Hi,
I am new to the Epilepsy thing as my husband was diagnosed with it yesterday. When he was in grade 6 he had a really bad seizure and had to be taken to the hospital on ambulance. His family Dr at the time put him on Depakene. He was on that for 2 years and never had any seizures so he was taken off the medication. In 2001 when we got pregnant with our daughter he started having little jerks where his arms would fly up in the air. They didn't happen that often...but started happening more and more frequently as time went by. Before my pregnancy was over he had and echocardiogram done, and one of those 24 hour heart monitors where you press the button if anything happens, and he had an EEG done, and saw a neurologist and another specilist. The tests came back with nothing, and the Drs were concerned and said he was going to be top priority and what not, but we never heard from them again. We just let it go and went on with life. When our daughter was about 18 months old my husband was standing by the computer and holding her when he had one of his seizures and he droped her (hes 6 foot 4 inches tall) but luckley he droped her to the comptuer chair rather then the floor. That scared us really bad. So back to the drs we went. They did another EEG and nothing came back on that one either. By this time we were getting frustrated. We pretty well knew he was having mini seizures but nothing was showing up on tests. Well my daughter is now 3 and we have a 17 month old son. The seizures happen more often, and are worst then before, and he gets disoriented before and after them. I can sometimes tell when he is going to have one. He droped a cheeze whiz bottle the other day and it smashed everywhere. Well he went back to the dr and had another EEG done onMarch 21st. That one came back with a finding of:
Classically normal alpha rhythm at 10-11 Hz appeared over parieto-occipital regions. There was a normal response to eye opening and closure.
With hyperventilation, there were discharges of moderate to high amplitude wave and spike activity and these discharges lasted up to several seconds in duration. The discharge always arose out of a well-regulated background. Late in the tracing, when the patient was in the resting state, there were a few similar discharges occuring spontaneously.
IMPRESSION: This tracing showed discharges of wave and spike activity often of three cycles per second arising of equal voltage over both hemispheres and obviously arising from deep structures. Occasionally, polyspikes were noted. The tracing is compatible with a diagnosis of primary generalized epilepsy.
I don't really know what all that means. We are going to see a neuroligist on Tuesday. I hae som many questions to ask.
I am not asking for any medical advice or anything like that but just need people to relate to. I don't know if anyone can explain what the diagnosis was in "normal" terms...I just cant waite to see the neurologist.
Sorry that this is sooo long....
thanks
Kelly