There are those who suffer from petit mal seizures (also known as absence seizures or starring spells) who want to know if these seizures can get worse and become grand mal seizures. This short post will answer this question.
From one side it could be logical that something “small” (petit means small in French) could complicate and become something “big” or “grand” so perhaps it is natural to think that petit mal seizures can get worse and turn into grand mal seizures, however, it does not work like this.
Kinds of Seizures
Understand it this way: just like there are many kinds of illnesses there are also many kinds of seizures and petit mal or grand mal are completely different kind of seizures and basically it can be said that they have nothing in common with one another.
More on Seizures Than You Expect
Actually, it gets even more “interesting”. A person could have both petit mal and grand mal seizures at the same time – I do not mean in the same instance I mean a person could be suffering from both of those “illnesses” and sometimes one type happens and sometimes another.
So petit mal seizures can not complicate and get worse and become grand mal seizures, but usually children will outgrow the petit mal seizures whereas grand mal is not possible to outgrow like that.