Question
Our child has congenital epilepsy. Although he has a poor appetite most of the time, we recently noticed that he experiences irregular hand and foot convulsions. Can children with epilepsy have this symptom?
Answer
Some pediatric epilepsy patients may experience muscle fasciculations, which are sudden contractions or extensions of muscles and usually do not involve loss of consciousness. These muscle fasciculations can potentially develop into generalized seizures. Patients with long-standing epilepsy may suddenly lose muscle tone, struggle to maintain normal posture, and their seizures are extremely brief and occur at a high frequency.