Absent Seizures

[efowler25]

Our Neuro Dr told us when our son was diagnosed that he thought there was a strong possiblity that he has had Absent seizures his whole life and they have just gone unnoticed. I believed that up until Friday. We were driving to a baseball game about an hour away. His sister had fallen asleep in the car and the car feel very quiet. So I looked back at him and he was sitting straight up, his head limp, drool coming out of his mouth, eyes WIDE open like he was starring into the pits of hell, and making a FUNKY sound. It scared the living daylights out of me so I screamed his name. He jumped and starred right at me and asked me what my problem was. He said "i was just looking out the window".


If that is what a Absent seizure is then he has never had one. Again we are still very new to this so I have no clue what that was!! Any insight would be appreciated!!

 

[Nakamova]

Absence seizures come on suddenly and don't last very long, maybe a few seconds to half a minute. The person having one just seems to stop or slow down what they are doing -- walking, eating, talking, etc. They'll have a blank stare, and seem to be daydreaming or "out of it". Sometimes absence seizures are combined with other kinds of seizure activities like automatisms, like grunting or licking of lips. Or there might be muscle tensing or loss of muscle tone (like your son's limp head).

Absence seizures can be very subtle -- just a few seconds of "spacing out" -- and can happen many times a day, so it's possible that your son was having absence seizures in the past that you didn't notice. One of the more reliable triggers for absence seizures is hyperventilation, so it could be relatively easy for the doctor see if your son is vulnerable to them.