Re: Aggression during school

[Guest guest]

Sure. Our son is Nonverbal. Our son would have these random episodes that were really quite awful. They had no antecedent. They would last 45 minutes to an hour and a half. They began with him crying suddenly for no reason. Then he would stop. Then he would cry again and then stop. I suspect he was having an aura that often precedes a seizure. Then he would exhibit extreme agitation, hyperactivity, rage, tantrumming, complete meltdown with lots of screaming and self-injury. If one tried to intervene and figure out what was wrong or soothe him then he would turn his aggression on you. We would give him a modest dose of Ativan which seemed to alleviate the symptoms. An EEG was not an option for us because there is no way our hyperactive son would tolerate the leads. Also, an EEG is not a perfect test for seizures. It's very easy to miss seizures with an EEG. We had no idea what these were. We were always treating for Yeast. We had no bacteria or Clostridia. It seems like perhaps he was maybe in pain. We were trying to rule out Reflux and Migraines. Our wonderful DAN! doc suspected our son was having seizures. He was, in fact, convinced of it. He was right. We were finally able to get a Spect Scan. The scan was very abnormal and showed evidence of Seizures. We immediately began Valium at night to block seizures during sleep as seen in Landau Kleffner Syndrome. Our son is IgM positive on the Anne Connolly test which is indicative of a Landau Kfleffner variant. We began Lamictal as we slowly ramped up the dose to a therapeutic range these episodes became less frequent. They also were shortened in duration. Finally they faded away. It's difficult to describe how awful these episodes were …made all the worse by never knowing when or if they would occur or what was happening. These episodes were, in fact, an atypical presentation of seizures. Lamictal stopped those seizures but also calmed our son down. By calming down he is more interactive, more tuned in, and better able to concentrate. Hope this helps,Pamela