Hi peterpan,

Welcome to the forum! What you are discribing sounds a lot like a possible complex partial seizure. I have had them for over 30 yrs. along with absence (petit mal) and simple partial seizures. I've seen many neurologists over the yrs. but I have gotten the best help from an Epileptologist (Dr. speacializing in epilepsy) and going to an Epilepsy Center which are usually at University Hospitals.
Your daughter is going through the hardest time when it comes to epilepsy because she's going through puberty and when that happens the hormones are changing which can often cause seizures. I have kept track of all my seizures by writing down when I have any seizures, what time the seizure happened, and a discription of the seizure. I also write down if I'm sick with a cold or virus, when there's a low pressure in the weather, and when I start and stop my monthly cycle. By doing this you can often see a pattern in a persons seizures what time of day/night the seizures are more likely to happen and what days of the month. I often had seizures 7-10
days before my monthly cycle and then again after it was over this was all do to hormones changing.
You should talk to the neuro. about putting your daughter on the ketogenic diet the diet is similar to the atkins diet but much more strict. Cut her back on carbs. and starch foods, keep her away from anything with nutra sweet in it, and have her start eating foods high in fat. This will help build ketones in a persons body and the ketones stop the seizures. If you are interested you can get the book titled " The Epilepsy Diet Treatment" By Dr. John Freeman. This diet has been out since 1927 and I had 2 cousins on the diet during World War II and they never had a single seizure again until they went off the diet.
Often a neurologist will push the seizure meds like crazy. My advice to you is to have the Dr. order a DNA test on your daughter and that will show what seizure meds are the best for her seizures with the least side effects. I know one thing that helps is taking vitamin B12 once a day this help calm the nervous system and it reduces my seizures. I've found taking Diamox, mysoline, and vimpat the best help for me. Diamox will make a person lose weight, mysoline breaks down into phenobarbital and will make a person tired until they are used to the drug, and vimpat is used but it can make a person dizzy and cause liver damaage to some people. The 2 drugs I would stay away from are keppra and neurontin both of these drugs are on report with the FDA Keppra can increase a persons seizures and cause insomnia and neurontin caused an increase of seizures for me and I found out that the company making the drug has over $210 million in lawsuits. Of course these 2 drugs can help others but it sure messed me up good. I've found the fewer seizure meds I take the better off I am because often the meds will interact with each other causing more problems. I've also learned over the yrs. the best person to get info. on any meds is your pharmacist. They know more about the meds than most Drs. do. Just make sure that your daughter gets plenty of rest and isn't under stress because lack of sleep and stress are the 2 main things that can trigger seizures. Also if your daughter has a cell phone don't let her use it anymore because it has been reported that it can cause seizures for many people. I wish your daughter and you the best of luck and May God Bless You Both!

Sue