Absence Seizures

sublingual seizures? Josh has seizures but not seen, he has no flapping, eye rolling etc, but he has these seizures that lasts for seconds, they can cause problems and finding them is hard. unless there is damage the CT scan and the EEG shows no sign of them. Josh will space out for a few seconds, and forget what has happened. we found ours when one night he had a bad seizure in his sleep, that night he did flap and loose bladder control, arms frailing, head banging, but since that night no more of them have occured, however he does have the sublingual’s still comming.
the definition i have gotten about the sublinguals is that he can be having one and nobody will ever know, it is silent and almost undetectable.

Does this cause any problems during physical activity such as riding his bike, rollerblading, etc.?

We are trying to determine if my son has these as well and I’ve hesitated on the EEG for the very reason you state.

I don’t notice them during physical activity but I worry about his safety if these are happening and I don’t know it.

I also worry about driving in the future, especially if they are not detectable.

Any insight?

in Josh’s case i have seen no difficulty, they last seconds, 1-3 per say, they come and go as fast as a heart beat. the nuro that evaluated Josh said the only problem will be is if or when they turn to a true seizure activity, ie. a grand maul, the way he explained this process to me is there are tiny electrodes pulsating in the brain, sometimes these electrodes miss and hit eachother, when that happens that is the sublingual episode.josh rides his bike, and does everything as a NT person would. i am not worried at this time yet, i keep a close eye on him, and know what to look for should this become more profound, and another thing should a child have an episode the EEG needs to be conducted imediately, say within a few hours, even in full blown grand maul the detection period is only hours.

I hope I can help you with the information I’ve got.

My daughter has epilepsy (the name covering all types of seizures). Her form is named absence seizures or petit mal seizures. They are very easily detected on an EEG as they leave an easily seen pattern and can happen quite frequenly. Without medication my daughter was showing maybe up to 100 a day lasting a few seconds to a minute. No muscle control is lost. There are no convultions. She just looks like she is daydreaming, thinking, or “dazed” when she is having a seizure. I hear that lip smacking can also sometimes occur. She does not realize that she is having or has had a seizure. This is typical. She looks fine, but her brain has effectively “turned off” to all stimuli. If I say something to her, cover her eyes, touch her, … during a seizure she will have no idea that any of that has happened.

She used to look up in class while working on something and realize that all of the other kids suddenly had other books out. She would miss key explanations. She could not follow requests a lot of the time. (either she had never heard it in the first place, or it had been jogged out of her memory by a seizure)

Safety - These seizures tend to decrease as the person is exercising so they don’t really seem to cause a problem. She has not had a problem riding bikes, rollerblading, swimming, playing softball… The big safety thing to worry about is that a person with absence seizures is more likely to sometime begin grand mal seizures than the general public. So she only rides bikes with another friend along. She cannot be in water without close supervision (pools of course, but also baths). She may not climb to high places without ropes, etc. She is very involved with sports. We try not to say no to things if we don’t have to.

Driving - If the seizures go away (yes kids usually grow out of this) or if they are shown to be controlled by medication, she will be able to drive. If not, she won’t.

If you think your son may have these, go to see a good pediatric neurologist. This is very easy to diagnose and easy to control with medication.

- Lisa