I had to take my 11 year old daughter Mikaela to Childrens Hospital ER friday night.
She was setting at the computer playing a game. I was asleep. Hubby was awake when I went to bed but had dozed off on the couch. My youngest daughter Emily was in the floor putting a puzzle together.
Emily said Mikaela was playing the game then was making some weird breathing noises sort of like snoring. She looked up and saw her slump forward in the chair. It scared her. She yelled for Mikaela to wake up but she didnt. She woke her dad up and he yelled at her a couple times. Finally she jerked and came to. Then she started crying and said she didnt feel right. Her head and stomach was hurting. He asked her what happened and she said she couldnt remember. She crawled in bed with me and woke me up.
When she told me what happened I freaked out. I immediately got online and looked up seizures. She had a lot of the symptoms. I was scared she would have another one so I called her pediatrician. She said to take her to the ER at Childrens Hospital just to be on the safe side. I didnt want to make that drive in the middle of the night by myself so Mom went with me. That hospital is an hour and a half away.
The ER doctor said she didnt think it was a seizure but more like a fainting spell. Im sorry...I dont agree with that diagnosis. They did a EKG on her heart and said it was fine. Then released her. She wants us to follow up with our regular doctor and schedule a EEG on an outpatient basis. Why didnt they do that while she was there?????
Its funny the doctor didnt want to diagnose it as a seizure but on all of the paperwork she put seizure activity and gave me a printout of symptoms and treatments for it. Mikaela isnt allowed to be unsupervised or play any video games until she has the EEG.
Shes aggravated at having to spend part of the night in the ER. It seems like shes had a lot of health problems here lately. First the protein in her urine, the lupus misdiagnosis, the hypothyroidism and now this.
I will give credit to the hospital for getting us in and out quickly. The waiting room was pretty full. We were there for around 3 hours. Thats pretty fast in my book for an ER visit.
I'm so sorry about your daughter! I'm an er nurse in a pedi hospital, and you're right, that is good time for an ER visit, so that's good at least. I would just tell you to go with your instincts. You're her mom, you know her better than any doctor ever will. Get second and third opinions until you are comfortable with her diagnosis and treatment plan. Most importantly, find a doctor that listens to you and you feel comfortable with. Good luck!! Let us know how the EEG turns out.
I know it's not much consolation when you're worried and want answers right away, but EEGs generally have to be scheduled because you have very specific circumstances for having them done. I don't know the guidelines there, but when my dad had his done, he couldn't have had more than 3 hours of sleep in a 24-hour period, couldn't eat/drink, etc.
Another thing to keep in mind is that some doctors hesitate to diagnose anything as a seizure disorder until it has happened more than once or twice. Since they gave you literature about seizure activity and ordered an EEG, they are likely leaning that way but will not diagnose as seizures until they have all the information in. Again, this is just based off of what I experienced with my dad. I'm not a doctor or nurse, and my medical background definitely isn't in neurology so take it with a grain of salt
That said, your daughter will be in my thoughts, and I hope for the best possible outcome for her!
I agree go with your instinct. A year or so ago, my dh was in extreme pain in his back. I took him to the "band-aid" station they called an er up here at the time. They gave him morphine and phengran (for vomiting, cuz he was in so much pain) and sent him home. I was not happy with that. So I called our family dr the very next morning and got him in. Our dr said he had classic signs of gallstones and ordered tests, sure enough he had them and had to have his gallbladder out. The "ER" told him that it was pulled muscle!!! That is why I have to be half-dead to go to an ER. I know not ALL ER's are like that, but anymore what the heck are we paying all that money to them for??? Just my humble opinion.
and I hope they figure out what is wrong with your daughter.
I took Mikaela to see her pediatrician today. She wanted to hear all the details of Friday night. I told her everything that happened.
Her diagnosis........Mikaela simply fell asleep at the computer. Ummm...say that again please because it sounded like you said she fell asleep. Yep thats right. She said it wasnt a seizure because Mikaela didnt fall out of the chair when it happened, her body wasnt jerking, she wasnt laying on the floor when her dad found her and she hadnt peed on herself. OK...Whatever! I know there are several types of seizures and they have different symtoms. Besides....the chair she was in is an office chair. It has arms on the sides. Its kinda hard to fall out of.
