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Absence epilepsy

4 replies

zipper · 03/08/2003 09:04

My son has absence epilepsy which is (poorly) controlled by lots of drugs.I feel very sorry for him as it has quite a lot of associated difficulties, one of which is the bullying from peers for his (what appears to be) strange behaviour. It has caused him a lot of set-backs lately but we seem to be slowly getting on top of most of them. Lots of people find it hard to understand what this form of epilepsy involves and he is frequently dismissed as being ignorant and not paying attention (something I find hard to accept as it is obvious there is something wrong, I am sure, and I feel it is other people (adults) who are ignorant although I do realise that it can be weird to see if you have not encountered it before!) He is very bright, could read fluently by the age of 3 etc. and is a very well-adjusted boy. Has anyone else encountered this problem? I don't know anyone else with a child who has it. He used to be convulsive, too, until the age of 7.

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Jimjams · 03/08/2003 11:05

My friend's daughter has epilepsy- she gets just about every type of seizure going, including absences. She also has problems with the drugs, and they aren't controlling the seizures very well at the moment. She has eventually been given an appointment for GOSH- I think they run a special epilepsy clinic

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Cll · 04/08/2003 22:24

My daughter's friend has just been diagnosed today with mild epilepsy and the main symptom is eyes rolling and appearing absent for a moment before coming back and continuing her sentence/activity etc- she is 4 and v bright. Is this what absence epilepsy is? She has no other seizures.

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zipper · 20/09/2003 17:15

Yep, that is it. Altough there different degrees of it. My son's epilepsy is generalised, involving the whole brain, and there is also partial epilepsy where only part of the brain is involved.

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heldo · 18/06/2012 20:55

hi, i know this is an old thread but wondered if Zipper could give me some more info about her sons epilepsy. My 3 year old nephew has been having siezures for a few months and after a 48hr EEG we were told that the siezures arent coming from one specific part of the brain, but the whole brain is "malfunctioning" at once. the consultant says he has never experienced this before and we are getting quite concerned now- we would be glad to hear more of your story zipper if you are able to share :) thanks