So, my Frou Frou girlie girl might be having "absence" seizures or "silent" seizures on top of everything else.
We already know she has Asperger's Disorder, lactose intolerance, bad seasonal allergies, and vertigo. Apparently, they aren't enough. She spaces out a lot, and we thought it was the ASD catching up with her and her "detoxing." I never connected it with seizure disorder until the school nurse saw it happen (during kindergarten placement evaluations, she was attempting to perform a hearing test).
I took her to the pediatrician, who saw it happen right in the office. Now that we're paying more attention, I've noticed that it happens several times a day. We have an appointment with a pediatric neurologist this month, and then they'll probably do a sleep study for her to officially test her. But I'm fairly certain it's going to show she has them. I wish I'd connected the dots sooner. My niece has these, and Grace has them the same way Marina did. My husband's family has a history of cousins and siblings with seizure disorders. HOW could I have missed it?
Usually, they occur in children who outgrow them at puberty. They're considered to be very mild, almost un-noticable seizures. They look as if the person having them is "spacing out" and it can last anywhere from a few seconds to up to 3 minutes. The longest I've witnessed for Froufy is 30 seconds or so. When they last longer like that, she tilts her head because she's "not there." She doesn't blink, and doesn't seem to realize what's happening.
The problem is that when they happen several times a day, most likely several times per hour, it's a minimum of a few seconds each time. That means that all the seconds, when added up over the course of each day, are causing a loss of learning and experiences. For a child with global learning delays due to Asperger's Disorder, that means she's losing much more time than "neurotypical" children who have them. Otherwise, it's considered a very mild seizure and nothing to worry about. If she does have this, and again, I'm about 90% certain she does, then she'll be on a daily medication to minimize the seizures until she outgrows them. I'll also check out holistic treatments as well.
1 comment:
Hi,
I just wanted to share that we think our daughter is having petite mal/Absence/Silent seizures. She is likely just staring into space, in relation to Autism, but we want to be sure it is nothing. They seem to happen frequently which over time can add up. It's been reported in her IEP and they brought in a vision consult but she doesn't think it is a vision issue and noted the behaviors she seen and basically told us it wouldn't hurt to have neurology take a look at her and the concerns. We go in Jan for an appt.
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