Febrile Seizure?

Hi here. Sorry you had to experience that. My son had it from a age 1 to 3 1/2. It is something not uncommon in children but is something they'll grow out of however you must continue to monitor these and see if they're anyway abnormal or if she doesn't grow out of them

Hi S.,
My son is just about to turn 12 and he hasn't had another febrile seizure since he was 11 months old. We had gone out for a festival and I put him in his stroller - he fell asleep and, as we checked on him frequently, it was my husband who noticed that he was seizing. Fortunately, there were emergency personnel on site and they called the paramedics. My son's temp, after cooling him down with bottled water (that the vendor wanted us to pay for!), and getting him into the shade, while waiting for the paramedics, was 105.7. I can only imagine how high it was before! Regardless, he was taken to the nearest ER and given both tylenol and a low-dose motrin. We were told that if his temp didn't come down within the hour, they would have to spinal tap him to rule out meningitis. Turns out that he had a nasty virus and his temp. never dropped below 102 (that was with meds), for 10 days. It was pretty harrowing.
My children get very hot with fevers. Their backs actually get very warm. As I always check my children before I go to bed, if I noticed that he was exceptionally warm, I would wake him and give him motrin. I found that motrin and advil worked better and longer for him; but others swear by tylenol. I would not be overly concerned, as is our first inclination. It is common, happens infrequently, and now that you know your little one is susceptible to them, be aware. When she starts to run a fever, don't wait to see if it's a "real" one. Just give her some fever reducer. I wouldn't jump to scary conclusions, like those sent by others. Don't let this freak you out. It happens. Thank goodness the brain works its miracles and protects itself from these virus'.

Hi S.,

My daughter is now 3 years old but when she was only 1 she had a febrile seizure. I know exactly how you feel and reading your story it just brought back all those horrible memories back. My daughter has had a total of 3 since then. It happens when the fever goes too high too fast. Just make sure you do whatever you have to do to keep her fever down whenever shes sick because this can happen again and its the scariest thing ever!! Two times I had the ambulance take my daughter to the ER the last time I just took her in myself. My mom said that this also happened to me too when I was 2! I have had other people tell me this happenes till they are like 5-7 yeras old. Good Luck.

V.

Thankfully, I don't have any personal experience with seizures. One night, one of my children came into our room with a 105 degree fever. I freaked out of course and called my sister who's an ER nurse. I told her that I was concerned about seizures, and she told me that if she was going to have one she would have already had one by then. She said that seizures are caused by how quickly the fever rises rather than how high it gets. Something I don't think many people know... I hope your daughter is feeling better. :)

Hello, S.,

It is scary, isn't it? My daughter was also two when she had one. It was a hot day and a playmate had run off with her drink earlier. She has never had one again. She is six now and extremely healthy.

I used a homeopathic remedy, bella donna, which works wonderfully for fever. You can get that at the health food store, if you want a better alternative to Tylenol or Motrin or any medicines like that which have other problems. She has fevers very rarely and now I let her because our bodies build a fever to rid itself of heavy metals and other toxins. Fevers, when watched carefully, are very useful and not something to be feared.

My very best,

T.

Hi S.,
Our 3 year old son Andrew had a febrile seizure when he was about 18 months old. It was super scary and sounded very similar to your situation. However it seems way scarier than it really is, most children never have a febrile seizure again after the initial first one. Andrew has never had one since the first one. We basically treat a fever with either tylenol or motrin maybe more diligently than parents whose child has never had a febrile seizure. After 5 years old, the child's risk of febrile seizures is zero and gets progressively less as the child gets older. Furthermore, both myself and my brother have had one febrile seizure when we were infants that was never repeated and we're both happy and healthy adults. I hope this information helps!

S.

