Vitamin D deficiency cause seizure/epilepsy?

[hopeforthebest]

Can Vitamin D deficiency cause seizure/epilepsy? It would be very useful to know of any cases related to the above as my 11 year old son other wise normal and no family history of epilepsy has had 3 seizures in the last three months and his blood results show severe Vitamin D deficiency.

[travel bug]

Hi Hopeforthebest

Welcome to CWE. Sorry you haven't yet gotten a response. Sometimes it's because posts get pushed down the list, sometimes it's because no one has an answer and doesn't want to give any wrong info.

First of all, anyone can have epilepsy, even the otherwise healthy, and those with no family history, but I don't blame you for wanting to try to find answers.

I don't know if there is any link between the two, or if it has even been studied. However, I do have some personal experience with Vit. D and what may be seizure activity. I have a history of simple partial motor seizures that affect my right side though they have been well controlled with Keppra. But for a long time, I still had a problem with what I called foot flaps, usually at night when trying to sleep. They are not restless leg syndrome - I have that too, and this is not the same - nor are they hypnic jerks which can happen to anyone while sleeping. My neurologist said that they could be seizures, but since my other issues were controlled he wasn't very interested and only suggested adding another anti-seizure drug which I didn't want to deal with unless we were sure. Stay with me, I'm finally getting to my point The last two months I've been taking calcium (1000mg) with vitamin D (1600 IU's) every day and my foot flaps have almost completely disappeared. I don't think it's a coincidence because I had been taking these calcium supplements for a while before and it worked, then I ran out and didn't take any for about a month and the flapping came back. I took another brand of supplement for a while that had more calcium and less Vit D, and I still had flapping. It wasn't until I went back to the calcium with the 1600 IU's of vit D that the flapping went away again.

Now please keep in mind that I'm not sure that what I was experiencing was seizure activity, and this is only my experience taking calcium with D based on the advice of my OBGYN for bone health, it's not anything that was recommended for the purpose of controlling seizures.

I hope someone will come along with more definitive answers for you.

Take care

[hopeforthebest]

Hi Travel Bug,

Many thanks for replying to my e-mail and I am touched by your empathy for some unknown person. We met the Paediatric Neurologist today and he feels the seizures may be a cause of severe Vitamin D deficiency and he is not being put on anti-epileptic drug for the moment. IF he does not get any seizures after he get his vitamin D levels sorted he will not need any further medication. Fingers crossed and hope my son makes a complete recovery. Once again, thanks for your kind words.

Take Care,

[Nakamova]

I just posted in another thread about possible benefits from cod liver oil (which has high Vitamin D). There may indeed be a link -- A few studies have linked Vitamin D intake with a reduction in seizures, or speculate that low Vitamin D levels may lower seizure threshold:

http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC1610507/
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/20472195

I hope the Vitamin D treatment does the trick for your son.

[travel bug]

Hello hopeforthebest

You are quite welcome. And thank you for the update. I will definitely keep my fingers crossed that the vitamin D works! Let us know how things go

Best wishes!