Can antibiotic cause seizures?

[chi]

my 2 year old niece who is not epilepsy had 4 episodes of seizures not lasting more than 30 secs each in a period of 14 hours. Prior to this she was given zithromycin and zythromax for bronchiolitis. She had ct can and eeg and the doctors found nothing. So I am wondering if the seizures were caused by the antibiotics.

 

[Bernard]

Did she also have a high fever? Young children can have febrile seizures.

 

[jyearta]

I have E. and my seizures have been under control for over a year, but when I'm sick and take antib. it causes me to have seizures every time.

 

[KarenB]

This came up a couple months ago, but in that case, the child already had epilepsy, but it seemed that the antibiotics caused a flare-up of seizures. The discussion (and some links to research on the topic) can be found in the Nursery section -- and I think the title of the thread is almost the same.

However, if your niece is 2 years old, and has not had any prior seizures, it is more likely that the fever associated with the bronchiolitis is the cause of the seizures. Small children sometimes have "febrile seizures" when very ill, but these usually are isolated incidents that normally do not repeat later in life.

Here is a link that gives some information on this sort of seizure:
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmedhealth/PMH0001975/

Our son (now 8 ) has had epilepsy since age 1, and he has taken Zithromax without any problems. I don't think this is a drug that would cause seizures, especially in a child without any prior seizures, unless there was a big overdose.

 

[cazzy]

could it be the infection that cause seziours not anti biotics....this something to ponder on my daughter showing signs of e coming back and it coinciding with anti biotics,damed if ya do damed if ya dont

 

[Meetz1064]

Some

antibiotics can cause seizures, but looking at Zithromax on www.rxlist.com, it is not one of them. It seems that it can cause a host of other side effects, but seizures is not on that list.

It is possible that the child does have E, and it is possible that the seizures are febrile. Has an EEG been run?

 

[chi]

To the question if EEG has been runn, yes and the result was unremarkable. Thank you for all the posts, they are very helpful info.

 

[momof3boys]

last year I had bronchitis and was given Hydrocodone for it. Turns out, I started having seizures within a couple of hours after taking it. I didnt know what was going on til my aunt who is a nurse, caught it. i went back to the dr, and informed them of this. I was told by my primary care drs office, that the ER never should have given me this medication. So yes, certain antibiotics can cause seizures.

 

[JulesD]

Yes. I had huge scary auras from minocycline. My neurologist told me it affects the brain and they had found this in stroke victims. My dermatologist had given it to me for my skin. I went off it immediately and it subsided.

 

[RobinN]

With the known brain-gut connection for some types of seizures, I would believe that there must be a connection between antibiotics and seizures.

 

[chop456]

My daughter was taking antibiotics and pain medicine after her wisdom teeth and we noticed an increase in her myoclonic seizures. After a trip to the neurologist, we were told that yes, her increase was most likely due to the medicines she was taking. She is now off of the medicines and so far her morning have been smooth.

Interestingly enough, she is taking (and has been taking since before she was diagnosed with epilepsy) minocyclene. I wonder if we should think about weaning her off of this???

 

[KarenB]

The child in question did not have known epilepsy, nor was she on any seizure medication. It is highly unlikely that the antibiotics caused her seizure -- more likely a febrile seizure from the illness.

Yes, it is possible that antibiotics can cause seizures in someone who has epilepsy -- for one thing, certain antibiotics can interact with certain seizure medications. Others can lower the seizure threshhold.

Robin mentioned the brain-gut connection, which is interesting, because sometimes antibiotics can cause diarrhea (by disrupting the normal gut bacteria) ...and there have been numerous reports in recent years from hospitals where very young children (infants and preschool age) have had seizures associated with diarrhea (often caused by rotovirus). The doctors were scratching their heads over this, because the cases of diarrhea were mild -- the children were not dehydrated nor did they have an electrolyte imbalance -- there didn't seem to be any reason for the seizures (and these were NOT kids with epilepsy). Follow-up with these tots did not show any further seizures within the next year.

So...I suppose it's conceivable that if a baby was on antibiotics that caused diarrhea, that the intestinal issues could somehow trigger a seizure in a child that doesn't have epilepsy. But my guess is that the baby in question had a febrile seizure.

Either way, the parents (and Auntie) can be fairly well assured that this is an isolated event -- we pray and hope so!!

 

[Emee]

Everytime I have taken an antibiotic, even Zithromax, I had seizure.