Hi S. - One of the most scary moments in my life was when my first son had a febrile siezure when he was 15 months old. He had a tendency to get high fevers when he got sick, and having started preschool at 11 months old, it seemed like he was getting a cold every other week. On one occassion we were attending to his fever with the normal advice given by the ped nurses. It was not coming down and got to about 104 and he suddenly arched his back, stiffened and his eyes were rolling back. It lasted what seemed like forever, but probably after 30 seconds he just went limp. We thought he was dying! We had called the paramedics and although it seemed too long, they were there within three minutes. They immediately reassured us he'd be OK and that he had just had a febrile siezure. They cooled him down on the way to the hospital and by the time we got there he was looking good. After that experience, I looked in my baby information books, and there is was "febrile siezure" but I never remembered reading about it before. I think I remember it saying that it only happens to 4% of children under age 3 and that if someone has one they are unlikely to ever have another. That info was 10 years ago, so don't know if it still applies. Glad your baby is OK!

C.
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Hi S.,

Sorry to hear about that. My son who was 22 months at the time had a Febrile Seizure due to a fever of 104. He had an inner ear infection that I didn't know about, and it hit him like a ton of bricks. He stopped breathing, turned blue, etc - worst day of my life. It was AWFUL, and I totally know what you're going through. After researching a talking to a lot of moms, febrile seizures are really common. There's no permanent damage, though there is a chance it could happen again. I'm now extremely proactive in treating a fever, and I do alternating doses of tylenol and motrin. The two medicines are different, yet do the same thing - so the fever is being combated by two different sources.

I also have a friend who is a neuropsychologist, and she told me that the rate of what I found of 3% of all kids under 5 have them is a pretty low figure - she said it's much higher. Ugh. I tried to spread the word to everyone I know, so they would always be really serious when a fever came on. You just never know who will have to go through this awful scene.

Hope that helps :)

K.

My DS2, now almost 3, had febrile seizures at 17 months. You're right, it's SCARY. Forgive me for the length of this...

He had a 102 temp the night before (brought down by Tylenol), another temp at 8:30 a.m. (brought down by Tylenol), and just after noon he had a series of seizures.

DH, who's a stay-at-home dad, and our boys were in a parking lot preparing to go home. DS2 was strapped into his car seat, DH was strapping in DH1 (then almost 3), when he looked across and saw DS2 look like he was choking. He got him out and realized it wasn't choking. Nice man in the parking lot lent his cell phone, they called 911 to get an ambulance, then called me at work. (I had been expecting a call about my dad, who was having heart surgery to have 2 stents put in; dad and DH2 ended up in the same hospital.)

When I got to the ER DS2 was naked in DH's arms, shrieking, and bucking to get away. He had an IV in. I asked them if I could lay on the patient bed, and started breastfeeding DS2 immediately. He calmed down and I got him to sleep. His fever was just over 105.

BTW, I learned later that it's not how high the temp goes, but rather how FAST it increases that causes seizures. They can have seizures at 101 if the temp increases too fast.

The ER folk used him for a pincushion: IV, catheter (for a urine sample), heal-stick for blood (which they shouldn't have done since he was already walking), lumbar puncture, and two thigh-shots (to administer a broad anti-biotic). Include several rectal thermometer checks, and you get the idea -- every time he fell asleep they wanted to poke him again.

Once they ruled out meningitis or any other scary disease, and after they brought his temp down, they discharged us. Other than the pincushion thing they were nice -- they fed me (since I was feeding him <grin>) and they gave him a nice stuffed animal. They prescribed BOTH ibuprofen (every 6 hours) AND Tylenol (every 4 hours) for the next several days -- we weren't allowed to give his body the SLIGHTEST chance that it would get even a little warm.

They also told us to schedule an EEG (brain scan), which we did. Since this is already so long, please PM me if you want to get the scoop on the EEG (which is a whole 'nother Oprah). We were told that the reason they wanted the EEG was because he had "complex seizures": a seizure, then awake, then a seizure, then awake, etc. If it had been only one they wouldn't have recommended it.

