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4 y/o loosing conciseness. Does anyone know about Silent Epilepsy?

(3 posts)

  1. Jen N
    Member

    4 y/o loosing conciseness. Does anyone know about Silent Epilepsy?
    My friends 4 year old began randomly loosing conciseness a few months ago. At first it only happened once a day, and some days not at all. Then it started to happen more often. The other day she had 7 episodes. It's like the lights just go out, then boom she's back like nothing happened. After a few visits to the emergency room and they ruled out many of the things it could be, they told her to go to a pediatric neurologist. It took her two months to get an appointment (there are only 2 on the island) with one, and she just go back from the first appointment yesterday. He has ordered more tests, but said that from his experience he believes it may be Silent Epilepsy.

    So my question is to those who have a child with this condition, or who know a child with it. What should she expect? Can it be controlled? If not what will be her limitations as a child then adult be?

    Also any ideas about what else it could be, any one recognize those symptoms as something they've seen?

    Posted 2 years ago #

  2. Ashley
    Member

    It sounds like she is having absence seizures (used to be known as petit mal seizures). The description that you give is a very typical presentation for these type of seizures. This is likely a condition called childhood absence epilepsy. This disorder manifests itself generally between 4-10 years of age. The seizures are usually brief but can occur up to 100 times per day. The seizures that occur in this disorder sudden and significat impairement of consciousness...what you describe as the lights going out. The EEG (brain test to diagnose epilepsy) is very typical in this disease so it is fairly easy to diagnose. The prognosis for this disease is actually quite good if this is in fact what she has. Children generally grow out of this by puberty. It is caused by mutations in certain ion channels in the brain and is caused by many different gene mutations. There are a few drugs to treat absence seizures including sodium valproate, ethosuximide and lamotrigine. The most effective drug in this particular condition is ethosuximde. It also has fewer side effects. This will help her during childhood so she has fewer seizures and minimal limitations and then it is quite likely tha she will grow out of it by adolescence. Hope this helps.

    Posted 2 years ago #

  3. Andera
    Member

    about it you can get information from here http://webmd20.notlong.com/AAXjlsy

    Posted 2 years ago #

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