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Undiagnosed seizures or "fake" seizures?
Thu, 12/04/2008 - 23:15Hello, and thanks for reading this! I feel silly asking for help, and am half expecting no response.
Anywho, I'm having these odd episodes. Basically, I feel very, very tired and my tongue feels heavy (?) then my eyes deviate upwards and I get head drops (my head drops backwards). I become almost drunk~ I can't balance and I have little control over what I'm doing; I wander from room to room, on unsteady feet of course, repeat things, sway back and forth... all sorts of odd things. There's no twitching or jerking involved, other than the head drops and occasional odd movements that aren't nearly as quick as the tonic clonic movements I've seen in videos, and I remain fully conscious. I can even talk, but it's an effort and my words are often slurred. I sleep for an hour or more afterwards, and sometimes am "drunk" when I wake up.
I'm a 23 year old female with depression that is being succesfully treated with cymbalta. I had these "incidents" before the cymbalta, however, and was even tested with a waking eeg when I was a child as I was thought to have absence seizures. The eeg proved to be inconclusive. I don't have a copy of the results now. :-(
Honestly, I'm a bit worried that I'm "doing" these on purpose because I'm conscious during them, and have discovered psychogenic seizures. It scares me a bit that I fit the profile in gender and age, but I'm clinging to the knowledge that I was suspected to have seizures when I was younger. That last bit actually makes me think maybe they ARE psychogenic, since why would I WANT to have real seizures? I hope you see where I'm going here.
It'd also help if you shared information about your episodes if they are similar. Basically, I'm a sponge right now. Please give me things to soak up and consider! :-)
Comments
Re: Undiagnosed seizures or "fake" seizures?
Submitted by walthowat on Thu, 2009-04-30 - 15:15
You do not have a problem, your neuro does. In running support groups for over 30 years I came to conclusion that the biggest single mistake that neurologists make is in diagnosing emotionally driven pseudo seizures. I have seen over a dozen people diagnosed that way, and all of them were later diagnosed with real, but hard to read seizure conditions. And in each case, had the neurologist paid any attention to the factors that would show a real seizure from a fake one, none of these diagnoses would have been made. They were made by lazy neuros who were tired of looking at non descriptive eegs and did not want to make any effort.
I am sure there are cases of pseudo seizures. But to show you the travesty of the entire thing, not one of the people I know who was diagnosed one way then the other was told "gee I made a mistake" when it was realized that the seizures were real... the comments were more like "gee you ALSO have real seizures too".
I was lucky back in the 1940's because people back then they were not looking for pseudo seizures. Here I was a kid with seizures which were not showing up on the EEGs. And I had had undiagnosed fear seizures when younger... TLE driven. Some smart alec today might look at that and say "ah ha.. .this kid has pseudos" In a humorous song I once wrote about neurology I used the line "he's not partially complexed, he's just over sexed".
People who have pseudos, I understand from people who have really studied it, do not have many of the classic movements and reactions... so there is a list of typical symptoms that a traditional seizure would have. Just knowing that a patient has some of these should tell the doc something. For example, when blinking lights set the seizure off. There are too many tell tale clues to a real seizure, but in the cases I observed, the neurologists had discarded them, not even considered them. Someone having typical nocturnals is not faking. Also someone have a variety of classic types certainly isn't faking.
Thank goodness, I did not have to put up with some neurologist telling my mother that I had emotional problems. But then again, it was the pre dilantin era, and the meds they had then were enough of a nightmare. I might have preferred the psychiatrist.
WALT
You do not have a problem, your neuro does. In running support groups for over 30 years I came to conclusion that the biggest single mistake that neurologists make is in diagnosing emotionally driven pseudo seizures. I have seen over a dozen people diagnosed that way, and all of them were later diagnosed with real, but hard to read seizure conditions. And in each case, had the neurologist paid any attention to the factors that would show a real seizure from a fake one, none of these diagnoses would have been made. They were made by lazy neuros who were tired of looking at non descriptive eegs and did not want to make any effort.
I am sure there are cases of pseudo seizures. But to show you the travesty of the entire thing, not one of the people I know who was diagnosed one way then the other was told "gee I made a mistake" when it was realized that the seizures were real... the comments were more like "gee you ALSO have real seizures too".
I was lucky back in the 1940's because people back then they were not looking for pseudo seizures. Here I was a kid with seizures which were not showing up on the EEGs. And I had had undiagnosed fear seizures when younger... TLE driven. Some smart alec today might look at that and say "ah ha.. .this kid has pseudos" In a humorous song I once wrote about neurology I used the line "he's not partially complexed, he's just over sexed".
People who have pseudos, I understand from people who have really studied it, do not have many of the classic movements and reactions... so there is a list of typical symptoms that a traditional seizure would have. Just knowing that a patient has some of these should tell the doc something. For example, when blinking lights set the seizure off. There are too many tell tale clues to a real seizure, but in the cases I observed, the neurologists had discarded them, not even considered them. Someone having typical nocturnals is not faking. Also someone have a variety of classic types certainly isn't faking.
Thank goodness, I did not have to put up with some neurologist telling my mother that I had emotional problems. But then again, it was the pre dilantin era, and the meds they had then were enough of a nightmare. I might have preferred the psychiatrist.
WALT
Re: Undiagnosed seizures or "fake" seizures?
Submitted by TheHam on Fri, 2008-12-05 - 21:28
Pewter,
Thanks for the response. :-)
~hams
Pewter,
Thanks for the response. :-)
~hams