Is AIWS a real condition?

[bird33]

My 5 yr old son is having repeated episodes of vision distortion. He is a high anxiety child and this comes after a string of many stressful events. He describes the episodes as everything looks really big (sometimes his hands or the television). He has also stated while looking at me that I look small and far away. These episodes started 3 months ago and seem to flair up when he is stressed, tired, concentrating on something, or falling asleep. He refers to them as big eyes or the eye thing. He has never reported seeing anything that was not there just a distortion in perception. They usually last between 30 secs to a few minutes. He usually tells us about the episodes and continues on his way. Lately he has been getting angry when having the episodes (why is this happeneing to me?) and we can tell he is very distressed. He is a very normal child otherwise (walked at 8 months, excellent speech and vocabulary, likes friends, playing outdoors). We are going to see a child psychologist who is convinced that he is having severe anxiety. I have done extensive research on my own and am freaked out about schizophrenia or other serious mental illness. I have also come across something called Alice in Wonderland Syndrome and it seems to match what he is describing. Does the medical community recognize this as a real condition? Here are some more details.

His first episode was at night after being sick with a fever.

They seem to happen most often:
In the car
When he is concentrating (coloring, reading books, tv)
When he is tired
They have never happened outdoors

Thanks

[CCF-Neuro-M.D.-SH]

First of all, keep in mind that I am unable to diagnose you because I am unable to examine you, this forum is for educational purposes.
   Yes there is such a thing as Alice and Wonderland Syndrome.  This generally involves the symptoms you describe including seeing visual distortions of objects being smaller/larger than they really are.  This is very common in the 5-10 year old range.  This condition is most often associated with migraine headaches.  Headaches can be difficult to diagnose in children, because they do not respond as adults and many time only appear irritable, cranky and tired when they are having headaches.  Other associations are with mononucleosis, temporal lobe epilepsy and schizophrenia.  
I would recommend a mono-test and an EEG (electroencephalogram-or "brain wave test") to assess for seizures (temporal lobe epilepsy can have fear/anxiety as a component of the seizure).
Your psycholgist should look for any early signs that might be concerning for schizophrenia.
If your childs AIWS is due to migraine headaches then starting a preventaive medication trial is usually the best thing to do such as Periactin or Elavil.
I hope this has been helpful.

[MLWTR]

Hi, there,

It sure does sound like Alice in Wonderland syndrome (speaking as a medical writer, not a doctor). It is a medically recognized condition, a form of migraine with aura, as you probably already know. Here's a link to a description in layman's terms from the Cleveland Clinic: http://www.clevelandclinic.org/health/health-info/docs/3200/3266.asp?index=11253

The good thing is that there are plenty of effective treatments for migraines these days, and if that's what it turns out to be, your son could be feeling a lot better soon.

Good luck, and I'm sure the neurologist on the board will give you an official answer soon.