Check-Up with Dr. Elliot

10/25/2007

Today, we went to see Dr. Stan Elliot. He is Jessie's primary pediatrician and a super guy. We were due for a check-up anyway, so I thought that we could get in an extra blood test and let him look her over. He is a very practical doctor and doesn't over complicate things. Also, she was due for vaccinations, and Dr. Chacon said that we should go ahead and keep those up-to-date.

She was given and standard blood test (which turned out normal), and at my request a parasite test. Parasite Cysts are the number one cause of epilepsy in many countries.

Flu Shot (Dead Virus Vaccine)
Varicella Vaccine (Chicken Pox - live virus vaccine)

In hind-site, I don't think that a live virus vaccine is such a good idea after a bad seizure like the one just 20 days prior. It is believed that seizures can damage the blood-brain barrier and allow things into the brain that would normally be filtered out. We didn't know that then, and everything that we read (and what our neurologist told us) was that you should keep all vaccinations up-to-date, because the risk of seizure due to illness is much higher than the risk of the vaccines themselves.

I'm not saying don't vaccinate, as we will continue to vaccinate our kids, but I cannot help believing that this was the turning point in our daughter's health.


10/24/2007

Today Jessie had another episode (???Simple Partial Seizure???) similar to the one on 10/18/2007. We are going to log these as Simple Partial Seizures for the lack of a better term. They are scary, because we don't know if she is going to go into a full blown seizure or not.


10/18/2007

Things have been going pretty good since Jessie's last bad Complex Partial Seizure (actually a cluster of two, the last one going status epilepticus). She has been on Keppra Oral Solution 5 ml BID for about 2 weeks. Maybe things are going to be OK now.

Tonight, we were in bed, and Jessie came into our room and vomited. She looked just like she has before, when she is about to have a Complex Partial Seizure http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Complex_partial_seizure. Up until now, they have been a month apart. It has only been two weeks.

However, to our delight, Jessie didn't seize!! Horray!!! The episode only lasted about 30 seconds, and then she fell asleep. Maybe the medicine is finally working!!!!! We logged this one as a Simple Partial Seizure. http://www.epilepsy.com/epilepsy/seizure_simplepartial

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