So this is Mercedes' holter monitor that she had to wear for 24 hours. We are still waiting the results, but I am assuming that no news is good news. For those of you who don't know, Mercedes has breath holding spells (5% of children have them). She starts to cry and then holds her breath until she passes out. She only does this when she is extremely tired. However, she has had a few VERY scary spells. When my sister was watching her she passed out but didn't start breathing again and they had to call the paramedics. She also had a big seizure, that lasted about 2 minutes, with the one of the last spells. These breath holding spells can be linked to iron deficiency so we have her on high dose iron. We placed the holter monitor to make sure that she doesn't have bradycardia (low heart rate) periodically and she has had an EKG to rule out any abnormal arrhythmyia. We also just recently saw a neurologist, for the seizures. He wants to do an EEG to make sure that she doesn't have any irritable brain waves. Although low heart rates and seizures during breath holding spells are "normal" , we are just covering our bases and making sure that we are not missing anything important. Since we have started her on the iron, each spell has been much less traumatic. I don't think that these spells will go away completely (she will outgrow them between the ages of 3-5). But hopefully, very soon, we can have some peace of mind.
