Febrile or Epilepsy

[roxannec]

I have a girl who will be 6 on Sunday.  From 7 months to 3 ½ years she had 9 seizures with fevers.  Did not have any more until September of this year and then had another yesterday.  Went to a Neuro and had EEG – showed abnormalities and MRI – was clean. My question:  can this still be febrile seizures?  One web site says epilepsy is described as 2 or more seizures without fever.  That has never happened.

[roxannec]

Even though her EEG had both focal and non-focal abnormailites?  I can't get over that these are not febrile seizures and I don't want to medicate if that is what they are.  But I'm getting so much conflicting information, I just want to know what the chances are that these are still febrile...

[Godofredo MD]

Hi.

If your daughter only has seizure during a fever, it is more likely that it is associated with febrile seizures than other types of seizure disorders. The fact that she has had several episodes in the past are evidence enough of her proneness to this condition which is why she still presented with this recently.

Knowing that your child is prone to febrile seizures, it would be best to try and treating fevers earlier than usual to prevent such seizures from occurring.

Hope this helps.