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Seizures with psychic symptoms? Please help!!!!
Fri, 04/13/2007 - 16:21Topic: New to Epilepsy.com
Hi everyone! I am a 30 y/o woman who has been experiencing "episodes" for 13-14 years. I had two this week, which were severe enough to scare me. I just finally went to see my doc today, who feels they could very well be seizures and is sending me to a neuro for evaluation. She is sending me for an MRI and EEG so that I can go to the neuro with them in hand...
These episodes generally happen randomly, but I've noticed that some pop up right when I'm drifting off to sleep. Why I've never thought there is something physically wrong with me until now, is beyond me. They start with a feeling of dread that something bad is going to happen, and I feel this throughout my entire body. Then, I enter a state of what I can only describe as being between dreaming and being awake. I'm conscious, but I feel entranced. It is during this state that I experience intense feelings of deja vu, dread, fear and I feel like I'm having premonitions of the future (I swear, I'm not crazy). Afterwards, my head tingles all over, I feel disoriented and confused, I begin sweating all over and I feel as though someone has stuffed my head full of cotton. At this point, the episode ends, but I'm left with the cotton brain feeling for several hours and I feel as though I've run a marathon and all I want to do is sleep.
I used to tell my mom when I was younger that I was experiencing these symptoms and she told me that I was having premonitions. LOL. Maybe that's why I never bothered to talk to a doc about it? However, the episodes I had this past Tuesday and Wednesday were so intense, my husband swore I was having seizures. He ran over to me and said that I looked like I wasn't there, that I was staring off into space and then I had this look of intense fear on my face. He also said that he doesn't know why he didn't think of this before, as he's watched me have dozens of them...
Is there anyone here that has experienced a similar thing???? I'm terrified.
Thanks so much in advance for you replies!
-Kat
Comments
Re: Seizures with psychic symptoms? Please help!!!!
Submitted by youmakemeesmile1 on Sat, 2010-03-06 - 00:13
I had partial complex seizures only while sleeping which is now controlled by medicine. But, for about ten years now I have been having a similar funny feeling. It started out as a de ja vous feeling but it has turned into this:
-A feeling that I know it is about to happen (very ominous)
-All of the noises begin to blur together in a very familiar tune (I wouldn't know how to describe it) Sometimes I can even make it happen from the same song a few nights in a row.
-I have a limited ability to continue what I am doing
-Lasts about 15 seconds
-I have trouble stringing together responses to people I am talking to
-Sometimes I think during it: This IS a seizure
-A thought I have that people are talking about me, saying that I'm doing something funny, or as if I'm being judged (even if no one is around)
I used to try to convince myself that it wasn't a seizure, I mean, my seizures were controlled by medicine, right? But a few months ago my mom was talking to me in the middle of one and said it definitely was a seizure. This was very upsetting because I've had one in front of people before, including her, who didn't even notice.
It's very scary. Why isn't my medicine controlling it?
I have noticed it comes in spurts like yours does. It will happen once a day a few days in a row, just about every month. [I think] It will also happen if I eat too much sugar or drink to much caffeine. The two seem to be related, but after reading your comment about the hormones, that makes sense too.
The part about them that scares me the most is that I feel like people are talking about me. It doesn't make any sense to me why a seizure or aura would ever make me think that.
It's nice to hear someone is going through a similar thing! It makes me feel a lot better.
Re: Seizures with psychic symptoms? Please help!!!!
Submitted by Maryrose on Tue, 2010-06-08 - 14:43
I also have a question. Last night as I was just falling asleep I had a 30 min. or 45 min. long period of time where every (it seemed like a few seconds) so often I would feel as through my body would tense up, shake a little...and my eyes "shaked" upwards into my head. I knew this was going on, and while it was I would have extreme anxiety. I've had anxiety all my life but this was an even more intense feeling of dred, doom, embarrassment and I was extremely scared. Things would happen like they WERE almost dreams, like hanging out with friends and not being able to talk right. The people who were "around me" thinking I was going crazy, and me kind of having coversations with myself that made so sense? I've never had this before until the past few of nights. I would have short clips of my mom waking up next to me and helping me. My mom never helped though, and she was laying next to me last night so I told myself everything about this was just a real feeling dream. I would think she would have noticed? Maybe the shaking and tensing up is just alot more mild than it feels? The scary thing about it is that my brain does feel all fuzzy, even now a little, and especially after it happeneds. I also have been waking up in gallons of sweat. I'm 22 years old and female. I've also had triple as many panick attacks in the past four days. After sleeping next to my mom I moved to the couch, slept okay, nothing like earlier but i still woke up in alot of sweat. Can anyone help me in finding out what's going on with me, what my next move should be or if this could actually be a dream? I don't have health care at the moment but can try pushing it sooner since I am going back on it in August for school.
Re: Seizures with psychic symptoms? Please help!!!!
Submitted by Shakey Mom on Mon, 2010-02-22 - 12:44
Hey Ashley.
I enjoyed reading your response. It is always so hard to describe an aura to someone that has never had one. My husband tells me that i could make a pretty cool sci fi movie based on my description of my partial seizures
I am 33 and have been having seizures since I was very young. Probably 5. I told several drs about it when I was young, but they just slapped me on the back and said, "that is really strange" as they walked out the door. Until I was 12, I thought I was reincarrnated. Everytime I would go into a transe I was experiencing something that I had done, seen, heard in my previous life.
As I got older I noticed that they came in spurts... Several a day a for a few consecutive days. I know now that those were hormone induced seizures. Catamenial epilepsy.
I was not diagnosed w/ epilepsy until I was 21 years old. I had a grand mal seizures a few days after the twins were born. Naturally everyone freaked out!! I was taking to to ER and 35 minutes after I had a g.m. seizure there was no indication that I had ever had a seizure at all according to their tests.
What alarmed me about your post is that you said they only go on for like a minute. When I have a complex partail seizure it starts and feels like any other aura. If there are not people around me, I think 15 seconds have passed. I have no idea that I have been unconcious for 8 minutes. I have no idea when my auras will progress to a complex partial or even worse. After an aura I go about my day, but when the aura has progressed further=> I come out of the transe feeling exhausted, mentally and psyically.
I wish you all the best. Good luck and be careful!!!
Hey Ashley.
I enjoyed reading your response. It is always so hard to describe an aura to someone that has never had one. My husband tells me that i could make a pretty cool sci fi movie based on my description of my partial seizures
I am 33 and have been having seizures since I was very young. Probably 5. I told several drs about it when I was young, but they just slapped me on the back and said, "that is really strange" as they walked out the door. Until I was 12, I thought I was reincarrnated. Everytime I would go into a transe I was experiencing something that I had done, seen, heard in my previous life.
As I got older I noticed that they came in spurts... Several a day a for a few consecutive days. I know now that those were hormone induced seizures. Catamenial epilepsy.
I was not diagnosed w/ epilepsy until I was 21 years old. I had a grand mal seizures a few days after the twins were born. Naturally everyone freaked out!! I was taking to to ER and 35 minutes after I had a g.m. seizure there was no indication that I had ever had a seizure at all according to their tests.
What alarmed me about your post is that you said they only go on for like a minute. When I have a complex partail seizure it starts and feels like any other aura. If there are not people around me, I think 15 seconds have passed. I have no idea that I have been unconcious for 8 minutes. I have no idea when my auras will progress to a complex partial or even worse. After an aura I go about my day, but when the aura has progressed further=> I come out of the transe feeling exhausted, mentally and psyically.
I wish you all the best. Good luck and be careful!!!