So we had Bug’s neurology appointment on Wednesday, and Dr. K. is going to schedule a formal EEG. In order to prep for it, Bug will have to go to sleep at midnight, wake up at 4AM, and be on a liquid diet up until two hours before the test. He will be able to sleep during the EEG, though. The doctor is hoping to prevoke another episode, or at least provoke whatever abnormalities may be happening that could have caused his previous episodes. (He has had a total of two so far.)
The doctor is actually leaning toward some sort of migraine-variant triggered possibly by some degree of sleep-deprivation. The seizures could be a symptom of the migraine (children manifest the symptoms differently than adults, namely, nausea, vertigo, and disorientation versus head pain, light sensitivity, or ocular pressure) or it could be some sort of sleep-induced epilepsy. Although, Bug hasn’t had any other seizure, none during his sleep, aside from these episodes, and the one febrile seizure he had back in August. So I’m a little skeptical about epilepsy, especially since his first EEG (even though he was awake) did not indicate any abnormalities.
If he is having migraines, then we can expect to have more episodes; most cases children tend to grow out of them by their teenage years, so that is probably one of the more preferable health issues on the short list. If or when it happens again, the best thing for Bug would be to sleep it off. The neurologist would not suggest medication at this point, with as infrequent as these episodes have been so far. If he were to start having episodes two or more times per month, then she would suggest looking into migraine or seizure medication, both of which would be a daily dose. (Boo!)
A friend of ours put it this way: these episodes are just Bug’s brilliance firing out, his genius bursting through his brain. It’s hard to control genius-ocity. Like Matilda.
Meet the Buttrams 