Neurology Update

Please keep Nico in your prayers!

Tomorrow we are going in to the UCLA Hospital to get an EEG with Sedation for Nico. He can't have food 6hrs before, no milk 4 hours before, no water 2 hours before, and has to have no more than 5 hours of sleep the night before---HE IS NOT GOING TO BE A HAPPY CAMPER!!

We are going to get the EEG because about a month ago he had a seemingly unprovoked seizure. The seizure itself is not that dangerous however...it can be a result of other things.

Overview: Many children who experience a first seizure may never experience a second seizure. However, a seizure may be the initial presentation of a more serious medical condition or subsequent epilepsy. Epilepsy is a condition in which a child has 2 or more seizures without a proximal cause for the seizures (unprovoked seizures).

So the doctors who saw him at the hospital in San Diego, his pediatrician, and a pediatric neurologist all recommended that we go ahead and do the EEG to see if there is any seizure activity in his brain that could have caused this event.

However, unless there's LOTS of seizure activity (which they don't foresee there being)--in which case an anti seizure medication would be recommended; there is nothing to do for minimal seizure activity(if it's even found). It will just be for out knowledge....and to help the doctors gather more info.

Giving a definitive prognosis after a single seizure is difficult, but some general rules do apply, based on epidemiologic data. 

Prognosis: In general, children who have a single, short, generalized seizure along with normal neurologic development and normal findings on neurologic examination are estimated to have a 24% risk of having another seizure within 1 year and a 36% chance of having a second seizure within 3 years. In these children, if the electroencephalogram (EEG) is found to be normal, the risk of seizure recurrence is estimated to decrease to approximately 15% within 1 year and 26% within 3 years. If the EEG is found to be abnormal, approximately 41% will have another seizure within 1 year and 56% within 3 years.

It's scary, but like Peter said...don't start thinking crazy things until we have more info...and so I am calm and getting ready to help Nico be as calm as possible for a hunrey, tired, and restless toddler.