The first seizures

Vegard seemed to be a very satisfied young man. He ate a lot - and he slept a lot – and he did what little babies are supposed to do in his nappies. The only remarkable thing about him was that he was very jumpy. If there were sharp sounds, or by the slightest touch, he jumped, and we called him lovingly “little hare heart.”

When Vegard was exactly three weeks old, something happened, that scared the wits out of us. I had never been able to breast feed, so Vegard was fed with a bottle from day one. This evening, Ørnulf was sitting with Vegard, feeding him, as our child suddenly crouched like a banana, he lost his breath and turned blue. It all passed within seconds, but if felt like an eternity.
Since Vegard was fed as this happened, we figured that he had got milk down his purl throat. We thought no more about it, and put it down to one of life’s frightening experiences, that luckily ended up all right. But, later that evening it all happened again. Vegard was sleeping peacefully beside me in the sofa, when he all of a sudden crouched like a banana. Once again he stopped breathing and turned blue.

I immediately called the emergency number, and I was told they would send an ambulance. I called my brother and sister in law, and they came to look after Erik, while Ørnulf and I joined the ambulance to the hospital. Never in my life, I’ve felt so small and frightened, as I was sitting in the back of an ambulance, with my three week old baby, being rushed off to hospital.
We were received very well at the hospital, by warm, caring staff. We stayed there for one week, and there were several tests done during our stay. There were blood tests, urine samples, the physiotherapist did tests on the baby and he was checked by an eye doctor. Vegard had an ultra sound of the brain, and they took two EEGs. All test results came back showing nothing wrong, and the two EEGs showed no signs of epileptic activity, even though Vegard had several seizure like fits during the hospital stay.

The doctors then put a tube down Vegard’s nose, to measure if he had reflux. This showed that our baby was suffering from this quite badly. The doctors were now quite happy to calm us down, telling us that Vegard was most likely suffering from reflux seizures, which looks very much like epileptic seizures, and can be quite dramatic to watch for the parents, and not very nice for the child to have. We were told to give Vegard something called Gaviscon after each meal, this should calm down the contents of his tummy, so it would not come back in his throat.

It was a pair of very relieved parens whom took their baby home, and could tell family and friends that there was nothing seriously wrong with the little boy, and that with the help of medication, he would be right as rain again.

Ph registration, diagnosing the reflux