She still wants her to have the EEG "just in case". On the order for it she had seizure activity in the diagnosis box. They scheduled it for Thursday morning. I have to keep her up all night Wednesday. She can sleep for no more than 4 hours and has to be up by 4am. They want her dog tired so she can sleep during the test. She can only have clear fluids after midnight. That will kill her. We will be two good ones by that afternoon. Sleep deprived and hungry. Oh what a day that will be!
We have to get blood work done and get the endocrinologist to write some refills on her thyroid meds while we are at the hospital.
I'm so sorry, it definately sounds like something happened. I hope you can get the answers you are looking for.
I have personal experience with having seizures as I had them from the time I was nine months old until I was 15 (I am 21 now). I never fell out of chairs or peed myself or anything like that, but I did jerk. I was not at all conscious for any of it, for me I would "go to sleep" but I was actually passing out. The details I have are from my family, I would jerk violently for a span of a minute to 3-5 minutes. After that I would come to and I would be very groggy, but physically feel fine. For me what set off the seizures was a very high spike in temperature caused by some sickness whether it be the flu or pneumonia (this caused 3 of them) but my temperature would go from normal to 102 in a matter of minutes and caused my body to seize. One time I was actually sitting up like your daughter and I was pulled onto the floor by my parents, so that shows that I didn't fall to the floor. But if that did happen she will honestly have no recollection of it at all. The type that I had was classified as febrile seizures or grand mal seizures. I eventually grew out of them and have had no problems since, but I always have to monitor my temperature or I could potentially have another.
Personally, I feel that if your gut is saying that this is what occurred then I would check into it. Your instincts are there for a reason
Update: Ok I've done some looking what you may want to check into is a 'petit mal seizure' also known as an absence seizure. In these types of seizures jerking does not occur generally and there are very few signs that the person did actually have a seizure.
This definately sounds like it could be what happened. For her not to respond to her fathers yells sounds like a loss of consciousness. I hope that you can get some answers from your doctors appointment and I would defiantely suggest bringing this up
Last edited by Rhighlan86; 03-03-2008 at 05:40 PM.
Here's a link to info about seizures related to exposure to computers, video games and flashing lights. Sounds like they can test for this when doing the EEG. Hope this helps!
I know this doesn't help, but you have to be patient. My daughter is going through almost the same thing. She started passing out, practically everytime she stood upright. She was in the ER three times, admitted overnight three times. Last visit they kept her three nights, then ::sigh:: released her AGAIN still not knowing the cause. Each time they had her follow-up with her family doctor. This started in January. It's now March and they are STILL running tests to figure out the cause. They increased one of her medications and took her off the 4 new ones they had recently prescribed. The last time, they added beta blockers. Yet each stress test every week still shows an elevated HR & BP everytime she goes upright. Though, she hasn't fainted since they increased one of her meds that's supposed to help with seizures, as she was having mini seizures before each fainting spell.
I was born with heart problems. So while they can't find any heart problem associated with this, they're not ruling it out right now as it runs in the family. At least she can go to the bathroom now without ending up in the floor.
I was also surprised that they just kept sending her home and telling her to stay in bed and follow-up with her doctor. And she did stay in bed. But a gal's gotta go to the bathroom. And the moment she did, wham! And she ended up back at the ER again.
I guess that's why I've always said it's called "practicing" medicine. They don't know everything. So they can only test and keep trying things until they find the solution.
And yes, some of these tests take special preparation. They can't just do it on the spot. I was surprised when they said my dad's form of cancer was treatable but also rapidly spreading, and they would start his first treatment in...ONE MONTH?!?! Turned out they had to get a certain medication on hand in order to do the treatment, and he had to go through some other prep ahead of time. I just thought in a month, if this is rapid, a lot can happen, but they simply can't do some of these tests immediately.
Last edited by almostheaven; 03-04-2008 at 09:05 AM.
My trip to the ER
