Febrile Seizures - Wytheville, VA

Hi J.,
Your situation sounds familiar to me as my daughter started having seizures with fever @ 18 mos of age.She is 5 now,also developmentally delayed & the seizures kept coming till 6 months ago-until we started her on medication.I would urge you to get your daughter evaluated by a neurologist and have an EEG if possible.We refrained from medicating our daughter till now,assuming that she would outgrow the seizures, but she never did.Early Seizure control gives your daughter a much better prognosis of outgrowing a seizure disorder(if she has one).As for family history of epilepsy, it runs on my side of the family too- So don't wait, get her checked for a seizure disorder-Good luck!

Just from experience, I know how frightening it is when your child goes limp from a febrile seizure... it happened to my son also at 17 mos, then again at 5 yrs. (he is now 7) Although you may think 101 isn't too high, and for some children it may not be.... other children, like your daughter and my son, have a lower normal body temp. So, for our children 101 is very high, and their bodies cannot handle that temp. First of all.. always make sure that you have motrin on hand, it is the quickest medicine to bring down a fever. Also, a luke-warm bath... not hot, and not cold. Any time my son would start to act like he wasn't feeling well... I would routinely take his temp... if it started raising...99.. I would give the motrin, for fear of having another seizure. Both times it happened, we went to the emergency room... when he was 18 mos and it happened, because he was so young, and unable to communicate to us what hurt, or how he felt, our pediatrician ran all sorts of tests... all turned out negative... It is just our children's body's way of dealing with a fever. It is so scary, but it is also perfectly normal. As for epilepsy... I do not believe that is a hereditary disease. You can check with your pediatrician, but it doesn't have anything to do with the high-fever and seizures. The way I was told by a pediatric neurological specialist, is that it is perfectly normal for a high fever to cause a seizure... called a febrile seizure. However, if your child starts having seizures with no fever, just out of the blue... then there is a much greater concern, where they would want to run all sorts of tests. Once you talk to other mothers, you will see that it is quite common, these febrile seizures... it doesn't make it any easier to deal with in the moment it is happening. But you know you just have to be very alert when she doesn't feel well, and be ready to give the motrin. My son is 7, and has not had a seizure since he was 5. They say, by age 5, they start to outgrow the febrile seizures. My son was sick about two months ago, his fever was 101.9 (not high for most, but extremely high for him) I was so worried that he was going to have another seizure... but he didn't.... his body was able to handle it. Sorry to be so lengthy... good luck.

HI, I am responding through my hubby who is a paramedic not a doctor.......that even if its just for that piece of mind seek out the pediatric neurologist.....febril seizures are not about how high the fever gets, kids can easily tolerate fevers up to 104....its when they spike a fever, when they go from a low number to a high number very quickly that they get that fever, and the one mistake that most people make is that when the kid starts to shiver they wrap them up in blankets because they think that they are cold......the best thing that you can do whenever your kid starts to run a fever, is take all there clothes off down to there underwear and no blankets and maybe a sheet to cover them, and the use of tylenol and mortin to keep the fever down......and consult the doctor...........
tylenol every 4 motrin every 6 hrs............and most children are not considered to have a fever till they reach 100 farenheit.....and yea if it was my child I would seek out a pediatric neurologist, just for the piece of mind, our daughter has seen one and we wont ever hesitate to seek out another if we think it needs to be done.......good luck

Talk to your pediatrician. It couldn't hurt to get her tested, especially if it runs in the family. Good luck.

My son is now 10 years old. He had febrile seizures as a baby as well. He had a total of 3 and outgrew them at the age of about 2-3 years old. He was tested for epilepsy, which was negative. I would have her tested just to rule it out. He would have the seizures if his fever reached over 101. To prevent them I would give Tylenol and 3 hours later give Motrin. Keep the routine up through anytime she has fever. She should grow out of this shortly. Also after a seizure try cooling her off but not to quickly as this will put her body in more shock. Hope this helps. It is very scary, but you will get through this...

Take her to see a neurologist. She could grow out of them. My daughter started having them at 9 months old from fevers and most of the time the fever wasn't high at all but just the sudden spike is what caused hers... unfortunately she isn't a good example because she was diagnosed with epilepsy at 2 when she started having them without the fevers and passed away at the age of 4 almost 5 in her sleep from a seizure. Good news is now they have monitors you can buy to help monitor them in their sleep that I didn't know about when she was alive. Another word of advice if you feel there is something wrong don't give up keep insisting on tests and answers. My son that is 13 months old now has been diagnosed with seizures also. Although his are alot different than my daughters were. Well good luck and keep us updated.

J.,

My son is 13 months and he was diagnosed with epilepsy at 3 months. I would definetly suggest at least getting tested for epilepsy, especially if there is any family history. From my experience a lot of doctors do not test for it at young ages because it is not as common below the age of 2. But my doctor has told me that it is common, people just do not recognize it at younger ages. The test is called an EEG and it is no big deal, the intitial one takes an hour. It is always better to know because then you can start finding a solution. I hope everything works out for you and your daughter.

What does the doctor say? My daughter had one seizure (we think) at around one year (no fever at the time) and they sent her for CAT Scan, EEG and a neurologist appt. She never had another one. Good luck.

I know "they" say that febrile seizures up to age five happen in a few out of every 100 chidlren; however, if it were my child I'd want him or her seen by a pediatric neurologist just to be sure. I'm an epileptic myself, and it ran on my father's side, although mine presented in adulthood. Good luck.

J.,

Hello, My name is L.. My daughter was recently diagnosed with Partial Complex Seizure Disorder. I would recomend you talk to her doctor and have her see a pediatric Nerologist and have an EEG done. A fever of 101.4 is only cosidered low grade and that shouldn't have caused it, especailly if it runs in the family.

Hi.
It seems that the fever is pretty low for having febrile seizures. I have seizures. Because of that, I met with my neurologist to talk with her about my children. She said that normally something (accident or bacterial injury or something like that) has to happen before seizures start. I had bacterial meningitis and that is probably the reason I started having seizures. So far my children have not had any seizures. They are 2 1/2 years and 1 year old.

My daughter had seven in the space of about three months. After the first one, they say that there is a less than 25%chance that the child will have another. After the second, they required an MRI (ruling out brain tumors) and an EEG (ruling out epilepsy). They have to put the child general anesthesia for the MRI. The EEG requires depriving the child of sleep and then making them go to sleep on cue in a doctor's office with 20+ wires attached to the child's head. It was stressful on mom and child. Once she finally fell asleep, they let her sleep for a couple of minutes and then woke her up to flash a light in her face several times. I am glad that we were able to rule out serious medical problems but hope never to have to repeat the experience. If it is simply febrile seizures, they grow out of it by the time they are 5. We pulled our daughter out of a group childcare situation and put her with a nanny and one other little girl. She had never been sick the first 15 months of her life and then we just could not get her well. She also stopped breathing (or had extremely slowed breathing) so we had to watch her very carefully and blow gently into her mouth during the seizure so that she got air. It was painful to watch her turn blue.

She was very hard to give medicine to and would block the back of her throat with her tongue and then spit it out. There is a rectal form of tylenol which was a lifesaver (called Feverall). We also bought a temporal themometer so that we could check her temp often. The problem with these types of fevers is that they come on so fast. She went from normal temp to having a seizure in my arms one day.

Let me know if you have any questions. I feel like an expert at this point. I did try to remind myself that it could be worse, which was easy while sitting in the neurologists office looking at children who were much worse off.

Good luck.

My 11 year old has seizures. He has a very good doctor here on the coast. If you want to email me, I can send you the info...my addy is ____@____.com