Abnormal EEG - Strobe Lights

[Toronto Mom]

My son had his eeg yesterday and had a response to the strobe lights but not to the hyperventilation. Anyone else experience this?

[Crystal11]

I had a few EEGs in my life (Age 6-27-) and two or three of them showed "driving response" on it. It means that I could possibly have a seizure due to photosensitivty or lights/patterns. I did not have an actual seizure while in testing, but I guess the driving response was all they needed to see. That and spike and wave patterns which are characteristic to a person with Epilepsy.
They could not do the hyperventilation portion of the test since I was diagnosed with Migraine with aura.
But when I was little if I ran at all or got worked up etc, I would have a small complex partial which were probably Absence seizures.
My neurologist keeps telling me that it was a tiny complex partial but I feel it was an Absence- but I'm not the doctor so..

I hope all else goes well.
Ask questions if you have them- to the neurologist, EEG tech, anyone if you don't understand something in the office visits.
Please take care,
Crystal and her guide dog Umbro

[skillefer]

Yup! It means he's probably photosensitive. For me, it's strobe lights. Things to watch out for are flickering lights, strobe lights, repeating patterns (like checkerboards or light breaking through the trees along the road) , light effects in movies and on the computer, as well as the flashing lights on emergency services vehicles. Also, if you have those energy efficient light bulbs in your house that look like screw, get rid of them. They can trigger seizures. As can the flourescent light bulbs used by stores and schools. At school (I'm a teacher...) I only use half the lights in my classroom because I have large windows and I also report flickering lights immediately to the office for changing. The school is good about removing/replacing the bulbs within 24 hours. Some people find that blue polarized lenses help. (worked for something like 50% of the folks who used it in one study..) For the computer, you might want to get a special thingy (filter?)that you put over the monitor screen. Hope this helped!

[dfwtexas]

I am also photosensitive....I cannot go to movie theater without having seizure, but am ok to watch tv at home.
Your son might have problems with video games too.