Age: 3.0
Sex: M
Vaccine: FLU3, HEPA
Symptoms: Cognitive disorder, Electroencephalogram normal, Epilepsy, Fall, Fatigue
Clinical narrative: My son was born full term and healthy and received all of his scheduled immunizations. He was diagnosed with benign "Shuddering Attacks" as an infant and we were told by a neurologist that the episodes were non epileptic in nature and that he basically had an "immature nervous system" which he would out grow by 18 months. This indeed turned out to be true as we saw no further episodes past 17 months of age.  He developed normally, meeting all milestones on time (or early in the case of expressive language). At his 3 year well-check, he received both a HepB and a Flu vaccination. Within minutes, he starting shaking rhythmically, stiffened and dropped to the floor. This was a Friday morning. Similar "episodes" continued from that point forward, throughout the weekend. I left a message for the doctor moment after the incident happened. The doctor called my work number back, but I decided to cancel the afternoon of work and take my son home, who appeared exhausted and was sleepy. The doctor called back on Monday, told me that it sounded like a seizure but that we just needed to watch for further episodes. I informed him that the episodes continued all weekend. The doctor ordered an EEG and an MRI  which were negative. The episodes were brief (5-6 seconds) and seemed to gradually taper off in the weeks and months that followed.  My son seemed to mostly recover, but he developed behaviors such as constant, sudden falling (requiring stitches in his face once) and interrupted speech which continued until age 5, when he had two tonic-clonic seizures. After this, he started taking Depakote and his falling and speech problems stopped. It was only then that doctors suspected that he'd been having seizures all along, ever since his 3 yr well check visit.  I read that the FDA and the CDC began a study to investigate the increase in reports of seizure following the Flu vaccine. In  July, I read that the preliminary results indicate that there is an increased risk of seizure when the Flu vaccine is given in conjunction with other vaccines, although the risk is less than 10%, with less than 1% of those children going on to develop a residual seizure disorder.  However, the VAERS "table" did not list seizure as an adverse reaction at the time that my son's problems began. The doctor informed me that there "was no evidence of a link between the shots and my son's immediate adverse reaction so there was nothing to report". The compensation program is very clear about a 3 year statute of limitations that begins from the date of injury, rather than  the date of diagnosis - or the date of recognition by the medical community. Consequently, my son's problems, while reported to the pediatrician, were never reported to VAERS.  My son continues to suffer from multi-focal interictal discharges every 5  to 10 seconds which greatly impairs his executive functioning and functional coherence. He needs extensive, expensive academic intervention and therapy (despite a normal IQ) and we accept that this is our cross to bear.    However, I am anguished when I recall that my son trusted me and I held his arm down to receive the shots that changed his life forever. Please don't misunderstand - I am pro vaccines. But, I am heartsick that a self serving regulation championed by pharmaceutical companies have placed an arbitrary deadline for reporting adverse reactions on families who are following the best medical advice. If the medical community later uncovers a plausible bio-mechanism for a previously unknown reaction, it seems that it's just too damned bad for kids like the patient. But, my little "less than 1% boy" matters.  I concede that patient may well have been destined to develop epilepsy anyway, but contend that the timing of the epigenetic, environmental trigger, hurt him greatly, as it occurred at a time that his phonological awareness was developing. Had his asynchronous oscillations, inter-ictal spikes (and seizures) developed at an older age, he might have been spared the degree of cognitive disability that he suffers.  Or, am I off base? I see studies about incidents of status epilepticus or TMS therapy "rebooting" the brain so to speak, and altering it's chemical processing, reducing seizure activity. Can some sort of hyper immune response to combined immunizations, given to a child with familial predispositions, trigger a brain response which alters neural oscillation patterns and their corresponding chemical signaling?  Is my son's situation just an unfortunate coincidence? It's hard to ignore the fact that I brought in a seemingly healthy little boy who suffered his 1st seizure moments after his body received multiple immune system activating injections and continued to experience seizures from that point forward.