My child only has seizures when she vomits/has stomach bug

[alliecat_84]

I have tried researching information about vomiting bringing on seizures and have only found one website on it. I hope there is someone else out there with the same thing or at least able to give me some more information on it.

My daughter is 4yrs 9mths and had her first seizure when she was 2yrs 3mths. She has also had clusters of seizures in Dec 07, Aug 08, Oct 08, March 10 and May 10. Each of these times she has been very unwell with a stomach bug. The clusters of seizures begin with the first vomit and end with the last vomit (usually over a 6hr period). She has never had a high temp at these times. Her seizures are tonic (her whole body goes stiff - no shaking or jerking - eyes roll backwards, breathing sounds like she is panting) and usually last about 30-40 seconds. She then becomes alert again quiet quickly.
She has had all the usual test - EEG, MRI, bloodtests - and everything is normal. We see a neurologist and paediatrician and both of them can't give me a reason except for epilepsy and both say it's quiet odd that she only has seizures when vomitting. She is on Epilim (has been since Dec 07) and when she has her seizures the blood tests have shown that her Epilim levels are normal.

I suppose I'm just really hoping that someone can give me any information or can tell me if they have or know someone who has a similiar thing.

[epileric]

I personally haven't had problems with vomiting that were connected to my seizures. I do know that when I have any type of sickness my seizures do increase as it is a strain on my system.

Recently someone posted this thread, I hope it does help you out somewhat Abdominal Epilepsy?

Also I moved your post to the foyer so that everyone can welcome you & say "hi". There's a lot of supportive people here whose two cents might be of help.

In the meantime you can check out the library if you want as it has a lot of info from news, articles, research & studies http://www.coping-with-epilepsy.com/forums/f22/

Once more, welcome to CWE

[alliecat_84]

Hi, thanks for that! I've just had a look around the forum and it seems like there's quite alot of information to read! Hoping I can find something!

She doesn't suffer from abdominal epilepsy because besides each episode/cluster she is a perfectly healthy child. She never complains of pain or headaches and just gets the occasional cold!

[Nakamova]

The vomiting could be signs of a low-grade fever/infection that is triggering the seizures, or it could also be the seizure itself. You might want to check out this link:

http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC1032819/


There is also a disorder called Panayiotopoulos syndrome, that features vomiting/seizures. Below is a link with more info about this syndrome:

http://www.ilae-epilepsy.org/Visitor.../pana_synd.cfm

[edb]

Hi,

We don't have a diagnosis yet but I think my daughter has Panayiotopoulos syndrome; I read everything I could find about this and I can share some info...
Seizures in PS are mainly nocturnal, infrequent, manifest with autonomic symptoms (like pallor and vomiting) and most of the time are long (over 5 minutes) or very long (over 30 minutes). Impairment of consciousness can be mild or severe and they may terminate or not with convulsions (I guess tonic manifestations are possible). Deviation of the eyes to one side is also very common and vomiting can happen multiple times during one episode...

It is totally possible that PS seizures manifest with autonomic symptoms only, this is why they are often misdiagnosed and not recognised as seizures!!!

My daughter's seizures can be described as staring and vomiting attacks. She had the eyes deviation twice, never had convulsions. She happened to have three episodes over a 9 hours interval, is this what you mean by "cluster"? I never saw this being described in the papers; instead, status epilepticus lasting many hours is common in PS...

I hope this helps! If you think it fits somehow make notes of all symptoms happening during the whole vomiting-seizure episode and talk to a ped neurologist about this!

[Lawdog2705]

I had never heard of vomiting before or after a seizure but my son would vomit before he had a seizure. Although never hearing of this before, I knew it couldn't be an isolated thing. He passed away almost 4 years ago from S.U.D.E.P. Another thing I had never heard of before his death even though I, myself, have epilepsy. Only after losing my son and beginning research did I learn about S.U.D.E.P. The only way the coroner knew what happened is because I told him he had had a seizure since I knew he had vomitted. My son was 22. Each time I learn something new about our seizures, I can't help but become angry because this information has been withheld from us and I have to wonder could my son and all these other patients, young and old alike, could have been saved!

[Endless]

Lawdog, I am so sorry about the loss of your son.

I feel pretty ticked off about the lack of education about epilepsy in general. It's more common that autism, and the autism knowledge in the general public is so much better. Before my diagnosis I thought epilepsy was only when people fall down and convulse. I had no idea there were different types of seizures, let alone so many. I think that most people don't know about the symptoms of epilepsy, treatments, or how it affects people's lives.

I had seizures I think since I was a child, and was never diagnosed. Here I am decades later, finally diagnosed getting treatment. No need to go into it here, but before my diagnosis I had seizures that put me in a couple of pretty danagerous situations that could have killed me. An early diagnosis could have prevented that.

We need to help educate people, talk about it, write about it, donate to the epilepsy society (if able to), and do all we can to help others know. Maybe we can save some lives.

[alliecat_84]

Nakamova - Thank you very much for those links. I'm going to take my time in reading them and hope they can shed some light on my daughters seizures.

edb - Sounds slightly similar and I'm going to look into that as well! By clusters I mean over a time period (usually 2-6hrs) she has anywhere from 5-15 seizures.

Lawdog - So sorry for the loss of your son. I agree that more needs to be known about seizures and epilepsy. And it is very hard to find information on a specific situation.

I suppose coming on here I am hoping to find another person who suffers or knows someone who suffers from similar seizures as my daughter!

[jelymon370]

I don't know if this is helpful to you but I have noticed one of my seizure triggers is when I get really upset to the point where i am gulping for air. I sometimes have seizures when I throw up, i thought it was because i would become upset and start gulping for air. I have always assumed that being light headed was the problem, but recently I have begun to look into food allergy. gluten allergy can cause vomiting and seizurs. Dr.s can test for it though they rarely bring it up. check it out.

[JenniO]

My 5 year old daughter is also having autonomic seizures - she had her first at 2 years, 10 months, and had her next at 4 yrs, 11 months. She has now had a total of 4, all similar. She becomes pale, and complains of nausea, then vomits, becomes unresponsive for less than a minute, and is very fatigued for about an hour. Three of the 4 have occurred when she is hot, and she has not had a lot to drink before all of them. One happened immediately following a fasting blood draw. Two of them were after a prolonged car ride.

Has your daughter had similar symptoms? Her EEG's have been normal. The most recent seizure was the scariest - she had just gotten out of the car, and suddenly collapsed. All others were preceded by her coming to me complaining of nausea.

Her neurologist feels that this is Panayiotopoulos syndrome, and after doing extensive internet research, I agree that this diagnosis does describe what is happening very well.

[wildnv]

I don't have a lot of grand-mall seizures but, when I am sick I will get a lot of them I had 25 in a 2 week period when I was very sick.
When I vomit with a seizure I always have a bad headache, with the one exception if have taken Zomeg.