Does Your Child Have Seizures?

Start a Journal

As you will discover, there are MANY things that can trigger seizures. As we discussed in the About Us section, many seizures are not caused by brain disorders. In our situation, over the course of time, we have learned certain things definitely trigger our daughter's seizures - specifically pesticides and strong fragrances (see Look at Your Environment). However, you have to begin evaluating everything your child does to see if there are any patterns.

For a specific application to use, you can look up Seizure Diary or Seizure Journal on the Internet. Epilepsy.com, Keppra.com, and Lundbeckshare.com are a few sites that have interactive seizure diaries. These applications help track actual seizures; however, we have not found a diary that helps to track possible triggers.

Whether you use an on-line diary, or create your own, listed below are things to think about when entering your child's data each day:

How many hours did your child sleep overnight? Naps?
What has your child eaten, including condiments, snacks and drinks?
How much water has your child consumed?
Where has your child been - home, outside, at a friend's house, school, church, daycare, mall, movies, etc.?
Has your child played with any animals?
Have pesticides or insect repellents been used recently?
Has your child played any video or computer games?
What medications or supplements has your child taken?
Has your child been exposed to cigarette smoke, candles, cleaning product fumes, air fresheners, or other strong scents?
Has your child been sick?
Has your child received any vaccinations?
What is your child's mood? (NOTE: Our daughter's mood drastically changes prior to a seizure. For this reason, we can sometimes tell when a seizure is coming.)
Did your child have any seizures today? If so, how many, what time(s), what type(s) (grand mal, staring, etc.)?

If your child does have a seizure and you begin looking for a trigger, you may need to look back at several days of data. Don't just analyze "the day" your child has the seizure. Our daughter usually has a seizure 3-5 days after being exposed to a trigger. Other children have seizures immediately.

We realize this is a lot to track. But it really doesn't take long to get into the mindset of evaluating everything you do. After all, this is for our children and we may have to endure a little inconvenience to get to the long-term cure.