DS had an EEG

[CoteDAzur]

Nursery says DS (almost 2) fell in a slump like he lost consciousness and got his pediatrician involved. Paed wanted an EEG (electroencephalogram), so we went for one the other day.

Does anyone have an experience of an EEG? Were you given a definite answer at the end? DS didn't sleep there (unsurprising, imo, with that contraption on his head) so they say they couldn't say anything.

Does anyone have an epileptic DC? Are there any other symptoms I should watch out for?

Why else can he have fainted? I'm too scared to Google.

Bumping for you- I don't have experience, but hope all is well with him.

Thanks, DarkSkies.

I just typed a loooong post and it disappeared. Oh well, here goes again:

Are they going to repeat the EEG?

Signs to look out for
Some children get very grumpy / restless / impulsive before a seizure. However, he's 2 and mood swings are par for the course.
Absences: like he's 'gone' for a minute, not responding to his name, vacantly staring. Then snapping back to reality like nothing has happened.
Odd noises: manic laughter, whooping etc can be signs of seizure activity, but again, he's 2.

As for the fainting, some children as just prone to passing out. It can be down to a number of things - heat sensitivity, low blood sugar (had he eaten enough that day?), not drinking enough, not being very well generally ie a cold coming on, holding their breath for fun (toddlers, eh?), tiredness etc etc. It's very unlikely to be caused by epilepsy.

Was he 'twitchy' at all when he passed out?

I know it's really worrying, but please comfort yourself with the fact it was most likely a one-off occurrence caused by any number of harmless factors which added up to cause him to faint.

They said that I should go back if it happens again.

Because I wasn't there when it happened, I am not sure if did anything unusual beforehand. He wasn't twitchy when he fell but he was unresponsive for several seconds afterwards.

You see, part of me says they must have seen wrong, as I am with him pretty much all day every day and I have never seen anything of this sort. Or is this the first manifestation of something serious? I don't know.

(Trying very hard not to think of my friend with terminal brain cancer, who first found out about the tumor when he fainted out of the blue )

DS is not a breath holder and I've never seen him lose consciousness.

Thanks for the reassurance, though.

So many, many causes for fainting. Brain tumours are so far down the list. Chances are you may not ever find out what caused it, cos it will never happen again.

Have the paeds come back to you yet cote?
Hope he's been okay in the meantime.

He looks fine to me, thank you for asking.

Paed didn't come back to me yet. I'm not surprised, as these things take time down here. Hospital needs to send report to my paed first, then she needs to get to calling me. Next week, probably.

When my dd had an EEG it took a while for the consultant to analyse the results and give a definite diagnosis.

The thing with EEGs is that they will only show up epileptic activity if it is present at the time of testing.

I hope things turn out well for you and ds.

Thanks, Pheasant. May I ask why your DS had an EEG and what the outcome was?

My dd was having possible 'absence' seizures, a form of epilepsy. The first EEG was inconclusive, but the second (a kind of 'retest') gave a diagnosis of epilepsy. She has complex partial seizures and focal seizures.

However the testing followed my dd having a massive brain haemorrhage as a premature infant, so there was always the possibility that she would have epilepsy as a result, with a diagnosis being given at some point in her childhood. She was diagnosed at 2 years old.

Hope things turn out OK for your ds. Let us know how you get on.

DS has had EEGs. He was still having febrile convulsions past the age of 6.
The first one was clear, but as he had another fc when he was 13, he had another eeg. This showed up some irregularites on one side of his brain, so they gave him a sleep deprived eeg. We had to keep him up most of the night (fun) and he had the EEG first thing. They wanted him to go to sleep straight away. This EEG came back clear.

When DS had the first EEG (age 9) he was having headaches so I am sure they were ruling out a brain tumour. He also had an MRI and a full eye test at the opthalmic clinic. It actually turned out it was chronic sinisitus.

Pheasant I hope your DD gets better.

bruffin - I asked the woman doing the EEG if it could determine a brain tumor and she said "No, for that you need an MRI".

I hope your DS is better now. I can't imagine how I would cope if DS started having convulsions.

Could he have fainted because he was hungry or dehydrated?

I no nothing about what causes fainting as I have only fainted once and that was in a strange situation.

I don't think so. This was barely an hour after his breakfast, with bread, honey, and a bottle of milk.