Febrile convulsions, i.e., convulsions during fever, usually last for a few minutes and stop on their own. It often occurs with high fever, but can also occur with low fever. The cause of fever is often an upper respiratory tract infection, but care should be taken to exclude central nervous system infections.
The cause of febrile convulsions may be related to the child’s developing brain tissue being “sensitive” to heat, and the age of onset is 3 months to 5 years, with spontaneous cessation after 5-6 years. 25% have a family history.
Febrile convulsions can be divided into two types: simple and complex
Simple: most common, with generalized twitching and seizures lasting less than 5 minutes.
Complex: long duration (more than 15 minutes), partial twitching (e.g., face only), another seizure within 24 hours, etc.
The three main concerns of parents.
1. Is there any effect on the child?
Unless the twitching is very long-20-30 minutes, it rarely affects brain development, intelligence, behavior, etc.
Epilepsy – incidence in normal children 0.5%
Simple febrile convulsions 1 %
Complex febrile convulsions 1-2%
Febrile convulsions by themselves do not cause epilepsy.
2. Chance of reoccurrence?
After the first febrile convulsion, 30-40% of children will have a second seizure. For those who have had two seizures, 50% will have another seizure.
3. Do I need sedation?
Sedation can reduce the possibility of recurrence to 10%, but the medication has some side effects and may affect the doctor’s judgment of the condition. We need to weigh the pros and cons and use them only when necessary.
A few suggestions.
1.Enhance physical fitness, pay attention to clothing, food, cold and warmth to reduce the chance of fever.
2. Observe carefully to detect fever in time.
3. Always keep acetaminophen (such as Tylenol) or ibuprofen (such as Merlin) antipyretics at home and apply them promptly when fever develops, alternating them if necessary. (Avoid the use of aspirin and nimesulide)
4. Consider sedative drugs only when there are repeated attacks and the duration of the attack is too long.
5.If it is consistent with febrile convulsions, it is customary abroad not to do EEG, even if it is abnormal, it has no predictive value for prognosis. Domestic often recommended to do, will increase many over-diagnosis and treatment, and unnecessary worry worry.