2 year old - night terror or epilepsy???? please help
my newly adopted child (just turned two) had either a night terror or some kind of fit the other night. She woke up screaming and staring into space, but after 5 minutes she stopped screaming and lay in my arms for 10 minutes completely 'out of it/unconscious' but with her eyes open staring into space. Her body was stiff and she jerked a couple of times. her eyes finally started to close and i put her back in her cot. She finally closed here eyes and went to sleep.
I mentioned this to health visitor and social worker and they said not to go to doctor unless ithappens again.
there is a history of epilepsy in her birth family.
Any ideas / views / experiences???
Re: 2 year old - night terror or epilepsy???? please help
Continue to keep detailed notes like this. If it happens again bring the child in to be examined. The item that helps is when parents are able to provide details of the episodes, how long, what happens, body actions (bladder?), eyes etc. That information is VERY helpful rather than coming in with a blank page.
Best of luck.
As for inherited epilepsy, It does exist, it is about 1% of the epilepsy community. It TENDS to be passed more commonly from the maternal side than the fraternal. So if the mother and her mother BOTH had epilepsy, there is a CHANCE that it could have been passed down through genetics to the child. Best way to try and tell if it is the inherited epilepsy is look at the family tree's and see if epilepsy exists in the family past and relatives.
In families that carry Inherited Epilepsy, births of twins increase the odds for it (epilepsy) to occur in those children.
The one part of that I have NOT heard of is if it can come about by genetic mutation. The research into inherited Epilepsy is still considered somewhat new. So there is a lot more that can be done pending funding.
Re: 2 year old - night terror or epilepsy???? please help
Thank you very much for your informed reply. I shall write down everything that happened so that I don;t forget and also be very watchful if/when it happends again. I might try to record the incident on the camcorder so that the GP can see it for him/her self.
Yes, the epilepsy is from birth mum, but I am pleased by your statistics - I was assuming the inheritence factor to be much higher so I am reassurred that inheritence may not be that common.
Re: 2 year old - night terror or epilepsy???? please help
Quote:
Originally Posted by caseymay
my newly adopted child (just turned two) had either a night terror or some kind of fit the other night. She woke up screaming and staring into space, but after 5 minutes she stopped screaming and lay in my arms for 10 minutes completely 'out of it/unconscious' but with her eyes open staring into space. Her body was stiff and she jerked a couple of times. her eyes finally started to close and i put her back in her cot. She finally closed here eyes and went to sleep.
I mentioned this to health visitor and social worker and they said not to go to doctor unless ithappens again.
there is a history of epilepsy in her birth family.
Any ideas / views / experiences???
Thanks for reading. x
I read what you wrote and can tell you what you decribed was a seizure. How I know, I have them and I have witness my daughter having them. Because she is so young it may have been just a seizure and not a seizure disorder. If she has them while she is sleeping (like I do) that is called Nocturnal Seizures.
Last edited by jengreen30; 04-18-2008 at 07:30 PM.
Re: 2 year old - night terror or epilepsy???? please help
A seizure in general may be caused by any number of factors and may not reoccur. These could be reactions to food, fevers, injections, alcohol related.
When growing up, children MAY have one or two (seizures) if they have a high fever and or exhibit other symptoms. They then may never have another seizure in their life.
Seizure disorders are situations that cause the seizures to reoccur. This can be as simple as a head trauma, blood clot, high fever as a child that was not treated. Diabetics have seizures due to blood-sugar levels (so non neurological is that cause). Abnormalities in the brain, unseen without a scan, can also be a cause. Some seizures are "triggered" or started as simple as stress a person(patient) has.
It's a wide field of possible causes all depending on the patient.
Re: 2 year old - night terror or epilepsy???? please help 
