Hi, first time forum user here. I was searching on the net for a possible answer to a question I have. I just called our local hospital and the nurse was not able to help me at all, we live in a small town with a general practice doctor and a few nurses.

I was playing with my daughter on the floor, spinning her around as she lied on her side. She was laughing and asking me to do it again. After maybe 10 spins I thought that was enough because she must be getting dizzy, and as I stopped she kind of arched her back and twitched a bit. I picked her up right away. This lasted for around 5 seconds, then she started to cry.

I am not sure what happened, she is 2 years old so she can't really explain what she was feeling, but she did say afterwards she thought she was falling. Any help would be greatly appreciated, thank you.

Chabs, welcome to AMHD!!

It sounds as though she may just be dizzy. Has she had any other problems before?

Does she stare into space for apparently no reason at all?

Never any problems previous to this. The odd time she does space out and stare at nothing, but just when she's tired, and only for a few seconds. Also since it happened, she has said quite a few times that she got scared and thought she was going to fall down. Im still not sure what happened though, it seemed to be what I always thought a seizure would look like, even though I have never seen one.

It sounds as though everything is okay, and no reason to panic right now.

Just make sure you mention it to her doctor next time you take her in.

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Originally Posted by chabs

Hi, first time forum user here. I was searching on the net for a possible answer to a question I have. I just called our local hospital and the nurse was not able to help me at all, we live in a small town with a general practice doctor and a few nurses.

I was playing with my daughter on the floor, spinning her around as she lied on her side. She was laughing and asking me to do it again. After maybe 10 spins I thought that was enough because she must be getting dizzy, and as I stopped she kind of arched her back and twitched a bit. I picked her up right away. This lasted for around 5 seconds, then she started to cry.

I am not sure what happened, she is 2 years old so she can't really explain what she was feeling, but she did say afterwards she thought she was falling. Any help would be greatly appreciated, thank you.

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Well, my dad has seizures and I have watched him with almost every seizure for the last many years. Your child did not have a seizure but was just simply dizzy. Seizures differ from dizziness by a lot. Dizziness is swirling, things moving fast and in your case she felt like she was 'falling'. Seizures tend to last longer and the person is nonresponsive to everything and is 'zoned out'. The seizure will cause the person to forget what just happened and has uncontrolled movements during the seizure. If anyone should know seizures its me cause I have seen them for the last many years and its simptoms and characteristics are quite familiar to me. I hope this helps, and have a good day.

Hi Chabs,
Though I agree, I wouldn't be too worried, what you are describing could be a petit mal or "absence" seizure:

MedlinePlus Medical Encyclopedia: Petit mal seizure

These are very brief, transient events. The arching of the back you describe could be a form of "posturing," though I am not sure if that would be common with this type of seizure, which is typically characterized by the staring you describe.
Spinning is known to alter frontal lobe activity in the brain, and there is a mild possibly this could be triggering some sort of episode.
Sorry I can't tell you much beyond this. Take care. :)

We had something similar happen to our daughter who is also 2. My husband was spinning her in a chair. She was laughing and asking him to do it again. My husband said that then her body when stiff and she stopped breathing for a few seconds. When she "came to" she was very scared and said she had been stuck to the ceiling.

I have no idea what it was, but I do think it was more than just dizziness.

Dear forum:
I am now 32 years old but used to have seizures as a child. It began at age 5 during tumbling/ ballet class. After simple tumbling I went into a seizure -- head started shaking and I couldn't stop it. For some reason any forward flip/tumble I did caused me to seizure. I used to have dizzy spells at random times too that would causes auras and I kept telling my parents "it didn't feel like I was really there." I just wasn't sure how to describe it otherwise.
I had a severe seizure on vacation at age 11 once after spinning round-and-round in a relay race. I fell to the ground and my body froze. I went to the doctor - they did not do any testing on me and ruled it as vertigo.

I have not had any major episodes since my youth although once in a while I will wake up in a small shake while sleeping. I have recently experienced some minor tingling on the scalp otherwise nothing.

Hi, I am a first time user too. I started looking up this type of information because the same thing happened to my daughter. She is 15 months old and she loves to spin in the chair. We were spinning her and I knew she was getting dizzy so we stopped. Then in a little while she climbed back up in the chair and wanted to spin again. We started spinning her and then I saw her head kind of go around like she was so dizzy she couldn't hold her head up, so we stopped her and as soon as we did, her back arched and her eyes were moving rapidly back and forth. Our son has had seizures since he was 4 months old and he will be 3 in a couple of weeks, so I know what a seizure looks like. This did look like a seizure, but when she came out of it she immediately started crying and I could tell she was scared. That is the only reason I think this was not a seizure, because people who have seizures usually do not know that they had one, so they are not scared. Our son has never cried when coming out of a seizure. I don't know if this helps you or not. I know this was posted over 2 years ago, so I hope your daughter never had another episode like that. And I hope my daughter doesn't either!

We have been having this same problem with our daughter. It first happened when I spun her in a chair when she was a about 2 years old. She seemed to stop breathing and tensed up, I thought it looked like a seizure. We have always known since then not to spin her because it really scared her dad and me. Until today... we took her to the fair and they had a spinning berry ride so we let her go on it with her dad thinking that maybe we were overreacting with the spinning thing. Well it turns out that we weren't. She passed out and her head fell forward onto her dad's lap and it took a while to awaken her. Afterwards she didn't remember anything. My husband freaked. We are really scared. What is this? We are very worried and can't seem to get any answers. We have taken her to doctors and they say that we are overreacting but now I know for sure that we aren't.

My daughter is just over 2 years old and was in a chair asking her dad to spin her. He did one way at first and reversed it, then went back the first direction... her eyes completely dilated, eyes began to look for a focal point but she couldn't see, her back arched and she started to shake. I was in front of her and grabbed her immediately and she started to sob as well. All the symptoms stopped immediately but it was really hot in the house as well and I'm wondering if that also aggravated the situation. I feel that it was dizziness after reading a few of your posts. I will check with my Doctor and get back to you soon. My daughter does also fearsome of traveling in elevators and openings she can see through at high elevations. I wonder if there is any correlation.

This happened to my girlfriends niece today... she is 2 and I was playing with her and we somehow got to the spinning chair game... well after a few too many spins only 5 to 7 she grabbed one of the arms of the chair and I stopped it then she started to twitch a little bit, stiffen up and threw her head back it was gnarly then I picked her up and put her head forward and she was just completely puzzled.. no crying just a little whining and looked just out of it and her pupils started to dilate for about one minute.. her mom fed her an she calmed down and her pupils stopped a few mi uses later she acted as if nothing ever happened and was her normal... from others posts I am hoping that this is not going to have any serious effects.. if other could share how their kids are doing since you posted that would be nice

Hi! This happened close to 9 months ago and nothing has happened since... we don't spin her anymore but she spins in circles herself normally now without any problems. It was a scary experience in a hot room. I think she was just spun too much.

Just love her :) and I hope it passes for you just like it did with us. Take care.