Todd's Paralysis

Cole has had so many "rare" things happen to him in his journey. I wanted to spotlight a couple of them in case there is another mom out there wondering if what is happening to her child has happened to someone else. One of these rare phenomena is Todd's Paralysis.

It will affect mainly one side of his body. It has also switched sides. Most of the time, he can not use one of his arms for a couple of hours after a seizure. Sometimes, it will affect his legs and he will want to walk, but cannot. Occasionally, it will happen with the muscles in his face. One side will droop and he will not be able to talk or smile for a while.

We are lucky that he has not had any permanent paralysis, which can be possible after a seizure or stroke. I just wish that I would have known about Todd's Paralysis before it started happening, time and time again. We had to go through the whole, "Why is his arm not working?!" debacle many times before we recognized that he would eventually regain function. The paralysis would keep switching sides and body parts and lasting for different periods of time. It was so confusing since he was fully coherent and out of his normal post-ictal phase. That was a scary thing to add to the complications of a seizure.

So, if you have a child who has epilepsy and for some reason, even after they are out of their post-ictal state, they can not move one side of their body-it is probably Todd's Paralysis. They will regain the function, you just need to make sure that they rest. Easier said than done, especially with an active toddler who has a stubborn streak like his mama.

Just another quirk to add to our ever expanding medical dictionary.