V-fib cardiac arrest and Myoclonus

[diamond0701]

My brother was brought in to the ER because somebody reported him needing help as he delirious. When he went into the ER he became agitated and aggressive so they gave him Geodon and versed. After both medications were given to him he went cyonotic and went into v-fib cardiac arrest. They were able rescisutate him after 2 min and 40 seconds in which he began seizing. He was then intubated and given propofol to sedate him. Throughout the day he kept having seizure when they would try to lower his sedation so they began giving him Ativan, keppra and depakote. He would still have seizure throughout so they began a drip of Ativan to keep him sedated. He’s had an MRI and CT and all came back normal. The eeg test has been done twice and shows slower then normal waves but they said it may be due to the sedation.  They were Able to rule out that he is not having seizures (although some of the nurses think he sometimes does) and said that they are myoclonic jerks.  He is able to be on a low sedation now and he’ll be fine but as soon as they come off the sedation he begins to jerk again so they have to raise it up high to control it then they can come back down. Today is the 14th day in the icu. The neurologist comes every morning and he has since made progress with responding to pain. If he gets pinched on his right side he tries to move his arm and neurologist confirms it’s not a reflex. But doesnt respond to pain on left arm. Eyes respond to light.  They scrape both his feet and he responds to pain there. Brushing of the eyelashes when the neurologist opens his eyes doesn’t respond. But he is Up and down with the sedation that it’s hard to say.   Why do these jerks don’t go away. Does he need more time to heal?  He wasn’t down that long though. Is there anything else that can be given or that needs to be done to help him?  Is lowering his sedation so often to see if he wakes up causing damage since he needs time to heal?

[specialmom]

Wow, I do not have the answers but that is a scary situation!  Are the doctors not communicating their thoughts and suspicions to you?

[diamond0701]

The doctors at this time can’t say much other than he did sustain some brain damage but not sure to what extent because of the jerks.  The only way to get an accurate reading is through an eeg while he is awake, but since he starts jerking they have to keep him sedated. Another thing that I noticed with him was that he began gagging quite a bit on the 10th day.  The gagging gets so bad that he begins to hyper ventilate and his oxygen begins to go low. So then the sedation gets raised right back up.   There is a lot of eye movement under his eye lids at times.  We haven’t seen him jerk for the last 2 days but he’s been heavily sedated so we don’t know.