Re: your opinion please? (seizures / vitamin A)

January 17, 2011

I don't know the answer to your question but as you saw from house, seizures can be viral. The reality is that some people should actually should be on antivirals and not on antiepileptics. One thing that I noticed with NIDS is that kids that had seizures before antivirals, became seizure free or had greatly reduced seizure activity (obviously not *all* kids did, though). Again, it's because of the antivirals. Is your DAN just not willing to Rx antivirals or are you not ready to take the leap?If you go onto pubmed and search "HHV6 seizures" or "CMV seizures" or any other herpes virus and add seizure to it, you'll find quite a bit of info. This subject is actually on my list of things to blog about.

Cheryl ~http://www.gryffins-tail.blogspot.com~~@midian42~

On Jan 17, 2011, at 8:12 PM, Toni Marie Lombardo wrote:

Last weekend, we used high dose vitamin A protocol on my daughter. She's never had MMR and shows not immune on those titers, but she shows "positive" on Varicella, and has never had chicken pox or the varicella vaccine.

The DAN suggested the high dose A. He said that he thinks it helps all sorts of things, not just measles.We noticed nothing significant from the high dose vitamin A. My daughter did get one whitehead in the middle of her forehead. She has never broken out before in her life, so I definitely link it to the vit A. I would characterize it as a "poc."

My son had a couple or three absence seizures this week. He has maybe had a few before. In 4.5 years of age, he has had 6 episodes of "real" seizures (grand mal type), all low grade fevers (99-101 degrees) The last seizure he had was in Dec, it was a cluster. The previous seizure he had before this cluster (that wasn't an absence one) was two in two days. These things are always related to a head "cold" it seems.

I have been wracking my brain trying to figure out what set off the absence seizures, food, supplement, etc.Do you think kicking up the virus in my daughter could have caused issues with him? He also has varicella titers that show "positive" and has also never had varicella vaccine.

Secondly, I don't know what/where to go now. We had a neuro appt today and she is still pressing for meds. She is using some scare tactics, ie mentioning irretractable seizure, brain damage and death.I have been investigating NIDS for a bit. Been trying to get all the NIDS suggested labs.

I feel like it was Kismet watching House tonight and seeing the guy on there having seizures due to varicella. I was glad to see it so my husband could see that this is not un-heard of.... even if it IS House. LOL

I just don't know what drugs are scarier, the anti-virals or the seizure meds?PS Of interest, the poc my daughter has looks identical to the EXTREME "baby acne" my son was born with (thousands of whiteheads). I always considered his "baby acne" was something more than "mommy's hormones." I wish I knew whether I was around someone whose child had varicella or chicken pox while I was pregnant. :-(

-- Toni------Mind like a steel trap...Rusty and illegal in 37 states.

January 17, 2011

I forgot to mention that this wasn't just pure coincidence that Dr. G's kids were doing this, the medical community already knows that viruses can cause seizures but I think we are just now starting to look into latent viruses. A study was coming out while I was with him suggesting the link between latent pockets of viruses in the brain coinciding with where seizure activity was occurring. I don't know if I can find them again, it was a few years ago.I think I posted it back then but I've made so many posts that I don't think it would be easy to search for in the archives anymore, I can't think of a keyword search that would be specific enough. If I didn't post that particular one, it was one that was similar, though if you really wanted to dig around for it.Marcia might have it. If Elyse sees this, she might have them, too. I think it was either CMV or EBV that this particular study was linking to. But here's a different one that might interest you.Virological and immunological aspects of seizure disorders.Eeg-Olofsson O.Department of Women's and Children's Health, Section for Pediatrics, Uppsala University, S-751 85 Uppsala, Sweden.AbstractThe brain is a symptom-producing organ, and one of the symptoms due to a basic brain dysfunction is epilepsy. The pathophysiologic background is in most epilepsies multifactorial, as different pre-, peri-, and postnatal triggers or environmental conditions influence one or several genetic factors, where also gender is of importance. One of the genetic factors is immunodysfunction, and the trigger mechanism may be a virus infection. Viruses are the most common agents to which the human being is exposed throughout life. The herpes virus group is of special interest with respect to complications of the central nervous system. Herpes viruses, especially herpes simplex virus type 1 (HSV-1), human herpes virus type 6 (HHV-6), cytomegalovirus (CMV) and Epstein-Barr virus (EBV), are capable of establishing latent infection and reactivating under a variety of stimuli. In this review especially HHV-6 will be emphasized, as well as CMV in relation to Rasmussen's syndrome. The immunological aspects will focus on immunoglobulins, antibodies, especially the glutamate receptors, human leukocyte antigens, T- and B-lymphocytes, and their respective interaction with the antigen presenting cell. This course of events concerns the 'immunological synapse'. Finally, reports on herpes virus genomes in the human brain are discussed. A study on herpes viral DNA in brain tissue from patients operated for focal epilepsy is briefly mentioned.PMID: 12536027 [PubMed - indexed for MEDLINE]

Cheryl ~http://the-ink-slinger.blogspot.com/~http://www.gryffins-tail.blogspot.com~~@midian42~