Am I overthinking this - potential absence seizures

Welcome to the Coping With Epilepsy Forums

Welcome to the Coping With Epilepsy forums - a peer support community for folks dealing (directly or indirectly) with seizure disorders. You can visit the forum page to see the list of forum nodes (categories/rooms) for topics.

Please have a look around and if you like what you see, please consider registering an account and joining the discussions. When you register an account and log in, you may enjoy additional benefits including no ads, access to members only (ie. private) forum nodes and more. Registering an account is free - you have nothing to lose!

Lania

New
Messages
22
Reaction score
0
Points
0
Hi all,

Getting a little concerned about Miss 9 and have arranged a doctor's visit but that will not be for a few days. I know my husband thinks I'm overthinking this and looking for things that may not be there but I'd appreciate any thoughts on the below things that are happening or suggestions of things to watch out for.


  • She is very smart but has trouble understanding maths, its like she's missed steps in how to solve problems. However maybe maths isn't her thing

  • She needs to be constantly told things because she forgets or doesn't hear them, however this may just be inattention.

  • She sleep walks a couple of times a month. Last one about 5 minutes ago where she was searching the house for "the thing you jump" with

  • Has epilepsy on both my and her father's side of the family and I started at her age with absence seizures (petit mal as they were then called)

  • She has trouble remembering what she has done during the day, can't tell us what she did at school, just looks a bit confused and says "work"

  • Told me tonight that her seat mates at school keep getting her attention by tapping her shoulder or waving their hands in front of her face because she is "daydreaming" and they don't want her to get in trouble with the teacher. I am going to see if I can verify this with one of the parents of a boy who sits at her table who she told me taps her on the shoulder so she won't get into trouble. This was the one that made me really sit up and seriously think about this.

  • She sometimes seems to only remember partial instructions or things that happened, ie tonight I brought in the icecream she asked for. Placed it on the table beside her where she was reading and 5 minutes later she came out to ask me where her icecream was as she was hungry and it was still sitting on a tray beside her on the lounge.

  • She has always had a phenomenal memory but of late seems distracted and now I think of it seems to have a poor memory


My husband does not want his little girl to develop epilepsy and says I am overthinking it because I once had absence seizures. To him she is perfect and his mum told me he hated it when she had seizures and didn't want to go near her when she had them.

I've raised the issue with him today and asked that in future he makes sure he has her full attention by making sure she is looking him in the eye and not into the distance and get her to repeat his instructions back to him as he gets impatient when he sometimes has to ask her three or four times to do something before she does it, or, if she hasn't done something she seems to only remember part of his instructions. For example tonight she was told she could play a game while he went to the shops and I cooked dinner only if she got changed and cleaned up her books first. He came back and found her playing her game without the changing or cleaning up. She honestly seemed like she only heard up to the part about him going to the shops and me cooking dinner and not the proviso he added afterwards, however this of course could be a child only listening to what they want to hear.

At the moment I'm not sure if I am seeing something that isn't there, if she is having hearing problems or if this may be the start of absence seizures. If you've got anything to add that I could look out for I'd appreciate it.
 
Last edited:
Much of what you describe also fits with kids I've see who have Auditory Processing Disorders. Google this, and see what you think. Also worth asking the doctor to have testing to see if this could be the reason.
 
Back
Top Bottom