Complex Partial Seizures

My son had his first seizure in Dec 07.  He is 7 years old.  He had a grand mal seizure in the morning while he was sleeping.  He had another at the ER in which he would just turn blue and his oxygen would drop.  They started him on Tripletal, but after about 4 days he wasn't doing good at all.  He had another seizure where he would just lose bladder control and be out of it.  We went back to the ER and they went from 100mg of Trileptal to 350mg in one dose.  He had a real bad reaction and just started acting crazy.  He behavioral completly changed once he got that medicince.  It was so bad they thought he had encephatlis (sp?).  He had one more grand mal after the medicine and he also had the seizures again where he just turned blue and his heart and oxygen levels droped.  They admitted him again and changed him to Zonegran which he's been doing great on now.   The doctors say his EEG shows that his seizures start in the frontal lobe.  My question is...when all this first happened, the doctor said he will more than likely outgrow it.   All his test came back normal except for the EEG which was abnormal.  The doctor said alot of kids have seizures for unknow reasons and they usally outgrow it as they get older.  Now that we have a new doctor he says my son has complex partial seizures that start in his frontal lobe.  He said its hard to say he will outgrow it becuase when you have seizures that usually start in one area you usually have them through your life.  Is that true??!  Or does he not just want to give me false hope??   Does my son at least have a chance to outgrow it???

[Abhijeet Deshmukh, MD]

Hello.

Zonegran is used as an adjuvant. It may still be sufficient to control his seizures.

You are the witness to the seizures. Can you tell if the seizures were generalized or focal? Children do grow out of complex partial seizures. Getting a functional MRI or a PET scan of the frontal lobes will help us know what causes the focus of the seizures to be there.

Regards