BENIGN-

Rider sleeping on my lap during his EEG test

He had 20 electrodes glued to his little head... all reading his brain activity

BNSM- Benign Neonatal Sleep Myoclonus in Infants was the diagnosis the red headed neurologist at Primary Children's wrote down for me. After the EEG results were reviewed and a 30 minute meeting with the knowledgeable doctor I felt confident in the good results. He said that Rider's episodes showed no seizure or epileptic signals on the EEG and that his neurological exam came out clean.  He proceeded to explain that Rider's "immature" brain was the culprit of his twitching episodes. I shuttered a little when he said "immature" because it sounded so negative, but he assured me that since Rider is developing normally on all other levels of measure, it was nothing to worry about. Basically from what I can understand from the explanation is that Rider's brain is mildly underdeveloped and it's having a hard time disconnecting the brain signals to the muscles during deep sleep. When an adult begins to fall asleep our brain "disconnects" the signal routed to the muscles that tell our body to move on a continual basis. It's that feeling we sometimes get when one is about to fall asleep and all of a sudden we jerk as though we almost fell off the bed. That's a misfire in the disconnect. Rider is repeatedly misfiring and not making a complete disconnection of the signals. It's something he should outgrow within his first year and as long as he's developing normally on all other fronts, he's perfectly fine!
Thank you doctor for listening to a mom who knew something wasn't quiet right and had a "mother's intuition." Thank you for taking my concerns seriously and following up in such a thorough manner. And thank you Primary Children's out patient clinic for being so kind and knowlegable. I still have a few questions for the neurologist that I didn't think to ask during the appointment, but overall I can rest assure that Rider happy and healthy.

After the electrodes were scrubbed off his head he wasn't quiet sure what to think about all that had happened to him over the past 48 hours. Poor guy. Hopefully he didn't lose too much of that gorgeous hair!

P.S. I turn 30 tomorrow - Yikes. That's so grown up... and I'm so not a grown up.