There have been NO long-term effects (except for our nervousness every time he gets a temperature, I mean). And the EEG showed nothing out of the ordinary. We like to tell people that we have PROOF that he has a brain, lol. The longer he goes without seizures the less likely it is that he'll have another one.

And, BTW, my father is fine, too.

My granddaugter who is now 20 mos old) was diagnosed with those seizures--due to a fever. She has since had several seizures when she did NOT have a fever. After numerous tests, MRI, Catscan spinal tap, blood, neurology, etc--everything was deemd normal.....until se had another one last night. Her blood sugar level was only 27 (should be 100). The pediatric ICU is giving her glucose, but she still dropped her level. they ar running more tests today-but ask about blood sugar levels as that can cause seizures. Now to find out why the level drops. they already adjusted her medication to a igher amount.

My son had a febrile seizure when he was 3 from a high temperature as well. it was absolutely horrible to watch and we were temporarily devastated, but he has never had one again and he is now 3.5 yrs. from what the docs told us, the seizure is caused by the child's body temperature rising too fast. the seizure will not cause any permanent damage to your daughter, but once a child has a febrile seizure they are more likely to have another one than the next child. to prevent them from occurring, I was told that immediately upon my son having a temperature even as high as 99 or 100, I should start giving Tylenol. Make sure you check with your pediatrician on the dosage of Tylenol that should be provided, because it is based on your daughter's weight. if you don't give enough, it won't bring the fever down. this was actually why our son had the seizure. If the fever is higher, you can give Tylenol and Motrin combined. You should also strip down your daughter so that she is wearing little to no clothing and start wiping damp washcloths all over her body to bring the temperature down. make sure the washcloth is warm, not cold. apparently, the days of giving your child a cold bath are over. they cause shivering and are unecessary for bringing down the temperature. more than anything, this is all preventative stuff you can do. hope this helps.

S.,

My best friend's daughter had a febrile seizure and we also had never heard of it before. The only thing to watch for is that they can be more susceptible to fever now. Ask your doctor. While my friend's daughter has never had another seizure, whenever she gets sick it usually ends up being with fever. No biggie. So sorry for your big scare. Awful, isn't it?

G.

Hi S.,

My son had a febrile seizure at age in the middle of the night. It was the scariest thing that I think I had ever seen. We rushed him to the hospital and they ran tests, but it seemed that it was caused by a virus, that caused his temperature to go up rapidly. He is 9 now, and has never had another. FOr the first couple of years of school, I kept Tylenol at the school nurse's office, with instructions to give it to him at the first sign of a fever. But it never got used, so I stoppd now. He is in the third grade. Good luck!

Hi, S.. I am G., a mother of 2 girls. My eldest is 3 and I just had a very scary experience with
"febrile seizure." It was funny how her fever wasn't too high when she had it - it was only 101. She was doing okay the whole day, as she came from preschool and she was playing the whole time before she went to bed. I felt her having a slight fever before she slept but she wasn't complaining about anything, unlike before when she would say her head is owie or her throat. So, we let it pass. I just sponged her with a cold towel and she was okay. In the middle of the night, I was awakened by her wiggling - it was as if she was dancing while sleeping, but it wasn't too vigorous. My husband and I tried to wake her up but she wouldn't. We took her to the bathroom and started pouring cold water on her head and her face and her hands. And then, she became stiff, even her jaw became stiff and she was just staring blankly into space. I was so scared. We had to call 911. After a couple of minutes, she got out of it and then started crying, which made me sigh of relief. We took her to the ER and the doctor said she had suffered from febrile seizure, which is common to kids before 6 years of age. He said that it's not really a high temperature that causes this (because my daughter had a 105 fever a few months before this and she didn't have a seizure), but how fast the temperature rises. So, what we really need to watch out for is any temperature on our kids. My daughter doesn't take any medication. She just simply vomits everything out so it is so much more difficult to control her temp. However, I found some chewables from walgreens which she loves. We have tried giving her suppositories as well, which works, too. I have become so paranoid of her temp that when her temp reaches anywhere higher than the normal, I already start giving her the chewables. It was so scary...the sight of her during the seizure made me have nightmares for many nights. The doctor told me not to worry too much for as long as we could control her temp. So now, that's just what I am doing - checking her every night before she goes to sleep...and a lot of prayers....I hope this information will help ease your worries as well. God bless you!

