A sleep deprived EEG

It’s been a tricky few months of worry with little 2 year old Oscie boy. He’s had a few undiagnosed seizures that have resulted in tests and an EEG (electroencephalogram) that came back ‘normal’ so last week he had to have a sleep deprived EEG.

A sleep-deprived EEG test is done when you have had less sleep than usual. When you are tired, there is more chance that there will be unusual electrical activity in your brain. Usually a sleep deprived test is done when a standard EEG didn’t show any unusual electrical activity.

Sleep deprived = NO SLEEP!

Oh my.

Oh my indeedy.

A whole night with no sleep was not in my top five fun things to do with a toddler.

We watched movies, danced, played, talked, sang songs, and at 1.30 am did finger-painted heart prints for Valentines day!

Little man lasted until 2.40am. Bless him. The super sleeper of this house, likes on average, 13-14 hours a night. Yup – he LOVES sleep.

He crashed at 2.40am and nothing would help to keep him awake. I let him sleep. Broke the rules and let him sleep until 5am when he was woken and not happy about it at all. by the time we arrived at Birmingham, he was very pale but full of smiles!

Our appointment at Birmingham children’s hospital was easy. He let them pop the sticky glue on his head to attach the little wires (electrodes) then fasten them securely with surgical tape. The electrodes pick up electrical signals from the brain and record them on an EEG machine.

Most people have brainwave patterns that look similar to everyone else’s. Sometimes, the EEG test shows different brainwave patterns to other people. These patterns are caused by unusual electrical activity in the brain and can sometimes indicate epilepsy.

One very tired little Oscie boy was given some Melatonin (Melatonin is a naturally occurring substance produced by the brain in the evening to prepare the brain for sleep,) and before long, one tired little boy fell fast asleep next to me on the bed (I so wanted to fall asleep too) and was filmed (incase he had a seizure) and plugged into the computer while he slept.

No tears. No tantrums. Not one complaint.

Our results from the sleep deprived EEG come back this week, and I’m hoping and praying it’ll be fine. And if it’s not? Well, then we will just face whatever the problem is.

If you’d like to know more about the EEg test or Epilepsy you can find out more at Epilepsy Action.