Age: 4.0
Sex: M
Vaccine: DTAP, MMR, OPV
Symptoms: Affect lability, Amnesia, Aphasia, Attention deficit/hyperactivity disorder, Blood test
Clinical narrative: pt exp  fever, h/a, dizzy x 13 days;13th day pt began twitching uncontrollably, head & mouth mainly;loss coherency;pt cont twitching, jerking, spasms;could not walk w/o falling;loss memory;urinate & soil self;dx ADHD & OCD;brain damage;Annual follow-up received on 10/19/00 provides no additional data. We explained everything that had been ocurring. He was very questionable about exactly what was occuring. He examined him and recommended we take him to a Pediatric Neurologist. He also ordered an immediate blood work-up. They tested him for many substances such as lead, chromium etc. Everything came out clear. He set us up with a neurologist. He said he couldn't see our son for over a month. We were extremely distraught. We argued over the severity of what was occuring. They said it was the best they could do. So we waited. Over this period of time our son deteriorated severly. He continued twitching, jerking, spasming. He could not even walk without falling. He lost his entire memory. He was like he was in a delierium. He would just sit and stare at a blank wall. He no longer recognized anything or anyone around him. He began urinating and soiling himself on a regular basis. He basically became like a vegatable. We called the doctor and pleaded for help. We were told we must wait. That there were other sick children too. This was the most horrible, stressful, sad experience in our lives. Our son could no longer talk at all. he had no memory of anything including his father and I. He had no potty training abilities. He had no co-ordination. He could barely walk. He would just sit and stare with his mouth open. After about 3 continuous weeks of twitiching it stopped. But his condition had no improvement. He became terrifed of anything. Screaming and crying uncontrollably. After about a week wait we finally got him to the neurologist. Upon him seeing and hearing our son. He says "why was this child not brought to my attention much sooner." We nearly went into hysterics. Explaining all we had been through and how hard we tried to get him in. He became upset and said he wished to speak to our sons pediatrition. So we agreed. He spoke to the doctor about him recognizing this as a DPT reaction. Why was this not brought to his attention sooner to begin treatment. Our sons pediatrition; said he just wasn't sure about the DPT reaction. He said he had observed some abnormal behaviors in our son before immunization; he thought it might relate to. We found this comment rude, offensive and a deliberate move to try and cover his huge mistakes. He had never brought any concerns about our son to our attention ever. He was his pediatrition since birth. He always commended us on his growth and advancements. Nothing but positive remarks. To hear this was infuriating. The neurologist asked for immediate admittance into the hospital. We agreed to this. He was admitted to the hospital. They did an MRI and a Spinal Tap. Both of the tests came back normal. The Neurologist said that our son had aquired an aphasia for a reason still unknown. So we should get an EEG The EEg should be sleeping. This was a problem because since all this occurred our son had become extremly hyper-active, rarely sleeping, he had constant laughing seizures which lasted for up to 3 hours. He was uncontrollable. We still tried the EEG. We could not get him to settle much less sleep for the test. The results were not showing seizure activity. The neurologist recommended taking him to a psycologist for evaluation. We agreed and upon doing so both evaluations brought up a possiblity of him aquiring a rare condition called Landau Kleffner Syndrome. They believed he was still having sub-clinical seziures. Which was causing the strange behaviors now occuring hyper-activity, social withdrawl, aggressiveness, depression etc. We felt it was because of the complete loss of speech and language and memory. That caused such tremdous frustration. During all this process the insurance company had refused to pay the medical bills for our son. They said that our son had been adversly affected by immunization. Therefore we needed to sue in this matter. We needed to sign a lein form stating that the insurance company would be reimbursed for any and all payments made by them from the date of his injury on. If we were to receive a settlement. We were more stressed and confused. Medical bills mounting, still no answers for our sons deterioration. We contacted a lawyer to see about getting the insurance to pay the bills they were legally liable to pay. In this process the lawyer had to obtain medical records and billing statements from all involved in his treatment. At this time our son had reached a level of unbelievable out of control aggression. Our entire family was crying and worried. We finally decided to see his pediatrition again about the problem. He prescribed PROZAC for our son. We agreed and administered the medication. Our sons behaviors did come under better control. But he could still not talk or even think clearly. We were taking him to a speech pathologist to help him. The neurologist he was seeing had requested we get another MRI and a sleeping 24hr. EEG, and a PET scan. We had accomplished a second MRI when he received papers from the attorney. He then became beligerant and seemed unwilling to help us further. We were devastated and explained we were only trying to get the insurance to pay our bills. He was rude and did not believe us. He said some very rude remarks and refused to run tests on our son. We then learned from the psycologist we were taking our son to see that his pediatrition had been saying very rude remarks about our son to the psycologist and other care givers. After he received attorney papers on our sons behalf. He was suddenly telling people that he always saw our son as "A weird kid" to quote him. This was the last thing we could tolerate from him. We refused to ever take our son to him ever again. We asked all the people in the process of helping him to no longer send any reports or Information to doctor. We were so worried and lost at this point. His pediatrition since birth was no longer available. Our son was still so sick and disturbed. We had no answers or help to get our boy back. Everyone had felt that these new disturbing behaviors were probably causedby sub-clinical seizures. We searched for a while and heard about a really good child psychiatrist who diagnosed and dealth with children having many symptoms like our son. So we took him to seem him. Immediately upon examing him he felt we also were dealing with sub-clinical seizures. He ordered a spect scan for our son. Which was scheduled as soon as possible. When he received the spect scan it showed he was definatly still having sub-clinical seizures. He had been experiencing them every since he had received his DPT. Because of the extended period of time he had suffered from these severe seizures in his front temporal lobes. This had caused the memory loss. The loss of speech. The odd behaviors such as huge mood swings. Now we know that our damage to both his left and right front temporal lobes. The thing that saddens us the most is that we know the damage could have been much less if he had gotten immediate attention and diagnosis like we basically begged for. Now he goes through extensive speech and language therapy. We work with him constantly he is making much progress. But he is a completely different child now. He has such a hard time with the simplist of tasks. he is on medicinal therapy form the psychiatrist. He has to take DepaKene for seizure control. The damage to his brain has also caused him to now have two other disorders diagnosedone is called ADHD or attention deficit hyper-activity disorder. Which he has to take a medication for. The other disorder is called OCD or obsessive compulsive disorder. Which he has to take a third medication for. Our lives have been turned upside down. It is so difficult; but we love him dearly and will continue to do what we can to help him