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New Diagnosis for my 6 year old son
Wed, 04/17/2019 - 13:51Topic: Parents & Caregivers
My 6 year old son was just diagnosed with epilepsy. He had a tonic clonic seizure 2.5 years ago. We never saw another seizure until about 2 months ago. He had 3 absence seizures over a two week period and now we haven't seen anything again for about 6 weeks. After the seizure in 2016, his MRI and EEG were both clear. This time, EEG was abnormal. (He has also always had bad sleep issues. We had a sleep study done a few weeks ago. There was no seizure activity but they did find that he has sleep apnea and what they thought was maybe restless legs. So that doctor did an iron test and his iron is low. Not sure if any of that is related.) Now, the doctor has prescribed him Keppra to control the seizures. I am so nervous to give him this medication. I have read some of the side effects and I'm scared to death to change him. He is such a sweet and happy little boy. I don't want him to become any more anxious than he already is or aggressive and moody. He is also incredibly smart and I worry about affecting his intellectual abilities and memory. His seizures are so rare. I obviously don't want him to have another tonic clonic seizure and risk something happening to him but I also don't want to disrupt his life and change his mental state when he's having so few seizures. Any advice that will give me peace of mind putting him on this? I am devastated having to medicate him but I know part of that is my denial that anything is wrong with him and wanting to pretend a problem doesn't exist since it is happening so infrequently.
I am in a similar situation.
Submitted by mom40 on Wed, 2019-10-23 - 17:30
I am in a similar situation. My son is 5 and was diagnosed a little over a year ago with focal seizures. They are not that frequent but for the last 6 months we have been seizure free on his current medication. We have done the sleep studies, fixed his sleep apnea, corrected the iron and then last night he has another seizure. So whey want to add another medication to what he's already taking. He currently has no side effects from his current medication and now the thought that I have to put him on something that can might have side effects is hard to process. I am again in the position where I'm asking the same questions you are asking. Your words sound so much like what I felt initially and what I'm feeling right now. I understand where you are and it's very hard because they are so young. I don't know that I have the words to make you feel better about your decision because I'm struggling with that decision right now as well. But the one thing I do know and that his neurologist has made clear is that there are options and not all of them work for everyone. We can try it and see if it works, if it doesn't we talk about it and find another one. I hope this helps.