As far as I know, they are common. My daughter has epilepsy, and had her first seizure in december. The paramedics came and thought it was a febrile seizure and said we only take to the ER after two seizures. Well ours didn't have a fever and we explained but febrile seizures happen apparently quite frequently when children are sick and told us to watch for more in the future. Ours ended up having more, she wasn't sick, and still was having seizures every 2 hours. That was when she was a baby, and we have battled with it for 3 years. It's scary to see your kid have a seizure, but they were just taking precautions to make sure she didn't have epilepsy or something else. I have a couple of friends whos kids had a febrile seizure and never had one again. Just try to keep the fever down when they are sick. At night, make sure you get up and give them the medicine when it runs out and keep a close eye, I'm sure your child will be fine. If your child was sick, honestly, I am surprised they put you all through that medical testing, febrile seizures are fairly common in sick kids with high fevers. I'm glad to hear she is ok!!!

Hi S.:

My daughter, who's now 7, had a few febrile seizures when she was between 1-2 years old. I know they are scary, but apparently they are very common and nothing to worry about. We did the whole ER thing too everytime she had one, and the doctor kept telling us we didn't need to. All we did was strip her down and give her a cool sponge bath :)...followed by a sugar-free popsicle!

She's fine and outgrew the seizures before she was 3. Good luck :)

J. A.

Hi S.,
When my daughter just turned 1yr she got a cold which came with a fever. I was at home with her and trying to keep her comfortable. When she was sleeping she all of a sudden woke up and could not straighten up, she was having some kind of seizure. I did not know what was going on, and it scared the living life out of me. I spared no time and rushed her to the hospital. But like your daughter she was out for about 30 seconds and then on the way to the hospital she seemed to wake up, still groggy from the fever but awake. My husband met me at the hospital also frieghtened out of his mind (she is our first) We rushed into the emergency room and they seemed to know right away what was wrong. They told us to undress her as much as possible and keep her cooled down. Once we got into the exam room they checked her out. When the doctor saw her she explained to us what had happened. They started with it is normal for some children to have these seizure's cause they can not tolerate high fevers. So my daughter just happens to be one of those kids. From now on when ever she gets a cold I right away start checking her temp and give her Tylenol. And always keep her real cool. So your daughter just might be one of the children that can't tolerate high fevers also. I am sure your doctor will just tell you to watch her closely when she gets fevers. I know how you felt at that moment, my heart just fell to the ground when it happened to my daughter.
Just keep her cool and check her temp every 1/2 hr to begin and give her Tylenol. God Bless!!!

Hi, I am now 28 years old, but as a toddler I had Febrile Seizures when my fever reached 104* and above. They ended when I was 2-3 years old. And, yes, they are scary. I couldn't imagine what you, or my mother for that fact, were going through. They put me on medication to help stop the seizures, but I just grew out of it.

Hi S.-

Sorry you child had one. My best friend has the same condition with her child. You should be careful when your child has fever. If it happens again you should take your little one to a Ped-Neurologist to make sure there is no other condition. Here is some additional info:

A febrile seizure is a convulsion in young children caused by a sudden spike in body temperature, often from an infection. Watching your child experience a febrile seizure can be alarming. It may last only a few minutes, but it may seem like an eternity.
Fortunately, febrile seizures aren't as dangerous as they may look. A seizure triggered by a sudden fever is usually harmless and typically doesn't indicate a long-term or ongoing problem. Often, a febrile seizure occurs before parents even realize that their child is ill.
Being sure the child is safe during a seizure, offering comfort afterward and following up with a doctor's visit are good approaches for handling a febrile seizure.

