They have said they did treat him with anticonvulsants. I have no idea if not recognizing autism has any bearing on not recognizing epilepsy.
We do not know enough about his condition to draw any conclusions,imo. I chose to not medicate my son for 15 years and if I had it to do again I would choose the exact same course of action.
As a Parent Coordinator for parents of children with seizure disorders, I'm happy to answer any questions that those of you may have. First, let me explain a few things.
1) Sometimes lay people tend to associate seizures with a specific condition other than a seizure disorder, itself. (epilepsy) It is in fact seperate. A condition of it's own. However, do note that in many many instances children with one condition tend to have multiple other problems such as seizures.
2) My son has Asperger's syndrome, a form of autism, along with obsessive compulsive disorders, 5 different seizure disorders, hypothyroidism, ADHD and short term memory. Note his short term memory is due to having numerous seizures, including status epileptus twice...and it built scar tissue on the front temperol lobe. It is my personal opinion, albeit, I do not know
Jett and his parents are the best to know...but if he has suffered many grand mal's as my son has when he was younger...then scar tissue would be apparent and could be responsible for some of his speech concerns, memory and even his gait..which in essence would rule out autism.
3) People can and have died from having a seizure itself when the seizure is prolonged (such as status epileptus) in which they can actually go into respiratory or heart arrest. My son was in a seizure for over 18 minutes, which is why they will induce a brain coma. (overdose of valium) in order to put the brain to sleep to cease the seizures and enable the body to recover. If
Jett had a prolonged seizure on the bathroom floor this very well could have been the cause of death. Also, many with tonic clonic seizures (grand mal) will vomit and/or have excessive foaming at the mouth and lying in an awkward position can also cause the patient to choke. (years ago they used to think they would swallow their tongue and hence put an object into the mouth. That is no longer done as it is dangerous to place anything in the patients mouth as they clamp down and there is no getting the object back and it can invariably cause more damage than the seizure itself.)
4) Some people have very sensitive liver functions. Seizure medications can damage the liver and therefore must have liver tests monitored. Some medications can give all sorts of adverse effects from personality episodes to physical ailments. In
Jett's case, he was on antiseizure medication and it was determined to cause more harm to him than good. My son has been on multiple medications for 19 years. (Since 11 months old) Thus as you know, with 5 disorders (grand mal, petit mal, myclonic, complex partial and simple partial seizures) my greatest fear is that one day his liver will no longer tolerate and he would have to be removed. This would have devastating effects. He would be literally non functioning if it were not for his meds.
Just as I've known children in my group who have done remarkably well on the ketogenic diet, because seizure meds could not control their seizures but the diet did. It's an individual assessment.
5) to squash the Christian Scientology that medications are forbidden is simply untrue.
(DO NOT CONFUSE CHRISTIAN SCIENTOLOGY WITH "CHRISTIAN SCIENCE" they are seperate entire beliefs.) Prescribed medications by doctors are allowed, as is insulin, etc. Rumors have run amuck to the point that I've read some seriously terrible things stated that this could have been avoided.
at the same time, there are not prescribed medications for autism. Yes, there are medications to help those with autism with specific accompanying symptoms, such as OCD, agitation, etc. but there is NO medication in itself to cure or take care of autism.
6)
Jett was a 16 year old young man. He was entitled to his privacy in the bathroom. It's hard to raise a child with restrictions, albeit, we must for their own wellness, however, from what I've read and heard he had not only one caretaker...(nanny)...but two. He also had a baby monitor in his room. He was rarely if ever left alone. The fact this occured in the bathroom makes it very sad because it's about the only place that he more than probably had privacy.
My heart goes out to John, Kelly and Ella. Iti s truly a parents worst fear and my heart aches for them.