Dear parent,
I can understand your concerns. Seeing one's child seize is the worst nightmare of any parent.
The sequence of events that you have described is definitely a seizure that has been long-lasting and difficult to control. This would qualify for what is called as STATUS EPILEPTICUS. However, I have a few questions on my mind before I can come to any reasonable conclusion.
1. Was the child having fever prior to or during or immediately after the episode of seizure?
2. At 17 months age, is your DON developmentally and neurologically normal for his age? How have been his developmental milestones?
3. Is there any family history of febrile seizures, seizures, epilepsy or any other neurological disorders? It could distant relatives on both father or mother's side with history of neurological illnesses.
4. Does he have any history of recent vaccination? Is there any other history that I should know of?
Regards
Dr. Saptharishi L G
Patient replied :
1. He did not have a fever at the time or immediately after the seizure. Paramedics immediately checked temperature when they arrived and got a 99.1 F termperature.
2. Neurological development has been normal. No red flags have been raised on his normal check ups.
3. I am the father and I have a history of febrile seizures as a baby. But as stated above a fever was not presented at the time of the seizure in question.
4. He is on the normal vaccination schedule but has not had any recently. Like I mentioned, the seizure occured last Tuesday and his last vaccination was administered at 15 months, so aproximetely 2 months ago.
The only other medical issues that my son has had are minor ear infections and he did have a very minor ear infection when the seizure occured, but doctors rulled it out since there wasn't any increased white blood cell count or couldn't find infection in the blood.
The only other concern that we have is the posibility of autism. I have done a little bit of research on autism and seizures can occur in autistic children. We have noticed that our son likes to bend at the wriste and twist hands back and forth repeadely. This is the only small sign that might be autistic. What are your thoughts?
Dear parent,
Thank you for providing the answers to my queries. This has definitely clarified a number of issues.
Based on all the information provided, it is most likely not a febrile seizure. As there must be documented fever prior to or during or immediately after the seizure for a child to be labeled so. Secondly, most febrile seizures are self limiting, short lasting ( <5 min) and occur on day one of fever, during the acute rising phase of fever and hence are called TYPICAL FEBRILE SEIZURES. Febrile seizures that are long lasting like in your son's case may still fit into an ATYPICAL FEBRILE SEIZURES, but your son never had fever. So that diagnosis also does not stand its ground.
The fact that you had febrile seizures puts him into a slightly higher risk of the same. In fact, it also puts him at a slightly higher risk for epilepsy. Looking at the whole clinical picture, evolution of symptoms as well as the family history, I would definitely recommend a visit to the pediatric neurologist and a CE-MRI of the brain.
Wishing your son a speedy recovery.
Regards
Dr. Saptharishi L G