Risk factors
Young age is the strongest risk factor. About one in 25 children will experience a febrile seizure. Most febrile seizures occur in children between the ages of 6 months and 5 years and are particularly common in toddlers. Children rarely develop their first febrile seizure before the age of 6 months or have them after 3 years of age. Some children inherit a family's tendency to have seizures with a fever.

Prevention
Most of the time, a febrile seizure occurs the first day of an illness. Often, a febrile seizure occurs before parents realize that their child is ill.

Giving your child medications
Giving your child acetaminophen (Tylenol, others) or ibuprofen (Advil, Motrin, others) at the first indication of fever will help reduce the fever, but won't necessarily prevent a seizure. And, there are some caveats to giving medications to young children. They won't shorten the course of infection, and low-grade fevers generally don't need treatment.

Ibuprofen isn't recommended for use in children under six months old, and combination cold medications with fever-reducing ingredients shouldn't be given to children under 6 years old due to the risk of side effects. Finally, don't give aspirin to a child. Aspirin may trigger a rare but potentially fatal disorder known as Reye's syndrome.

You can help control your child's fever by making sure he or she drinks plenty of fluids, and don't bundle him or her up too tightly at night.

Prescription prevention medications
Rarely, prescription medications are used to prevent febrile seizures. Anticonvulsant medications such as phenobarbital, valproic acid (Depakene) and divalproex sodium (Depakote) can prevent febrile seizures when taken daily. Oral or rectal diazepam (Valium, Diastat) also can reduce the risk of febrile seizures if taken at the time of a fever.

But these medications all have drawbacks. They carry a definite risk of serious side effects in young children. Doctors rarely prescribe these prevention medications because most febrile seizures are harmless and most children outgrow them without any problems.

Good luck

I use to have them as a baby and 2 out of my 3 girls had them as infants and toddlers ( at 9 & 18 months). They are perfectly normal and all of a sudden they had a high fever and I had to rush them to the emergency room because I knew what was coming or if it happened while they were asleep and didn't realize they were fevering and went into the convulsion at home I would call 911 and go to the emergency room to make sure it was just a febrile seizure and no other reason. I have never heard of passing out maybe the school has never seen one and thought she passed out but fell to the floor during the seizure and did not pass out. It is scary they stop breathing and their eyes roll back and have no response sometimes they would come out quickly and just be dazed other times it lasted longer and the emergency room would have to keep them covered in cold wet towels. Once they started crying I knew they were out of it. If thats what it was I don't belive any serious damage can be done, but it is very scary during it. Best of luck and I hope you don't have to go through it again.

Hi S.,
my son experience a couple of those at birth, due to high fevers, it caused no brain damage, although being he is 19 now, all of these years we had to make sure his temp never reached the 103.4 again, we new that would be his seizure point, you just have to be careful when she is running a fever and it gets to that over 101 point to take it seriously put her in a cool bath not cold bath just cool bath give her some tylenol or your choice and watch her. She might have been dehydrated at the time of the fever also.

She will be ok, thank gawd the body knows when to shut down

blessings

My oldest son had them, he started having them when he was 15 months old, and it all started after he got shots, none of the Dr. new what it was and never really got any answers, until his 3rd one when he had to be hospitalized for RSV, and I really had to pitch a fit with my pediatrician to even get them to send him to a specialist, finally they did and thats when we discovered, after an EEG, that he had febrile seizures, and he was put on topamax. He may only had a couple after that, but now my son is 3 and off his med. and has been seizure free for a year!

HI! my son had several febrile seizures before he was 2. he was prone to high fevers and my pediatrician told me that they were caused by the fever coming down too quickly. I was told to use cool cloths and tylenol/motrin mix but not to try and bring it down too fast. He is now 4 and absolutely no lasting effects and has not had any more seizures in at least 2 years!