A little background, when my now 4 year old was 2 she had a bought of a stomach bug, vomiting and runs. After a few days of this she started having what we thought were seizures whenever she would fall asleep. She would only be asleep for 20-45 minutes and wake up completely rigid and crying. After the 3rd one we headed to the ER where she had a 'grand mal' We had a full work up at Children's including MRI, EEG etc.. nothing was abnormal. The doctors said it was likely due to the stomach virus. That made sense.
It has been 2 years with nothing weird happening. Then just this last weekend, again she had another stomach bug. 2 days in and bam same issues. This time waking every hour with 10-30 seconds of being rigid and crying. She had them one full night, the second night we take her to the ER after 3 episodes. We caught a few on video and showed them to the doctor who says they are not seizures... she is crying and kids don't cry while having seizures, also she seems conscious...again they said they are not conscious during seizures. They say it is likely a sleep disorder and sent us home. She had 2 more that night and has had none since.
Obviously she was not eating and wasn't drinking as much as I would have liked,so her body was depleted. Along with the stomach bug we had colds. Her little brother had croup.... there are so many possibilities on causes that I am going crazy. I am just looking to see if anyone has had similar experiences?
The neurologist reviewed the videos we caught and they weren't able to say one way or another. They said we could take a watch and wait approach or schedule another EEG and see if anything comes up. I think, since she has had nothing after those 2 nights we are going to wait it out. Last thing we want is exposing her to hospitals and tests if we don't absolutely have to.
I am not sure about the night terrors since it only has happened when shes been sick. Its a bit of a mystery at this point, I was really just trying to see if anyone had similar experiences when their child was sick.. Thanks everyone for the advise and comments.
Is it possible it's night terrors? I know sometimes with night terrors children will wake or be semi-conscious but also can be rigid like you mentioned.
Gas?
Muscle cramps?
both of these causes pain and the body getting rigid.
in babies, when they have gas, their body gets rigid/stiff/tense.
Gas in some people can cause a lot of pain.
Cramping also.
And being she has a stomach bug, gas may likely accompany that.
Stomach bugs also deplete the body of electrolytes etc., which may cause cramping.
I would tend to feel that it might be something like night terrors, as Shannon B suggested. I had panic attacks as a child, which started when I was around 7 years old, and I would wake crying and tense up and not want anyone to touch me or hold me. It sounds like a scary situation, and I hope it gets better for you.
Night terrors (which are different from nightmares) brought on by slight dehydration? Some kind of sensitivity in her brain that reacts to stomach bugs?
It sounds like you know the triggers and the symptoms are the same for both cases of when it happened. So you've got two options -- watch her closely for anything abnormal and then take that to a doctor and demand (nicely) more research into this, or accept what the doctor told you that it's a sleep disorder. The only way to know which you should do is to follow your gut instinct. I fully believe that as the mommy you have a "sixth" sense when you should persue things and when you can just let it go.
My son has night terrors occasionally and he is MUCH more prone to them when he is sick with a stomach ache or fever. He does get somewhat rigid just because he is all tense during them. He will still talk sometimes during his night terrors but what he says at the time doesn't always really make sense. Does she seem completely coherent and fully awake during these episodes? If not I would assume they are night terrors.
I know this was posted a few years back but did you ever figure anything out? Going through the same thing with my 3 year old right now where he is waking up rigid and screaming 2 days post stomach bug.
Updated
I know this was posted a few years back but did you ever figure anything out? Going through the same thing with my 3 year old right now where he is waking up rigid and screaming 2 days post stomach bug.
