Recent scare

[peanut]

Last month we had a scare with our 16 month old. She had a febrile seizure. It occurs when a childs fever rises to quickly. It was worse for us than her. She had a low grade fever at 9 and I gave her medicine at 11:00 pm. It wasn't that high but she seemed uncomfortable. She didn't get her first teeth until she was a year so we just thought it was more teeth.
My husband was saying to me that it wasn't something to worry about. I just had a feeling that I wanted to keep an eye on it. Just a feeling. She keep getting up every hour since 9. I fell asleep with her at 1:00 am and missed the next dose.
Then something woke me and I saw she was having the seizure. My husband woke up as soon as he heard his name. We called 911 and went to the hospital. They checked her out and brought the fever down. My daughter was fine. We were more affected than she was.
They said that it was more than likely a virus that caused it. She could have another one but maybe not. They don't think that there will be any after affects from it. My husband said before I woke him he wsa having a dream that something was wrong with her. I told him that I had that feeling that something wasn't right.
I plan to pay attention more than ever when I have that feeling.
Does anyone have any situations like that? Has anyone had this happen? I mean they say its a 40% chance that it could happen again. I know that it probably won't happen again for a long time but you never know. Just thought I'd ask.

[AgonyAunt]

Firstly Hi, This must have been pretty scary for you and your husband.
I believe as parents we should listen to our instincts, there are often very right!
I have several friends with children who have had these febrile seizure due to virus's and high temps, then the child never has them again.
Hope your little girl is fine now

[mamaof3]

I totally know what your going through!!! My daughter started having febrile seizures when she was almost 2 1/2. I was 8 months pregnant with my son. It was one of the scariest moments of my life! She had taken a nap and about half way through her nap I noticed that she was running a mild fever. Nothing to worry about. I decided to let her finish her nap and give her tylenol when she woke up. I kept a watch on her fever and it was only like 100.0. No big deal. So when she woke up she just sat on the bed for a minute. She seemed kind of out of it, so I picked her up and started talking to her. I noticed that she didn't seem her usual self and she was acting unresponsive like she was just kind of looking through me. Then she started making these little gasping noises like she was having a hard time breathing. I had never heard of febrile seizures before. I knew if her fever got too high that it was dangerous. But her fever was very low still. So I had no idea what was wrong. I kept talking to her trying to get her to tell me what was wrong and then I noticed her lips were starting to turn a purplish blue and then she was making more gasping noises. I was so scared! I layed her down on the floor and gave her one mouth to mouth then ran for the phone and called 911. By the time I had given the operator my number she started to come around and began coughing. So I had the ambulance stand down and I drove her to the doctors office, where I learned that they are "quite common." My daughter is almost 6 now and hasn't had anymore for about two years. She probably had a total of 6 febrile seizures. Some worse than others. The doctors all said to lay her on her side so she doesn't choke and make sure that she is on the floor or somewhere safe so that she doesn't get hurt. All we could do was hold her hand and talk to her until she would come around. Everytime that she would get a fever we would alternate between tylenol and ibuprofen. That way she had something in her system every 2 hours. But even doing that she would sometimes start to get one after 2 hours but it woudn't turn into a full seizure because the medicane was just kicking in. We saw a pediatric nuerologist and he also told us that she may not have anymore after the first one or she could keep having them for a while. But that kids usually out grow them by 4 or 5. One side of you doesn't want to wish your kid older because you want to cherish the time when they are little but the other side of me couldn't wait until she reached 4 or 5 so that she would out grow them. We kept Tylenol in the car in my purse, the diaper bags, everywhere! She also started becoming more fever prone. It seemed like every couple of weeks she would get a virus that would consist of her having a fever for a whole week with no other symptoms. Then it would leave and then a couple weeks later it would start all over again. It is hard to be a parent! You are in charge of these little people with no medical training! Scary!! Anyways I hope that your daughter doesn't have anymore for both of your sakes! Always listen to your instincts. Many times I would wake up in the middle of the night for no reason just to go check on my sleeping kids to find out that God had woken me up for a reason. Whether it was a fever or asthma or something else. The only advice I have is keep tylenol or ibuprofen with you at all times! My doctors also told me that even though the seizures are so scary they shouldn't be harmful. Just make sure that you can always see her breathing. Hope this helps!