In this section
- Introduction
- About epilepsy in children
- About seizures
- Tests and diagnosis
- Treatment and management of epilepsy
- Risks of having epilepsy
- Unfair treatment and the law
- Learning and education
- Coming to terms with your child’s epilepsy
- Supporting your child with epilepsy
- The future
Our thanksEpilepsy Action would like to thank Bernie Concannon, paediatric specialist nurse in epilepsy, Birmingham Children’s Hospital, UK, for reviewing Children and epilepsy. Bernie Concannon has declared no conflict of interest. |
Introduction
Around one in 240 children under 16 in the UK has epilepsy. Most children with epilepsy enjoy a full and active life. With a few sensible safety precautions, they are able to do everything that their friends do. Sometimes, however, epilepsy is more complex, and children need specialist help and support.
If you have questions about your child’s epilepsy, these web pages are for you.
We can provide references and information on the source material we use to write our epilepsy advice and information pages. Please contact our Epilepsy Helpline by email at helpline@epilepsy.org.uk.
Code:
B002.02
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Updated December 2011To be reviewed December 2013
Comments: read the 3 comments or add yours
Comments
My youngest son had his first major fit in April 2010 aged 18 months. Little did we know the journey we were all about to embark on. Our consultant is lovely,he recommended this site to us and doesn't leap straight into daily Meds. My son is still uncontrolled, but we have Meds we give when it's a particularly bad/prolonged fit. This works well for us at present. I think the other 3 children we have, in particular our 5 year old have had a tough time learning to adjust and this is something that should be covered I think. We are grateful this site and it's Facebook page are there.
Hello, my son is 4 and began with myclonic epilepsy aged 3, having multiple daily seizures. As other parents in this position will know, the options (currently) aren't good: medicines with side effects, ketogenic diet with side effects (plus impacticality) or leave uncontrolled with risks of accidents or status epilepticus. Searching for a better solution, I found a lesser known scientific paper suggesting calcium / vitamin D could be a first line of defence. So I started him on Haliborange Calcium Vitamin D Softies (one daily) and, surprisingly, one week later his seizures stopped (from maybe 40 a day to none). He has remained on the Softies for 9 months now and I have only seen 2 seizures in that time when he had a fever, the rest of the time none at all. That suggests he still has the condition but it is controlled. I cannot prove that the Softies have controlled the epilepsy, but wanted to share this here, as I'm sure other parents in a similar position may at least wish to try these harmless supplements before going down the NHS-approved other routes. If anyone else has the same success with this, I would be keen to hear about it on this forum.
My little girl is only 5 she has partial seizures , tonic clinic seizures and complex partial seizures we have gone from episenta to carbomazipine which I haven't given her yet as my friend who's an adult takes them for stress and she doesnt know what day it is when she's taken them so how do you justify giving a 5 year old 4 x the dose what an adult takes ? I'm fed up