Benign Rolandic and Trileptal

[RobbiC]

My 9 year-old son was diagnosed at 7yrs with Benign Rolandic Epilepsy. He has a few (maybe 4) clustered episodes per year where his cheek jerks for a few seconds and he slurs his speech, usually soon after awakening in the morning but sometimes during the night as well. For about a year he has been taking liquid Trileptal: currently 6ml in the a.m. and 8ml in the p.m. (the concentration is 300mg/5ml.) About 2 weeks ago, his dose of Trileptal was increased from 6ml twice a day to the present dosage (because he was still having some mild break-through seizures). Around the same time, his teacher has mentioned that he is not "listening" well to her directions, and sometimes she has to re-explain her directions to him. Other than that, and the fact that he sometimes takes a little longer to complete his work, he generally performs very well in school, and in fact tested into the gifted program. I was wondering whether these "attention" issues might be related to either the BRE, or to the Trileptal dosage increase?

[RobbiC]

Thanks so much for your comments. This is the first time I have communicated with someone with actual personal experience with BRE. It is immensely helpful! I did not know about the link with attention disorders - thanks for pointing me to the studies at www.rolandic.com. There's also a study showing issues with filtering out voices in the presence of background noise. We have a lot of problems getting my son's attention while he's watching TV; perhaps this could be related to the BRE as well. And the link with aspartame - I have suspected, but am going to watch for that as well. Thanks again for your comments.

[ardensmom]

And a yes on the "no aspartame", we found it made things worse too, not sure why.

[ardensmom]

My daughter was never on meds but definately had some of these concentration issues while her rolandic epilepsy was active. They've gotten better since she went through puberty and the epilepsy went away. We met with the teacher, school councellor and principal and came up with a slightly altered learning style. We also chose to not use the meds on advice from our neurologist- as she only had issues while asleep or sleepy, which was usually when we were around. But no baths alone, there was a lot of "sleepwalking" and drooling in front of the tv, and it was stressful when she was out of sight. The meds will have an effect on him, but they have their benefits too. you need to weigh the pros and cons and decide what works best for you as a family.

again, as i've said in other posts- see www.rolandic.com. good info.

[Ophelia23]

The attention issues are probably related to the BRE. I, too, had Rolandic Epilepsy as a child, and around the same time I was diagnosed with ADD. It is a fact that Rolandic epilepsy is associated with mild attention disorders, and oddly enough, difficulty with drawing pictures.

Sometimes children with attention disorders/epilepsy do better with a "hands on" learning program that allows them to engage in the subject matter. If this is not possible in his school, then speak to school officials to try to get him extra time in tests, or written rather than spoken directions. This worked wonderfully for me, and I am now an honors student at university! Sometimes kids just need extra time to work out their ideas.

You also may want to research Trileptal more. I have never heard of it, but many substances can affect the severity of epliepsy and related complications (aspartame in sugar-free gum was a culprit for me).