Seizures

Allie has two types of seizures, absence and partial complex seizures. 
She has "break through" seizures when she gets sick. Even though she is on two anti-seizure medications, some seizures "break through" the medications. She will have a seizure every hour on the hour for about 24 hours. We do administer Lorazapam at the first sign of a seizure. This sometimes will stop the kindle effect. She has on average a break through seizure every 6 weeks. When Allie has a seizure she needs to sleep for about an hour after each seizure. 

"Does she have grand mal seizures?" 
Then they look at you like a big feel sorry for me stare.

If I had a dime for every time a person asked me this question, I would be blogging from my beachside mansion in Hawaii and not in my town home in Minnesota. Grand mal type seizures are the shaking type that you see dramatized on "House" and "Grey's Anatomy".  There are other types of seizures: Absence, Myoclonic, Clonic, Tonic Atonic to name a few. Our daughter has had two types of seizures in the past years: 

1. Absence seizures cause a short loss of consciousness (just a few seconds) with few or no symptoms. The patient, most often a child, typically interrupts an activity and stares blankly. These seizures begin and end abruptly and may occur several times a day. Patients are usually not aware that they are having a seizure, except that they may be aware of "losing time." -webmd.com

2. Partial Complex causes impairment of awareness. Automatisms such as lip smacking, chewing, fidgeting, walking and other repetitive, involuntary but coordinated movements. - webmd.com

Medications 2-4-12
Current Meds for seizures prescribed by Dr. J in Minneapolis, MN are Lamictal 62.5 twice daily, and Depakote 125 mg at wake and 25 mg at bedtime. Lorazapam 1 mg p.r.n. at sign of first seizure up to two doses in a 24 hour period. We have found if we do not administer Lorazapam after the first seizure, we will see them once every hour, this is called a cluster of seizures.  In her case the 30 second seizure will come every hour on the hour over a 24 hour period. We have found Lorazapam to help her break these clusters or cycles. 

EEG's
Over the past 8 years, she has had 5 EEG's. Three of these were 24 hour EEG, which is the electrodes glued on for a 24 hour period in or out of the clinic. She sleeps with them on the best she can. We document everything with the times. The more the doc knows the better he or she can understand what causes spikes or not. Of the 5 EEG's we must have had bad timing because they could never record a seizure while the electrodes are attached. The glue is messy to dig out of her hair but it is water soluble and with alot of patience it does eventually come out. Do not shampoo during the digging out glue process, this hides the glue too much and you will have a hard time finding the chunks.