first time seizures

[latinap]

hi, my 18 year old son had a seizure for the first time the day after x-mas. wwe went to the movie and saw doom and chated for 1/2 hour after that and he went and played a x-box game that i had brought him for x-mas.( he has been playing video games since he was five) when 20 mins into this game his twins started screaming and i called 911.his heart stopped after this seizure. he was admitted to the hospital for three days. they done blood work,cat,mri,eeg and all came back normal. he lost the memory of x-mas. what gets to me is that after having the attack he had a rash around his face and neck and stomach. is that normal after a seizure? the neurologist are blamming the video game. since then he is under no medicine and has headaches almost every day. meanwhile i am going crazy with no sleep and afraid to leave him alone. is this normal? i asked all the doctors and so far all they tell me is they don't know! can he go back and play video games later? can anyone out there can help me to understand and what to expect? neurologist says that the seizure didn't cause the headaches. headaches are from stress! i don't believe him.

[Bernard]

Hi latinap, welcome to the forum.

I'm sorry to hear about your son's Christmas experience.

Some people are photosensitive and video games, computer animations, movies and strobe lights can trigger seizures. The only way to know for sure if your son is in this category is to have him tested (EEG monitoring while exposing him to stimuli) and have the test come back positive (a negative result doesn't necessarily mean he's not photosensitive, just that test didn't catch it).

The tests they ran at the hospital do not mean that your son does not have epilepsy. My wife has been status epilepticus twice since Thanksgiving and they ran the same tests on her and all came back negative too. It just means that they didn't notice any abnormalities at the time of the test (EEG) or lesions/scar tissue (MRI).

I have not heard of anyone getting a rash in response to a seizure, but it is quite possible that others here may be aware of such a phenomenon if it is seizure related.

Having headaches every day does not sound good to me. Stacy has had 2-3 day long lingering headaches after grand mal/tonic clonic seizures, so it is possible that it is a "hangover" so to speak, but hers have never lasted more than a few days. Did they pump him up with drugs at the hospital? That could be another possible reason for the headaches - a side effect of an anti-epileptic drug. I hope you/he are able to find some answers soon.

The hyper-alertness to future seizures is a cross that everyone caring for someone with uncontrolled seizures has to bear. It can be tough. I had to drill the Serenity Prayer into my psyche to reach that epiphany that it was OK for me to relax and just deal with a seizure when it happens and not every second that it is not happening.

[latinap]

hi, no they haven't pumped my son with any meds. since it was a first seizure we decide not to do meds. after the seizure he was wiped out for like two week he still goes to h.s. senior. the neurologist ran another eeg and cat this week to see if he can figure out the headaches. i am being to wonder if the seizure gave him migrane is that possible? i suffer from it. i am sorry that my questions may appear stuip but right now i am a single parent and i am doing reseach on this on the net and they don't really say what are the after affect and how long it lasts. the neurologist said that if in 6 months nothing else happens then they condsider this a one time thing. it just amazes me that this thing can hit someone so late in life with no warning and there isn't a test that can tell you if something is wrong because all test can come out fine and you can have epilepsy. i am so afraid to leave him alone. i am not afraid of the seizure i am afraid that it will happen like the last time the seizure stopped and so did his heart. for the first time in my life i actually have fear. i feel like if we are in the flintstone ages. it sucks! he is a twin so that means i am also watching the other one.
but you know what gets me is the warning on the label of the video says if you got epilepsy then you can have a seizure, not that it can cause seizure on someone who never had it before. why these nitiendo keeps making it stronger can't they make it safer. i am so mad. so scared out of my mind.
thank you for letting me on your chats.

[Bernard]

Children who have migraine with aura are at substantially increased risk of developing epilepsy, researchers from the United States and Iceland report. However, they found no apparent relationship between seizures and migraine without aura.

Senior investigator Dr. W. Allen Hauser told Reuters Health, "a possible association between migraine and epilepsy has long been recognized, but the exact relationship is not clear."

This study, he added, shows that "the relationship between epilepsy and migraine is strong, but only for migraine with aura, which accounts for only about 30 percent of all migraines.

Epidemiological studies have shown that the risk of migraine is about twice as great in adults with epilepsy as it is in those without, Hauser of Columbia University, New York and colleagues point out.

http://www.nlm.nih.gov/medlineplus/n...ory_29392.html

Auras are a type of seizure.

The one consistency in epilepsy is that there is no consensus on the root cause for it. In some people, it can be traced to head trauma (brain scars) from accidents or febrile seizures. In others, like my wife, there is a family history of it tracing back many generations. Whether it is genetic or something related to the enviroment or diet/lifestyle I don't know.

Some people do not see seizures manifest until their 30s or 40s. It's different for everyone.

It is rare for someone to die as a direct result of a tonic clonic seizure (see SUDEP), but injuries during the seizure (from falling or banging against stuff during convulsions) are a real risk.

[latinap]

hi guys, well it has been 9 weeks, and thank GOD no seizure. the doctors now only wants to see him once a month. migrane yes i do believe he has them. since i suffer from them i give him my knowledge of it and help him thur it. we are trying the best we can to do all of this without meds. and the doctors agree. the other twins been getting headaches too. i know when boys go thur their growing stages they suffer from headache because all my other boys did. maybe they have alittle bit more growing to do.
well anyway i have learned to get 6 hours of sleep now. hey i read someplace that if you are in a situtaion where the lights are flashing to avoid a seizure close one eye, is that true guys? i hope and pray to GOD that everyone is doing better. gotta go now bye

[Bernard]

Hi latinap, thanks for the update. It's wonderful to hear that there have not been any further seizures.

I hope you both manage to get more sleep at night. Sleep deprivation is also a seizure trigger for many people.