Brainy Benji

Ok.. so a quick update on my kid's noggin...

We had an appointment with Dr F, who is a neurologist at Children's Hospital. He's been seeing ben since his first seizure almost 7 months ago. The appointment went great. Ben was in top form.. He was skeptical about getting weighed and measured, but sat quite still while getting his blood pressure taken and only hit me once after the nurse put the bubbles away.

Dr. F. agrees with us.. which is a good thing. It's always nice when a doctor says what you want them to. It's even better when you trust that they know what they are talking about. It's almost enough to make you think that YOU know what you're talking about. almost.

The general consensus is that Sunday's seizure was clearly febrile. Is there a chance that it was epileptic brought on by fever, of course.. but there is nothing specific to worry about. His first seizure is the only one that was clearly not associated with a fever.. but it WAS two weeks to the day from his MMR vaccination. I've done a LOT of reading and it seems that there is a slight (VERY slight) risk of febrile seizure in the two weeks following the MMR shot.. coincidence? i think not. The second seizure could easily be said to be at the onset of a fever.. no fever to warn us it was coming, but he had a fever for a week afterward while fighting off a virus.

We're pretty sure we have the answer for the cause of his fever over the weekend -- Roseola. His temp broke and like two days later, just like the textbooks say, he got a rash.

Now.. the questions is "what do we do now?"

Both shiela and i agree that we were worried about starting him on a daily anti-seizure medication. these meds are STRONG and we were concerned about any impact to his development. he's so young. we're also concerned about brain damage from the seizures. We decided going into it that if the doc recommended a daily treatment, we would take that info and run it by our pediatrician before starting him on a daily med. Our pediatrician can practically walk on water.

The visit went great. The doc read over his ER report and, in between tossing a ball across the room to ben, told us that he saw no reason to start him on a daily medication now. two of the three seizures have been febrile in nature and he thinks a daily medication is too much at this point. if he has one or two more, in particular, ones that aren't associated with fever.. then we'll talk about it again. For the moment, we've got a preventative med to give him when he has a temperature. This should keep him from having a seizure even if his temperature spikes. Of course, it doesn't help for seizures that are at the initial onset of the fever (no warning), but it's something to do instead of twiddling our thumbs looking at the clock waiting for it to happen (like Sunday).

In other news.. he weighed in at 26.5 lbs and 33.5 inches tall.. just about 50% for both height and weight. his head circumference is off the chart.. welcome to the family of big brainy heads, benji!!