Question
My child is in elementary school and has been complaining of abdominal pain recently. I thought it might be due to catching a cold, but it’s been going on for a while now, and they also sometimes vomit. Could abdominal pain and vomiting be signs of epilepsy in children?
Answer
Epileptic seizures can take various forms, including minor seizures and bilateral severe muscle spasms. Frontal lobe temporal lobe epilepsy often causes grand mal seizures without any warning; lesions in the frontal-parietal central area can lead to contralateral motor or sensory focal seizures; temporal lobe lesions often cause psychomotor seizures, and occipital lobe lesions often have visual prodromes. Most patients have a relatively fixed seizure type, while a few may change. Early and middle-stage epilepsy may resolve spontaneously over time, with about 25% of patients experiencing spontaneous remission within 2 years or slightly longer. However, late-stage epilepsy often has a tendency to worsen, progressing from focal seizures to generalized seizures, and in severe cases, it may also be accompanied by memory loss, personality disorders, and intellectual impairment. Suggested Opinion: The diagnosis of epilepsy generally relies on EEGs: EEGs are an important auxiliary diagnostic tool for epilepsy. Combined with various triggering methods, such as special electrodes, long-term or video EEGs, the positive rate is over 80%. Spike-wave complexes or burst rhythms are also important for localizing focal epilepsy. However, 1-3% of normal people may have epileptic discharges, and a considerable number of patients with interictal periods have normal EEGs. Therefore, EEGs should not be the sole basis for diagnosing or excluding epilepsy.