Fits, Faints and Funny Turns
Fits, faints and funny turns are conditions involving disturbances of consciousness or movement which may be mis-diagnosed as epilepsy (described above). In the infant, they may be caused by breath-holding attacks, where the baby, usually during a screaming fit caused by exasperation or frustration, stops breathing, turns blue and loses consciousness, only to start breathing again almost immediately, turn pink and re-gain consciousness. They do no harm to the infant (though lots to the nerves of the parents) and usually disappear in early childhood. In infants who are prone to such attacks they can often be prevented by distracting the child’s attention from whatever is causing the rage. Reflex anoxic seizures usually affect slightly older children - aged 2 upwards. They occur as a result of a shock, or pain (so they’re a reflex) when the child stops breathing (so there’s no oxygen to the brain - it’s anoxic) and as a result the child suffers a brief convulsion (a seizure) before regaining consciousness. This is not epilepsy, and does not pre-dispose to it. They are a common consequence of children, or young adolescents, having blood tests (alarming for the person taking the blood). They may follow a simple faint (see syncope, described in this section) since they share the same mechanism involving the slowing of the heart rate under the influence of the autonomic nervous system. Other causes of abnormal sensations include migraine (which in childhood may present as recurrent abdominal pain or simply numbness in a limb, without headache) and benign positional vertigo, where there is thought to be a viral infection of the labyrinth - the balance organ of the inner ear (see ear disorders in the head section) causing dizziness.
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