I'm wondering if you could please tell me how a child is tested for epilepsy. My daughter has been having several periods of blank staring a day, and my pediatrician has referred us to the teaching hospital in Portland for testing.
Naturally, I'm pretty worried--and I'd also like to prepare her, as best I can. My pediatrician explained it all rather quickly, and I've forgotten much of what he said. Reading online, I see she'll probably have an EEG -- will that be at all uncomfortable for her?
Jenni
EEGs are Pain Free!
Hi Jenni!
I posted this on another thread a short time ago, but thought I would also share these thoughts with you. What's ironic is that my son Adam also experienced the lost in space episodes - which were later classified as absence seizures. He has now been medication and seizure-free for five years. He had numerous EEGs while he was being treated. They are completely and 100 percent painless. Typically a technician performs the actual test and then the results are read by a neurologist. There are two types of EEGs - those that are conducted while a child is awake and those conducted while they are asleep. They usually prefer that a child sleeps, as it produces more accurate results. So they will ask that you keep your son awake as late as possible the night before so that he can fall asleep during the test. When he arrives he will sit in a comfortable chair (resembles a dentist chair). The technician will use a special sticky jelly type solution to attach electrodes to your son's head. Again, it's completely painless. They will also attach a few to his chest. These are linked to a machine that processes brain activity. The test will take an hour or so - depending on what the neurologist has requested. When your son awakes, the technician will remove the electrodes and wash his hair with a washcloth. And that's it. There's absolutely nothing to worry about. ;-)
Crystal
testing for EEG
As Chrystal say an EEG is completely painless. For the EEg during sleep I guess it depends on which hospital you go to.
We had to go early in the morning , the technician put the electrodes on my son's head.and chest, then he put all the electodes in a long cotton tube. They were linked to a small machine ,a bit bigger than a digital camera, the machine was put in a small back pack.
We went home . Of course my son didn't go to school that day and had to carry the little bag around. He managed to sleep ok with that.
The next morning we went to hospital to have the electodes removed. The technician used acetone to get rid of the glue on the hair but a lot remained and I had to use nail varnish remover to get rid of it.
These machines, Brainspy, cost a fortune so the hospital only had one.
Elisa