Cavities, Seizures, and Mommy Regret

J-man's latest (brief) visit to the dentist has revealed three cavities.  At least.  The dentist could only take a quick peek because J-man was in full freak-out mode when she tried to examine him.  But, in that quick look she saw three and is afraid there may be more. 

Sigh...

It kinda pisses me off because I made a point of asking her if we could get sealants for his teeth at our previous visit. Given his significant oral aversion and refusal to allow me to brush his teeth, I just knew we were setting ourselves up for cavity city.  He will brush his own teeth... sorta....  you know, as good as any orally-averted-four-year-old can.  But she said then that they don't typically do it on baby teeth...  which is both stupid and bogus.

Anyway, the best way to address this problem is to have J-man put under sedation and do a full exam with x-rays, fix the cavities, put on sealant (grrrrr!) and possibly put on caps to the back teeth (not sure we want to do that).  Clearly, sedation comes with some risks...  risks that are probably necessary if we are going to fix his teeth... and since we are doing it, we might as well think about what else might need to be done at the same time. You know, the biggest bang for our sedation buck. 

His tonsils are fine so no biggie there.  He has never had an ear infection so no tubes needed.  He is due for some immunizations so we will get that done while he is knocked out.  And I am looking into whether we could have an ABR (auditory brainstem response) hearing test done at the same time (also best under sedation).

But there is this little voice in the back of my head that is saying "have them place electrodes for an EEG....  have them do a 24 hour EEG...."

You see, when J-man was 2 1/2 yrs old, he had a sleep deprived EEG.  Basically, a sleep deprived EEG involved waking J-man up at 2am and keeping him awake until about 8am. Yeah, that was fun.... try it sometime. Then, at the hospital, they placed the electrodes on J-man for the EEG (yeah, that was a barrel of monkeys too), and he was allowed to sleep for about 45 minutes while they measured his brain activity.  The reason he had the EEG was to rule out seizure activity as a potential cause for his developmental delays.  And all signs from that EEG were normal.

But... there are three factors that nag on my brain....

First was the sleep-deprived EEG.  Typically, those types of EEGs are less reliable in detecting seizure activity purely because the window of time to measure brain activity is so short.  Being sleep-deprived is suppose to induce enough stress to spur on "seizure like" activity during the first round of the sleep cycle.  My problem is that it is such a small snapshot that the likelihood of missing some seizure activity is very broad.  And, given the trauma of actually going through the electrode application, I am not thrilled with the idea of re-doing it all for a 24 hr EEG.

The second issue is my recent reading about the increased incidence of seizures (particularly absence seizures) in children on "the spectrum".  It is highly correlated, and that has me concerned. If J-man was having absence seizures, it could greatly impact his ability to learn.  And absence seizures are highly treatable.  AND the typical onset of absence seizures is between the ages of 4-12 yrs old.

The third issue?   J-man has displayed a few of the very subtle signs of absence seizures. He has times of just staring off into space, usually for only 10-15 seconds.  He has these moments where he shakes his head like "no no no" out of context.  I thought he was thinking of something, but could it be a tic?  And he has these times where he is remarkably crabby... not tantruming, just out of sorts. Of course, those symptoms could also be related to his developmental delay, or his auditory processing, or his lack of social orientation, or....   just being J-man. 

But there is this little mommy-voice that is just freaking out a smidge.

Now, Big Daddy will not approve of doing another EEG based on such flimsy evidence.  It was very traumatic for J-man to get those electrodes on, and he is almost two years older and much stronger.  And it is quite likely that the doctors wouldn't want to do it after sedation anyway, so even thinking about it for the whole bang-for-your-buck sedation event is maybe just wishful thinking on my part.

But I can't suppress this feeling that this would be our best chance to ease my mind.  Or not.