecting other parts of the body.
The Brain is complex, but you start to understand it a little bit the more you hear from Dr's and the more tests are done, as well the little reading (talk about complex texts) you do.
The EEG will tell more when they run that test.
Having seizures since I was a kid, I've learned a lot since. From paying attention to my MRI's, bloodwork, and liver tests, to reading up on my meds. I feel almost like a parent with the amount I know and I STILL fight with my Doc to get my way.
If it's only one side of the body shaking that may indicate what region (left or right side) of the brain (hemisphear) the seizures are occuring. Thats in reality a GOOD thing to make note of. As well it's only the one part, shoulder/arm. It is good that the seizure (electrical mis-firing) is not crossing over to the other hemisphear possibly effecting other parts of the body.
The Brain is complex, but you start to understand it a little bit the more you hear from Dr's and the more tests are done, as well the little reading (talk about complex texts) you do.
The EEG will tell more when they run that test.
Having seizures since I was a kid, I've learned a lot since. From paying attention to my MRI's, bloodwork, and liver tests, to reading up on my meds. I feel almost like a parent with the amount I know and I STILL fight with my Doc to get my way.
--Travis
You pay attention to your liver tests? Explain please... do you mean 'high liver counts' such as SGOT, etc? Are they related to seizures?!?
Your liver panel tests let you know if you are getting proper nutrition (how the liver is basicly functioning) and in turn if levels are low you should start taking vitamins.
One of mine, Teg can build up in the body. When my last levels came back high on both standard and free levels (of Teg) thats why I asked for a liver test to make sure my liver was working properly.
NO they are not related to seizures as far as I know, but related to the body properly functioning and processing medications. I wanted to know why my med levels came back so darn high for the first time.
I have not spoken to my duaghters consultant on the phone, he could harldy remember my duaghter but i suppose he see's lots of kids! Anyway i told hime straight that i am worried they are missing something more serious now she has had another seizure. He had not even remembered to order her EEG test!!!!! So now this should be hurried up. He said he would now order a Brain scan but is not sure how he is going to keep her in the tunnel thing as the test he's doing is about an hour long. I'm not sure how we are going to do this as my child is Autistic, she hates needles, and the cream that numbes the site, and the mask if you have gas, so i'm a bit stuck now. Hopefully these tests wil come through quickly as we habe been waiting 7 weeks so far.
